Good morning. Donald Trump has gone home, no doubt so thrilled by the Red Arrows and the chance to have dinner with Nick Faldo that he will enter the Oval Office this morning a changed man. Admittedly, at his Chequers press conference with Keir Starmer yesterday afternoon, the transformation hadn’t entirely taken hold: Trump suggested, for example, that the UK should use the military to end the small boats crisis. But compared to his most chaotic unscripted appearances this year, it was tame enough an affair for Starmer to breathe a sigh of relief.
Can Starmer view the state visit as a success? It depends on how you’re counting. £150bn new investment in the UK from US firms, a respite from his own domestic woes, and the chance to butter up a president who appears uniquely susceptible to servility are the prizes that Downing Street will boast about, in slightly different terms, in the days ahead.
