{"id":2293183,"date":"2024-07-12T04:45:01","date_gmt":"2024-07-12T08:45:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/starmers-victory-and-the-special-relationship-washington-examiner\/"},"modified":"2024-07-12T04:47:59","modified_gmt":"2024-07-12T08:47:59","slug":"starmers-victory-and-the-special-relationship-washington-examiner","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/starmers-victory-and-the-special-relationship-washington-examiner\/","title":{"rendered":"Starmer\u2019s victory and the \u2018special relationship\u2019 &#8211; Washington Examiner"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fstarmers-victory-and-the-special-relationship-washington-examiner%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2293183&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Copter\u2064 at the White House, 1981. (Murray\u2062 Garrett\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Perhaps the most famous relationship between a U.S. president\u2064 and British prime minister was the one \u2064between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They first met in February of 1975, when Reagan, then governor of \u2064California, was \u2062on \u200da\u2062 European tour. The two dined at\u200c the British Embassy in\u200d Washington and then \u200dmet \u2064again at Reagan\u2019s ranch in Santa Barbara in December of 1978.\u00a0Reagan addressed the\u200d Parliament of the United Kingdom in 1982, famously calling it\u200d the \u200b\u201cbirthplace of our language and our liberty,\u201d and the first U.S. president\u2064 to do so.\u2063 Thatcher, who\u2064 became prime minister in 1979, \u200dofficially visited Reagan three times during his presidency, and they corresponded frequently.<\/p>\n<p>Thatcher\u2019s successor, John Major, did not have the same close relationship with Bill Clinton. The two did find themselves working together\u200c on Northern Ireland\u2019s \u2064Good Friday Agreement, as Major was involved with the peace process as well. Major found his relationship \u200bwith Clinton \u2062helpful as \u200che tried to navigate Conservative Party splits over European integration.\u00a0Major and Clinton\u2019s second meeting was at\u200c the\u200c Clinton-hosted 1997 Denver Summit of the Eight, where the G-7\u200b industrialized \u2062powers\u200d met for the\u2063 first time\u200b with Russia.<\/p>\n<p>Major left office planning for his\u2062 successor \u2064and his successor\u2019s successor. It was during Major\u2019s tenure that a young\u2064 Tony Blair was elected\u200c to Parliament, and he also worked with his successor, \u2064Blair, to help Blair get into power. They had \u2062several meetings together ahead of Blair\u2019s \u200belection to help Blair with his messages.\u00a0Blair would\u200c meet Clinton five times, then follow up with his own elected \u200bsuccessor, Gordon Brown, who he met with once to have lunch. <\/p>\n<p>Blair met \u2062George Bush twice in his first term\u200c as prime\u200c minister. Blair was critical in\u2063 helping Bush secure international support ahead of the invasion of Iraq.\u200d One of\u200d their more\u200b famous \u200cinteractions\u2064 came in their\u2063 2001 meeting at Camp \u2064David. Blair\u2063 presented Bush with a \u200brock,\u2063 which he said was from a conference center \u200bin Scotland\u2019s Gleneagles, where Blair had hosted the G-8 Summit\u200c in 2005. Blair gave the rock as \u200ca symbol of\u2063 the cultural and historic bonds between the two countries. The rock now sits in the Oval \u200bOffice.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">President Barack Obama walks with David Cameron on\u2062 the South \u2063Lawn of the White House in 2012. (MANDEL NGAN\/AFP\/GettyImages)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Another\u200d prime minister, David Cameron, had a better relationship with \u200cBarack \u200dObama than\u2062 his\u2064 predecessors. The two first met in April of 2008,\u200b when Obama \u2062was running for president. They met again shortly after Obama\u2019s election, in December of 2008, when Cameron became the leader of the opposition Conservative Party.\u00a0Before becoming prime minister in May of 2010, Cameron met with \u2063Obama a third \u2064time in 2009.<\/p>\n<p>In contrast, Cameron and\u2064 Donald Trump did\u2062 not get along, and their relationship was icy at best.\u200d Their first meeting took place \u200cat Trump Tower.\u00a0Though Trump tried, candidates running for office in Britain were actively distancing themselves from Trump, and \u2063Cameron was seen with Labour leader Ed Miliband \u2063during the election campaign. The two would meet\u2064 two more times\u200c during \u200dTrump\u2019s presidency,\u2063 but the frosty\u200c relationship was evident in\u2063 pictures taken of their\u2063 interactions.<\/p>\n<p>Theresa May \u2063fared slightly better with Trump. \u2062She\u200d met Trump in January of 2017,\u200d becoming the first foreign leader to visit the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/5-reasons-making-taxpayers-pay-off-student-loans-is-a-rotten-idea\/\" title=\"5 Reasons Making Taxpayers Pay Off Student Loans Is A Rotten Idea\">newly inaugurated president<\/a>.\u00a0May would meet Trump \u200dat least three more times, and the two would frequently speak on the phone. May\u2019s \u200crelationship with\u2062 Trump did not help her secure a strong agreement with the U.S. ahead of Brexit, as she \u200dsought\u2062 a better trade deal with the\u200d U.S.<\/p>\n<p>May\u2019s successor, Boris \u2063Johnson, has had an even more public friendship with Trump. The two first met when Cameron\u2019s leadership was finally almost done, during Trump\u2019s\u2062 state visit in June of 2019. Johnson made sure to address issues \u200bsuch as security and military cooperation during the visit. The two men have met more than a dozen times since.<\/p>\n<p> <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><br \/>\n<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC \"-\/\/W3C\/\/DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional\/\/EN\" \"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/TR\/REC-html40\/loose.dtd\"><br \/>\n<?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><html><body><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><a class=\"tdb-logo-a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" title=\"Washington Examiner\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-img-wrap\"><\/span><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-title\">Washington Examiner<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\">\n<div class=\"tdb-search-form-inner\"><input class=\"tdb-head-search-form-input\" placeholder=\" \" type=\"text\" value name=\"s\" autocomplete=\"off\"><button class=\"wpb_button wpb_btn-inverse btn tdb-head-search-form-btn\" title=\"Search\" type=\"submit\"><span>Search<\/span><\/button><\/div>\n<\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><a class=\"tdb-logo-a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" title=\"Washington Examiner\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-img-wrap\"><\/span><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-title\">Washington Examiner<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-sacff-txt\">Magazine &#8211; Feature <\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">Starmer\u2019s victory and the \u2018special relationship\u2019<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-author-name-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-author-by\">By<\/span> <a class=\"tdb-author-name\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/author\/tevi-troy\/\">Tevi Troy<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><time class=\"entry-date updated td-module-date\" datetime=\"2024-07-12T04:35:00-04:00\">July 12, 2024 4:35 am<\/time><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_1674962\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<p>Labour\u2019s<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/keir-starmer\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title> Keir Starmer<\/a> has won the British election, raising questions about the next chapter in the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/3074101\/biden-to-host-new-prime-minister-of-the-united-kingdom-at-white-house-on-wednesday\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>special relationship<\/a>\u201d between the United States and the United Kingdom. For all the talk of these ties between British prime ministers and American presidents, the truth is, it\u2019s a pretty recent invention. Throughout America\u2019s first century, England was seen more as an adversary or a rival. Not until the tumult of the 20th century would Britain be considered an ally.<\/p>\n<p>Woodrow Wilson was the first sitting president to meet a sitting British prime minister, his World War I ally David Lloyd George. Wilson was also the first president to visit the British Empire as president, in England in late December of 1918. Wilson was his typical antisocial self, saying at a Buckingham Palace state banquet, \u201cYou must not speak of us who come over here as cousins, still less as brothers. We are neither. Neither must you think of us as Anglo-Saxons, for that term can no longer be rightly applied to the people of the United States.\u201d Despite this odd beginning, the two men met frequently at the Versailles peace conference in 1919.\u00a0They, along with France\u2019s Georges Clemenceau and Italy\u2019s Vittorio Orlando, met perhaps as many as 145 times as they attempted to sort out the shape of the world following the Allied victory \u2014 and did a pretty poor job of it in the process.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Labour Leader Keir Starmer celebrates winning the 2024 General Election with a speech at Tate Modern on July 05, 2024 in London, England. (Photo by Ricky Vigil\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Ramsay MacDonald was the first prime minister to meet multiple U.S. presidents. MacDonald, who had served briefly in 1924, met his presidents in his longer stint, from 1929 to 1935. He met Herbert Hoover in 1929 and then later met <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/franklin-delano-roosevelt\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Franklin Delano Roosevelt<\/a> in 1933.\u00a0The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/white-house\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>White House<\/a> press release on the Hoover visit said the meeting \u201chad as its chief purpose the making of personal contacts which will be fruitful in promoting friendly and frank relations between the two countries.\u201d\u00a0When MacDonald met Roosevelt four years later, things were far more serious, as the Great Depression had already started, and the conversation was focused on both the World Economic Conference as well as what Roosevelt called the \u201cneed for making further progress toward practical disarmament.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The disarmament effort did not work out. England was at war with Germany the next time a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/no-aoc-mcdonalds-employees-in-denmark-arent-better-off\/\" title=\"No, AOC, McDonald\u2019s Employees in Denmark Aren\u2019t Better Off\">prime minister met<\/a> with an American president in August of 1941. The entry of the U.S. into the war came a few months later, following <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/pearl-harbor\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Pearl Harbor<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/winston-churchill\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Winston Churchill<\/a> did not waste much time in coming to see Roosevelt again, this time in the White House. The journey itself took 10 days. Churchill crossed the Atlantic by ship, a risky move given the wolf packs of German U-boats going after allied shipping, and then flew to Washington. Over the next 23 days, Churchill\u2019s goal was to make sure that the U.S. was not exclusively focused on fighting the Japanese instead of the Germans. He knew he needed Roosevelt\u2019s support in the war effort and tended to their relationship carefully, recalling after the war that \u201cno lover ever studied every whim of his mistress as I did those of President Roosevelt.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>At one point during the Christmas trip, Roosevelt walked in on Churchill naked, prompting Churchill to say, \u201cYou see, Mr. President, I have nothing to hide from you.\u201d They would also stay up late talking into the night. Churchill would sleep late, but Roosevelt would be working at his desk early the next morning, making him so exhausted from Churchill\u2019s visits that he would often have to go to his home at Hyde Park afterward to recuperate.\u00a0Unsurprisingly, Eleanor Roosevelt was not a fan of Churchill or his visits.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">(Washington Examiner)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The Christmas visit was the best known of Churchill\u2019s six visits with Roosevelt in the U.S. He also met with Roosevelt in Malta and Argentia, Newfoundland, both parts of the British Empire, as well as had summits with both Roosevelt and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/stalin\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Josef Stalin<\/a> in Tehran in 1943 and Yalta in 1945, part of a total of 113 days the two men spent with each other. <\/p>\n<p>When the leaders of the allied powers met again in Potsdam in July of 1945, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/harry-truman\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Harry Truman<\/a> had replaced the recently passed Roosevelt.\u00a0And Churchill left in the middle of the conference after being defeated by Clement Attlee in an election that took place during Potsdam. Churchill literally had to pack his bags and depart, an embarrassing moment only slightly alleviated by a gracious Gen. Dwight Eisenhower securing a villa on Lake Como for Churchill to go to.\u00a0The switch meant that Truman met not one but two prime ministers at this one conference.<\/p>\n<p>Truman would meet Churchill at least three more times. Two of those interactions took place after Churchill regained the office of prime minister in 1951. But the more famous visit took place during the interregnum between Churchill\u2019s stints as prime minister. In early 1946, Westminster College invited Churchill to speak at its campus in Fulton, Missouri. The invitation included an unusual note at the bottom, from Truman, who wrote, \u201cThis is a wonderful school in my home state. If you come, I will introduce you. Hope you can do it.\u201d Churchill accepted and Truman lived up to his word, not only attending Churchill\u2019s March 5, 1946, speech but also traveling there with him. Churchill called the speech<em> Sinews of Peace<\/em>, but no one refers to it by that name. It has become known as the \u201cIron Curtain\u201d speech, after Churchill\u2019s famous line: \u201cFrom Stettin in the Baltic, to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt at the White House, circa 1940. (Keystone-France\/Gamma-Rapho\/Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>The speech got some blowback at the time for its bellicosity. One of the critics was Eleanor Roosevelt, who still did not like Churchill dating back to his late-night gabfests with her late husband. Truman also initially distanced himself from the speech but eventually came around. The speech was extremely important in setting forth the parameters for a close relationship between presidents and prime ministers in the post-World War II world. It set the lines of the battle between the Western democracies and the Soviet Union and its satellite nations. It also saw Anglo-American cooperation as central to the Western response. The gifted wordsmith Churchill also coined the phrase the \u201cspecial relationship\u201d between the U.S. and Britain in that speech, establishing a paradigm no one would have thought possible when British troops were burning the White House during the War of 1812. Churchill\u2019s words were prescient, as the Anglo-American relationship remained at the heart of the Cold War alliance that defeated the Soviet bloc in the Cold War and would keep prime ministers and presidents closely tied together for the ensuing six decades.<\/p>\n<p>Truman\u2019s successor, Eisenhower, met three British prime ministers, Churchill, Anthony Eden, and Harold Macmillan, more than 10 times in his two terms as president. Eden lost his job in part because of poor relations with Eisenhower. In the fall of 1956, Britain and France joined with Israel in attacking Egypt after Egypt blocked access to the Suez Canal. While Israel successfully conquered the Sinai Peninsula, the war was a political victory for Egypt because Eisenhower was irate over the invasion and had the U.S. join a condemnation of the action in the United Nations. Israel was forced to return Sinai, and Eden resigned as prime minister over the incident. <\/p>\n<p>Macmillan, Eden\u2019s replacement, did not make the same mistake of failing to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/doug-emhoff-is-battling-a-growing-tide-of-anti-semitism-his-daughter-is-fomenting-it\/\" title=\"Doug Emhoff is Battling a Growing Tide of Anti-Semitism. His Daughter is Fomenting It.\">maintain strong ties<\/a> with the president. He knew Eisenhower during World War II and worked to maintain the friendship when both men were in power. In March of 1959, Macmillan visited Eisenhower at his farm in Gettysburg. They watched a movie together after dinner, but the movie was decidedly not to Macmillan\u2019s liking. Macmillan wrote in his diary that it was called \u201cthe great country or some such name,\u201d that \u201cit lasted three hours,\u201d and that \u201cit was inconceivably banal.\u201d Ike apparently disagreed. He watched the Gregory Peck-starring <em>The Big Country<\/em> four times as president.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Ronald Reagan greets Margaret Thatcher as she arrives by helicopter at Camp David, November 15, 1986. (Bettman\/Corbis\/Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>More importantly, Eisenhower visited Macmillan in London in the summer of 1960. This was the first visit by an American president to London since Wilson\u2019s visit nearly half a century earlier. The visit was good for Macmillan politically, and he won reelection that October. For his part, Eisenhower was unimpressed with the seat of British power, finding No. 10 Downing St. \u201crather ancient.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Thanks to their friendship, Macmillan was comfortable speaking frankly with Eisenhower. When Vice President Richard Nixon looked sweaty and beset by a 5 o\u2019clock shadow in his 1960 presidential debate against challenger John F. Kennedy, Macmillan told Eisenhower in New York that \u201cyour chap\u2019s beat.\u201d When Eisenhower asked for clarification, Macmillan told him, \u201cOne of them looked like a convicted criminal and the other looked like a rather engaging undergraduate.\u201d<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Tony Blair and George W. Bush meet in the Azores islands for a summit regarding Iraq, March 16, 2003. (AFP\/Getty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Macmillan\u2019s closeness with Eisenhower did not preclude Macmillan from befriending Kennedy after the 1960 election. The two men had a dedicated phone line for communicating with each other, referred to as the \u201cMac-Jack line.\u201d They were more than two decades apart, but they had a genuine affection for each other. After Kennedy performed poorly at a 1961 meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev in Vienna, he went to visit Macmillan, who consoled the younger man with \u201csome sandwiches and whiskey.\u201d Later, Kennedy recalled, \u201cI feel at home with Macmillan because I can share my loneliness with him.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Kennedy\u2019s successor, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/lyndon-johnson\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title>Lyndon Johnson<\/a>, did not have as much luck at No. 10 Downing St. He and Labour Party Prime Minister Harold Wilson disagreed about Vietnam, especially over Wilson\u2019s refusal to contribute British troops to the American effort there. Wilson once joked after a call with Johnson that \u201cLyndon Johnson is begging me even to send a bagpipe band to Vietnam.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As the Vietnam incident shows, while the two countries were allies in the Cold War, disagreement over specific policies could cause tensions between their leaders. This could be the case even when the president and prime minister themselves had a special relationship. Ronald Reagan met Margaret Thatcher in 1975 before either of them had attained their countries\u2019 highest positions. Reagan sent her a follow-up note in which he told her that she had \u201can enthusiastic supporter out here in the \u2018colonies.\u2019\u201d When she became prime minister in 1979, Jimmy Carter was president, but the two did not share a bond, and she only went to the White House once during the Carter years. <\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-full\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">President Joe Biden meets with British Prime Minister Keir Starmer in the Oval Office of the White House, Wednesday, July 10, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo\/Evan Vucci)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Once Reagan came to power, he and Thatcher had what she referred to as \u201calmost identical beliefs,\u201d especially when it came to free market economics and the Cold War. She saw the U.S. and Great Britain as geostrategically aligned and even said of the U.S., \u201cYour problems will be as our problems, and when you look for friends, we shall be there.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Still, the two could and did disagree, most notably when it came to America\u2019s 1983 invasion of Grenada, which, while independent, was a member of the British Commonwealth. Thatcher was angry and humiliated about not getting an advance warning, for which Reagan later apologized.<\/p>\n<p>Thatcher was also instrumental in helping to bring about an end to the Cold War. She recognized earlier than Reagan that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev was different, telling Reagan that Gorbachev was \u201ca man who you can do business with.\u201d Thatcher also encouraged Reagan\u2019s successor, George H.W. Bush, to take a strong stance against Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein\u2019s invasion of Kuwait in 1990. She told him in an Aug. 26 phone call that \u201cthis was no time to go wobbly.\u201d Bush didn\u2019t, and he worked with her to build an international coalition that expelled Iraq from Kuwait.<\/p>\n<p>Thatcher\u2019s successor, John Major, was less deft. While he was close to Bush, he made the mistake of being too open in his support for Bush in his 1992 reelection effort, including allowing for a search for damaging information stemming from Bill Clinton\u2019s time at Oxford University in the 1960s. Clinton was none too happy about this and made sure Major knew it. For the first scheduled call between the two, Clinton ghosted Major, making the Brit wait for 45 minutes until Major finally hung up the phone in frustration, saying, \u201cThis is ridiculous.\u201d When the Situation Room staffers went up to the Oval Office to tell Clinton that Major had finally dropped the line, they found that Clinton had left the White House to play golf. As Situation Room director Jim Reed recalled of the incident, \u201cI thought it was a pretty good way of sending a message to a foreign leader: Don\u2019t mess with me.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Clinton got along better with Tony Blair. Both Clinton and Blair were children of the 1960s who ended eras of conservative governance by making their leftist parties appear more centrist. When Clinton left, though, the very reasons for their camaraderie made Clinton\u2019s successor, George W. Bush, nervous about how he and Blair, from opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, might get along. At their first summit, at Camp David less than a month after Bush\u2019s inauguration, a reporter asked Bush what they had in common. Bush\u2019s humorous but less than encouraging response: \u201cWell, we both use Colgate toothpaste.\u201d Fortunately, the two men bonded behind the scenes.\u00a0After dinner, the leaders and their wives discussed watching a movie together and were able to find common ground that way. As Bush wrote in his memoir, \u201cWhen they agreed on <em>Meet the Parents<\/em>, a comedy starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller, Laura and I knew the Bushes and Blairs would get along.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The closeness between the two men would become important seven months later, when the U.S. was attacked by al Qaeda terrorists on 9\/11. Blair became a key partner of Bush in the ensuing war on terrorism and even allied with Bush on the invasion of Iraq, which gave Bush important cover for the move on the world stage.<\/p>\n<p>In recent years, turnover at the top on both sides of the Atlantic has limited the ability to build strong bonds between presidents and prime ministers. The last president and prime minister to have a sustained relationship were David Cameron and Barack Obama, but while the relationship was sustained, it was not strong. Cameron was from the Conservative Party, and it has become increasingly difficult in our polarized environment to maintain good relationships across the ideological divide. Obama acknowledged in his memoir that he and Cameron \u201cbutted heads,\u201d as Obama felt that Cameron was cozying up too much to China, while Cameron felt left out as Obama looked more to Germany\u2019s Angela Merkel rather than Cameron for leadership in Europe.<\/p>\n<p>Starmer\u2019s victory on July 4 raises the prospect of this ideological divide playing out once again, to the detriment of the \u201cspecial relationship.\u201d Former President Donald Trump is leading in the polls over a weakened President Joe Biden, who has been getting blistered on both sides of the aisle for his poor debate performance and growing senescence. Should Trump win, he and Starmer will have numerous ideological differences to navigate. Starmer is far less aligned with Israel than Trump is \u2014 and is even less than Biden is. Starmer also does not have a relationship with Biden at the moment, although he tried to meet with him. He is a Biden fan and supporter of Biden\u2019s economic policies. <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\" title><strong>CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Starmer, to his credit, has been saying the right things, including that he will \u201cwork with whoever is elected president.\u201d According to Starmer, \u201cWe have a special relationship with the U.S. that transcends whoever the president is.\u201d But it won\u2019t be easy. Referring to Trump\u2019s legal troubles, Starmer noted that \u201cit is an unprecedented situation. There is no doubt about that.\u201d Worse, his new foreign secretary, David Lammy, is a friend of Obama who has called Trump a \u201cracist KKK and Nazi sympathizer\u201d and protested Trump\u2019s 2018 state visit to the U.K. Lammy has tried to walk back his hostility, characterizing Trump as \u201coften misunderstood\u201d and trying to meet with Trump allies to build the ties he would need should he become foreign secretary in a Starmer government. Lammy has met with Trump allies Chris LaCivita, Mike Pompeo, and Robert O\u2019Brien, as well as Republican members of Congress such as Sens. J.D. Vance (R-OH), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Jim Risch (R-ID), and Thom Tillis (R-NC). Even with all these efforts, he\u2019s unlikely to be aligned with a Trump foreign policy.<\/p>\n<p>While the personal touch is nice, it may not be enough. The special relationship has existed for almost a century, but as this history shows, it did not exist before the 20th century, and it may not continue throughout the rest of the 21st. <\/p>\n<p>Washington Examiner <em>contributing writer Tevi Troy is a senior fellow at the Bipartisan Policy Center and a former senior White House aide. He is the author of five books on the presidency, including the forthcoming<\/em> The Power and the Money: The Epic Clashes Between Commanders in Chief and Titans of Industry.<\/p>\n<p> <script data-cfasync=\"false\" src=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/cdn-cgi\/scripts\/5c5dd728\/cloudflare-static\/email-decode.min.js\"><\/script><script>!function(){var g=window;g.googletag=g.googletag||{},g.googletag.cmd=g.googletag.cmd||[],g.googletag.cmd.push(function(){g.googletag.pubads().setTargeting(\"has-featured-video\",\"true\")})}();<\/script><script>var _bp=_bp||[];_bp.push({\"div\":\"Brid_1674962\",\"obj\":{\"id\":\"27789\",\"width\":\"1280\",\"height\":\"720\",\"stickyDirection\":\"below\",\"video\":\"1674962\"}});<\/script><script defer src=\"https:\/\/services.brid.tv\/player\/build\/brid.min.js\"><\/script><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><a class=\"tdb-logo-a\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\" title=\"Washington Examiner\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-img-wrap\"><\/span><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-wrap\"><span class=\"tdb-logo-text-title\">Washington Examiner<\/span><\/span><\/a><\/div>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Copter\u2064 at the White House, 1981. (Murray\u2062 Garrett\/Getty Images) Perhaps the most famous relationship between a U.S. president\u2064 and British prime minister was the one \u2064between Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher. They first met in February of 1975, when Reagan, then governor of \u2064California, was \u2062on \u200da\u2062 European tour. The two dined at\u200c the British &hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":589,"featured_media":2293184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Keir-Starmer-_-UK_Britain.webp","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[34756,34755,7621],"class_list":["post-2293183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-special-relationship","tag-starmer","tag-victory"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/Keir-Starmer-_-UK_Britain.webp","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/589"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2293183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2293183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2293184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2293183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2293183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2293183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}