Is Boris Johnson learning to stand up to Donald Trump?

With bust-ups over Huawei, the tech tax and Iran, is the love-in between the two blond leaders over?

We became used to reading that Boris Johnson, once in No 10, would be Donald Trump’s poodle, and there were very some good reasons for believing that.

During the Tory leadership race, he urged us to “pay tribute” to the US president’s record and there was the occasion he came close to allowing Washington to pick our ambassador.

Of course, Johnson has also been accused of mimicking Trump’s record for near-pathological fib-telling and for offensive and incendiary comments to fire up his supporter base.

However, there is no doubt that the prime minister is switching tack quite dramatically in ways that point to some major bust-ups with the White House in the near future.

First, there was the crisis over Iran, where No 10’s backing of the right to assassinate Qassem Soleimani masked a more subtle alignment with France and Germany’s desire to rescue the nuclear deal.

Even when Johnson called for “a Trump deal” to replace the apparently-doomed agreement, this was an attempt to flatter the ego of the “great deal-maker” (sic) to try to get him back to the table.

Then there is the Huawei controversy, where the UK is poised to defy the US’s firm instruction to dump the Chinese company over security fears and allow it to help build our 5G network.

Downing Street does little to hide its anger with Washington, convinced the risk is manageable and determined to avoid the multi-billion-pound bill for abandoning Huawei.

But the greatest tension is over the UK’s planned digital services tax, a two per cent levy on Google, Facebook and the like from April, which has provoked US fury and which the EU plans to copy.

Many expected the government to give way when the US threatened a retaliatory tax on UK car exports – and a tougher fight for a post-Brexit trade deal – but ministers held firm.

Johnson then went further, through his spokesperson, telling Trump that both their countries will suffer if he starts a trade war.

So what is going on? The prime minister appears to have undergone a crash course in how UK interests clash with those of his friend in the White House – and, to his credit, to assert them.

His supporters will argue he has earned the space to do so, by building a friendship with Trump in the first place, and that might even have some truth to it.

But the tragedy, of course, is that the UK stands side-by-side with our European allies, facing the rogue giant across the Atlantic, at the very moment we imperil that alliance with the self-mutilation of Brexit.