Washington
Love Actually? Washington’s current relationship with Britain is more like Contempt Actually | Timothy Garton Ash
“A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend. And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward, I will be prepared to be much stronger. And the president should be prepared for that.” Thus spoke Hugh Grant, playing the British prime minister confronting the US president in a famous scene in the romcom Love Actually. Real-life British prime minister Keir Starmer has attempted to stand up ever so slightly to the current bully in the White House over the latest US war in the Middle East. Despite the British government’s right-royal efforts to flatter Donald Trump ever since he was elected US president, his response to Starmer’s little attempt has been a torrent of contempt. So the reality is not Love Actually. It’s Contempt Actually.
Asked about the British government’s subtle distinction between defensive strikes in the Gulf, which it now supports, and offensive ones, which it doesn’t, Maga ideologue Steve Bannon tells the New Statesman’s Freddie Hayward: “That’s diplomatic bullshit. Fuck you. You’re either an ally or you’re not. Fuck you. The special relationship is over.” Ah, the “special relationship”! It must be 40 years since I first heard former West German chancellor Helmut Schmidt say: “The special relationship is so special only one side knows it exists.”
An American critic of Trump recently asked me the obvious follow-up question: “Why does your government keep grovelling?” More fundamentally, we must ask why so much of official Britain, and especially its security establishment, keeps clinging for dear life to the United States, behaving for all the world like someone stuck in an abusive personal relationship.
To be fair, a lot of other European leaders have spent much of the past year sacrificing their dignity as they suck up to Trump, condoning his trashing of everything that liberal Europe has stood for since 1945. Mark Rutte, the secretary general of Nato, would beat Starmer to win Private Eye’s premier satirical medal, the OBN (Order of the Brown Nose). The reasons for this sycophancy are obvious: Europe’s dependence on the US for supporting Ukraine, for our own security in Nato and, to a significant degree, for our prosperity. But there’s a particular, rather pathetic desperation about the way the British cling to Uncle Sam.
The explanation? History, of course. The US founding fathers grew up thinking of themselves as Englishmen. From 1776 to 1917, when the US entered the first world war, this was, as the historian Robert Saunders nicely puts it, not so much a special as a peculiar relationship. The US defined itself historically against Britain, but there was a mutual fascination. Following the brief but important military alliance in 1917-18, and the subsequent peacemaking in Paris, the US withdrew from Europe.
A special relationship really did exist between 1941, when Winston Churchill managed – with a little help from the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor – to bring the US into the war against Adolf Hitler, and 1956, when the US humiliatingly stopped Britain and France from retaking the Suez canal. The UK and the US were not equals, but this was still a real power partnership, jointly shaping Europe, if not the world.
France and Britain drew sharply contrasting conclusions from their humiliation over Suez. France, under president Charles de Gaulle, built its own independent nuclear deterrent and had already identified the goal that the current French president, Emmanuel Macron, calls European strategic autonomy. Britain, after a brief period of angry alienation from Washington, doubled down on prioritising its relationship with the US. If we could no longer be a great power ourselves, we would be “Athens to America’s Rome”.
Unlike France, Britain built a nuclear deterrent that was and remains technologically dependent on the US, and always put Nato before European construction. In many ways, the British-American relationship did get closer: in intelligence and military cooperation, in academia and media, in finance and the economy (today the UK is the top destination of US direct investment, just ahead of the Netherlands). But at the same time, Britain’s political influence in Washington was steadily diminishing. It clung to it all the more.
The late British Labour politician Robin Cook reported in his memoirs how, in a crucial cabinet debate in the run-up to the Iraq war, then prime minister Tony Blair said: “I tell you that we must steer close to America. If we don’t, we will lose our influence to shape what they do.” But how much influence was there really?
Today, Blair’s former chief of staff Jonathan Powell sits at Starmer’s right hand in 10 Downing Street, trying to do the same with the Trumpians. “We have those relationships so we can have those difficult conversations,” says an anonymous Whitehall source. But the conversations are not difficult for Washington. They are for London, because it has so little clout left.
This trend has been exacerbated by two other developments. The first is the decline of Britain’s armed forces. American soldiers who spent years fighting alongside the British now tell me, with something more like pity than contempt: “You barely have an army any more.” In the current conflict, France got a naval ship to Cyprus before Britain did, although it was a British military base on Cyprus that was attacked by Iran. This weakness, too, finds its echo in popular culture. In the latest season of the Netflix political soap The Diplomat, the saturnine US vice-president (brilliantly played by Rufus Sewell) riffs off the children’s book The Little Engine That Could to describe Britain as “the little island that couldn’t”. Ouch.
The second is Brexit. It’s just blindingly obvious that the UK is less important to the US than it used to be because it’s no longer part of a larger bloc. In Blair’s time, for all the long-term waning of influence, Britain still had two relatively strong legs: the transatlantic one and, as a member of the EU, the European one. In 2016, in what we can today see even more clearly was an act of monumental stupidity, Britain chose to cut off its own European leg. Now Trump is cutting the American one.
Here’s the other reason for Britain’s peculiar, rather pathetic desperation. Unlike France or Germany, it doesn’t have another leg to stand on.
For anyone who loves this country, it’s painful to see how it has reduced itself to being an object of contempt – or at best, pity. Fortunately, there is a path back to self-respect and being respected. While keeping the best possible relations with the US, Britain can set a strategic course towards being a core part of a stronger Europe. This means helping to build up European defence, especially through the Europeanisation of Nato, and it means – as London’s mayor, Sadiq Khan, has just usefully suggested – rejoining the EU. How this could be done, in a timeframe of five to 10 years, and whether it will be possible politically, on both sides of the Channel, are subjects for further columns. Watch this space.
Sign up for The Agenda, Them’s news and politics newsletter, delivered Thursdays.
This story contains descriptions of fatal violence against a transgender person.
The Seattle Police Department are searching for a suspect after a 19-year-old University of Washington student was stabbed to death in an off-campus student apartment complex on May 10.
Seattle Police Department Detective Eric Muñoz told NBC News that the victim is “believed to be a 19-year-old transgender female” who was enrolled at the university. The victim has not yet been publicly identified by name. She was found in the housing complex laundry room shortly after 10 p.m. on Sunday night.
The housing complex, Nordheim Court, is privately managed but affiliated with the university, located near an upscale shopping center in Seattle’s U-Village neighborhood. According to NBC News, residents received an official alert from UW to stay inside their homes and lock all windows and doors — an alert that was lifted around 1 a.m. with the acknowledgment that “a death investigation remains ongoing.”
According to SPD detective Eric Muñoz, police and the fire department attempted lifesaving measures but ultimately “pronounced the victim deceased at the scene.”
“Officers are actively searching for the suspect, believed to be a black male with a beard, 5’6-8” tall, wearing a vest with button up shirt, and blue jeans,” Muñoz wrote in a blotter report.
Muñoz noted that the victim would be identified by the medical examiner’s office in “the coming days.” The SPD did not immediately respond to Them’s request for comment.
This is the seventh known trans person to be violently killed in 2026. In mid-April, 39-year-old transmasculine farmer Luca RedBeard was fatally shot in rural New Mexico. Last week, police in Marion County, Florida opened a homicide investigation into the shooting death of a 29-year-old who went by multiple names and referred to “transitioning” on social media. In Kentucky, an investigation into the disappearance of 22-year-old trans college student Murry Foust remains ongoing.
Police are asking anyone with information about the University of Washington case to call the Violent Crimes Tip Line at 206-233-5000, emphasizing that anonymous tips are accepted.
This is a developing story.
Get the best of what’s queer. Sign up for Them’s weekly newsletter here.
On a quiet stretch of Des Moines Memorial Drive in South Seattle, the Sea Mar Museum of Chicano/a/Latino/a Culture rises like a long‑overdue acknowledgment. Its brick exterior doesn’t shout; it invites. Inside, the rooms hum with the stories of families who crossed borders, harvested fields, organized classrooms, and built communities across Washington state—often without seeing their histories reflected anywhere on a museum wall.
For Rogelio Riojas, founder and CEO of Sea Mar Community Health Centers, the museum is a promise kept. “We wanted to make sure the contributions of Latinos in Washington state are recognized and preserved for future generations,” he told The Seattle Times when the museum opened in 2019. It was a simple statement, but one that captured decades of work—both visible and invisible—by the region’s Latino communities.
Walking through the galleries feels like stepping into a living archive. One of the most arresting sights is a pair of original farmworker cabins, transported from Eastern Washington. Their narrow wooden frames and sparse interiors speak volumes about the migrant families who once slept inside after long days in the fields. The cabins are not replicas or artistic interpretations; they are the real thing, weathered by sun, dust, and time. They anchor the museum’s narrative in the physical realities of labor that shaped the state’s agricultural economy.
Sea Mar describes the museum as “dedicated to sharing the history, struggles, and successes of the Latino community in Washington state,” a mission that plays out in photographs, letters, student newspapers, and oral histories contributed by community members themselves. These aren’t artifacts chosen from afar—they’re family treasures, personal archives, and memories entrusted to the museum so they can live beyond the kitchen tables and shoeboxes where they were once kept.
The story extends beyond the museum walls. Just steps away is the Sea Mar Community Center, a sweeping, light‑filled gathering space designed for celebrations, performances, workshops, and community events. With room for nearly 500 people, a full stage, a movie‑theater‑sized screen, and a catering kitchen, the center was built with one purpose: to give the community a place to see itself, gather, and grow. Sea Mar describes it as “a welcoming space for families, organizations, and community groups to gather, celebrate, and learn,” and on any given weekend, it lives up to that promise.
Together, the museum and community center form a cultural campus—part historical archive, part living room for the region’s Latino communities. Students come to learn about the Chicano activists who reshaped the University of Washington in the late 1960s. Families come to see their own histories reflected in the exhibits. Visitors come to understand a story that has long been present in Washington, even if it wasn’t always visible.
The Sea Mar Museum is open Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. and Saturdays from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m., offering free admission to anyone who walks through its doors. For many, it’s more than a museum—it’s a recognition, a gathering place, and a testament to the people who helped shape the Pacific Northwest.
Preserving Latino History and Community Life in Washington was first published on Washington Latino News (WALN) and republished with permission.
Celebrate Mothers Day with à la carte brunch at Lady Madison featuring seafood, entrées, desserts, and premium beverage options.
Celebrate Mothers Day in sophisticated style at Lady Madison, located inside Le Méridien Washington, DC, The Madison. Join us on Sunday, May 10, 2026, from 12:003:00 PM for an elevated à la carte brunch experience in downtown Washington, DC.
Enjoy a refined selection of chef-driven brunch classics, fresh seafood, seasonal salads, and elegant entrées. Highlights include a Build Your Own Omelette, Crab Benedict with lime hollandaise, Chilled Seafood Trio, and signature mains such as Roasted Rack of Lamb, Cedar Plank Sea Bass, and Marinated New York Strip Loin.
End on a sweet note with classic desserts including Crème Brûlée Cheesecake, Fruit Tart, Strawberry Shortcake, and Passion Fruit Cake.
Enhance your experience with beverage offerings, including bottomless Mimosas and Bloody Marys for $30 with house selections. Piper-Heidsieck Champagne is also available by the glass for $16 or by the bottle for $49.
Reserve on OpenTable:
https://www.opentable.com/booking/experiences-availability?rid=1426987&restref=1426987&experienceId=695240&utm_source=external&utm_medium=referral&utm_campaign=shared
À La Carte Menu
Les ufs & Brunch
Egg White Frittata $24
spinach, tomato, mushrooms, green onion
Served with pommes de terre rissolées or seasonal fruit
Build Your Own Omelette $24
ham, smoked salmon, vegetables, cheeses (choose up to 3)
Served with pommes de terre rissolées or seasonal fruit
Crab Benedict $24
lime hollandaise, salsa cruda
Served with pommes de terre rissolées or seasonal fruit
Brioche French Toast $17
berry compote, whipped butter, maple syrup
Les Froids & Salades
Chilled Seafood Trio $28
Jonah crab claws, shrimp, cocktail sauce
Spring Berry Salad $17
brie, berries, champagne vinaigrette
Golden & Crimson Beet Salad $18
red wine vinaigrette
Add protein: shrimp, salmon, skirt steak +18 | chicken +16
Les Plats Principaux
Roasted Rack of Lamb $42
mint sauce, huckleberry reduction, sweet potato purée, asparagus
Cedar Plank Sea Bass $49
saffron rice, spring vegetables
New York Strip Loin $42
mushroom sauce, truffle croquette potatoes, haricots verts
Les Desserts $14
Crème Brûlée Cheesecake
Fruit Tart
Strawberry Shortcake
Passion Fruit Cake
-
South Dakota3 minutes agoBlack Hills Bottlenecks: Road work update for the week of May 11
-
Tennessee9 minutes agoNew Tennessee law allows K9 officers to be transported by helicopter, ambulance to vet
-
Texas15 minutes agoTexas sues Netflix, alleges platform spied on kids and collected data
-
Utah21 minutes agoTeens airlifted to Utah County hospitals after rollover of at least 50 yards | Gephardt Daily
-
Vermont27 minutes agoCommentary | Afonso-Rojas: Who pays when businesses ignore risks?
-
Virginia33 minutes agoVirginia Supreme Court voids voter-approved redistricting referendum
-
Washington39 minutes ago
19-Year-Old Transgender University of Washington Student Fatally Stabbed
-
Wisconsin45 minutes agoSuspected human bones found in northern Wisconsin
