Not so long ago, Keir Starmer was falling over himself in his efforts to keep things sweet with Donald Trump. Offering the US president a second state visit within minutes of meeting him. Everyone knows you should never put out on the first date: it only makes the other person think you’re a pushover.
Sure enough, The Donald banked the marching bands and the Windsor silver service, made polite conversation for three days and then went back to trash-talking him. Yet still, Starmer just sat there and took it. As if one word of criticism would be too much.
Wittering on about the “special relationship” as if Trump gave a moment’s thought to the UK before he did anything. The rest of us wouldn’t have put money on the US president even being able to locate Britain on a map. It was only latterly, when The Donald chose to bomb Iran, that the penny finally dropped for Keir.
And even then he looked pained by the apparent betrayal, as he resisted the calls of Kemi Badenoch and Nigel Farage to join in the war. No such misgivings for Andy Burnham. This week, the prime minister was reminded that when he had been mayor of Greater Manchester, he had said The Donald wouldn’t be welcome in his city and that he could take his poisonous politics elsewhere.
Words that had been loudly cheered at the time by many in Britain who had had enough of all the toadying. After all, it wasn’t as if the Trump-whispering had made any difference. If anything, it had only added to his contempt for us.
You’ll never get any thanks from a narcissist. Nor did Andy have any regrets now that he was prime minister and was likely to meet Trump in person for the first time at the UN general assembly in New York at the end of next month. He wasn’t going to apologise to The Donald for what he had said.
Extract — continue reading at the source.
