'Come on in, man' Starmer makes successful debut on world stage

As Keir Starmer arrived at the Oval Office, Joe Biden was at the door to meet him. "Come on in, man," the US president told him. The invitation was not simply to enter the heart of the White House, but also the major league of world leaders.

- Pippa Crerar

The day before, on the flight to Washington DC for the Nato summit on Tuesday, Starmer admitted that the days since the Labour party pulled off its landslide election victory had been a bit of a whirlwind.

He said: "This time last week... I was just checking into a hotel that was more like a bed and breakfast in Carmarthen and about to do the last day of the campaign. And here we are now on the way to the Nato summit - so a real transition."

Biden was a generous host. The White House, not usually keen on bilateral talks during major international summits so as to avoid any individual nation feeling left out, made an exception for the newly elected Starmer.

Sitting alongside the prime minister under a portrait of Franklin D Roosevelt, he told reporters the two countries were the "best of allies in the whole world" before their timetabled 45-minute meeting stretched to almost an hour.

For Starmer, the visit could not have come at a better time. Just five days into office, and with a massive parliamentary majority of 174 under his belt, other leaders wanted to find out how he did it, especially those facing political headwinds at home. "Everybody loves a winner," said one official.

Over the course of two days in DC, Starmer and his team of David Lammy, the foreign secretary, and John Healey, the defence secretary, between them managed to meet every single one of the other 31 Nato leaders.

They included natural allies -progressives such as Justin Trudeau of Canada and Olaf Scholz of Germany - but also those less likely to be regarded as natural political bedfellows, such as Italy's Georgia Meloni and Viktor Orbán, the Hungarian prime minister who put Nato backs up by meeting Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump within the space of a week.

"Labour is looking to reset that and encourage more, even though there's a difference of political views," Healey explained after a brief meeting with Orbán.