Can opposites Trump and Starmer find common ground?

US President Donald Trump looks down the lens on the inauguration day of his second Presidential term with first lady Melania behind him, wearing a large navy hat.Reuters
Chris Mason
Political editor
@ChrisMasonBBC

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.

Place in history

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.

There is even a name for this that academics have used – "the juridifcation of politics" – meaning "a reliance upon legal and quasilegal, i.e. rules, norms, conventions, procedures, means to address substantive matters of public policy."

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.

So 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.

We can expect the prime minister to fly to Washington pretty soon to meet President Trump at the White House.

It will mean Sir Keir and Foreign Secretary David Lammy will be able to stop constantly referring back to the chicken dinner they had at Trump Tower in New York in September of last year when they met Trump for the first time.

Precisely when Sir Keir finds himself on a plane over the Atlantic, and which leaders are invited before him, will be pored over – and there are clearly some, such as Georgia Meloni, the Prime Minister of Italy and the Prime Minister of Hungary, Viktor Orban, who are ideologically much closer to the president than Sir Keir will ever be.

Chagos plan on hold

The timing probably matters less, beyond the symbolism, than what comes out of the meeting.

So what could find itself on the agenda?

Ukraine, trade, defence spending, the Middle East, climate change, the Chagos Islands, to name half a dozen.

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.

Sir Keir was in Kyiv to sign a 100-year pact with the country at just the point a new president takes office who has promised to end the war very quickly, which many think would leave Russia looking like the victor.

Could President Trump and incoming Secretary of State Marco Rubio sell a deal widely seen as bad for Ukraine? And, would Russian President Vladimir Putin be interested in the conflict ending now, or hope to carry on to secure more territory?

The promise of a State visit

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?

Government sources here in the UK talk up what they see as "the alignment of priorities" between London and Washington on getting our economies growing.

The United States is the UK's largest trading partner, accounting for nearly 18% of total UK trade.

The thing is tariffs could scupper any growth and Downing Street will have to hope that it can talk the president out of them.

And if President Trump demands vast increases in defence spending, can the UK afford it?

Perhaps an argument can be made that tariffs would make paying for defence harder.

Then there are the thoughts and social media posts of the president's friend Elon Musk, which have been extremely hostile towards the prime minister for months, only easing mildly last week when the government set out its response to child sexual exploitation.

In Sir Keir's back pocket, remember, is the prospect of another state visit for President Trump and the First Lady.

President Trump's mum was born and grew up on the Isle of Lewis - his affection for the UK is genuine, as is his love of the Royal Family.

Don't be surprised if that invite gets delivered to the White House sooner or later. The question will be when does that card get played?

It has become a predictable to say that President Trump is unpredictable, because it is not only true, but an understatement.

The world is going to feel rather different – and that difference starts now.

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