Rishi’s US charm offensive

As Rishi Sunak faces concern at home that his five priorities are slipping out of reach, he is flying to Washington tonight for another foray on the world stage. The Prime Minister will spend two days in the USA where he will meet President Joe Biden for his first bilateral in America (and the fifth since he entered No. 10). While Boris Johnson made his dislike of the phrase ‘special relationship’ well known, Sunak has no such qualms – though one government aide suggests that it still may not appear in his lexicon: the Prime Minister prefers instead to refer to America as the UK’s greatest ally. While the Windsor Framework, the renegotiated Northern Ireland Protocol, angered some members of the European Research Group, it has helped to put Sunak’s relationship with Biden in a more constructive place than with his two predecessors.

On the agenda for the talks is a mix of topics including trade, security – and a push to make Defence Secretary Ben Wallace the next secretary-general of Nato.