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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome us into his official residence for another talk in the coming year.

There is rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to work out exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Sir Keir appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly seemed to have put him in better spirits than at the saggy end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his standing are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his party members believe he's not very good at his job. Some of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.

However Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting no one would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to change its leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I plan to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, should a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He attempted to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally eager for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He pledged to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his points were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister told me that he regretted saying he was "delighted" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the thought he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Some called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been simmering desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is breaking his vow never to try to undo the results that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will delight many on his own side, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to