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"I will be sitting in this position by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the interview was successful, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than usual, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

But as the year starts, Sir Keir appears to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This appeared to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a dreadful political year for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are poised to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

But Sir Keir was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "evaluated at the poll", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the best chance of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.

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

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, 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.

Accurate – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues ran against him for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his low poll ratings by saying the electorate was understandably eager for things to change. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that this year would be a change.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government enacted during their first rocky year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he did not set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it wasn't a foregone conclusion, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a potential peace.

His central argument is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".

Familiar Arguments

The prime minister may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with much more political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.

When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?

No administration, 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 just because government is hard, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

The PM admitted that he regretted saying he was "happy" to see the return of 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 – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is facing clear political dangers as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president takes on a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be comfortable with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "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 increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the next few days.

There has also always been growing desire in the Labour ranks to revisit some of the outcomes of Brexit.

Sir Keir rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European trading zone – will probably provoke protests that he is breaking his pledge never to try to reverse the decisions that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will please some on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to