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.

”This interview was originally set up to mark Lammy’s first year as foreign secretary.It’s also 26 years since the young lawyer, brought up by a Guyanese single mother, was elected as Labour MP for Tottenham, London.What it becomes is a snapshot of a foreign secretary in international crisis.Not that Lammy seems to break a sweat.I tail him for five weeks on foot, in cars, on trains.

Even when the heatwave melts train tracks, he doesn’t loosen the Tyrwhitt tie or shed his TM Lewin jacket.Mostly he’s cheery, slipping between bursts of uproarious laughter, which involves table banging, and thunderous rhetoric, which involves table banging.In a foreign affairs select committee hearing, his foot beats the seconds as he’s grilled on Israel, Iran and Ukraine.During a French state visit, he shows his counterpart an original Enigma machine and spells out how it works.In a constituency community centre, he lets West Indian aunties pinch his cheeks and cry into his lapel.

Only once do I see him nettled, prodding a cross finger in my direction because I inadvertently hit a nerve.We finish in the week he signs a joint statement with 28 other foreign ministers demanding an immediate stop to the bombing of Gaza.On Radio 4’s Today, he energetically rebutts the suggestion that he hasn’t blocked all arms exports to Israel.On LBC, Nick Ferrari reminds him it’s the sixth time he’s called for a ceasefire: “Why would they be listening now?” Lammy sounds downcast: “I regret hugely that I’ve not been able to bring the horrendous war to an end.”But Gaza is the wound that will not heal.

I wonder if it will be Lammy’s diplomatic apotheosis or his undoing.It’s the issue that impels protesters to put fake baby body bags in his front garden, that brings them to a sleepy village church with loudhailers to amplify the death toll, now surpassing 59,000, according to the Gaza health ministry.It’s the issue that focuses outrage directly on to him, that right now he’s under most pressure to solve.The last time we speak, against dire warnings of impending famine, he has hardened his line.He calls shooting civilians waiting for aid “grotesque”, “sick”; demands “accountability” from the Israeli side.

He says things are “desperate for people on the ground, desperate for the hostages in Gaza”, that the world is “desperate for a ceasefire, for the suffering to come to an end”.He tells me he wants to go to Gaza “as soon as I can get in”.In person, on the ground? “Absolutely.One hundred per cent.”So what is Lammy’s mission as foreign secretary? He has described it as “progressive realism” – using pragmatic methods to achieve progressive outcomes as Britain’s stature dwindles.

So far this has meant reassembling our relationship with the EU, reimagining how we use our influence on the world stage and – crucially – managing the relationship with Donald Trump.As a cocksure backbencher, Lammy had described the American president as “deluded, dishonest, xenophobic, narcissistic”, a “neo-Nazi-sympathising sociopath” and a “tyrant in a toupee”.One can only imagine whether his collar felt tight as the lift doors clamped shut and he rose to the penthouse of Trump Tower in autumn last year.It was the run-up to the US election; Trump had invited both Britain’s new prime minister, Keir Starmer, and his foreign secretary to dinner at home.Lammy says Trump was a “very gracious host”, giving them a guided tour of his Louis XIV-inspired triplex and art collection.

Floor-to-ceiling windows insulated them from the blaring midtown horns 58 storeys below.Lammy was awe-struck by the gold, he says, how ornate it was, “how expensive”.And later, Trump extinguished the lights and they stood shoulder-to-shoulder in the dark, admiring the glittering Manhattan skyline.“It was pretty incredible.”Overall, his impression was that Trump wanted them to feel at ease, wanted them to like the roast chicken he served; joshing when Lammy had a second helping.

It was not long after Trump had been shot in Pennsylvania.He was really shaken, Lammy thought, obsessed by it, “as you would imagine”, but at the same time going out of his way to make sure his guests were OK.“The thing running through my mind was post-traumatic stress disorder,” Lammy says.“The years it takes to recover from shocking events like that.How would I be feeling weeks later, if someone had tried to shoot me?” He thought of constituents who had experienced knife crime and gun violence, and felt, “that whilst [Trump] was shaken, he didn’t want to dwell on it.

He could have said, ‘I’m going to do the very minimum now because I’m not feeling great.’”Lammy clocked Trump’s two chefs staring at him.“I couldn’t work out why I was of such import in the context of Donald Trump and Keir Starmer.” Finally, they approached.“‘Please, please, can we have a photograph? We know your family is from Guyana, we want to send it home.

’” Did Trump see that, I ask? “Yeah,” Lammy says.“They were also pleased that I had eaten more than everybody else.”I ask him to conjure what I would have observed had his trip to Washington DC gone ahead in June.He moves forward in his chair.“The whole world was on the edge of its seat,” he says, “so you would’ve seen foreign policy at its most heightened.

” All agreed Iran should not have nuclear weapons: the question was how to stop that.Lammy says that his bridge-building role would have been to enter detailed discussions with secretary of state Marco Rubio and Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff, before shuttling to Geneva to inform the other E3 members, France and Germany.“I remember as a young student doing history, reading about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962,” he says.“There are these moments when the world is on edge, worried.This year, that was one of those moments.

You’d have had a sense of that.”Lammy says the threat from Iran is real.“Its leaders cannot explain to me – and I’ve had many conversations with them – why they need 60% enriched uranium.If I went to Sellafield or Urenco in Cheshire, they haven’t got anything more than 6%.The Iranians claim it’s for academic use, but I don’t accept that.

It was Gordon Brown who accused Iran of deceit when they established Fordow [the underground enrichment site] and revealed that to the world back in 2009.”As a rule, Lammy prefers diplomacy to military intervention, but is “clear eyed” about “parts of the Iranian system that have a certain objective”.And it’s not just nuclear war between Iran and Israel that troubles him.“Many of your readers will have watched Oppenheimer and seen the fallout of [the US building an atomic bomb].So it’s what [a nuclear Iran] might mean in terms of other countries in the neighbourhood who would desire one, too.

And we would be very suddenly handing over to our children and grandchildren a world that had many more nuclear weapons in it than it has today.”Each night, Lammy knows his sleep may be disrupted (his wife doesn’t mind; “She seems to be able to survive on far less sleep than I”) and he’d already gone to bed on 21 June when his mobile started buzzing.It was Marco Rubio telling him the US was about to strike Iran.How much warning did they give? He demurs, saying the PM had been told, and military channels, simultaneously.Was it minutes? “I was also asleep when President Trump was shot,” he continues, ignoring the question.

“In those initial moments the extent of his injuries wasn’t clear.I remember waking up, thinking, oh my God!”He insists the US decision to bomb was not in order to topple Iran’s government, though he has “been exposed to” Israeli arguments in favour of regime change.“Let’s face it, there are lots of people in Iran who would like regime change.But there are no guarantees that what would replace the current Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps would not be as bad or worse.” He pats the table.

“So, that is for the Iranian people to determine.I’m focused on what the UK can do to stop Iran becoming a nuclear power.”For much of his political career, Lammy emphasised his friendship with Barack Obama.They met in 2005 at a gathering of Harvard Law School’s black alumni.In interviews he’s produced evidence of their familiarity, including a written note from the Democrat former president urging him to “keep up the good fight”.

Today, Lammy is keen to stress his ties with Republicans.He has “a really good relationship” with Rubio, for instance, and they speak every week.“We joke about the fact that my heritage is Guyanese, his is Cuban; faith matters to him, faith matters to me.He’s journeyed a long way to where he is today, as have I.He’s incredibly professional, very bright, consumes a brief.

”Lammy also calls vice-president JD Vance “a friend”.I ask why they get on.“I remember being at the inauguration of the new pope in Rome, with Angela Rayner and JD Vance,” he says.He seems tickled by the memory: “I don’t think JD and Angela will mind me saying that they were having a couple of drinks.” The setting was the gardens in Villa Taverna, the US ambassador’s residence, and “it was one of those lovely warm days in Italy”.

Vance dropped ice cubes into wine glasses and filled them with rosé.“I really wanted a glass”– Lammy says he has a weakness for rosé – “but instead I had a Diet Coke.” I ask if Rayner was boisterous.“I wouldn’t say she’s rowdy when she has a drink because Angela Rayner has a big character.I mean, she is the Barbara Castle of our era.

That’s not confined to a drink, it is her personality.She has so much character, so much spine, she makes me a bit shy.My personality is not as big as hers and we are there with the vice-president.So, I was probably the shyest of the three.”It occurred to him that they were “not just working-class politicians, but people with dysfunctional childhoods