His first 12 months at the Foreign Office have been hit by a string of high-stakes international flashpoints, from the unfolding horror in Gaza to regime change in Syria and Trump’s humiliation of Zelenskyy – but he’s not panicking
“Remind me: why weren’t we able to meet in Washington DC?” David Lammy asks, spoon of Pret chicken laksa suspended in front of his mouth. It’s lunchtime in the foreign secretary’s office, a vast room of gilt edges, damask drapery and waxed oak. “Because Israel bombed Iran, and your trip was cancelled,” I say. “Oh, yes.” He scrapes the bottom of the pot, perhaps remembering the snap Cobra session on 13 June, the world holding its breath, the shared feeling we were on the brink of global war. It’s three weeks on and the heat of imminent conflict has lessened, if not the actual temperature, shining in the faces of staff. Lammy apologises for squeezing me into his lunch break. His schedule, running down a whiteboard in the ante office, is precision-timed. After our chat, he will be whisked off to Cyprus to see British troops, then to Beirut overnight, then a car ride through the mountains into Syria, where he’ll meet the new president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, formerly the head of the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Lammy will be the first British minister to set foot in the country in 14 years.
He lifts his chin to prevent yellow soup dropping on his “sombre” green tie. You can sense his mood, he’ll tell me later, by his tie choice. Ordinarily he brings miso from home in a flask, but sometimes he’s left too early, or sped from an overnight flight, and then it’s the laksa, 296 calories. He’s on a diet, an intermittent fasting, “little bit no carby” regime. Plus he hasn’t drunk alcohol since taking the job: “I can’t drink and fly. It interrupts my sleep.” His last was a teeny half-pint watching England v Switzerland in the Euros on his first official trip last year. He’s taken 90 flights and visited 62 countries since, mostly on the UK government Airbus that gives him a stiff back – he is 53. Sleeping pills are an essential part of the job, he says. “There’s always a trip to the CVS pharmacy in Washington DC to buy the best melatonin gummies.”