Can Starmer 'do business' with Trump... like Thatcher did with Gorbachev?

SHORTLY before Christmas 1984, Margaret Thatcher declared her liking for Mikhail Gorbachev, insisting "we can do business together".

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Just three months after their historic London meeting, "the great reformer" became leader of the Soviet Union.

Together with then US President Ronald Reagan, the three plotted the thawing of the Cold War.

By the end of the decade the Berlin Wall and the Iron Curtain had fallen, Europe was being reshaped as the USSR dissolved and modern Ukraine emerged from the geo-political maelstrom.

Roll forward 40 years and Sir Keir Starmer finds himself in a strangely similar, albeit far more complex, position.

Like the Iron Lady, the current Prime Minister is having to do “business” with a president to bring about global peace.

But rather than the Russian leader it’s the supposed leader of the Free World who Sir Keir is negotiating with.

Donald Trump’s “shock and awe” start to his presidency, coupled with his allegiance with Vladimir Putin, ripped up the rule book and left the world order, in place since 1945, teetering on the brink. As well as trying to broker peace in Ukraine, the PM, along with French president Emmanuel Macron, is acting as a trans-atlantic bridge to shore up America’s long-term commitment to European security.

The future of NATO as we know it is in jeopardy and we now have the previously unthinkable situation of America siding with Russia and North Korea at the United Nations vote on ending the Ukrainian conflict.

The saloon bar diplomacy of last week’s infamous White House bust-up between Mr Trump, his vice president JD Vance and Volodymyr Zelensky was indicative of how the tectonic plates are shifting.

So how did we reach this point and what happens next?

Following his stunning US election comeback victory, few would have been surprised that Mr Trump was intent on shaking things up during his second crack at the presidency.