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"I'll be sitting in this seat by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, joking that if the discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation in 2026.

For a PM, there's never any time off for leaders. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been on the phone with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and working to work out precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his key ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

Once our interview, which was far more extended than typical, had concluded, Maduro had been charged in New York.

Renewed Energy for the New Year

With the year starts, Sir Keir seems to have had something of a refresh. Maybe even just a little a rest with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's official country residence.

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

Yet, are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they think his political fate are set to get better?

Party Concerns

The grisly truth for the leader is that many of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and remove him sooner rather than later.

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

On several occasions he insisted he'd be "assessed at the general election", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK getting to No 10 may be for Labour to switch its leader.

"This is the battle of our lifetime and I aim to lead us," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

The challenge 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, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.

True – up to a point. But although he may not want to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, if those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to persuade the interviewer, and the nation, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve despite rising unemployment, he said, when policies the government implemented during their first rocky year began to take effect.

• He committed to close asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the qualification that it was not a certainty, that a peace deal in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now considering how to coordinate US and European forces to provide security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

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

A Consistent Script

The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a while – less tense, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

But despite facing demands from many directions for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more dynamism, more speed and more immediacy, his points were familiar ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, 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 own way.

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

Controversies and Dangers

The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an backlash when past remarks he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.

Sir Keir attributed it to "procedures" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying it wasn't his responsibility.

And he is inviting clear political perils as the year gets going. His alliance 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 opposed the war in Iraq, over his career, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "career-long advocate of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to denounce it prior to the interview. And the government is likely to face further scrutiny to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete pledge to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the vast economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to overturn the results that stemmed from Brexit.

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