"I will be positioned in the same office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer stated, noting that if our interview was successful, he might invite the interviewer into Number 10 for a follow-up chat in the coming year.
There is never truly downtime for leaders. Shortly before the interview began, the PM had been in calls with Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to work out exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his close ally, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
By the time our interview, which was far more extended than usual, had concluded, Maduro had been indicted in New York.
With the year starts, Starmer appears to have had something of a reboot. Maybe even just a little a rest with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.
That certainly seemed to have resulted in a more positive mood than at the saggy tail end of 2025, a terrible year politically for him.
But are he and his supporters deluding themselves if they believe his political fate are about to improve?
The harsh reality for the prime minister is that a significant number of his colleagues believe he's ineffective at his job. A faction of them would rather take a risk and oust him in 2026.
However Starmer was rejecting the idea during our conversation on Saturday morning.
Multiple times he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", arguing nobody would take his term from him – even if the best chance of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 may be for Labour to replace its leader.
"This is the fight of our lifetime and I plan to lead us," he declared.
The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be assessed long before then – in a huge set of elections in May across the UK. He sought to argue, maybe too much, that they are concerning who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.
Accurate – to some extent. But even though he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be judged by those elections too.
Despite this, Sir Keir stating that there were no scenario under which he would step down, even if one of his colleagues contested his leadership for the job, if those elections be disastrous for Labour.
He attempted to explain his low poll ratings by saying the voters was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He sought to assure me, and the nation, that this year would be different.
The economic situation would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first choppy year began to take effect.
His central argument is that soon the country will "see an improvement".
The PM may have spoken with greater vigour than observed from him for a some time – calmer, maybe, with a longer slot to talk.
But despite facing demands from many directions for a bolder approach, with greater political vision, more dynamism, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.
When he finds himself in such significant political difficulty, should he consider a change of tack?
No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its as desired.
Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is challenging, but because he and his colleagues have made mistakes, including in the recent past.
The PM expressed regret that he regretted saying he was "pleased" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK after an controversy when comments he'd made in the past – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.
Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not catching what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.
And he is facing evident political risks as the year gets going. His alliance with the US president entails a new risk after Trump's military action on Venezuela.
Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over many years, the idea he would be at ease with this kind of intervention seems far-fetched.
He told me he was a "lifelong advocate of international law" but the public "just lack the complete details at the moment".
Opponents demanded condemn it prior to we spoke. And the administration is likely to face more pressure to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.
And there has consistently been growing desire in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.
Sir Keir denies he's pursuing that, but his new more concrete commitment to align more closely with the single market – the huge economic European market – will likely provoke protests that he is reneging on his vow never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.
A move to cosy up to more of the single market will please a faction on his side of the party, but it is simple material for Reform and the Conservatives to
A tech journalist and gadget reviewer with over a decade of experience, specializing in consumer electronics and innovation trends.