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"I'll be sitting in the same position by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, adding that if our interview went well, he might welcome the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's never truly time off for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Starmer had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand what on earth had transpired in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

As the new year begins, Starmer seems to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly appeared to have left him in better spirits than at the difficult end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they reckon his political fate are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and get him out in 2026.

However Starmer was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Repeatedly he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 might be for Labour to switch its leader.

"We are in the struggle of our times and I plan to be at the forefront," he said.

The Spring Test

The problem for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, maybe 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.

True – to some extent. But even though he may be reluctant to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no situation under which he would resign, should one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to get better. He tried to assure me, and the nation, that 2026 would be different.

The economy would strengthen despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when strategies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to bear fruit.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, although he did not put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any point since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He disclosed for the first time that Western allies were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to protect a potential peace.

His big message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

Familiar Arguments

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

However, in spite of facing calls from within his own party for a more decisive strategy, with increased political vision, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political trouble, does he need a change of tack?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister 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 outcry when past remarks he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.

Starmer attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.

And he is courting obvious political risks as the year gets going. His friendship with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He asserted he was a "longtime proponent of international law" but the public "simply lack the full picture at the moment".

Some called for him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the administration is expected to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the near future.

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

Sir Keir disputes he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely trigger howls that he is breaking his pledge never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to