3 days ago
Starmer's charm is lost on Britain, but he has won Trump's heart
You couldn't help but get the impression that Trump found opening a new golf course at least as important as running a country. I can't actually recall any past president combining the launch of his own private business venture with the office of the presidency in this fashion but there we are. It's a new world order. He did make the point in his celebratory speech that stopping a war was, after all, rather more valuable an achievement than creating a golf course so perhaps that's reassuring.
What had become clear once again on this visit – which had been described as a private holiday but was, in fact, the scene of some major diplomatic developments – was that our own dear Prime Minister was far and away the US president's favourite foreign leader. We must, of course, be grateful for this fact even if we do find it totally mystifying. Sir Keir's charm may be lost on the home audience but he is the undoubted favourite of the Trump White House and this is not solely because he is the messenger for our Royal family whom the president obviously adores.
No, it is the Starmer personality itself which appears to have won Trump's heart. Why? My own guess, borrowing on my recollection of American responses to various brands of foreign behaviour is that Starmer's personality represents what Americans tend to regard as quintessential Britishness: a preternatural calmness in the face of difficulties (which is to say, a face that remains expressionless at all times) and a sycophantic courtesy which somehow manages to remain dignified. We got a hint of this when Trump referred to Sir Keir's 'beautiful accent'. Perhaps the contrast with the Macron vanity and arrogance has helped too, but whatever it is, we must acknowledge that the Starmer magic has pulled off a pretty favourable result. And ironically enough, it is precisely our separateness from the European Union – which Sir Keir is trying to undo – that made this favoured position possible.
Rather less happily for the Starmer government, the president offered some advice on how to pull the UK out of its spiral of decline. Stop the boats and cut taxes was the magic formula, Mr Trump suggested presumably in a spirit of helpfulness. The problem with this counsel is that both those things are almost impossible to achieve at the moment and they are, as it happens, precisely what the most threatening Opposition parties are urging. That was rather tactless and it suggests that this alliance with Trump's Right-wing Republicanism is not going to be an easy ride.
But whatever it was in Starmer's approach that did it, he is currently able to influence the Trump White House at a time when global affairs are dangerously inflamed. That may or may not be an enviable position to be in. On the Middle East and Ukraine, as well as the economic future of the West, the moral responsibility of being the 'Trump whisperer' is going to be daunting.
