"I'll be positioned in this office by 2027," Starmer stated, noting that if our discussion proceeded smoothly, he might invite the interviewer into Downing Street for a follow-up chat in the coming year.
There is rarely ever break for those in the top job. Just an hour before the interview began, the PM had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and working to understand precisely had happened in Venezuela, where his close friend, US President Donald Trump, had just targeted and seized its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Once our interview, which was much longer than normal, had concluded, Maduro had been formally accused in New York.
With the new year begins, Starmer appears to have had a kind of a reboot. Perhaps even just a little relaxation with the family at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.
This appeared to have resulted in improved morale than at the sluggish tail end of 2025, a dreadful annus horribilis for him.
Yet, are he and his supporters kidding themselves if they think his standing are about to get better?
The harsh reality for the PM is that a significant number of his party members are convinced he's ineffective at his job. Several of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.
But Starmer was having none of it during our conversation on Saturday morning.
On several occasions he told me he'd be "evaluated at the next election", maintaining nobody would strip his electoral mandate from him – despite the fact that the optimal path of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK entering No 10 could be for Labour to switch leader.
"This is the struggle of our times and I plan to lead us," he said.
The challenge 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 tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs local authorities, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and unrelated to Westminster.
True – up to a point. But even though he may be reluctant to concede it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.
Despite this, Sir Keir suggesting that there were no scenario under which he would step down, should a his colleagues ran against him for the job, if those elections prove disastrous for Labour.
He tried to account for his unpopularity by saying the electorate was reasonably impatient for things to get better. He tried to persuade me, and the public, that 2026 would be distinct.
The economy would recover notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when plans the administration enacted during their first turbulent year began to take effect.
His core message is that soon the country will "see an improvement".
The prime minister may have spoken with more energy than I've seen from him for a while – calmer, perhaps, with more time to talk.
However, in spite of encountering demands from many directions for a more decisive approach, with greater political clarity, more urgency, more pace and more urgency, his points were well-known ones.
When he finds himself in this much political trouble, is a different approach required a change of tack?
No administration, and especially not one that has been struggling in the polls for many months, has everything its as desired.
Sir Keir's problems are not only because governing is difficult, but because he and his colleagues have faltered, including in the recent past.
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 controversy when comments he'd previously made – including calls for Zionists and police to be killed – surfaced.
Sir Keir attributed it to "the process" for not catching what the activist had said before – a more diplomatic way of saying not my fault.
And he is courting evident political perils as the year progresses. His close relationship with the US president acquires a new jeopardy after Trump's intervention on Venezuela.
Having interviewed Sir Keir Starmer, a former human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over his career, the notion he would be comfortable with such action seems implausible.
He stated he was a "lifelong champion of international law" but we "just haven't got the full picture at the moment".
Critics called for him to criticise the action prior to we spoke. And the administration is expected to face increased demands to give an clear view in Parliament in the coming days.
There has also consistently been growing desire in the Labour ranks to reverse or renegotiate some of the results of Brexit.
The PM denies he's pursuing that, but his new specific commitment to integrate further with the single market – the giant economic European market – will probably elicit protests that he is breaking his promise never to try to overturn the decisions that flowed from Brexit.
A move to integrate into more of the single market will satisfy some on his side of the party, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to
Elena Hartwell is a multidisciplinary artist and educator passionate about fostering creative communities in London.