US election: what a Trump or Biden victory could mean for Britain

The British government has a long history of misreading America – from Lord Palmerston expecting the Confederacy to survive the civil war, to Ernie Bevin being shocked that the US would not pay the UK’s postwar bills, to Tony Blair believing in 2003 that he could ride the US military tiger in Iraq and create a democracy. Few serving or former British diplomats are confidently predicting the outcome of this November’s presidential election, or…