The prime minister’s appointment with President Donald Trump, a wildly unpredictable showman of very completely different political hue, may so simply have been awkward, even excruciating.
However it wasn’t.
Because the Downing Avenue crew return to the UK, they’re pleased with the way it went.
For a while senior figures had been assured that they had constructed a great rapport with Trump.
They’d hoped too that his love of the UK and the depth of the lengthy standing ties between the 2 nations would stand them in good stead – however they could not make certain.
After all they could not make certain, as a result of barely anybody ever could be with Trump.
I’ve been to the White Home a handful of occasions earlier than, however I’ve by no means been on a go to like this one.
Underneath President Joe Biden, us reporters can be invited into the Oval Workplace after which proven out minutes after we had been proven in.
However Trump, because the NUZTO’s state division correspondent Tom Bateman described it to me after I arrived, is presently governing by information convention.
He revels within the circus of efficiency and flurry of questions, his friends perched subsequent to him often chipping in, often affecting a poker face – hoping there shall be nothing stated to them so outrageous they’re compelled to publicly contradict him.
LIVE: Newest updates following Starmer-Trump assembly
For Sir Keir Starmer’s go to, Trump cranked up the attraction and the heat.
The prime minister cranked up the superlatives and the compliments – and whereas not fairly matching French President Emmanuel Macron’s backslapping and knee grabbing, he was extra tactile than I’ve ever seen him with another chief.
Starmer leant into the theatricality beloved of his host, brandishing – with some performative flourish – the letter from King Charles inviting the president for an additional state go to.
It was stagecraft and statecraft mixed in a single second, neatly pitched for the situation the prime minister discovered himself in.
The president’s obvious endorsement of the federal government’s plan to cede the Chagos Islands within the Indian Ocean to Mauritius and hire again the navy base there on Diego Garcia – at appreciable expense – was a maybe unlikely fillip too.
However the concept nonetheless faces opposition at residence.
The Conservatives query whether or not it serves the UK’s nationwide curiosity.
The proposed UK-US deal Trump made point out of is predicted to be slender, with an preliminary focus not less than on the expertise sector.
However there does stay appreciable uncertainty concerning the practicalities of a peace plan for Ukraine.
The prime minister talked concerning the significance of “successful the peace” and never merely stopping the preventing.
The UK accepts there isn’t any prospect by any means of American troops on the bottom in Ukraine, however the authorities would really like the US to supply air cowl to guard British and different European peacekeepers.
Europe will have to be assured the US “has its again” is the gist of the argument being made.
However there was no such public supply of air cowl from the White Home.
As an alternative, Trump has argued that the presence of People in Ukraine extracting the uncommon earth minerals anticipated to be a part of the peace deal shall be sufficient to make sure Vladimir Putin thinks twice earlier than making an attempt additional advances.
The safety ensures Ukraine needs shall be a key focus at a summit on Sunday hosted by the prime minister in London.
He’ll meet Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky and Italy’s Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni in Downing Avenue within the morning, earlier than internet hosting a gathering within the afternoon, to which greater than a dozen different European leaders are invited.
