Another week, another senior Israeli in Downing Street. This week’s visitor was foreign minister Yair Lapid, and while it is easy to become blasé about the succession of such figures — first Naftali Bennett and then Isaac Herzog in recent weeks — we should not be. The meetings are important. Across so many fields, from trade and science to the fight against terror and recent newly public military exercises, our two nations work together closely.

That closeness is all the more important as talks resumed this week in Vienna on a new nuclear deal with Iran. If the old deal, rightly scuppered by President Trump, was disastrous — allowing the Iranian regime to become cash rich at the same time as it moved far closer to a nuclear weapon — the Biden administration appears determined to conclude an even worse agreement. The current buzz-phrase is that it will settle for “less for less”.

In other words, anything that allows them to agree a deal will do. If anyone is left who does not grasp that this US administration’s foreign policy is the most dangerously inept since Carter, this should be the clinching proof.

Those close to the negotiations suggest that this time round the British are the most level-headed of all those involved — in contrast to our stance over the first agreement, when we were no more sceptical than a nodding donkey.

That is the context in which the series of visits from Israeli political leaders to No 10 should be viewed. Iran has been at the top of the agenda in all three meetings with the Prime Minister, and the Israelis are well aware that the Brits are, at least on Iran, their strongest ally.