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"I'll be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister stated, adding that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in 2026.

There is never truly break for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When our interview, which was much longer than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

But as the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had something of a reboot. Perhaps even just some downtime with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in improved morale than at the saggy end of 2025, a awful annus horribilis for him.

But are he and his colleagues kidding themselves if they think his standing are poised to get better?

Internal Doubts

The harsh truth for the prime minister is that many of his fellow MPs think he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would sooner gamble and get him out sooner rather than later.

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

Multiple times he stated he'd be "assessed at the general election", insisting nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of preventing Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the battle of our lifetime and I aim to guide the party," he said.

Upcoming Local Votes

The issue for the prime minister is that he will be judged long before then – in a major set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to argue, perhaps too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge 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 walk away, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to rationalise his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to change. He tried to assure the interviewer, and the public, that the coming months would be distinct.

The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their initial turbulent year began to bear fruit.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he did not put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first time that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

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

But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more urgency, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in such significant political trouble, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's challenges are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is inviting obvious political risks as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

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

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the full picture at the moment".

Critics demanded 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 next few days.

And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the giant economic European trading zone – will probably trigger protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to overturn the decisions that followed Brexit.

A commitment to cosy up to more of the single market will please some on his backbenches, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to