As the US marks 250, does the special relationship still exist – or is the UK just irrelevant?

The gap between America and Britain has grown economically as Trump asserts ‘the UK is dying’. Culturally, however, it’s a different story On 1 June 1785 John Adams travelled to London to become the first US ambassador to Britain, in which capacity he was to meet George III. By his own admission, Adams trembled at the encounter. After all, it had been less than a decade since he helped Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence denouncing the king as an absolute “tyrant” who had “plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people”. A trepidatious Adams trudged through the London drizzle to St James’s Palace, where he presented his credentials to King George. He bowed three times, then declared he would be “the happiest of men if I can be instrumental in recommending my country more and more to your Majesty’s royal benevolence”. Adams’ brief speech was a lesson in self-abnegation on behalf of a people who had not only defeated the British just two years previously but had lost 25,000 combatants in the effort. Despite the bloodletting of the Battles of Long Island and Camden, the torturous winters of Vall