His first 12 months at the Foreign Office have been hit by a string of high-stakes international flashpoints, from the unfolding horror in Gaza to regime change in Syria and Trump’s humiliation of Zelenskyy – but he’s not panicking
“R
emind me: why weren’t we able to meet in Washington DC?” David Lammy asks, spoon of Pret chicken laksa suspended in front of his mouth. It’s lunchtime in the foreign secretary’s office, a vast room of gilt edges, damask drapery and waxed oak. “Because Israel bombed Iran, and your trip was cancelled,” I say. “Oh, yes.” He scrapes the bottom of the pot, perhaps remembering the snap Cobra session on 13 June, the world holding its breath, the shared feeling we were on the brink of global war. It’s three weeks on and the heat of imminent conflict has lessened, if not the actual temperature, shining in the faces of staff. Lammy apologises for squeezing me into his lunch break. His schedule, running down a whiteboard in the ante office, is precision-timed. After our chat, he will be whisked off to Cyprus to see British troops, then to Beirut overnight, then a car ride through the mountains into Syria, where he’ll meet the new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly the head of the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Lammy will be the first British minister to set foot in the country in 14 years.
