Sir Keir Starmer and Jonathan Powell are cut from the same cloth. According to officials in No 10, both the Prime Minister and his National Security Adviser are lawyerly, serious and earned their spurs in the late 1990s when a multilateral, human-rights consensus underpinned all foreign policy decisions.

“They both epitomise grown-up government, and when it comes to dealing with China, co-operating where we can and challenging where we need to,” a Cabinet colleague of Starmer told The i Paper . As evidence of how well the PM is served, the senior minister cited Powell’s long list of experience as Tony Blair’s chief of staff , alongside his role in negotiating the Good Friday peace agreement, and as founder of Inter-Mediate, a charity specialising in global conflict resolution.

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