The contrast could not have been more stark. Inside a soulless air-conditioned room at a UK RAF base, two of Europe's most identikit and ineffectual leaders haplessly set out their plan to end the small boats migrant crisis.

Meanwhile, some 100 miles away, hundreds of illegal migrants were effortlessly arriving in the UK, having travelled from France in flimsy dinghies. They are among the record 21,000 to have landed on our shores already this year.

While Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron carried out their double-act another political leader, Nigel Farage, had witnessed first-hand the full scale of the problem.

The Prime Minister and French president promised the "groundbreaking" new returns deal will be "hardheaded and aggressive" and curb migrant crossings.

Sir Keir, stood in front of two Union Flags, described Macron as his "friend". Mr Macron, dressed in a waistcoat, was stood in front of the French Tricolor and the EU flag.

Assembled journalists and military personnel, including Admiral Sir Tony Radakin, the current Chief of the Defence Staff, watched on as the president, speaking in French, said Britain and France would "fight against people traffickers".

And he couldn't resist blaming Brexit for the rise in migrant crossings since Britain left the EU in 2020.

Under the so-called "one in, one out" plan, Britain would accept asylum seekers from France with a UK connection, in exchange for returning some migrants to France. About 50 migrants could be sent each way per week under an initial pilot - that's a small fraction of the usual numbers crossing.

Mr Farage, speaking from a boat on the English Channel earlier in the day, said there is no "will" from either the British or French governments to stop the crossings.

The Reform UK leader also blasted successive governments for handing £750million to France to deal with the issue.

Messers Starmer and Macron's staid press conference came at the end of the French president's three-day state visit to the UK.

Three days of glad-handing in which he clearly got a better deal than many Britons wanted.

As so often, Sir Keir appears to have caved in again.