Europe is now relying on Starmer to manage Trump

It’s not often that you have a cabinet minister say the quiet bit out loud.

- DAVID MADDOX

But in his candid interview on the Today programme yesterday morning, Wes Streeting summed up the dilemma that the UK and the rest of Europe face in dealing with Donald Trump. On one hand, they want to defend an international rules-based order and can see perfectly well that the US's military strike on Venezuela and capture of president Nicolas Maduro was likely to have been illegal.

On the other hand, they do not want to poke the bear and anger Trump into doing something rash, which would harm them.

And as Sir Keir Starmer joined French president Emmanuel Macron and other world leaders in Paris yesterday, as well as representatives of the Trump administration, this dilemma will have been hanging over their conversations like a Damoclean sword waiting to crash down.