‘Starmer the Charmer’: Inside Sir Keir Starmer’s 24 hours with Donald Trump

28 February 2025, 09:41 | Updated: 28 February 2025, 09:43

Britain’s Prime Minister finally got his Love Actually moment with the President of the United States – and no one was expecting it to be Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump.

But Sir Keir told us “I’m happy” and flashed a Trump-style thumbs up as he boarded the flight to London last night.

Downing Street sources say they’re delighted with how the trip went.

Starmer the Charmer delivered.

Not much could have gone better for a man just nine months into office, who just 24 hours ago was surrounded by potential pitfalls and bear traps – from Ukraine and the Chagos islands, to Elon Musk and even Andrew Tate.

A cautious prime minister told us on the plane over that he wouldn’t be saying too much, that he didn’t want to get too ahead of what would prove to be crucial talks.

He avoided saying anything that could possibly derail the most important meeting of his premiership so far.

Whisked off the plane and straight to a reception at the ambassador’s residence, the Prime Minister had a room of diplomats roaring with quips about our new man in Washington, Peter Mandelson.

On Thursday, the PM started his day by binning off chunks of his agenda to do extra prep with his closest advisers.

Next came a warm briefing from senior Trump officials, lavishing praise on his vow to increase defence spending, and “showing leadership by committing British troops” to a peace deal.

When he arrived at the White House, it didn’t go unnoticed that Trump came out personally to welcome him – something he didn’t afford to Emmanuel Macron just a few days previously.

And when the pair addressed the cameras inside the Oval Office, it quickly became clear that the ground work No10 and Sir Keir had put into cementing this relationship over the last few months, would pay off.

A cosy dinner in New York, followed by being among the first world leaders to call him personally following his failed assassination attempt.

The President opened by announcing he would be going to visit the UK “in the near future”, calling Sir Keir “a special man” and the UK a “wonderful country”.

A strong start.

Time to get out the big guns.

When the Prime Minister told me on the plane here that it was only in the gift of Buckingham Palace to deliver another state visit, who would have predicted he’d have been carrying a physical letter from the King as his trump card?

Embracing his inner Trump, Sir Keir calls the plans for a second state visit as “truly historic”.

It doesn’t take long before the pesky British press pack ask about the thorn in the side of the government at the moment – the eye-wateringly expensive deal to hand over the Chagos islands to Mauritius, despite security concerns.

So concerned were they that the President might kibosh it, the Foreign Secretary David Lammy said ahead of the meeting that if the leader of the free world didn’t like it, it would be in the bin.

Jaws dropped when Trump said he had a “feeling it’s going to work out pretty well”.

Has he read it? Does he know what it will do? Possibly not.

But it didn’t matter, the pothole had been swerved.

More warm words on looming tariffs saw the President admit a ”warm spot” for Britain.

And on the Starmer-led idea of a US-security guarantee, he stressed: “it’s a backstop, you could say.. I will always help the British”.

There was just one awkward moment where the President sparked laughter in the room when he joked, although not entirely: “Could you take on Russia by yourselves?”

So far, so good.

Time for lunch.

The pair dined on salad, grilled seabass with eggplant puree, and chocolate caramel cake with ice cream, in a meeting with wider teams which lasted more than an hour.

Starmer presented him with a golf cap made from the tartan pattern of the Trump family, a set of Downing Street crystal glasses, and golf balls.

The First Lady got a posh No10 candle and a Liberty scarf.

Trump gave the PM an American soccer-style shirt with ‘STARMER’ and ‘10’ on the back.

One insider close to them said the pair genuinely liked each other, and felt able to raise issues without fearing consequences.

Next, to the East room for a flag-clad press conference, in a room packed to the brim with advisors, ministers, and the world’s media.

If No10 were at all worried, they needn’t have.

The love in between the President and PM continued on stage as the pair paid tribute to the special relationship, going from strength to strength.

We all know how temperamental he can be, but the President was on fine form, positively gushing over the PM.

The President complimented his “beautiful accent” – joking that he’d have been elected 20 years earlier if he’d had it.

And then the news that none of us were expecting – that Britain and the US had restarted trade talks after they were paused under President Biden.

The PM said he wanted to do a deal – and told me it could be incredibly quickly too.

I knew he couldn’t resist a swipe at President Obama, when I reminded him of his comments about Britain being the back of the queue after Brexit.

The President told us the Prime Minister had been “working very hard” and was a good negotiator to try and ensure we weren’t slapped with huge tariffs.

There was another ripple of laughter around the room when the President said the PM was worth every penny of his taxpayer-funded salary.

At times we saw more hints of the Trump-like language that felt unnatural to him.

But the line which was landed was his insistence that despite the huge differences in politics between the two men, “what counts is winning… if you don’t win, you don’t deliver”.

The PM said: “We’re both in a hurry to get things done.

That’s what the UK and US do – when we work together, we win and we get things done.”

For the man who wrestled control of the party back from the left and turned it into an election-winning machine, it’s a particularly poignant comparison.

While a peace deal in Ukraine remains up in the air, the trip couldn’t have gone much better.

A huge tick for a state visit, movement on tariffs, the Chagos deal, and steps towards Ukraine too.

Cementing a good relationship with the US President will make the next four years for Sir Keir, a hell of a lot easier.

A trip Theresa May could only have dreamed of.

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Natasha Clark is LBC's Political Editor.

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