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"I will be positioned in this seat by 2027," the Prime Minister declared, joking that if our conversation proceeded smoothly, he might welcome the interviewer into his official residence for another conversation next year.

For a PM, there's never any downtime for those in the top job. Shortly before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had occurred in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was much longer than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.

A Refresh for the New Year

With the year commences, the Prime Minister appears to have had something of a reboot. 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 conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

Yet, are he and his allies being unrealistic if they think his political fate are set to improve?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs think he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him sooner rather than later.

However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "assessed at the next election", insisting nobody would take his term from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to replace its leader.

"This is the fight of our times and I plan to guide the party," he affirmed.

The Spring Test

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

Accurate – in part. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no circumstances under which he would step down, should a his MPs ran against him for the job, should those elections prove catastrophic for Labour.

Promises of Improvement

He attempted to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally anxious for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the public, that this year would be different.

The economic situation would improve notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when policies the administration put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.

• He pledged to shut asylum hotels ahead of the current deadline of 2029, but he wouldn't set a specific date on that.
• He said too, with the caveat that it wasn't a certainty, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's full-scale invasion.
• He stated for the first occasion that Western partners were now discussing how to coordinate US and European forces to offer security for Ukraine – to protect a possible peace.

His core argument is that soon the country will "turn the corner".

A Consistent Script

The PM may have communicated with greater vigour than I've seen from him for a some time – more relaxed, maybe, with more time to talk.

But despite facing calls from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more speed and more urgency, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in such significant 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 many months, has everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

The prime minister expressed regret that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" 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 – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.

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

And he is facing evident political dangers as the year unfolds. His alliance with the US president entails a new jeopardy after Trump's strikes on Venezuela.

Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over a long period, the notion he would be content with these events seems unlikely.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "just haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics wanted him to condemn it before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the near future.

There has also long been bubbling pressure in the Labour party to reverse or renegotiate some of the outcomes of Brexit.

The PM rejects he's pursuing that, but his new specific pledge to align more closely with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit accusations that he is going back on his vow never to try to overturn the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please many on his backbenches, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to