Mr Rules and Mr Break The Rules. The Lawyer and the man with the criminal conviction. The human rights barrister and the brash New York real estate tycoon.
To put it gently, Sir Keir Starmer and Donald Trump are rather different characters – and that is before we even get on to talking about policies.
The prime minister’s own colleagues have called him “Mr Rules” as a way of summing up the essence of his character, what makes him tick.
The thing is, to state the obvious, the man now in the Oval Office is the polar opposite on pretty much every single word of that.
But perhaps, some ponder, all this shouldn’t be overstated. “Most foreign leaders annoy Trump to some extent,” one close observer told me.
The key, many believe, will be dealing with the new president in a way that he likes and, so the theory goes, may work.
Out with long-winded presentations of foreign policy minutiae and in with ideas that either contribute to his ‘America First’ agenda, while securing wins for the UK too, or help the President cement his place in history perhaps in the Middle East or Ukraine.
The Chagos Islands is a potential early flashpoint, or at least moment of awkwardness.
The UK’s plan to hand over the archipelago in the Indian Ocean – which is home to a joint US/UK military base – to Mauritius has been put on hold for President Trump to take a look at.
On Ukraine, the UK’s posture is clear and was pointedly doubled down on by the prime minister just days before President Trump’s inauguration.
The thing is, how does the UK avoid the potential of crippling tariffs, import taxes, being imposed by America, as President Trump has threatened to do on friends and foes alike?
And on trade, how does the UK avoid the potential of crippling tariffs, import taxes, being imposed by America, as President Trump has threatened to do on friends and foes alike?
Perhaps an argument can be made that tariffs would make paying for defence harder.
The world is going to feel rather different – and that difference starts now.
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