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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his fellow MPs are convinced he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he told me he'd be "judged at the general election", arguing no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our times and I intend to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably impatient for things to change. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core message is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

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

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been simmering desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to