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"I will be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into his official residence for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, Starmer had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was far more extended than typical, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Maybe even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have left him in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his standing are set to turn around?

Leadership Questions

The uncomfortable truth for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members believe he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his term from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

"This is the struggle of our generation and I intend to lead us," he said.

The May Elections

The issue for the PM is that he will be judged well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to contend, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, should one of his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economic situation would strengthen in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a peace agreement 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 considering how to combine US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political direction, more vigour, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

No administration, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political risks as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president takes on a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with these events seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the full picture at the moment".

Some demanded criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also always been bubbling desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will probably elicit howls that he is going back on his pledge never to try to undo the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A decision to integrate into more of the single market will delight a faction on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to