Can a Labour prime minister get on well with a Republican US president? Or a Conservative PM with a Democrat in the White House?
The short answer is yes, absolutely.
There are plenty of examples of a good relationship and close bond between a Labour prime minister and Republican president. And vice versa.
Indeed, some prime ministers and presidents from seemingly opposing political parties have bonded for the simplest or most trivial reasons. Cigars, toothpaste and burgers, for example.
And it’s not always rosy between prime ministers and presidents of the two sister parties. There have been some big fallings out: over Suez, Vietnam and the Caribbean island of Grenada.
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Starmer says the ‘special relationship’ is ‘as important today as it has ever been’
But never has a British Labour prime minister faced such special challenges in maintaining the “special relationship” with a Republican president as Sir Keir Starmer does right now.
It’s not just policy differences – on issues such as trade tariffs, Ukraine, Israel, defence spending, Brexit and climate change – that divide Downing Street and the White House right now.
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Never before has an incoming president faced such a tirade of brutal insults from senior members of a UK government like those hurled at him by leading members of Sir Keir’s cabinet.
He’s a “racist KKK and neo-Nazi sympathiser”, (David Lammy, 2017), an “odious, sad little man”, (Wes Streeting, 2017) and “a racist misogynistic, self-confessed groper”, (Ed Miliband, 2018). And that’s just a sample.
That’s not all. Last month, the Republican Party filed a legal complaint after almost 100 Labour Party aides flew to the US to campaign for Kamala Harris, alleging “blatant foreign interference” in the presidential election.
Critics, led by the new Tory leader Kemi Badenoch, have accused Sir Keir and his party of playing student politics by picking a fight with the most powerful man in the world. And someone who’s notoriously vindictive.
It was all very different 80 years ago (critics would also say that political leaders were real statesmen back then).
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Badenoch calls out Lammy at PMQs
The phrase “special relationship”, describing the alliance between the UK and US, was first used by Winston Churchill in a speech in Missouri in 1946, in which he also coined the phrase “the Iron Curtain”.
That speech was introduced by president Harry Truman, a Democrat, with whom Churchill had attended the Potsdam Conference in 1945 to negotiate the terms of the end of the Second World War.
They were close friends and would write handwritten letters to each other and addressed one another as Harry and Winston. Truman was also the only US president to visit Churchill at Chartwell, his family home.
Churchill also had a close relationship with another Democrat president, Franklin D Roosevelt. Their close bond during the Second World War was described as a friendship that saved the world.
Image: Prime minister Winston Churchill and president Franklin Roosevelt at the White House in Washington on 23 December, 1941. Pic: AP
One reason they got on famously was that they were both renowned cigar smokers. Like Churchill, Roosevelt’s cigar smoking was a widely reported part of his public persona after he became president.
But after Churchill’s bromances with Democrat presidents, his Conservative successor Anthony Eden fell out badly with the Republican president Dwight Eisenhower over the Suez Crisis in the mid-1950s.
And it was a Conservative prime minister and a Democrat president with seemingly nothing in common, the stuffy and diffident Harold Macmillan and the charismatic John F Kennedy, that repaired the damage.
“Between them they had rescued the special relationship after the rupture of the Suez Crisis, and done so at a time of uniquely high tensions around the world,” wrote British author Christopher Sandford in Harold And Jack, The Remarkable Friendship Of Prime Minister Macmillan And President Kennedy.
Image: Harold Macmillan and John F Kennedy at Andrews Air Force Base. Pic: AP
It was the early 1960s and these were dangerous times, rather like now, of course. Back then it was the Berlin Wall, the Cuban missile crisis and threat of nuclear weapons.
“Through it all, the two leaders had exchanged not only formal messages but also a steady flow of handwritten notes, Christmas and birthday cards, congratulations, and, on occasion, condolences,” Sandford wrote.
But it was a relationship abruptly cut short in 1963, by “super Mac’s” demise caused by the John Profumo sex scandal and then JFK’s assassination in Dallas just a month later.
“Like many of those who came into the Kennedys’ orbit,” the Washington Post wrote, “Macmillan was enchanted by Jacqueline Kennedy, and she seems to have happily entered into a father-daughter relationship with him that lasted long after her husband’s assassination.”
Image: John F Kennedy with Harold MacMillan, during lunch in Bermuda in 1962. Pic: AP
After Kennedy, the so-called “special relationship” cooled once again during the tenure of Labour’s Harold Wilson and Democrat Lyndon Johnson, when Wilson rejected pressure from Johnson to send British troops to Vietnam.
And even though Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were ideological soulmates, Thatcher was furious when she wasn’t consulted before the Americans invaded Grenada in 1983 to topple a Marxist regime.
Even worse, according to Thatcher allies, a year earlier Reagan had stayed neutral during the Falklands war. Reagan said he couldn’t understand why two US allies were arguing over “that little ice-cold bunch of land down there”.
Image: Margaret Thatcher was frustrated with Ronald Reagan over his position on the Falklands. Pic: PA
Long before the accusations of Starmer’s Labour meddling in the Trump-Harris election, the Tories were accused of dirty tricks in the Bill Clinton-George HW Bush presidential election of 1992.
During the campaign the Home Office checked immigration nationality records to see whether Clinton applied for British citizenship while a student at Oxford University to escape the Vietnam draft. It wasn’t true.
Image: US president Bill Clinton held a toast with John Major during a dinner at Downing Street. Pic: PA
Then prime minister John Major issued a grovelling public apology and Clinton was forgiving. In 1994 the “special relationship” received a huge boost when the president took Major to the home in Pittsburgh where his grandfather and father lived and worked.
Then it was back to Washington where Major became the first foreign leader to stay overnight in the Clinton White House. But as well as the flattery, the pair worked closely in the early stages of the Northern Ireland peace process.
Clinton’s political soulmate, of course, was Tony Blair. They were as close as Reagan and Thatcher. But it was with the Republican George HW Bush that Labour’s Blair embarked on the defining mission of his premiership, the Iraq war.
Image: The Blairs spent two nights with the Clintons at Camp David. Pic: AP
George “Dubya” Bush had defeated Clinton’s vice president Al Gore in the bitterly contested presidential election of 2000 and in early 2001 he entertained Blair at Camp David. It was to prove to be a historic encounter.
“He’s a pretty charming guy,” the president gushed at their news conference. “He put the charm offensive on me.” How many times have we heard that said about Tony Blair?
Then it got deeply personal. They were asked if they’d found something in their talks that they had in common. “Well, we both use Colgate toothpaste,” the president replied.
Quick as a flash, an embarrassed Mr Blair intervened: “They’re going to wonder how you know that, George.”
Image: Tony Blair and George Bush first met in 2001. Pic: Reuters
The war was the turning point of Blair’s decade in Number 10. He was branded a liar over claims about Saddam Hussein’s “weapons of mass destruction”, he was vilified by the Labour left and it was the beginning of the end for him.
Some years later, the Tory prime minister sometimes called the “heir to Blair”, David Cameron, bonded over burgers with the Democrat president Barack Obama, serving a BBQ lunch to military families in the Downing Street garden.
Image: David Cameron and Barack Obama served burgers to guests in the Downing Street garden in 2011. Pic: Reuters
They seemed unlikely allies: Obama the first African-American president and Cameron the 19th old Etonian prime minister. It was claimed they had a “transatlantic bromance” in office.
The two leaders were often pictured together playing ping-pong or golf, eating burgers or watching a basketball game. “Yes, he sometimes calls me bro,” Cameron once said of president Obama.
Cameron even persuaded Obama to help the Remain campaign in the 2016 Brexit referendum, when he claimed the UK would be “at the back of the queue” on trade deals with the US if it left the EU.
Image: David Cameron and Obama also enjoyed a round of golf. Pic: Reuters
Which brings us, neatly, to Sir Keir and president-elect Trump and the prime minister’s hopes of building a special relationship.
On the plus side, the president likes the UK – his mother was Scottish and he owns two golf courses in Scotland. And we’re told by Sir Keir that the dinner at Trump Tower in September went well. The mouthy Mr Lammy admitted he was even offered a second portion of chicken. “He was very gracious,” he claimed.
On the other hand, neither the prime minister nor the president smoke cigars, like Churchill and Roosevelt did. We’re not sure which toothpaste they use, unlike Bush and Blair, either.
Image: Donald Trump served fries to customers at a fast food chain during the election campaign. Pic: Reuters
And while the president obviously likes burgers – he famously flipped them in a McDonald’s during the election campaign – and steak, well done, with ketchup, Sir Keir is vegetarian, though he does eat fish.
But if even a stuffy old toff like Harold Macmillan can get on well with the flamboyant JFK and glamorous Jackie Onassis, there’s hope for Sir Keir and that much-vaunted “special relationship”.
Investment firms with Bitcoin-focused treasuries are front-running global Bitcoin adoption, which may see the world’s first cryptocurrency soar to a $200 trillion market capitalization in the coming decade.
Institutions and governments worldwide are starting to recognize the unique monetary properties of Bitcoin (BTC), according to Adam Back, co-founder and CEO of Blockstream and the inventor of Hashcash.
“$MSTR and other treasury companies are an arbitrage of the dislocation between the bitcoin future and todays fiat world,” Back wrote in an April 26 X post.
“A sustainable and scalable $100-$200 trillion trade front-running hyperbitcoinization. scalable enough for most big listed companies to move to btc treasury,” he added.
Hyperbitcoinization refers to the theoretical future where Bitcoin soars to become the largest global currency, replacing fiat money due to its inflationary economics and growing distrust in the legacy financial system.
Bitcoin’s price outpacing fiat money inflation remains the main driver of global hyperbitcoinization, Back said, adding:
“Some people think treasury strategy is a temporary glitch. i’m saying no it’s a logical and sustainable arbitrage. but not for ever, the driver is bitcoin price going up over 4 year periods faster than interest and inflation.”
Back’s comments come nearly two months after US President Donald Trump signed an executive order to establish a national Bitcoin reserve from BTC forfeited in government criminal cases.
Continued Bitcoin investments from the likes of Strategy, the largest corporate Bitcoin holder, may inspire more global firms to follow suit.
Strategy’s approach is proving to be lucrative, with the firm’s Bitcoin treasury generating over $5.1 billion worth of profit since the beginning of 2025, according to Strategy’s co-founder, Michael Saylor.
Japanese investment firm Metaplanet, also known as “Asia’s MicroStrategy,” adopted a similar strategy, since surpassing 5,000 BTC in total holdings on April 24, Cointelegraph reported.
As Asia’s largest corporate Bitcoin holder, Metaplanet plans to acquire 21,000 BTC by 2026.
US financial institutions may also have more confidence in adopting Bitcoin after the US Federal Reserve withdrew its 2022 guidance discouraging banks from engaging with cryptocurrency. “Banks are now free to begin supporting Bitcoin,” Saylor said in response to the guidance withdrawal.
“Banks will now be supervised through normal processes, signaling a more open regulatory environment for digital asset integration,” Nexo dispatch analyst Iliya Kalchev told Cointelegraph.
SEC Commissioner and head of the crypto task force, Hester Peirce, says US financial firms are navigating crypto in a way that’s similar to playing the children’s game “the floor is lava,” but in the dark.
“It is time that we find a way to end this game. We need to turn on the lights and build some walkways over the lava pit,” Peirce said at the SEC “Know Your Custodian” roundtable event on April 25.
The lava is crypto, says Peirce
Peirce explained that SEC registrants are forced to approach crypto-related activities like “the floor is lava,” where the aim is to jump from one piece of furniture to the next without touching the ground, except here, touching crypto directly is the lava.
“A D.C. version of this game is our regulatory approach to crypto assets, and crypto asset custody in particular,” she said.
Peirce said that, much like in the game, firms wanting to engage with crypto must avoid directly holding it due to unclear regulatory rules. “To engage in crypto-related activities, SEC-registrants have had to hop from one poorly illuminated regulatory space to the next, all while ensuring that they never touch any crypto asset,” Peirce said.
Peirce said that investment advisers are often unsure which crypto assets qualify as securities, what entities count as qualified custodians, and whether “exercising staking or voting rights” could trigger custody violations.
“The twist in the regulatory version is that it is largely played in the dark: burning legal lava and no lamps to illuminate the way.”
Peirce also said that a broker or ATS that cannot custody or manage crypto assets will struggle to facilitate trading, making it unlikely for a “robust market” to develop.
Echoing a similar sentiment, SEC Commissioner Mark Uyeda said at the event that as more SEC registrants work with crypto assets, it’s essential that they have access to custodial options that meet legal and regulatory requirements.
Uyeda said the agency should consider letting advisers use “state-chartered limited-purpose trust companies” with the authority to hold crypto assets as qualified custodians.
Meanwhile, the recently sworn-in chair of the SEC, Paul Atkins, said that he expected “huge benefits” from blockchain technology through efficiency, risk mitigation, transparency, and cutting costs.
He reiterated that among his goals at the SEC would be to facilitate “clear regulatory rules of the road” for digital assets, hinting that the agency under former chair Gary Gensler had contributed to market and regulatory uncertainty.
“I look forward to engaging with market participants and working with colleagues in President Trump’s administration and Congress to establish a rational fit-for-purpose framework for crypto assets,” said Atkins.
On the banks of the Mersey, Runcorn and Helsby is a more complicated political picture than the apparent Labour heartland that first presents itself.
Yes, there are industrial and manufacturing areas – an old town that’s fallen victim to out-of-town shopping, and an out-of-town shopping centre that’s fallen victim to Amazon.
But there are also more middle-class new town developments, as well as Tory-facing rural swathes.
Image: Space Cafe director Marie Moss says a sense of community has faded
One thing this area does mirror with many across the country, though, is a fed-up electorate with little confidence that politics can work for them.
In the Space Cafe in Runcorn Old Town, its director Marie Moss says many in the region remember a time when a sense of community was more acute.
“People were very proud of their town… and that’s why people get upset and emotional as they remember that,” she says.
It’s this feeling of disenfranchisement and nostalgia-tinged yearning for the past that Reform UK is trading off in its targeting of traditional Labour voters here.
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Party leader Nigel Farage features heavily on leaflets in these parts, alongside spikey messaging around migration, law and order, and Labour’s record in government so far.
Image: Runcorn 2024 result
Taxi driver Mike Holland hears frequent worries about that record from those riding in the back of his cab.
A Labour voter for decades, he says locals were “made up” at last year’s election result but have been “astonished” since then, with benefit changes a common topic of concern.
“Getting a taxi is two things, it’s either a luxury or a necessity… the necessity people are the disabled people… and a lot of the old dears are so stressed and worried about their disability allowance and whether they are going to get it or not get it,” he says.
But will that mean straight switchers to Reform UK?
Image: Taxi driver Mike Holland has voted for Labour for decades, but is now looking at the Lib Dems and Greens – or may not vote at all
Mike says he agrees with some of what the party is offering but thinks a lot of people are put off by Mr Farage.
He’s now looking at the Liberal Democrats and Greens, both of whom have put up local politicians as candidates.
Or, Mike says, he may just not vote at all.
It’s in places like Runcorn town that some of the political contradictions within Reform UK reveal themselves more clearly.
Many here say they were brought up being told to never vote Tory.
And yet, Reform, chasing their support, has chosen a former Conservative councillor as its candidate.
It’s no surprise Labour has been trialling attack lines in this campaign, painting Mr Farage’s party as “failed Tories”.
As a response to this, look no further than Reform’s recent nod to the left on industrialisation and public ownership.
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But head 15 minutes south from Runcorn docks, and this by-election campaign changes.
Rural areas like Frodsham and Helsby have, in the past, tended towards the Tories.
The Conservatives, of course, have a candidate in this vote, one who stood in a neighbouring constituency last year.
But Reform is now making a hard play for their supporters in these parts, with a softer message compared to the one being put out in urban areas – an attempt to reassure those anxious about too much political revolution coming to their privet-lined streets.
Labour, meanwhile, is actively trying to mobilise the anti-Farage vote by presenting their candidate – another local councillor – as the only person who can stop Reform.
Image: Makeup artist Nadine Tan is concerned about division and anger in the community
The pitch here is aimed at voters like Frodsham makeup artist Nadine Tan, who are worried about division and anger in the community.
“I think they need to kind of come together and stop trying to divide everyone,” she says.
But like Mike the taxi driver five miles north, disillusionment could be the eventual winner as Nadine says, despite the “thousands of leaflets” through her door, she still thinks “they all say the same thing”.
One factor that doesn’t seem to be swinging too many votes, though, is the insalubrious circumstances in which the area’s former Labour MP left office.
Image: Labour MP Mike Amesbury was convicted of punching a man in the street. Pic: Reuters
But across the patch, many praise their ex-MP’s local efforts, while also saying he was “very silly” to have acted in the way he did.
That may be putting it mildly.
But it’s hard to find much more agreement ahead of Thursday’s vote.
A constituency still hungry for change, but unsure as to who can deliver it.
Full list of candidates, Runcorn and Helsby by-election:
Catherine Anne Blaiklock – English Democrats Dan Clarke – Liberal Party Chris Copeman – Green Party Paul Duffy – Liberal Democrats Peter Ford – Workers Party Howling Laud Hope – Monster Raving Loony Party Sean Houlston – Conservatives Jason Philip Hughes – Volt UK Alan McKie – Independent Graham Harry Moore – English Constitution Party Paul Andrew Murphy – Social Democratic Party Sarah Pochin – Reform UK Karen Shore – Labour John Stevens – Rejoin EU Michael Williams – Independent