The UK cannot be Trump’s poodle

Grovelling to a foreign thug will get Labour nowhere

(This is a longer version of an article that originally appeared in the Spectator)

The mood of the government’s foreign policy advisers is funereal. They don’t know what to do with an American president who is hostile, capricious and – let’s face it – more than a little mad.

And so they humour him as one might placate a screaming toddler.

Who knows? Maybe the humouring will pay off. Maybe all Keir Starmer needs to do is pretend to be an American poodle. He will flatter Trump, toss in a visit to Buckingham Palace, and a banquet with the King, and hope that the rheumy Eye of Sauron will move away from Britain and on to its next target.

As things stand, there appears to be no diplomatic strategy beyond hoping for the best.

The journalist’s cliché about living in “unprecedented” times is accurate for once.