"I will remain in the same position by 2027," Starmer declared, noting that if the conversation was successful, he might welcome us into his official residence for a follow-up conversation next year.
For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for leaders. Just an hour before we sat down, the PM had been on the phone with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and attempting to decipher exactly what had happened in Venezuela, where his key political chum, US President Donald Trump, had just attacked and captured its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
When our lengthy talk, which was far more extended than normal, had finished, Maduro had been charged in New York.
But as the new year begins, the Prime Minister appears to have had a kind of a refresh. Maybe even just a bit of downtime with his family at Chequers, the prime minister's country retreat.
This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a terrible political year for him.
Yet, are he and his colleagues being unrealistic if they believe his fortunes are poised to get better?
The uncomfortable reality for the PM is that numerous of his fellow MPs are convinced he's underperforming at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and oust him this year.
But Sir Keir was dismissing such talk during our conversation on Saturday morning.
Repeatedly he stated he'd be "evaluated at the poll", arguing nobody would remove his electoral mandate from him – even if the optimal path of stopping Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch its leader.
"We are in the fight of our generation and I aim to guide the party," he said.
The issue for the PM is that he will be assessed well ahead of then – in a huge set of elections in May throughout the UK. He tried to protest, maybe excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not about Westminster.
Accurate – in part. But although he may not want to acknowledge it, No 10 will be held accountable by those elections too.
This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no circumstances under which he would walk away, even if one of his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections be catastrophic for Labour.
He tried to account for his low poll ratings by saying the voters was understandably anxious for things to change. He tried to persuade the interviewer, and the public, that 2026 would be a change.
The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he argued, when policies the government put in place during their first choppy year began to take effect.
His core point is that soon the country will "see an improvement".
The PM may have communicated with renewed vitality than observed from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with a longer slot to talk.
But despite encountering calls from various quarters for a more decisive approach, with greater political direction, more urgency, more speed and more immediacy, his arguments were repeated ones.
When he finds himself in considerable political trouble, 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, gets everything its as desired.
Sir Keir's challenges are not only because government is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the last few weeks.
The PM admitted that he was sorry for saying he was "happy" to welcome back the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an outcry when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – resurfaced.
Sir Keir attributed it to "the system" for failing to identify what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.
And he is inviting clear political dangers as the year progresses. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.
Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who opposed the war in Iraq, over a long period, the idea he would be at ease with such action seems unlikely.
He asserted he was a "lifelong proponent of international law" but we "just do not have the full picture at the moment".
Some wanted him to condemn it prior to the interview. And the government is expected to face increased demands to give an explicit view in Parliament in the near future.
There has also always been growing tension in the Labour party to revisit some of the consequences of Brexit.
Sir Keir rejects he's heading in that direction, but his new specific pledge to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably provoke howls that he is breaking his promise never to try to reverse the decisions that flowed from Brexit.
A commitment to align with more of the single market will satisfy many on his backbenches, but it is prime ammunition for Reform and the Conservatives to
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