As Rishi Sunak and Joe Biden meet in Washington, Britain’s former ambassador to America reflects on the state of the bond between the two countries
is in Washington this week. The centrepiece is the British prime minister’s meeting with President Joe Biden in the Oval Office. But he will also meet other senior politicians and business leaders, and attend a game of the local Major League baseball team, the Washington Nationals. It had been rumoured that Mr Sunak would throw the ceremonial first pitch, but it now appears he will not have the honour.
This is not to dismiss some aspects of the relationship that are genuinely special. The two countries’ defence and intelligence establishments are extraordinarily close, and work together whoever is in Downing Street and the White House. But if I had to sum up in a single adjective how the British eternally feel about the special relationship, it would be “anxious”. For the Americans, the word would be “unsentimental”.
Their respective successors, Edward Heath and Richard Nixon, were similarly distant, with Nixon convinced that Heath was prioritising British negotiations to join the European Communities over relations with America. Nixon became so frustrated that he once said to Henry Kissinger: “No special relations…They’ll have the relations with the French.”
On the atmospherics, Mr Sunak ought now to be comfortable with Mr Biden. They have met several times. And the prime minister is almost an American: he worked in that country’s financial sector and owns property in California.
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