JD Vance to stay with David Lammy on UK family holiday

Telegraph

a day ago

JD Vance, the US vice-president, and his family will stay with David Lammy, the Foreign Secretary, at his grace and favour country house in Kent.
The second family will begin their British getaway in the grandest way possible, with a night in the Grade I listed mansion, complete with 15 bedrooms, a billiards room and a maze.
The Vances will embark on their summer vacation to the UK on Friday.
Mr Vance and Mr Lammy said they had developed a warm friendship, bonding over their difficult childhoods and their faith.
Mr Lammy attended mass at the vice-president's Washington residence in March. He will now repay the favour, according to two sources familiar with plans for the Vance family's trip.
The two politicians will hold a formal 'bilateral meeting' before being joined by their families at the Foreign Secretary's country residence, they said.
'Lammy has visited Vance's family and the relationship looks like it will continue to grow on a personal as well as a professional basis,' said a source who knows them both.
Mr Vance and his family are also expected to visit Hampton Court Palace before staying in the Cotswolds.
The vice-president is expected to arrive in London with his wife Usha and children Ewan, eight, Vivek, five, and Mirabel, three.
A British source said Mr Vance would meet Mr Lammy at Chevening, just outside Sevenoaks, Kent.
'They will have a short bilateral meeting, no doubt discussing Ukraine, Gaza, trade and tech,' they said. 'They'll wrap it up and then the family will join.'
Chevening is believed to have been built in 1630 by Inigo Jones, the leading architect of his day.
It sits within 3,000 acres of North Downs countryside, and the house is surrounded by 40 acres of gardens.
It was bequeathed to the nation in 1967 under the condition that it be used by someone nominated by the prime minister, who must be either a member of the Cabinet or a descendant of George VI.
In practice, it has generally been used by foreign secretaries as a means of projecting the nation's 'soft power'.
For the Vances, it will be the first stop on their British holiday, coming two weeks after Donald Trump, the US president, spent five days in Scotland at two of his golf courses.
British diplomatic sources said it showed the depth and breadth of the relationship between Sir Keir Starmer's Government and the Trump administration.
Mr Trump is scheduled to return in September for the full pomp of a state visit.
The Vances visit is the next step in a growing friendship between a politically odd couple from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum. While Mr Lammy describes himself as a Christian socialist, the vice-president has earned a reputation as a Maga attack dog.
Although Mr Lammy famously once described Mr Trump as a 'woman-hating, neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath' he has since distanced himself from that view, calling it 'old news', and softened his tone, describing the president as 'warm and friendly'.
Mr Lammy has frequently described Mr Vance as a friend. In March, he and his wife Nicola Green visited the vice-president's official residence, the Naval Observatory, next door to the British embassy, for a private meeting without officials.
Last year, Mr Lammy described the basis of their relationship, telling the BBC: 'Let me just say on JD Vance that I've met him now on several occasions, we share a similar working-class background with addiction issues in our family.
'We've written books on that. We've talked about that. And we're both Christians, so I think I can find common ground with JD Vance.'
Mr Vance rose to prominence with his memoir Hillbilly Elegy, an account of growing up poor in the Rust Belt and Appalachia, with a mother struggling with alcohol and drug addiction.
Mr Lammy is the son of immigrants from Guyana and has spoken of his difficult childhood and alcoholic father.
However, the relationship is not without tension.
Gaza will be a thorny topic of conversation between Mr Lammy and his guest after Sir Keir announced last week that he planned to recognise the state of Palestine in September if Israel did not declare a ceasefire.
And protesters plan to do what they can to disrupt his vacation.
'We are sure that, even in the Cotswolds, he will find the resistance waiting,' said the Stop Trump Coalition when The Telegraph revealed details of Mr Vance's vacation.
A Foreign Office official declined to comment on the meeting other than to say: 'Ministerial engagements will be announced in the usual way.'