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"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer remarked, joking that if our conversation went well, he might welcome us into Downing Street for another chat in the coming year.

There is never truly downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before our chat started, Starmer had been in calls with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key friend, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.

By the time our lengthy talk, which was considerably lengthier than usual, had ended, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.

A Reboot for the New Year

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

This seemed to have left him in a more positive mood than at the saggy conclusion of 2025, a awful year politically for him.

But are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they believe his standing are about to get better?

Internal Doubts

The uncomfortable truth for the PM is that a significant number of his fellow MPs believe he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would sooner take a risk and get him out in 2026.

But Starmer was dismissing such talk when we spoke on Saturday morning.

Multiple times he told me he'd be "judged at the poll", maintaining no one would strip his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 may be for Labour to change leader.

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

The May Elections

The problem for the PM is that he will be judged far sooner than then – in a mega set of elections in May throughout the UK. He sought to argue, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, 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 admit it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.

This did not stop Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would resign, even if one of his MPs contested his leadership for the job, should those elections prove disastrous for Labour.

Predicting a Turnaround

He tried to explain his unpopularity by saying the public was reasonably anxious for things to change. He aimed to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.

The economic situation would recover despite rising unemployment, he claimed, when policies the government implemented during their initial choppy year began to take effect.

• He vowed to empty asylum hotels ahead of the current target date of 2029, but he wouldn't put a specific date on that.
• He added too, with the proviso that it was not a done deal, that a peace agreement in Ukraine felt closer now than at any time since Russia's comprehensive invasion.
• He stated for the first time that Western partners were now discussing how to combine US and European forces to ensure security for Ukraine – to safeguard a possible peace.

His core message is that in 2026 the country will "see an improvement".

A Consistent Script

The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – more relaxed, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.

However, in spite of facing pressure from within his own party for a bolder approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his explanations were repeated ones.

Given that he is in considerable political peril, does he need a different script?

No administration, and certainly not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, has everything its as planned.

The Prime Minister's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have erred, even in the recent past.

Regrets and Risks

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

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

And he is facing obvious political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new complication after Trump's strikes 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 idea he would be at ease with these events seems implausible.

Policy Stances and Pressures

He asserted he was a "career-long champion of international law" but we "just lack the complete details at the moment".

Opponents wanted him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.

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

Sir Keir denies he's doing that, but his new more concrete commitment to integrate further with the EU's single market – the vast economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is reneging on his promise never to try to reverse the results that flowed 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