Don't mention the word "special" - and they didn't

For the first time in living memory the president of the United States and the prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland didn't once mention the word "special" when they appeared before the press at the G7 summit in Cornwall. The relationship between the two countries was "important", in fact "more important" than ever. But the age-old special relationship upon which the US and UK have relied ever since the UK first bought the American Polaris ballistic missile to form our first Royal Navy nuclear deterrent in the 1950s has thrive until now. The two countries have boasted of having a special relationship for 70 years and no harm in that except that times have changed and the phrase now seems perhaps a little hackneyed. It's like when the US president describes France as America's oldest ally. Anyway Boris Johnson in his wisdom made it absolutely clear that he no longer wanted America to define the UK as having a special relationship with Washington because he reckons it sounds a little demeaning. As in, "Hey we're going over to the good old UK tomorrow. Oooh we have such a special relationship, and I just lurve the Queen." Well that's how Boris thinks and having said what he said or what he was reported to have said, Joe Biden didn't want to spoil the G7 summit by shaking Boris's hand and then turning to everyone and saying, "Boris and I have a special relationship". So "special" is now gone from the US/UK lexicon of diplomatic cliche phrases and everything from now on will be important. Until of course in three decades when that word will also be banned and a new consensus will be reached on a different word. It's possible of course that at the end of the summit Joe Biden will be so pleased with the results that he might forget what he was told not to say and might blurt out the importance of the special relationship rather than the importance of the relationship. It's all fairly meaningless stuff but in the case of the Britain and the US of A, history actually does prove that the two countries really do have a pretty damned good relationship. And that makes it special!