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"I will remain in the same seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, noting that if our discussion was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for another conversation in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand precisely had transpired in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a revitalisation. Maybe even just a little relaxation with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

This appeared to have put him in a more positive mood than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues deluding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are poised to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

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

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the general election", maintaining no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 might be for Labour to change its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I intend to lead us," he declared.

The May Elections

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He attempted to protest, perhaps too much, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.

True – to some extent. But although he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, should a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He sought to account for his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to change. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a new date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to integrate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.

However, in spite of encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with much more political clarity, more dynamism, more pace and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, is a different approach required a change of tack?

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

The Prime Minister's problems are not just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.

Controversies and Dangers

The PM 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 outcry when statements he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" 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 dangers as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's military action 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 unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "simply do not have the entire story at the moment".

Critics demanded denounce it before the interview. And the government is expected to face more pressure to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

And there has long been bubbling pressure in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM disputes he's pursuing that, but his new firmer pledge to align more closely with the EU's single market – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke accusations that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the decisions that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to