Keir Starmer defends time spent abroad, saying he likes to meet leaders 'face to face'

Mid-air, in between Paris in France and Baku in Azerbaijan, Sir Keir Starmer was asked: "Are you jet-setting too much?"

By the end of next week (after another four days at the G20 in Brazil), the Prime Minister will have spent more than three weeks overseas since the start of September.

"The question is what am I spending my time doing, not where I am," he responded, arguing that he preferred meeting world leaders in person.

"I think the best way to build good relations that are based on trust and respect is face to face. I'm a big believer in face-to-face engagement."

Starmer said his time abroad had been largely focused on two key priorities - driving economic growth and border control.

"Border security [has] come up time and again, when I was in Italy, when I was in Germany. It was the subject of my discussion with the Chancellor [Scholz]... And, again today with President Emmanuel Macron.

"I have been having an in-detailed discussion about what we are going to do to take down the gangs, running this vile trade."

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After his meeting with Macron, to mark remembrance day, the PM was headed to Baku for Cop29 - a climate conference in which dozens of world leaders are grappling with how the process continues in the light of a Donald Trump victory in the US.

Just days ago, Trump described climate change as a hoax and is likely to take the US out of the Paris Agreement, and as such, the whole Cop process.

Where Joe Biden brought in the biggest investment in green technology in US history, Trump wants to ramp up oil and gas production.

Starmer's argument is that climate change both represents a real threat and a massive economic opportunity - and one that may even be boosted as a result of America's turn back to Trump.

But the PM will also be under pressure - alongside other leaders of developed countries - to ramp up the money offered to support the developing countries most hit by the pain of climate change.

Those countries want a $100 billion pot - agreed in 2022 (two years after it was due to be reached) to be worth a trillion dollars this time round. But in reality there are a number of sticking points.

First developed countries want most of that money to come from the private sector and not governments. And secondly they want some countries that have long been recipients of aid to start contributing.

Take China, for example. Historically it was easily trumped by the US on emissions but has now become the biggest emitter in the world. So should it now be contributing to a fund, as well as benefiting from it?

Those are the questions that will be addressed during two days in Baku for a conference with more than one issue shadowing over it. As well as the impending Trump presidency is the fact that some country leaders simply didn't show up this time round.

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