Move Over, Talleyrand

During the halcyon days of the nineteen-fifties, when everyone knew who won the war and everyone knew their place, the Conservative government of Harold Macmillan proposed that post-imperial Britain's role in the world might be that of an "honest broker," the first word presumably sans the knowing snigger that would now be de rigueur. During the halcyon days of the nineteen-eighties, when all was gumption and get-go, the Conservative government of Margaret Thatcher rehashed the idea under the rubric of a "special relationship" between Washington and London, as opposed to the common thug-and-sidekick bond that actually existed. In keeping with its programme of Change™, Team Starmer has now trotted out the same old fantasy, with the business secretary expressing hopes that Britain can act as a "bridge" between an EU that has no reason to trust it and a US that openly disdains it. Whether the Trumpster and his head-tribble or the recalcitrant Euro-wogs will be receptive to such hard-headed realism remains as yet unclear.