Hello and welcome to The Rundown, a podcast from Politics Home with me Alan Tolhurst.

With the Prime Minister in Washington this week, we're taking a look at the so-called special

relationship, the history of the close bilateral partnership between the UK and America,

why it's so enduring, and why it might now be under threat. To discuss all that

and how Kirstama deals with the Donald Trump White House, I'm delighted to be joined by two Labour

MPs, Steve Yem and Chris Evans, as well as Professor Sam Edwards, reader in modern political

history at Loughborough University, and Lord John Alderice, double Democrat peer, who sits

on the International Relations and Defence Committee in the Upper Chamber. And later on in the episode, we'll hear from Katie Perrier,

Downing Street Direct Communications under Theresa May, about what it was like to deal with the

first Trump administration. So I'm going to start with you, Sam. Can you first just give us a

very kind of brief history of the special

relationship and specifically why we call it that?

So as a phrase, the special relationship ultimately goes back to a speech that Winston Churchill

gave in Fulton, Missouri in 1946.

And it's the immediate aftermath of the Second World War.

There are new tensions emerging between East and West.

And he's there at the invitation of Harry Truman to offer his kind of thoughts and insights

as to what those challenges are and what the response might.

The phrase he comes up with in an attempt to suggest that a key way to secure peace and prosperity going forward

is a US-UK special relationship.

And it's an appeal to kind of history and culture and language.

And it's been a touchstone for

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