Keir Starmer didn’t make the cut for the guest list in Washington DC. But given the company, he shouldn’t sweat it

No UK prime minister, or indeed any other world leader, has ever been to the inauguration of a US president since the record of attenders began in 1874. It is more likely ignorance than iconoclasm that has led Donald Trump to invite a bunch of leaders anyway.

In other words, Keir Starmer shouldn’t sweat it that he’s not on the invite list. Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Narendra Modi both are, but are not expected to attend: in the first case because he’s busy; in the second, who knows? Trump’s and Modi’s politics aren’t wildly dissimilar, but I can see Modi thinking: “Dude, you’re coming off like an incredibly inexperienced PR person, trying to pack a party by sticking Hello! magazine on a dart board and just seeing where the arrows land.”