Simon Harris and Keir Starmer are politicians with similar instincts, and it was entirely appropriate that they emphasised the importance of re-setting relationships between Ireland and Britain when they met in Dublin at the weekend.
Among the reasons they understand each other is that both are new to their roles and neither comes from privileged backgrounds, with Mr Harris as proud of his taxi driver father as Mr Starmer is to be the son of a tool maker.
It is fair to say that it was not easy for Mr Harris’s immediate predecessors, Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin, to strike up a rapport with previous UK prime ministers like Rishi Sunak, reputedly the wealthiest MP in the House of Commons, and Boris Johnson, the epitome of old Etonian entitlement.
What was even more difficult that was most of their engagements were part of the turmoil following Britain’s self-inflicted Brexit disaster, which left Anglo-Irish links at probably their lowest level since the worst days of Margaret Thatcher.
The appalling Conservative legacy legislation pushed through at Westminster, despite the firm opposition of all the main Stormont parties, only added to the serious tensions, and there will huge relief that the incoming Labour administration has promised to repeal it.
Events are slowly returning to something close to normality, and Mr Starmer’s visit to Dublin, the first by a British prime minister to his country’s closest neighbour for five years, was plainly a positive development.
The process began to take shape within hours of Mr Starmer’s arrival in Downing Street in July, and there is no doubt that a hugely improved atmosphere in already in place.
Mr Harris was correct to stress on Saturday that the “most solemn duty” of the two governments was to act as co-guarantors of the power-sharing structures established as a result of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
There will also be a widespread welcome for the weekend declaration from the northern secretary of state, Hilary Benn, that any further suspensions of the Stormont cross-community administration could not be allowed to happen.
What was missing from all the encouraging initial engagements between Mr Harris and Mr Starmer was a firm clarification of their attitude towards the notably vague criteria for a possible Irish border poll.
The discussion on the circumstances in which a referendum can be called remains at a early stage, but there can be no doubt about the wider direction in which the post-Brexit upheaval is taking us.
There will be an expectation that Mr Harris and Mr Starmer will soon set out their detailed vision of how the key issues linked to the unity debate can be democratically resolved.
