We now know the form with these events: British PM pays deferential homage to the American president, who repays the compliment with warm words for the special ties the US feels for Britain. The dynamic is usually clear: the Brit is grateful simply to be standing next to the most powerful man in the world. He is yapping spaniel; the American is top dog.
Occasionally, that alters. When Tony Blair visited Bill Clinton in early 1998, the latter was mired in the Monica Lewinsky scandal – he needed Blair there calling him "friend". George W Bush, too, found he needed Blair, chiefly because the PM could explain Bush's war on terror more articulately than Bush could.
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