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"I'll be positioned in the same office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the discussion went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

There is never truly time off for prime ministers. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his big political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time the discussion, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

As the year starts, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a bit of a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

This seemed to have put him in improved morale than at the difficult tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his standing are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's not very good at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him this year.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

On several occasions he stated he'd be "judged at the general election", insisting no one would strip his five-year mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be assessed far sooner than then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He attempted to argue, maybe 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 – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would step down, even if a his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He tried to explain his low poll ratings by saying the public was reasonably eager for things to change. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government put in place during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a firm date on that.
• He said too, with the qualification that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any time since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His big message is that this year the country will "reach a turning point".

Political Challenges

The PM may have communicated with more energy than observed from him for a some time – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of encountering demands from within his own party for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.

Given that he is in this much political difficulty, should he consider a new narrative?

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

Sir Keir's problems are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the last few weeks.

Regrets and Risks

The prime minister admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" 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 – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

Sir Keir blamed "the process" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is courting evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but the public "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Critics wanted him to denounce it before we spoke. And the government is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

There has also consistently been growing tension in the Labour ranks to undo or remake some of the results of Brexit.

Sir Keir disputes he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the huge economic European trading zone – will likely elicit howls that he is going back on his promise never to try to overturn the results that followed Brexit.

A move to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his own side, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to