All aboard

Starmer is in Paris to participate in Macron's hastily-convened gathering of European leaders, but he has a foot in another camp.

Rightly or wrongly, he still clearly believes the UK enjoys a special relationship with Trump's America. How far that extends beyond warm words will become apparent when Starmer arrives at the White House next week. If they even get above room temperature it will be something. It has to be said that the rhetoric emerging from Washington DC has had a distinctly chilly edge to it since Trump's inauguration a month ago. One thing must be apparent to Starmer, even at his most upbeat: their Oval Office chat will be no reprise of Churchill and Roosevelt. Different times, different circumstances, very different personalities.

After the stark, almost insulting, warning issued by JD Vance in Munich last Friday - an event that will go down in the annals as the St Valentine's Day Massacre of the post-war transatlantic entente cordial - US Secretary of State, Mark Rubio, has spoken in rather more emollient terms. This could be a classic example of nice cop, nasty cop diplomacy: sending in the enforcers to talk tough and then following up with something rather more encouraging.

My worry is that Trump and Starmer have very different mindsets: the former a businessman's, the latter a lawyer's. Aligning the two could be awkward. Trump only cares about cutting an advantageous (for him) deal and has shown utter contempt for legality. Starmer, on the other hand, says he believes in a rules-based order and the primacy of legal frameworks. However, that need not necessarily set them at loggerheads or prove an insurmountable impediment to agreeing a compromise. 

For both men are arch-pragmatists and Starmer has shown his readiness, when it suits, to change a law, or its interpretation, in order to get his own way - for example on public protest and the issuing of new oil and gas extraction licences (ie: a Jesuitical approach to the semantics of 'peaceful' and 'new'). He has also shown a ruthless willingness to sacrifice problematic colleagues on the altar of expediency - just ask Sue (now Lady) Gray.

And both men understand the principle of following the money. British investments in the US are huge, as are US investments in the UK. Slapping tariffs on British goods will harm Trump's economy as it is American importers who will have to pay them, which could stoke US inflation, currently standing at 3%. Starmer is much more likely to accept Trump's demand for a higher proportion of GDP to be spent by Europeans on their own defence. He has already accepted the need for a rise in contributions to NATO from 2.3% to 2.5% , pointing out that the last time it stood at 2.5% was during a Labour administration. Both men also share frustrations with the sclerotic bureaucracy of the EU so that should make dialogue easier.

The more difficult conversation for Starmer is likely to be with his next door neighbour in Downing Street, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves. A 2.5% commitment to defence spending will be painful enough for the Treasury to absorb in current circumstances but 5.0% would be agonising. Reeves' cherished fiscal rules will be shot to pieces but, ultimately, Starmer is her boss and, as her standing within her own party and with Labour voters collapses, she is left dangerously exposed to his whim. 

The business and financial sectors have deserted her since their heady flirtation post-election and farmers are blocking Whitehall with tractors following her capital gains tax announcement. With rumours of a spring Cabinet reshuffle already circulating Reeves' finds herself in an increasingly vulnerable position, with few friends left to call on. If she loses Starmer's  confidence it's almost certainly game over for her. Being the first female Chancellor in eight hundred years was her USP but, after several major missteps, including questions about her ability and probity, she is now expendable. 

Let's put it this way, she will need to be vigilant when running for a bus.

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