David Pratt: There is no such thing as political special relationships - just political expediency

That was the Iron Lady to her “ideological soul mate” US President Ronald Reagan on their first meeting back in 1981. Those were the days, of course, when the measure of the so-called “special relationship” between the UK and United States knew no bounds.

Oh, how times have changed. One can only imagine what Mrs Thatcher’s response would have been had she been subjected to the same contemptuous Twitter barrage that Prime Minister Theresa May has had this week from Donald Trump.

Had they been of the same political time, Maggie and The Donald might have had more in common than I care to contemplate. That said, as I recall, Mrs Thatcher was never one for being told in effect, to go away and mind her own business.

But before anyone thinks I’m going soft in my old age on the one political leader I despised almost as much as I do Mr Trump, let me point out that I’ve never anyway been wholly convinced of that UK-US special relationship.

As I see it, the relationship has always been something of a political myth, with the obvious exception of the considerable defence and intelligence sharing that exists between the two countries.

By and large political leaders as a breed – with a few notable exceptions – care only of what is expedient to them at the time. Or, as another Conservative Prime Minister, John Major, once admitted in New York when the special relationship with the US was at something of a nadir over the Bosnia crisis in the mid 1990s: “We work together when it is to our mutual advantage. We compete when it is not.”

As ever Mrs May took her usual interminable time before finally calling out Mr Trump as wrong to retweet posts from far-right group Britain First. Clear-cut decision-making has never been her forte.

But on this occasion at least, perhaps the Prime Minister did have other things on her mind, given how busy was putting political expediency before principles by further consolidating another of her Government’s “special” relationships.

I’m talking here about Mrs May’s latest cosy get-together with Saudi Arabia’s new leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

That the Crown Prince himself appears to have something of a special relationship with Mr Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, speaks volumes and should be enough to set the alarm bells ringing.

But Mrs May was on a mission of her own, albeit one that reveals yet more political myth-making in action. In the cold light of the Brexit dawn her second visit to Riyadh was aimed at giving the impression Britain is pulling out the stops to embrace other trading partners as our European departure bears down to our substantial cost.

That those deals have so far seen the UK make arms sales to the Saudis worth more than £3.3 billion since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015 matters not a jot to Mrs May. Complicit as Britain is in what even Boris Johnson has called the “world’s worst humanitarian crisis,” Mrs May was able to salve any conscience she might have during her Saudi visit by asking the Crown Prince to lift the devastating blockade the Saudi regime has inflicted on Yemen. This blockade has resulted in an average of 130 Yemeni children dying every day from malnutrition, extreme hunger or disease.

Just how Mrs May managed to reconcile these arms sales with her humanitarian “concern” baffles me. Just what could she have said to the Crown Prince during her special humanitarian pleading?

The hypocrisy of the PM’s position was nailed perfectly by my colleague Andreas Whittam Smith of The Independent on Wednesday, who suggested that Mrs May’s contribution might have gone something along these lines: “Oh, I forgot to tell you on my last visit that you mustn’t actually use the arms we have sold to you.”

Yes, special relationships are fine as long as political expediency doesn’t get in the way, then all niceties fall rapidly by the wayside.

That much was evident too in Washington itself yesterday where news broke that US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson looks likely to be the latest casualty within the Trump administration, with CIA chief Mike Pompeo set to replace him. It has been said that among Mr Tillerson’s mistakes is that he is believed to have privately described Mr Trump as a “moron”. Grounds for promotion, some might argue, were it not that the crackpot commander-in-chief still calls the shots.

Which brings me back specifically to Mr Trump and Mrs May’s latest spat. Were this a Prime Minister with any real spine, capable of thinking on her feet, she would have sent Mr Trump a swift and unequivocal message that says much more than simply he was “wrong”.

Not only should an apology have been demanded, but Mr Trump’s state visit should have been cancelled – though it continues to puzzle me as to why it was ever granted in the first place.

Last week during his official visit to London, Republican Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah spoke of how the “special relationship” was the centre of his conversation with Mrs May. That relationship, insisted Senator Hatch, was built on a “foundation of shared values”, and our commitment to those shared values will “ensure that the cause of freedom will prevail”.

Right now I’m struggling to see anything worth sharing with regard to the values espoused by Mr Trump and his vision of America and the world.

As for her part, Mrs May continues to turn a blind eye to the ranting of an American President whose mental wellbeing and “breaks with reality” was once again under scrutiny by two major US newspapers this week. In tandem she continues also to reinforce the UK’s own onerous and unethical foreign policy relationship with Saudi Arabia.

Alongside all of this the PM and her Government insist on squandering the only special relationship worth having right now, that with our European neighbours.

Mrs Thatcher was wrong in 1981 and Mrs May is wrong today. America’s problems are not always our problems, and when it looks for our friendship perhaps the time has come to tell Washington is does not come unconditionally.