Call it a win: boredom but no temper tantrums in Burnham’s first face-to-face with America’s King Baby

Meeting at the UN in New York, the UK prime minister showed signs he can handle trash-talking President Trump How do you deal with a problem like The Donald? The simple answer is that you don’t. You can’t. The normal rules of political engagement don’t apply. The US president is like a five-year-old child with the world as his set of toys: a King Baby. Nothing is ever constant or predictable. What’s agreed one day can be forgotten the next.

Any deal can be interrupted with a temper tantrum at any time. Trying to second-guess Donald Trump is a fool’s errand. So the primary aim of Andy Burnham’s first face-to-face meeting with Trump was to get out alive with his – and the UK’s – self-respect intact. To take no incoming damage. And whatever he did, not to offer the president a third state visit. Keir Starmer never really