Starmer says he picked up papers dropped by Trump so others wouldn't get tackled by security
Keir Starmer said he rushed to pick up papers dropped by Donald Trump at the G7 summit in Canada mainly to avoid anyone else stepping forward to do so and being tackled by the US president's security team.
Speaking to reporters in Kananaskis a day after Trump fumbled some of the documents about a UK-US trade deal, with a sheaf of papers tumbling to the ground, Starmer said he had little choice but to bend down and help out.
The UK prime minister said: 'I mean, look, there weren't many choices with the documents and picking it up, because … as you probably know there were quite strict rules about who can get close to the president.
'I mean, seriously, I think if any of you [the media] had stepped forward other than me, I was just deeply conscious that in a situation like it would not have been good for anybody else to have stepped forward – not that any of you rushed to.
'There's a very tightly guarded security zone around the president, as you would expect.'
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As well as dropping the papers, Trump wrongly announced that he had agreed a deal with the European Union, not the UK, and some of his answers were unclear and rambling.
Asked if he had any concerns about Trump's health, Starmer said: 'No, he was in good form yesterday, and I mean we had – I don't know how many sessions yesterday together as the G7 and then into the evening session as well.'
As Starmer and Trump spoke to the media on Monday before their private talks, the US president was again effusive in his praise for the prime minister.
Asked why Trump liked him so much, Starmer replied: 'I mean, that's really for him to answer, but I think it's that we do have a good relationship. I think that is in the national interest.
'Frankly, there has long been a close relationship between the US and the UK, as I've said many times, on defence and security and intelligence sharing in particular. I'm very pleased that I've got a good relationship with him, notwithstanding, as both he and I acknowledge, that our political backgrounds are different.'
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Rhyl Journal
25 minutes ago
- Rhyl Journal
Israel ‘killed top Iranian general' as Trump warns people to flee Iran's capital
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Spectator
31 minutes ago
- Spectator
Starmer looked out of place in the mountains with Sky's Beth Rigby
Sir Keir Starmer was doing an interview with Beth Rigby in the lush mountain landscape of Canada. Hardly a man who evokes the sweeping grandeur of nature, seeing the Prime Minister surrounded by mountains and pines was odd. It looked a little like someone had mistakenly cast a chartered accountant in the Sound of Music. What percentage is his approval rating? Seventeen going on sixteen of course. Seeing the Prime Minister surrounded by mountains and pines was odd Rigby asked whether the Prime Minister had any idea what President Trump was doing about the Middle East that was so important that he had to leave the G7 early. 'I actually sat next to the President at that meeting,' came the non sequitur reply. I have confidence that there is probably a 15 per cent chance that The Donald actually doesn't know who Starmer is. One can imagine the conversation on the home trip on Air Force One: 'Hey, lil' Marco, why'd they sit me next to that brylcreamed Limey who sounds like he has a cold?' Next came the inevitable Grooming Gangs question. Hardly one of the PM's favourite things; he gave a weird look that was supposed to say 'earnest' but actually said 'constipated'. Rigby hammered home; he really didn't think he owed anyone an apology, did he? There followed a self justificatory list of his achievements. Somewhere in his youth or childhood, he must have done something good, that sort of thing. After this touching interlude was over he claimed that he 'tried to remain courteous at all times' – which will come as news to any of the women who have ever asked him a question he didn't like in the House – before launching into a direct attack on Kemi Badenoch. At the end of this, Rigby gave him a sort of pitying smile, like one might deliver at the sight of a dropped bag of shopping or a weeping clown. Rigby went further: did there need to be prosecutions of those in institutions who had covered this up? The hills were alive with the sound of bluster. 'There must be accountability…there must be no stone unturned…but I'm not going to say here X, Y, Z'. He might as well have added 'Do-Re-Mi' for all the effect it would have had on his meaning. I have read things on the back of lavatory cubicles or scrawled on railway underpasses which convey more meaning than this string of platitudes. Rigby asked again if he wanted to see more prosecutions and got the same answer. Interviewing the present government is no easy task: you can Climb Every Mountain, ford every stream: and still at the end of it you have a pile of Edelscheiss. Rigby ended on a 'most proud moment and biggest regret', as if it was an interview with Smash Hits! magazine. Apparently our Lonely Goatherd hadn't 'told his story as best he could'. You can say that again. Or yodel it, it'd be just as compelling and coherent. So it was we bid 'So Long, Farewell' to the Prime Minister. Unlike the Sound of Music there is no happy ending to this tale: instead of staying in his alpine G7 wonderland, our very own Maria is back on Wednesday.
The Independent
33 minutes ago
- The Independent
Instead of ending wars, ‘America First' is being dragged into more of them
It is difficult to discern exactly what the 'big stuff' is that prompted President Trump to leave the G7 summit and return to Washington a day early. Mr Trump wouldn't say what, precisely, but he did advise the 9 million residents of Tehran to 'immediately evacuate' their homes, causing mass panic. Any lingering hopes that the president was going back to the White House to work full time on a ceasefire were extinguished when Mr Trump declared that suggestions to that effect made by the president of France were mistaken: 'I'm not looking for a ceasefire, we're looking at better than a ceasefire.' What the president does want, in his words, is 'an end, a real end, not a ceasefire,' and a 'complete give-up' by Iran. At the same time, though, the president told the world that he had not contacted the Iranians to engage in peace talks in any 'way, shape, or form' because they 'should have taken the deal that was on the table'. 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Yet even now, there is speculation that – pressured by Israel's actions and backed with a major US naval taskforce heading towards the Persian Gulf – Mr Trump may try to use this opportunity to achieve a breakthrough deal. Asked by reporters if he might dispatch his vice-president, JD Vance, and roaming negotiator Steve Witkoff to Iran for this purpose, Mr Trump did not rule it out. 'Peace through strength' is a slogan that the president frequently uses, but thus far in his presidency, it has seldom worked out in practice. This time, the world must hope, will be different. If diplomacy fails? Mr Trump could simply allow Israel to continue its efforts to eliminate Iran's nuclear capabilities, such as they are, and to so destabilise the theocratic regime that it is overthrown by the Iranian people. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, has made no secret of his wish for 'regime change', addressing the 'Persian' people directly and having his photograph taken with the exiled son of the last shah of Iran, who was toppled by the ayatollahs in the revolution of 1979. Subcontracting the task of disarming Iran and persuading the people of Iran to replace their government with a more palatable, peace-loving alternative, all without any direct US involvement, must have some attractions for American foreign policy (though Mr Trump reportedly vetoed an assassination attempt on the supreme leader of Iran). That carries significant risks, however, which will be apparent to the defence, security and state department officials briefing Mr Trump. For some weeks, Israel has used the George W Bush playbook as applied in the last Gulf war to justify its attacks in Iran – a pre-emptive military strike to remove the threat of weapons of mass destruction, and, as the Americans did with Saddam Hussein, offering regime change as an alternative to destruction and defeat. A similar ultimatum is now being issued by Mr Trump, with Israeli backing – give up your nukes and you can stay in power. If not... But the world knows how that Iraqi story ended – a fractured country that fell into civil war and the rule of Isis, an even more murderous and dangerous entity than the Baathists. The collapse of Iran into chaos and civil war would be a far greater disaster for the world than anything that has happened in Iraq, Libya, Syria or Afghanistan in terms of the consequences for turning a stable (if malign) state into a failed one. Iran is in another league of military and political importance. If there was fighting for control of Iran – and the ayatollahs cannot be expected to meekly slink away to their holy places – then that would soon spread to Yemen, and restart the horrific proxy war there with Saudi Arabia. Russia remains Iran's friend and ally, and relies on its Shahed drones that proved so effective in Ukraine. What would Vladimir Putin do to protect his interests? If America intervenes, or acquiesces in Israel's escalating campaign, the regional conflagration so long feared between Israel and Iran would not remain a private dispute between the two regional superpowers of Israel and Iran, not least because Tehran's client terrorists in Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels and, above all, Hamas will continue to be involved. The more nations and groups become involved, the more unpredictable events will become, and the harder it will be for America to control them. Instead of ending far-away wars, this 'America First' is being dragged into more of them. That's very much 'big stuff' – and big risks.
