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"I will be sitting in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, noting that if the discussion went well, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish conclusion of 2025, a awful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they think his political fate are about to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him in 2026.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – despite the fact that the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I aim to be at the forefront," he declared.

The Spring Test

The challenge 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 attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

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

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their first choppy year began to show results.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing calls from various quarters for a bolder strategy, with much more political direction, more vigour, more pace and more urgency, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, does he need a new narrative?

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

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM told me that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the entire story at the moment".

Some demanded condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is breaking his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will delight a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to