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"I will be sitting in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for prime ministers. Shortly before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his standing are poised to improve?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth 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 sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

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

On several occasions he told me 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 entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major 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 devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – to some extent. But even though he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should one of his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was naturally anxious for things to improve. He tried to convince me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he argued, when strategies the administration implemented during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the caveat that it was not a certainty, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

The PM may have spoken with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a bolder strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Starmer blamed "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 progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Some called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been growing desire in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that flowed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will please a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to