Robert Peston asks: Will May’s meeting with Trump be the most pointless in history?

I am outside Downing Street (with the mob you can see below) waiting for arguably the most pointless meeting between government heads in history. A US president whose policies on climate change, Iran and China (the security risks of buying kit from Huawei) are totally at odds with the British government’s will shortly have coffee with a lame-duck Prime Minister Theresa May - who will be out of Downing Street in a few weeks.

There is no reason why he should respond to any pressure from her. But even so perhaps this will be the moment when she emulates Emmanuel Macron and speaks difficult truth to power, since she has literally nothing to lose - and there is little about his values and conduct that is in tune with hers.

But in practice that might be an exercise in pure futility. It would probably be a “Father Ted kicks Bishop Brennan up the arse” moment because Trump would be so shocked, he would not believe it had actually happened.

But even if standing up to Trump is gesture politics, meeting him and delivering a tough message would be seen by many voters as more honourable than the breathless supplication of many of the PM’s colleagues or the student-politics megaphone character assassination executed by Jeremy Corbyn. But as you can see, Larry ain’t bovvered by any of this.