When Sir Kim Darroch, 65, was handed Britain’s most prestigious overseas posting in early 2016 it was expected that Hillary Clinton would win that autumn’s presidential election.
Instead, after Donald Trump rode a populist surge which took him all the way to the White House, he has found himself courting a very different kind of administration.
Since then, Sir Kim has worked assiduously to build relationships with members of Mr Trump’s team, hosting hundreds of events a year at the British embassy in Washington for guests including Ivanka Trump and her husband, Jared Kushner.
The Edwin Lutyens-designed building with a grand ballroom and Palladian terrace is very different from the council estate in Abingdon, Oxfordshire, where the veteran civil servant grew up.
He won a
