The prime minister did his best with the press’ questions, as he prepared to ride two horses all the way to Washington

A question that’s been asked a lot about Keir Starmer is, which bit of being prime minister is he a natural at? Everyone knows he’s not Mr Charisma, could he be Mr Competent? Huh, after six months of bad optics, that wasn’t flying either.

It turned out yesterday [Tuesday] that he is incredibly good at surprise escalation. Before noon, we were in a world where the prime minister was about to ride two horses all the way to the US - the horse that supported Ukraine, and the horse that was happy to see a “peace deal” devised by Putin and bloviated by Trump.