Trump meets Burnham at UN

Prime Minister Andy Burnham met with US President Donald Trump at the United Nations on Friday, where they discussed a range of topics including immigration and the Chagos islands.

The meeting was seen as a positive development for Burnham, who had been critical of Trump's decision to cede sovereignty over the Chagos islands to Mauritius.

During their conversation, Trump expressed his support for Burnham's views on the issue, saying that he could do business with him and that the prime minister was 'a natural business person'.

The warmth between them was self evident. Perhaps the Downing Street nerves will have eased a bit.

But how long would the questions keep going? This is the president's theatre and he decides how long the public performance lasts.

This was a meeting on neutral territory, a windowless, nondescript meeting room down a dingy corridor in the basement of the United Nations. This wasn't the Oval Office of the White House. Perhaps that dialled down the sense of occasion a notch.

Nonetheless, for how long could the president maintain the bonhomie and sense of agreement? A question about immigration, potentially a point of friction, came and went without incident.

So too did the Burnham government's decision, announced by the Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband, who was in the room, to sanction settlements in the West Bank, a decision which infuriated Israel.

But on the future of the Chagos islands, the president couldn't hide his view that Britain's decision to cede sovereignty of them to Mauritius and then rent back the military base on Diego Garcia was 'terrible'.

The president added: 'I think the prime minister is going to be looking at [the deal]' and Burnham replied