US Vice President JD Vance and Foreign Secretary David Lammy met for a weekend of diplomacy and fishing in Sevenoaks, Kent.

The pair convened at Chevening House, a state-owned manor used by foreign secretaries and their families for vacations.

Despite being on opposite sides of the political spectrum, Vance and Lammy share a Christian faith. Vance converted to Catholicism in adulthood, while Lammy has publicly professed his Christian faith. During Lammy’s visit to Washington, DC, in March, the pair attended Mass together.

Faith aside, Lammy and Vance have similar backgrounds; each grew up working class, with what Lammy described as “dysfunctional childhoods.”

JD Vance’s autobiography, Hillbilly Elegy, recounts being raised by his Christian grandmother while his father was absent and his mother battled a drug addiction. Lammy has had no contact with his father since his parents divorced during his teens.

On a recent visit to Rome, David Lammy and Angela Rayner were hosted by JD Vance for drinks. Lammy told The Guardian: “I had this great sense that JD completely relates to me and Angela. It was a wonderful hour and a half… I was definitely the shyest of the three.”

Top of the agenda at Chevening House was Ukraine, where the pair hosted UK, US, and European security officials ahead of Donald Trump’s meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin next week.

The visit is a far cry from Vance’s previous judgments on the Labour government, when he joked that Britain would be the “first truly Islamist country” with nuclear weapons under Sir Keir Starmer.