US president Joe Biden reportedly relied on a cue card to help steer him through a meeting with Prime Minister Rishi Sunak at No 10 on Monday.
A beady-eyed photographer spotted the card in Mr Biden’s hands, as he paid a brief visit to the UK, on Monday, ahead of a Nato summit in Lithuania, on Tuesday.
The handwritten card featured five numbered bullet points, with the word ‘Nato’ underlined at the top in an apparent prompt for Mr Biden, according to a report by the Telegraph.
Beside the other numbered points were words including ‘Turkey’ and ‘F-16’ - the latter an apparent reference to the debate regarding whether the US and UK should send F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine to help in its fight-back against Russia.
It is not the first time a US president has shown an apparent penchant for cue cards.
In 2020, when meeting with survivors and families of a shooting that killed 17 people at a high school in Florida, Donald Trump came under fire when he was seen clutching a card that clearly reminded him to offer sympathy.
The officially marked card included the phrases ‘I hear you’, and ‘What would you most want me to know about your experience?’ and ‘What can we do to help you feel safe? and drew widespread criticism online, with many accusing him of feigning empathy.
Mr Biden hailed the relationship between the US and UK as “rock solid” when he met Mr Sunak at No 10 on Monday, telling the prime minister he “couldn’t be meeting with a closer friend and greater ally”.
But their warm display came amid frictions between the US and UK, over issues including the speed at which Ukraine should become a Nato member, the US decision to supply it with controversial cluster munitions, Brexit, and Washington not supporting Defence Secretary Ben Wallace to be the military alliance’s next secretary general.
Mr Biden also met the King on Monday, having missed his Coronation in May.
