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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up talk in 2026.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before the interview began, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was considerably lengthier than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

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

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the leader is that numerous of his colleagues think he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the general election", insisting no one would remove his five-year mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change its leader.

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

The Spring Test

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

Promises of Improvement

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably impatient for things to improve. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't set a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His big message is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have spoken with renewed vitality than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political vision, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is facing evident political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be at ease with such action seems far-fetched.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

And there has consistently been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to undo the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to