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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Starmer declared, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.

For a PM, there's never truly break for leaders. In the hour before we sat down, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had transpired in Venezuela, where his big ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was considerably lengthier than normal, had ended, Maduro had been charged in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

But as the year commences, Starmer appears to have had something of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

This seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?

Party Concerns

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that a significant number of his colleagues think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would sooner take a risk and get him out this year.

However Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the next election", insisting nobody 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 may be for Labour to replace its leader.

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

The May Elections

The challenge for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to protest, maybe excessively, that they are concerning who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir stating that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was naturally impatient for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the public, that the coming months would be different.

The economic situation would recover in the face of rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the administration enacted during their initial turbulent year began to take effect.

• He committed to shut asylum hotels before the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the proviso that it wasn't a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt a greater possibility now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now considering how to integrate US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to guard a possible peace.

His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".

Political Challenges

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

However, in spite of facing pressure from many directions for a bolder approach, with increased political vision, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were familiar ones.

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

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

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

Controversies and Dangers

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 after an outcry when comments he'd made in the past – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year gets going. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.

Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but the public "just do not have the complete details at the moment".

Opponents called for him to condemn it prior to we spoke. And the government is likely to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new more concrete pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to undo the choices that followed Brexit.

A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his side of the party, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to