Being a vassal is a thankless task. The United States would not have been able to mount such a ferocious attack on Iran if it had been denied use of British bases. Keir Starmer put his neck on the line to corral his cabinet into agreeing to it. And yet Donald Trump has acted like a dinner guest who complains about the service. While bombing Iran from British runways, the US president has sarcastically dismissed his host as not being “Winston Churchill” and said that he doesn’t need “people who join wars after we’ve already won.”

Trump’s criticisms belie the fact that RAF Lakenheath in Suffolk has been facilitating the US buildup for an attack on Iran since early January. His only grounds for grumbling were that there was a forty-eight-hour delay to Britain serving up RAF Fairford and Diego Garcia, the British base on an island in the Indian Ocean, for use in bombing Iran directly.

In one way, the US president’s attacks have suited Starmer in that they have allowed him, for once, to appear to be on the right side of British public opinion. According to the latest YouGov polling, opposition in the UK to US military action against Iran has jumped 10 points to 59 percent with only 25 percent in favor.