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"I'll be positioned in this position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever break for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, Starmer 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.

When the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a kind of a reboot. Maybe even just a little downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

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

But are he and his allies kidding themselves if they think his standing are set to turn around?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "evaluated at the next election", insisting no one would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

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

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure the interviewer, and the nation, that 2026 would be distinct.

The economic situation would improve in the face of rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to show results.

• He pledged to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the caveat that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now talking about how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with much more political clarity, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

No government, and certainly not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its as planned.

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret 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 backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Starmer blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting evident political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "simply do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer plan to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.

A commitment to integrate into more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to