"I will be positioned in this office by 2027," Sir Keir Starmer declared, adding that if the discussion was successful, he might invite us into Downing Street for a follow-up conversation next year.
For a PM, there's rarely ever downtime for prime ministers. In the hour before the interview began, Sir Keir had been speaking with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and trying to understand what on earth had happened in Venezuela, where his big friend, US President Donald Trump, had recently launched a strike against and detained its leader, Nicolás Maduro.
Once the discussion, which was much longer than typical, had ended, Maduro had been indicted in New York.
With the year commences, Starmer appears to have had a degree of a refresh. Perhaps even just a little a rest with loved ones at Chequers, the prime minister's rural getaway.
This appeared to have put him in improved morale than at the sluggish end of 2025, a awful political year for him.
Yet, are he and his supporters being unrealistic if they believe his political fate are about to turn around?
The harsh reality for the PM is that many of his party members think he's underperforming at his job. A faction of them would rather gamble and remove him this year.
However Sir Keir was having none of it when we spoke on Saturday morning.
Repeatedly he insisted he'd be "judged at the poll", arguing nobody would take his electoral mandate from him – even if the most effective strategy of halting Nigel Farage and Reform UK reaching No 10 might be for Labour to change leader.
"We are in the battle of our times and I aim to guide the party," he said.
The challenge for the prime minister is that he will be scrutinised well ahead of then – in a major set of elections in May across the UK. He tried to contend, perhaps excessively, that they are about who runs councils, and who runs the governments in Holyrood or Cardiff – and not a verdict on Westminster.
True – in part. But even though he may be reluctant to admit it, No 10 will be evaluated by those elections too.
This did not stop Sir Keir implying that there were no situation under which he would walk away, even if a his MPs challenged him for the job, should those elections prove very poor for Labour.
He sought to explain his unpopularity by saying the voters was naturally impatient for things to improve. He sought to assure me, and the public, that 2026 would be different.
The economy would strengthen notwithstanding rising unemployment, he said, when strategies the government put in place during their first turbulent year began to bear fruit.
His big message is that in 2026 the country will "reach a turning point".
The prime minister 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 encountering calls from many directions for a bolder strategy, with greater political direction, more urgency, more pace and more immediacy, his explanations were well-known ones.
When he finds himself in such significant political trouble, is a different approach required a new narrative?
No government, and especially not one that has been unpopular for an extended period, gets everything its own way.
Sir Keir's challenges are not just because government is challenging, but because he and his team have made mistakes, including in the last few weeks.
The PM told me that he was sorry for saying he was "delighted" to see the return of the Egyptian-British activist Alaa Abd El Fattah to the UK following an backlash when statements he'd previously made – such as calls for Zionists and police to be killed – came to light.
Sir Keir blamed "the system" for not realising what the activist had said before – a fancier way of saying not my fault.
And he is inviting evident political perils as the year unfolds. His friendship with the US president acquires a new complication after Trump's military action on Venezuela.
Based on years of interviewing Sir Keir Starmer, a ex- human rights lawyer who was against the war in Iraq, over many years, the notion he would be comfortable with these events seems unlikely.
He stated he was a "career-long proponent of international law" but we "simply do not have the full picture at the moment".
Critics called for him to criticise the action before the interview. And the administration is likely to face increased demands to give an definitive view in Parliament in the coming days.
There has also long been simmering pressure in the Labour party to undo or remake some of the outcomes of Brexit.
Sir Keir denies he's heading in that direction, but his new specific plan to move closer with the single market – the vast economic European market – will likely trigger protests that he is going back on his promise never to try to reverse the results that flowed from Brexit.
A decision to align with more of the single market will satisfy some on his own side, but it is easy fodder for Reform and the Conservatives to
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