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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up talk next year.

There is never any time off for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, Starmer seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he said.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the administration enacted during their initial rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

When he finds himself in this much political peril, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His alliance with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with such action seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He stated he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it before we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has consistently been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely trigger protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to