After proposals were mooted for a special conference in London this week and a meeting between Wes Streeting and Pete Hegseth, it won’t go ahead. A defence source told Nick Watt:
“The UK remains committed to protecting freedom of navigation and safeguarding commercial shipping across the Gulf region. The Defence Secretary has been having constructive discussions with allies on diplomatic and military efforts to strengthen maritime security, and these will continue in the coming days.”
Streeting did have a call with Pete Hegseth and the French Armed Forces and Veterans minister Catherine Vautrin yesterday. What’s going on with Streeting’s “charm offensive”?
UPDATE: MoD insists the meeting can’t have been cancelled because it was never formally scheduled and there were only “lots of discussions” around it.
Tom Baldwin, author of Starmer’s hagiography, spoke to Times Radio:
Tom Baldwin: “I think he’d like to do something. He’s very dutiful and driven by service. That’s why he came into politics. I think that’s characterised his time as prime minister. He hasn’t always sought popularity or been good at being popular. But I think he has some of the necessary qualities that we actually do want in a prime minister. That resilience, that relentlessness, that ability to carry the weight and the job really does weigh very heavily on people and he carries that weight very, very well.”
Jo Coburn: “NATO Secretary-General?”
Tom Baldwin: “I think that’s something that he would be interested in. I think it probably requires Andy Burnham’s government to support him in that and these are some of the questions which Andy Burnham has to resolve quite quickly.”