Starmer’s spokesman this afternoon said “serious behind the scenes diplomacy has got us to this place” after Trump said a framework of a deal had been reached and he would be cancelling tariffs scheduled to come into force shortly. Lobby journalists were told that “constant communication with the US administration in Davos and working closely with the Nato Secretary-General” by British officials is to thank in large part for the resolution. ‘We are the real Trump whisperers, promise!’
The Lobby recently discovered extracts from a book – The New Machiavelli – written by National Security Adviser Jonathan Powell in which he says the two approaches to take to the US are the publicly belligerent French one or behind-the-scenes proximate diplomacy favoured by the British. A blindingly obvious point made by countless others for years…
Speaking to Adam Boulton on Times Radio about kicking the Golders Green suspect, Heidi Alexander said:
“I thought that if I was in the shoes of that police officer, then if I’m honest, given the situation, and the fact that he had a backpack on his back, and they were worried about whether that might go off, I could, if I was a police officer, frankly, I could see myself having taken similar action.”