If only Sunak had teamed up with a different US president

As a British prime minister who is in many ways more attuned to the United States than any of his recent predecessors, Rishi Sunak should be God's gift to the much-hyped "special relationship".

- MARY DEJEVSKY

He has worked in the US, he owns a beachfront apartment in California, he has a Stanford MBA, and he has, or had, a green card, which entitles its holder to live and work in America. His evident enthusiasm for the country also makes him that rare creature: a Brit who not only understands and appreciates the United States and what makes it tick, but can hack it on the other side of the Atlantic. His affinity with America is plain for all to see. His first official visit to Washington this week should have been a triumph.

Alas, for three reasons, he is unlikely to hit the spot. The first is that his political opponents have made hay with Sunak's links to the US - especially, and ignorantly, the green card (which they misrepresented as an alternative passport) - to imply disloyalty to the UK, and to insinuate that he had a ready-made springboard to a transatlantic future should his political career in the UK not work out. For the sake of parochial British politics, he now cannot afford to appear too "American".

Secondly, there's the limited time he is likely to be in office - his US interlocutors will be as much aware of this as are his allies and enemies back home.

But the third and most important reason is that he has simply been highly unlucky with "his" US president. You can imagine Sunak finding an immediate common language with a JFK or an Obama, and (slightly less so) with his fellow MBA, George W Bush. But Joe Biden? The age gap, and therefore the difference in life experience, is almost 40 years. The disparity in manner, political priorities, and - insofar as can be judged from appearances - character, is huge.