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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," the Prime Minister remarked, adding that if the conversation was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up talk next year.

For a PM, there's rarely ever time off for leaders. Just an hour before our chat started, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close political chum, US President Donald Trump, had recently targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

When the discussion, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

With the year starts, the Prime Minister seems to have had a degree of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.

That certainly seemed to have resulted in better spirits than at the difficult conclusion of 2025, a terrible annus horribilis for him.

Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they reckon his fortunes are about to turn around?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. Some of them would rather gamble and oust him in 2026.

But 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 no one would remove his term from him – despite the fact that the most effective strategy of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to replace its leader.

"We are in the fight of our lifetime and I plan to be at the forefront," he affirmed.

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be scrutinised far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May across 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.

True – in part. But although he may not want to admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

Despite this, Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be very poor for Labour.

An Optimistic Outlook

He sought to account for his unpopularity by saying the voters was reasonably eager for things to get better. He sought to convince me, and the nation, that the coming months would be a change.

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

• He committed to close asylum hotels before the current target date of 2029, although he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He noted too, with the qualification that it was not a done deal, that a settlement in Ukraine felt more likely now than at any point since Russia's major invasion.
• He revealed for the first occasion that Western allies were now talking about 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".

Familiar Arguments

The PM may have communicated with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing calls from various quarters for a more decisive strategy, with greater political direction, more vigour, more speed and more urgency, his arguments were repeated ones.

When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a different script?

No government, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for an extended period, gets everything its own way.

The Prime Minister's challenges are not only because governing is hard, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, even in the last few weeks.

Controversies and Dangers

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

Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" 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 obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president takes on 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 many years, the thought he would be content with this kind of intervention seems implausible.

International Law and Brexit

He told me he was a "longtime advocate of international law" but we "simply haven't got the complete details at the moment".

Critics called for him to denounce it prior to we spoke. 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 growing desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the consequences of Brexit.

The PM denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to integrate further with the European trading bloc – the huge economic European market – will likely elicit protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the choices that stemmed from Brexit.

A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy a faction on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to