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"I'll remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer remarked, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might welcome us into Number 10 for another chat in the coming year.

There is rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher what on earth had occurred in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

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

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Maybe even just some a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they think his standing are set to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the prime minister is that numerous of his party members are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining nobody would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

The Spring Test

The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the devolved administrations in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

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

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues challenged him for the job, should those elections be disastrous for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to get better. He aimed to persuade me, and the public, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western partners were now talking about how to combine US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core point is that in 2026 the country will "turn the corner".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a different script?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for many months, gets everything its own way.

Sir Keir's problems are not just because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister told me that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when statements he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "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 facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just lack the entire story at the moment".

Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's doing that, but his new more concrete plan to move closer with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will probably provoke accusations that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to