April 28, 2026 - AS IT BROKE: New UK Ambassador to US says America's "special relationship" is with Israel, not the UK

I did not think the thing that would make the King's visit arguably more uncomfortable would be

comments by the UK ambassador to the United States, but it's looking as though that might be the case

in leaked remarks, Christian Turner, who took over from Peter Mandelson, has said the special

relationship that America has is probably with Israel, not the UK. He also said it was extraordinary

his word that the Epstein scandal hadn't affected sex offenders in, sorry, hadn't affected the

sex offenders US associates, which again we've remarked on in our conversations, haven't we,

but the fact that the British ambassador to Washington would say that America's only special

relationship is probably with Israel, not the UK. That certainly risks embarrassing at the

King during his visit to the UK this week. It doesn't feel very ambassadorial, but let's find

out more detail on it from Simon Marx, LBC's Washington correspondent. Do we know how these

comments emerged Simon? Yes Sheila, this is leaked audio that the financial times has just published

of the now ambassador to the United States, a Christian Turner, and he was speaking just a matter

of days, I think, possibly a couple of weeks after he started in the job here in Washington, DC,

speaking to a group of visiting students from the UK, and just to put all of this into context,

at this moment, the band at the White House, I was just up on the roof of our building, and you

could hear the band rehearsing for the arrival, the formal arrival ceremony of the King and Queen

at the White House. This state visit officially getting underway here within the next hour,

and suddenly this bombshell article has appeared by the financial times in which Christian Turner,

Peter Mendelssohn's successor as the UK's ambassador, someone who hosted the garden party at the

British Embassy last night for the King, someone who is of course accompanying the King and Queen

throughout this state visit, is articulating the view that the special relationship between

the United States and the UK is essentially no more. Special relationship is a phrase I try not to

say, because it's quite nostalgic, it's a lot backwards looking, and it has a lot to baggage about it,

I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States,

so that's Christian Turner saying that the only special relationship that he sees that the United

States currently enjoys is between the United States and Israel, that flies in the face of everything

that we've heard from the Prime Minister over the last many weeks where he keeps pointing to various

aspects of the bilateral relationship between the US and the UK and says, look in intelligence,

sharing in two-way trade, you can see the special relationship in action only yesterday.

Deputy Prime Minister David Lamy told our colleague Ben Kentish that the special relationship

between the US and the UK was intact. This whole visit is about trying to promote the idea

that the special relationship not only is still vibrant, but absolutely is something that can

extend, as the King we think we'll say in his remarks to Congress today, for decades to come,

and there is a Christian Turner, the new British ambassador to the United States telling a

group of students earlier this year that he doesn't buy it, that he thinks the special

relationship is an overblown concept and an artifact of history. Well, how damaging this is depends

on what happens next, really, doesn't it, including what the King says in his speech this evening,

because what he seems to have been trying to get at there is that the relationship

quotient a bit more. There is a deep history affinity between us, particularly on defence

and security, we're into twine, the relationship will carry on if you want being, quote, special,

but I think it's going to have to be different. Is that not just a fact that it's going to have to

be different? Well, it is a fact that it's going to have to be different, but that's not the way

in which we have heard the Prime Minister characterize things over the course of the last many

months. I mean, he, I think, would concede that the relationship is taking a different form now,

but he has repeated again and again that the special relationship in action still exists. I

mean, there are other comments in this interview and we're still processing all the audio from it

that will also cause, I think, concern in London. So, Christian Turner told the students that the

British Prime Minister, Sir Keastama, had been on the ropes earlier this year from the fallout

over the appointment of Lord Mandelson and that the Labour Party might remove him after the

local elections in May. I mean, again, one can argue that that's simply a statement of facts,

but it's certainly not a set of facts that number 10 would embrace. He also, and it's an odd

thing for an ambassador to be shown now. It's a very odd thing for an ambassador after everything

that the embassy in this town has gone through over the course of the last several months to be

making these pretty undiplomatic comments in the earliest phases of your ambassador ship. I think

we'll raise questions. He also says that senior British figures, including his predecessor,

Lord Mandelson, and potentially the Prime Minister, that's a quote, had been brought down by

the Mandelson affair. And he also makes the point that in the United States, and this again

is a fact, it is extraordinary in his words that the scandal hasn't touched anybody even as it

is causing such difficulty for number 10, and of course for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. But

these comments about the special relationship. He doesn't like the phrase. He thinks it's nostalgic

backwards looking and has a lot of baggage about it. I think he's going to raise questions

here in Washington, DC, and questions on both sides of the Atlantic about how Donald Trump is going

to respond to a British ambassador who appears in many ways to be playing into Donald Trump's hands

by saying, yeah, well, the special relationships and artifact of history, it's the thing of the past,

there's too much baggage associated with it. I mean, that's very much not the official talking

point of the government or indeed the king. But what Donald Trump won't like is what

Sir Christian Turner said about the different levels of accountability in our systems, that the

the Mandelson, sorry, the Epstein stuff hadn't touched people in the US, but in the way that it

has touched people in the UK, I doubt he'd like that. But can I ask you, do we need to check the water

supply and they are ambassadors' residents? Because you've had Kim Daruk being kicked out of the job

because of, you know, speaking arguably too bluntly in notes rather than verbally.

You've got Peter Mandelson, blessed about that, the better we know what that situation is.

And now this, I mean, aren't ambassadors meant to be ambassadorial?

Yeah, I mean, we should note that I see in the FT, Sir Peter Westmacott, who of course was also

a British ambassador to the US, is defending Christian Turner, saying it can be embarrassing

when remarks intended for a private audience are made public. But I see no reason why what he said

to a group of students a couple of months ago need affect his ability to continue the excellent

start he has made in DC. And a foreign office spokesperson said these were private informal comments

made to a group of UK sixth-form students visiting the US in early February. They are certainly

not any reflection of the UK's, the UK government's position. Now that's an interesting statement

because there's no defense of the ambassador in that statement. That's from the Foreign

Commonwealth and Development Office to the FT. The FT says that Christian Turner,

as a Christian Turner, was approached for comment. It doesn't look like he gave one. But just to do

that read that foreign office statement again, these were private informal comments made to a group

of UK sixth-form students visiting the US in early February. They are certainly not any reflection

of the UK, the UK government's position. They are not saying, as Sir Peter Westmacott is saying,

I see no reason why what he said to a group of students a couple of months ago need affect his

ability to continue the excellent start he has made. But also Simon, you know, you probably give

talks to young students I do from time to time. And you know, it's not even just young students.

If you give a talk, you can expect a phone to be on. Well, absolutely. And especially, I mean,

and even frankly, if a phone, even if you don't suspect that a phone might be recording you,

I mean, somebody can still relate to what he said. It was inheriting such a poisoned chalice here

in Washington, DC. I mean, it almost seems extraordinary that he was even entertaining meetings

with a group of UK sixth-form students in February given that he was, you know, just beginning to get

to grips with the job. I don't mind. I would have thought that, you know, an experienced person

would be able to dance around those difficulties carefully and appropriately.

Well, absolutely. And he has experience. There's no question about it. He's lived and worked

in the United States before. That's one of the reasons why he was picked by the Prime Minister to

take over from Lord Mendelssohn. But given the storm clouds that had broken over that embassy,

and my understanding is that morale at the embassy has been deeply damaged by the Mendelssohn

affair and by everything that the staff at the embassy who were working with Peter Mendelssohn

and then of course had to package belongings up and see the ambassador shipped back to the UK.

Everything that they had gone through, the morale there was already very dented.

I mean, you know, whatever one thinks of the tenor of some of these comments,

it's pretty extraordinary that you would be this outspoken this early in your tenure

with a group of six-form students and going to the heart of the central issue

between the US and the UK. I mean, we all get so hung up on this special relationship phrase.

It's become, you know, a millstone, frankly, around everybody's necks. But here's Christian Turner

saying we've got to move on from the notion of the special relationship and that the only special

relationship the United States has is with Israel. I mean, the US government would say that it's

got a special relationship traditionally with the French as well as the UK. So I just think that

it's going to create an enormous diversion of attention that neither the government nor the

king and the queen are likely to welcome at the very moment we are waiting for the king to arrive,

presumably flanked by Ambassador Christian Turner, who must have learned presumably within the

last few hours, maybe the last couple of days that this story was coming in the financial times.

It's a deeply uncomfortable moment for him. They might not have known, of course, that it was coming.

Well, he says it, they say he was approached for comment. And the fact that we know that the foreign

office had this issued this statement. I mean, the Whitehall certainly knew this was coming,

whether they knew it was coming today. Another inquiry, another inquiry,

another inquiry, another inquiry. The thing about that term, the special relationship is,

it doesn't have to be a millstone. And in many ways, it is true that we do have a special

relationship inasmuch. He alluded to it, the history, the ongoing security and military cooperation

that is very, very deep indeed and runs long as well. We know who the senior partner in it is,

but many American generals over the years, I've been doing this job speak incredibly highly about

the British military and the work that they've done hand in hand. So it is a special relationship

compared to lots of other countries. It doesn't have to be the single most. It doesn't have to be

the special relationship in the way it was in 1949, whatever it is. But it is still a close

relationship by any measure, isn't it? Absolutely. And it is a vital strategic relationship,

as the government constantly points out, when you look at the degree of intelligence sharing,

when you look at the degree of two-way trade, when you look at the degree of broader strategic

alliances that the US and the UK governments have in a whole variety of different areas,

it is a critical bilateral relationship. And the health of it always depends on the nature

of the Prime Minister and the President of the day. I mean, who would have imagined, for example,

that Tony Blair and George W. Bush would ever find common cause, given that they came from completely

different philosophical and ideological backgrounds, and yet they obviously did and fatefully so

in deciding to jointly back the decision to go to war and topple Saddam Hussein in Iraq. I mean,

Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were ideological and philosophical soulmates, but they too had

strains in their relationship over the Falkland Islands, over Grenada. They were not always

peas in a pod together, even though I think historians tend to look back on that relationship,

often through rose tinted spectacles. And then you have people from similar philosophical and

ideological backgrounds who didn't get along so well, as we've seen an increasing strain developing

between the Republican Party here in the United States and the Tory Party. And so the relationship

always has a different patina and a different tone, I see that we are now seeing the marching bands

making their way at the White House, making their way across the White House lawn,

all sorts of martial music being played ahead of the arrival of the Royal couple for the start of this

White House state visit the formal welcome ceremony that's going to take place. There will be

comments coming in the course of the next few minutes from both the King and the President,

and we'll hear how they characterize the relationship when they make their remarks.

Thank you very much indeed Simon. There'll be comments coming shortly on our calls as well. Aaron

says fair play to Sir Christian Turner, showing he's capable of critical thinking and honesty.

Would you prefer he lied to the students? That's from Aaron in Windsor, Windsor appropriately.