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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into Number 10 for another talk in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to decipher precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was much longer than usual, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the new year begins, Sir Keir seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in improved morale than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

But are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his standing are set to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's not very good at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and remove him this year.

However Sir Keir was rejecting the idea when we spoke on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. 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 walk away, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to change. He aimed to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that the coming months would be different.

The economy would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when plans the government enacted during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he did not set a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a potential peace.

His core argument is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder strategy, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, has everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because government is challenging, but because he and his team have erred, including in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when statements he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Sir Keir blamed "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

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

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the thought he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but the public "simply lack the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to move closer with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit protests that he is going back on his vow never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

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