Why Sunak is now banking on a special relationship with Germany

Armed with his landmark defence spending pledge, the prime minister found himself warmly welcomed on diplomatic visits to Warsaw and Berlin – but then his Rwanda scheme drew unfriendly fire from Emmanuel Macron. What does it all mean for Britain’s shifting alliances within Europe, asks Mary Dejevsky

Wednesday’s meeting between Rishi Sunak and his German counterpart, Olaf Scholz, was overshadowed by a diplomatic gaffe (AP)

Having delegated most of the country’s public diplomacy to Lord Cameron, since he unexpectedly signed him up as foreign secretary, Rishi Sunak has spent some of this week on what seemed a strange little diplomatic expedition of his own.

It was an expedition to Europe, no less – but not Europe in the sense of the EU, or Brussels, or even Paris, where the signalling might have been of a tentative post-Brexit rapprochement. The prime minister went to Poland and Germany, with what looked like rather different objectives in mind.

Poland and Germany... you hardly need any reminder that this country’s relations with both have been, how shall we say, problematic, over the past century or so. For all Sunak’s enthusing to his German “Freund”, Olaf (chancellor Scholz), about the long history of excellent relations, “long” seems to have a certain elasticity.