The ghastly race to phone the American president

Boris Johnson spoke to Joe Biden yesterday! Did you feel the thrill of it all? These Romans may be uncouth but they still know their Greeks. Or were you, instead, secretly annoyed that the new American president did not make good on all those breathless intimations that, summoning the ghosts of ancient persecutions and more recent insults, he would ‘snub’ the Prime Minister?

Much of the Westminster village appears consumed by this absurdity on a quadrennial basis. Hence the manner in which the presence – or absence – of a bust of Winston Churchill in the Oval Office is deemed a reflection of the specialness of the special relationship. If Winston is there, all is fine; if he is not, irrelevance awaits. It is exhausting and infantile and at a certain level demeaning too.

But it is also always like this. Last time we cantered around this track, there was a mortifying ‘race’ to see whether or not Theresa May would be granted the honour of a call, and subsequently, an audience with Donald Trump.