As a consultant psychiatrist, this is how Ukraine crisis has transformed the PM | UK

The body language when Keir Starmer met Volodymyr Zelensky could not have been more different compared to when the PM met President Trump. And radically at odds with the Ukrainian leader’s own bruising Oval Office experience last week. The relaxed, friendly gestures, arm-patting and close, personal hug suggested there is a more personable side to our hitherto decidedly wooden Prime Minister than we have seen. President Zelensky’s arrival in Downing Street certainly seemed to conjure the best from Sir Keir, who has previously been mocked as robotic.

As a professional people watcher, I get the sense Starmer may have finally found the cause that makes him feel like a mover and shaker on the world stage. After what was widely regarded even by critics as a strong performance in the White House last week, Sir Keir has been gifted a further opportunity to act the global statesman. Since Zelensky remains hugely popular in Europe, if not in the White House, maybe the PM has calculated he needs to ride these coat-tails for as long as it takes to reverse his own personal slide in popularity. Or perhaps what is really happening, psychologically, is a reflection of the sheer relief the PM feels that his own Oval Office appearance didn’t descend into the catastrophe that befell his Ukrainian colleague.

Psychologists understand the emotional power of contrast and, while the PM appeared less polished than his French counterpart Emanuel Macron in dealing with the new US President, the Zelensky bloodbath may have given him his confidence back. Indeed, compared to a man struggling with English as a second language and emotionally traumatised by a brutal war that has cost at least 55,000 Ukrainian lives, our Prime Minister positively shone when it came to dealing with Trump.

However, Sir Keir must be careful not to fall prey to sheer giddy euphoria that may lead him to be too expansive and too elated, just as anyone can be when a bit tipsy. He could as a result of the intoxication of emotions, give away too much; getting his wallet out and appearing willing to now buy round after round.

After all, these are merely the first encounters of the new presidency, opening shots in the latest diplomatic skirmishes, not the end game. But no matter whether he was metaphorically drunk on the new sense of positivity, we saw a side to Sir Keir we are not used to – he could even apparently ad-lib. Remarking on the cheers outside, he told the Ukrainian leader: “That is the people of the United Kingdom coming out to demonstrate how much they support you, how much they support Ukraine.” He added: “We stand with you and Ukraine for as long as it may take.” But those words may not come back to haunt him.

Offering up a personal visit to the King on his visit to the US last week was a clever stroke, but it courts danger now Trump is back to being, well, Trump. Not only will it risk alienating supporters in the UK; but having scooped President Zelensky up off the pavement, dusted him down and given him a hero’s welcome, he is in danger of underdoing his own good work in the US last week. Trump values loyalty above all else and by siding with the Ukranian leader, Sir Keir risks the wrath of the most powerful man in the world. That is not to say that he should have done anything differently, it is simply to point out the facts of realpolitik.

No matter how careful the PM has been with his wording of his reaction to the Trump-Zelensky fist fight, the US leader may be fuming and now scheming at what his fragile ego may see as a betrayal. Now we have witnessed a new fluid and dynamic Starmer, how do we explain the wooden, puppet-like character just a few days ago who appeared to have all his strings pulled from the dominant Trump? The contrast in body language was startling: with Zelensky, Starmer sat with legs crossed toward the Ukrainian leader; with Trump, he radiated terror and his legs were crossed pointedly away from the US President.

There had been much interest in analysing the body language of when Starmer met Trump. Many have tried to read between the lines of the script. Yet no one has employed a psychiatrist, a professional sleuth, clinically trained and experienced in deciphering what even professional manipulators, like politicians, really think, as opposed to what they want you to think, they think. You don’t need to be Sigmund Freud to discern that all foreign leaders now arrive in Washington struggling to hide their abject terror at confronting the most unpredictable, frequently insulting, yet powerful, man on the planet.

Even his apparent craziness is actually a strategy, not unfamiliar to psychological specialists in negotiations. Henry Kissinger who rose to the top of US diplomacy in the Nixon years even admitted to advising the so-called, “madman” strategy.

Before Trump, the best example was North Korea leader Kim Jong-Un, who is widely regarded as so possibly unhinged, he might go as far as pressing the nuclear button, even if it leads to annihilation of his own country.

As a result of this ‘fear factor’, world leaders treat the threat from North Korea with more respect than warranted from such a threadbare state. Trump may revel in behaving as if he is unstable, as an act of cunning, not just clinical insanity. When he apparently denies that he ever referred to the President of Ukraine as a dictator, there is more going on behind that poker face.

The true test of the actual temperature of a relationship is not when things are going well, and everyone is smiling for the camera, but instead, when there is a collision on stage as we saw when Trump met Zelensky. We can only hope our own PM – and the vital relationship the UK has with America – isn’t now heading for such a car crash.