PMQs sketch: Boris Johnson and Joe Biden are completely fine, please stop asking

Boris Johnson today welcomed a “refreshing conversation” with the president-elect Joe Biden and everything is going to be fine.

Having been among the last international leaders to congratulate the former VP, the Prime Minister today jumped at the chance to share his conversation with his new best friend, the man replacing Donald Trump.

He said: “We strongly agreed on the need, once again, for the UK and the US to stand together, to stick up for our values around the world, to stick up for human rights, to stick up for global free trade, to stick up for Nato and to work together in the fight against climate change. It was refreshing to have that conversation and I look forward to many more.”

This is presumably the same kind of refreshing as diving into a plunge pool, with the bracing cold immediate and long lasting.

The PM today suggested he and the president elect had a good relationship

Just days ago the PM’s spokesman and Foreign Secretary had refused to say whether all votes should be counted in fear of upsetting the former reality star.

In 2016 Mr Johnson suggested President Barack Obama’s decision to remove a bust of Winston Churchill from the Oval Office was “a symbol of the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”. A new US regime might wipe the slate clean for America, but here the waters are still muddy.

Mr Biden is said to dislike Brexit almost as much as he doesn’t like the PM. His vice-president Kamala Harris is believed to outright hate him. Unfortunately you cannot U-turn on your own behaviour.

Seeing the plight of Mr Johnson, Labour’s Angela Eagle asked if the PM had any advice for his “erstwhile best friend”, whose refusal to accept that he had lost was “embarrassing for him and dangerous for American democracy”.

In a rare commitment to a news line, the PM insisted he had a good relationship with the “previous president” and would not resile from that.

He said: “It is the duty of all prime ministers to have a good relationship with the White House.”

How that’s going to work when Mr Biden dislikes Brexit and his team reportedly believe the PM is a racist remains to be seen.

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