We are very pleased to announce the full line-up for our Coffee House Shots live event on the 26th of February at the Emanuel Centre in Westminster.

Join Coffee House Shots regulars, Michael Gove, Casey Balls, Kate Andrews, as well as very special guests, Robert Jenrick and Jonathan Ashworth for a look to the year ahead.

They will be tackling such questions as, can the chancellor reframe the budget in her first spring

statement what will trump's first 100 days look like and will reform cause an upset at the local

elections so that's in manual centre 730 26th of february and for tickets go to spectator dot co

dot uk forward slash coffee house live we look forward to seeing you there.

An absolute moron. Those were the words used by Chris Lissivita, a senior campaign advisor to Trump to describe Peter Mandelson. Now Lord Mandelson is, of course, Kirstama's choice for the next

ambassador to the US. But Trump may yet refuse his letters of credentials. How wise is this appointment at the dawn

of an uncertain era of US-UK relations? Welcome to the Saturday edition of Coffee House Shots. I'm Cindy Yu,

and I'm joined by James Hill and Sophia Gaston, UK foreign policy lead at a security think tank, Aspie.

So, Sophia, Ambassador to the US is probably the UK's most important diplomatic posting,

especially for dealing with an often erratic president now that he has come in.

What are some of the pitfalls, challenges, things on the intro for whoever this person will be

in the next presidential term?

Well, I think one of the calculations that the Starma government's made,

and certainly I'm sure Peter Mandelson himself has pitched it this way, is that trade will be a

primary focus of these conversations. And that's partly informed by the concerns that Trump will,

you know, impose quite sweeping tariffs that may not just impact America's

adversaries, but also catch its allies in the tailwinds. Now, the UK government's been doing

a lot of work on trying to, I suppose, really pinpoint where the UK's economic interests lie,

and they've determined that it is with the US,

the EU, and China is the kind of big three spheres of trade and investment influence. And I think,

...