UK and US gird for a titanic struggle – if they can avoid falling out first

Analysis: Mundane conflicts over sausage exports have no place in high-flown plans for new Atlantic charter

Whatever precise pressure US diplomats put on Boris Johnson's Brexit negotiator, Lord Frost, ahead of Joe Biden's rather chaotic first photocall with Johnson at the G7 summit at Carbis bay, both sides were keen at their bilateral meeting to put the ugly genie back in the bottle.

The US side claimed there was nothing it had been saying to the British in private about the sanctity of the Good Friday agreement that it had not said in public, adding there had been no presidential directive to the US embassy to heighten the issue via a demarche to Frost, a florid piece of diplomatic jargon of French origin normally reserved for something akin to Russian diplomats caught spying.