The hours spent negotiating with Buckingham Palace over the royal programme, the OTT military displays and the millions of pounds spent on security had resulted in a successful delivery. For a No 10 buffeted by events, it was a sign Starmer’s premiership has still more road to run.
On Monday and Tuesday, some Labour MPs gloomily predicted the Epstein affair would dominate all the questions at Thursday’s Chequers news conference. In the end Trump, sidestepped the Epstein question by implausibly claiming he didn’t know Mandelson.
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While some MPs spent the early part of the week panicking, wiser heads took it upon themselves to reassure their more inexperienced colleagues, some of whom have only been in Parliament for 14 months after being elected last year.
The MP also suggested the briefing was coming from disgruntled ministers who had been moved aside at the reshuffle.
With Trump safely back in the US, attention in the party is now turning to Labour conference in Liverpool, which starts a week on Sunday.
They predicted Starmer is likely to emerge from his keynote speech having done enough to reassure the party. Instead, the Budget at the end of November is seen as the next moment of political danger.
“Quite a lot of his conference speeches have been quite good and gone down well. So if he delivers a good one, then I kind of see how that kind of calms everyone down a bit. Then, the next crunch point is the Budget,” the aide predicted.
“Whoever wins will reveal what the membership thinks of Keir – whether a cabinet minister will be punished by proxy by association, or whether the members just want to give him a bloody nose,” an MP said. “That has longer-term implications, even if Keir gets on with delivery, like he says he will.”
Some Labour MPs think Starmer needs to use his conference speech to directly take on the arguments brought over to the UK by the MAGA crowd: religion, patriotism, free speech and tackling migration.
“His speech doesn’t even have to have loads of policy in it, but he does need to come out and tell our side of the story about how we are pro-patriotism – not nationalism. It’s got to be a much bigger argument which fills in the gap where no one knows what we stand for. At the moment no one knows what we’re about,” the MP said.
What Starmer delivered at Chequers was a genuine rapport with Trump, even though Starmer appeared tense at the possibility his guest could go rogue at any point.
“Varun is a very good negotiator and very good at getting a deal, because he has a really clear idea of what it is the other side want, what would be helpful, what wouldn’t be helpful and what the unknown bit is – because obviously you don’t know exactly how they’ll react to everything you might suggest. Keir is very lucky to have him and with the trade deals and getting the tariffs sorted he’s clearly proven his worth,” one Government insider said.
And having played the state visit card so early on in his premiership, there are questions about where Starmer goes from here, with no future bribes left to offer. There are ongoing questions about whether the UK can get steel tariffs down or settle a dispute over NHS drugs prices with the US.
“It was right to give him the full-on bling,” one Labour MP said of Trump, adding ruefully: “But next time, what is it we give him? The crown jewels?”
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