There’s a lovely boozer in Kentish Town in north London that Keir Starmer used to frequent before Downing Street security intervened which does a very good pub quiz every Monday night. Any team captain knows it is always a fine judgement on when to play your joker: do you do it on the sport, or the general knowledge? The music, or the picture round? Get it right and you might win the star prize at the Pineapple.
Well, it’s clear that team captain Keir likes to play his right at the outset. And what flourish and elan he did it with inside the Oval Office. He reached inside his breast pocket, and pulled out a letter with a red seal on the envelope, and handed it to the president while the TV cameras rolled and the stills photographers captured the moment.
You could see the president’s chest puff a little as he read its contents. It was the King, inviting Donald Trump for an unprecedented second state visit.
Just think of it: all those state visits down the years, the Buckingham Palace banquets, the carriage rides along the Mall… and Donald Trump – who, a year ago, was facing 91 felony charges – becomes the first world leader of any stripe to be awarded two state visits.
Will it stick in the craw for many in the Labour Party? You bet. But was it good politics? Undoubtedly.
First, there was the theatre. Trump loves “The Trump Show”, and more than any other politician I have ever seen, he understands the importance of the visual. So much smarter to give him the letter from King Charles in person than it be handed over by some protocol wallah from the Foreign Office, which would be the normal way of delivering such an invitation.
And if you know that Donald Trump can resist everything except flattery, what you do is dish out the flattery. And sure enough, it worked – and that matters, too. Much better to be liked by this capricious and mercurial president than reviled. Ask Theresa May.
There was also lots of good body language: not quite as feely-touchy as Trump and Macron – but their relationship has a panto quality to it – and British diplomats will be quietly smirking that while Macron may have (annoyingly) got into the West Wing first, Starmer was met at the door; Macron wasn’t. And, let’s face it, the state visit with the king is a bit of soft power that the French and Germans can’t play.
But all this is atmospherics and mood music. What about the substance?
On the biggest item of all, Ukraine, there was little movement from the Americans in terms of promising a security guarantee. Trump did walk back his claim that Zelensky was a dictator, tick. But he also said he trusted Putin, cross. Starmer pushed back – gently, but firmly – on Trump’s claim that Ukraine hadn’t really cost Europe anything.
Maybe the most unexpected win for Starmer was on the Chagos Islands, which the Conservatives have been making a great fuss about criticising the deal in terms of the cost, and whether it is a betrayal of Britain’s and America’s national security because of access to the airbase on Diego Garcia. Trump said he was relaxed: “I think we will be inclined to go along with your country,” he told the PM.
On trade, there was also good news for the UK, with Trump saying: “I think there is a very good chance that we could end up with a great deal where the tariffs wouldn’t be necessary.” The president also added a throwaway line that will have had everyone in Downing Street purring with delight when he said that Starmer had been a “very tough negotiator – I’m not sure I like that”.
The funny thing about Trump is for all that he is the “art of the deal”, he is a lousy poker player. You know instantly if he likes someone or despises them. His contempt for Angela Merkel when she visited him in the first term was plain for all to see.
But for Starmer, there was a gush, nay, a torrent of positivity: comments about how hard Starmer had worked, how he had earned whatever he gets paid. How he loved Starmer’s accent. I can imagine the toes of Nigel Farage and Kemi Badenoch curling inside their brogues and high heels.
The stuff that could have led to peril – Trump’s desire to annexe Canada and turn it into the 51st state, and his attitude to Gaza – Starmer rather elegantly swerved.
And then the news conference was over. Back in the residence of the British Embassy, there will be big exhalations of relief. Frankly, this went as well as it could. Trump was warm, gave some reassurances on trade – even if he didn’t budge on Ukraine’s security backstop. Starmer, whose default setting is stiff, buttoned-up and rather robotic, looked natural, smiley and in his element.
In fact, given the heaps of ordure that Starmer has had thrown over him since he became prime minister, this must rank as his best day in the job. And how ironic that it is Trump – who is so politically and temperamentally opposed to Starmer – that has given him such a victory.
But, as anyone who has watched Trump closely over the years knows, just because he says one thing at the news conference, it doesn’t mean he’ll be saying the same tomorrow.
In 2017, I was at the White House when Theresa May was the first foreign leader to get into the Oval Office to see President Trump after his inauguration. She won a commitment from him over Nato. And back at the embassy, there were similar exclamations of relief and joy. As she flew out of Andrews air base to go to Turkey a few hours later, Donald Trump totally blindsided her with his announcement of a ban on citizens entering the US from a number of mainly Muslim countries; a policy that her government fiercely opposed.
Never think with Donald Trump you are BFFE – you are only ever BFFN, best friends for now.
Everything is transactional. Everything is up for grabs.
Jon Sopel is the former BBC North America editor and now presents Global’s ‘The News Agents’ podcast. His latest book, ‘Strangeland: How Britain Stopped Making Sense’, is out now
