The US vice president has arrived here and I think we are all agreed that if the visit is to be a success, the great thing is to keep him from the other American who resides in the Cotswolds where he’ll be spending much of his time: Ellen DeGeneres, the controversial former talk-show host. If I were Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, I’d be making that a priority.
But the important thing is that the visit should be a success. There are small, vocal groups who intend to go out of their way to make sure it isn’t, and that the vice president and his family are made to feel unwelcome — notably the Stop Trump Coalition, who seem to want to make him go home early.
Make Friends and Influence People is the way to go
But it’s a silly, self-indulgent approach. Make Friends and Influence People is the way to go. If we want, for instance – and we should – to persuade JD that the US should be less reliably supportive of the Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, and his hair-raising Gaza strategy, the way to go is to establish a relationship first, and then offer constructive criticism.
What sensible people should want, therefore, is that JD Vance enjoys his holiday, meets pleasant, sensible people, forges good relationships with members of the government and comes away with the conviction that the British are, essentially, friends. If the PM can manage this with Donald Trump, it should be far easier with the intelligent vice president.
This is a man who, notwithstanding his observations about free speech here (on which, I’m afraid, he’s dead right), is fundamentally well disposed to Britain. His friend, James Orr, a Cambridge don, observes that he likes the Brits and likes the country. His wife, Usha, a lawyer, was a post-graduate student at Cambridge. Let’s make it our business, collectively, to give our guests a good time.
The Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, is giving this all he’s got, namely, Chevening, the terrifically agreeable historic house and estate that was gifted to the country by the last Earl Stanhope, as a way of continuing his family’s service to the nation. He’s playing host to the Vances there and it’s hard to think of anywhere more conducive to a good relationship than a stay in a house where Inigo Jones (reputedly) presided over the modernisation.
More importantly, David Lammy, at least on the occasions I have met him, is a friendly, affable individual. He gets on with people, which is sort of a prerequisite for the job. And with JD he has established a relationship based on fundamental affinities: class and faith.
In an interview with the BBC, he has said: "Let me just say on JD Vance that I've met him now on several occasions, we share a similar working-class backgrounds with addiction issues in our family. We've written books on that, we've talked about that, and we're both Christians. So I think I can find common ground with JD Vance."
Both men came from challenging backgrounds, JD more than David Lammy, who had the good fortune of winning a choral scholarship to the King’s School at Peterborough cathedral when he was 11, where “stability, culture, calm, comfort, duty, service, and tradition were instilled in me.” JD didn’t have that, but the crucial thing is that both of them had to struggle to get where they are now.
Funnily enough it gives the Vice President an affinity with Angela Rayner, the Deputy PM, too. The three of them met in the US ambassador’s residence in Rome at the time of the new pope’s inauguration, and Lammy observed that they were “not just working-class politicians, but people with dysfunctional childhoods … I had this great sense that JD completely relates to me and he completely relates to Angela.”
This may be not true of everyone the Vances meet during their holidays, especially if he comes across David Cameron in his native habitat, who more or less embodies the entitled classes, but usefully, has enormous charm.
The last time I visited the Cotswolds, it felt like being stuck inside a Jilly Cooper novel
As for the area, it has been described as Potemkin England, a version of the country which bears no resemblance to the situation of anyone outside that region of rolling hills and enormous house prices where you can’t get a cleaning lady for love nor money. The last time I visited, it felt like being stuck inside a Jilly Cooper novel.
But the Vances aren’t to know that. As far as they’re concerned, they’re staying in typical England, and let’s just make sure that they don’t come across anyone from the Soho House set – or rather its Cotwolds outpost, Soho Farmhouse. They’re the kind who would dine out on recollections of being rude to JD Vance.
Holiday diplomacy is a crucial exercise of soft power
Seriously, holiday diplomacy is a crucial exercise of soft power. It’s influence through hospitality, congenial intellectual company and impressive historical cachet – it’s nice to know that the Vances will be visiting Hampton Court, because Cardinal Wolsey and Henry VIII can’t fail to please.
Think what Emmanuel Macron would do if he could get the Vances to visit France; he is the master of grand and ostentatious hospitality, notably with President Trump. And which do you think influences people more: the stupid Trump baby balloon over London that the Mayor sanctioned during the Trump visit, or the president’s visit to Windsor Castle? One approach is people venting their spleen; the other is actual engagement.
Of course, people can protest about the visit as much as they like, and obviously, there are areas where the Trump administration’s view of the world – notably in respect of tariffs and Israeli policy towards Gaza – is very different from the British and I have no doubt that David Lammy will be making that clear. But if you want to influence people, you’re better off engaging with them.
So, like I say, keep the vice president away from Ellen DeGeneres. She’s the kind of person he’s here to get away from.
