{"id":479955,"date":"2026-03-17T07:02:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:02:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479955\/"},"modified":"2026-03-17T07:02:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-17T07:02:09","slug":"why-starmer-thinks-hes-called-it-right-on-war-despite-trump-barbs","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/479955\/","title":{"rendered":"Why Starmer thinks he’s called it right on war despite Trump barbs"},"content":{"rendered":"

On nearly every occasion President Trump has found himself in front of a camera in the last few days, he has had a pop at the prime minister and at the UK.<\/p>\n

We have long known the current occupier of the White House is rarely a man of subtlety, but the frequency with which he has repeated his criticisms, often unprompted, stands out.<\/p>\n

As ever, his language is colourful and quotable.<\/p>\n

The UK used to be the “Rolls-Royce of allies” he said,<\/a> adding that he had pleaded with Sir Keir Starmer to be decisive and implying the prime minister couldn’t make his mind up without consulting others. Ouch.<\/p>\n

This is definitely awkward for Starmer, the further souring of his relationship with Trump, but it isn’t definitely, wholeheartedly negative from his point of view.<\/p>\n

Firstly, there is a tussle over the facts – in other words, precisely what was discussed in the calls between the two men in the last few weeks: what was requested and what was offered.<\/p>\n

Downing Street, as ever, is at pains not to get involved in a public mudslinging contest with the White House.<\/p>\n

But folk I talk to in Whitehall think the president has garbled some of the details of what the leaders discussed privately.<\/p>\n

For instance, I am told there was never a request to provide aircraft carriers in the Gulf, nor an offer to provide them.<\/p>\n

British sources also point out that aircraft carriers provide a runway where there otherwise wouldn’t be one, but the UK has exactly that on land nearby – at RAF Akrotiri in Cyprus.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On nearly every occasion President Trump has found himself in front of a camera in the last few…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":479956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-479955","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}