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"I'll be positioned in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if the conversation went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never any downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had occurred in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just some downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

That certainly appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a awful political year for him.

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

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that numerous of his colleagues believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him in 2026.

However Starmer was dismissing such talk in the interview on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he insisted he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the fight of our lifetime and I intend to guide the party," he declared.

Upcoming Local Votes

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

True – up to a point. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections be very poor for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the public was understandably anxious for things to get better. He tried to convince the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he claimed, when plans the government enacted during their initial rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His central argument is that soon the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

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

But despite facing demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, 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 peril, is a different approach required a different script?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his team have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

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

And he is courting clear political perils as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.

And there has always been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new firmer commitment to move closer with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably elicit accusations that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that followed Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to