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"I will be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they think his standing are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The grisly reality for the PM is that many of his colleagues are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Some of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

"This is the battle of our times and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

Upcoming Local Votes

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if a his colleagues challenged him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably eager for things to get better. He aimed to convince me, and the nation, that 2026 would be a change.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the administration put in place during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with increased political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant political peril, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is hard, but because he and his team have erred, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with these events seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

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

Critics called for him to denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been simmering pressure in the Labour party to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

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