In the olden days, a kingdom threatened by a strangely-tinted, tiny-handed, fire-breathing beast might opt to attempt to buy it off with a princess or two. Obviously times have moved on since then. Now we offer them a night at Windsor Castle.
Nothing so emphasises our declining place in the world as our national abasement before Donald Trump. A hundred years ago, such a man turning up in Britain would have been horsewhipped. These days, nothing is too much trouble. So he gets a second state visit, and a banquet and the Red Arrows and the Red Devils and everything else we can give him.
Everyone knows why Keir Starmer is doing this, and however unpleasant it is to watch, most people seem to accept that he has to do it. He approaches Trump as one might a very rich but increasingly senile relative who is in the habit of changing their will on a daily basis. Yes, Mr President. So wise, Mr President. How interesting, Mr President. How unfair the Nobel Committee are to you, Mr President.
The most dangerous part of this two-day flatterfest came at the end, as the two men faced a joint press conference of the toughest journalistic minds that their two great nations had to offer. Although there was a clue about how tough one part of the room might be when the Americans applauded the president as he walked in.
It began with a grovelling statement from the prime minister and a stream-of-consciousness ramble from the president. “Quite the place, I must say, quite the place.” Yes, Grandad. “We will always be friends.” That’s nice, Grandad. Just sign here please. “We’ve solved seven wars, seven wars, wars that were unsolvable.” Really, Grandad, only seven? “Mismanaged for a long time, not mismanaged any more, something like the world has never seen.”Reporting this stuff full-time must be utterly soul-destroying.
Trump isn’t just tricky for Starmer, of course. In other circumstances, Britain’s right-wing press would love to attack him for using the King to suck up to boastful sex pest, but if anything they’re even further up the president’s colon than the prime minister is.
Which explained the decision by Starmer to ask for a question from The Sun. The worst thing that could happen was someone saying something that might upset the president, and the paper would only ask questions aimed at embarrassing the prime minister. And indeed the question was whether Trump had any advice for Starmer on stopping illegal migration. It was an interesting thought: is Britain ready for masked gangs of thugs patrolling the streets and rounding people up because of the colour of their skin?
“I appreciate your question,” Trump said, very much what any speaking-truth-to-power reporter hopes to hear from a wannabe autocrat. Other world leaders in these circumstances might have declined to comment on their host’s domestic problems, but that was obviously beyond the president. Fortunately, his knowledge of Britain is as shallow as his interest in himself is deep, so his answer was mainly about what a great job he was doing.
Not, to be clear, that he was trying to be a polite guest. After Starmer had talked about trying to bring energy prices down, Trump interrupted him to attack his fondness for renewable energy and tell him to drill for oil in the North Sea. “We don’t do wind because wind is a disaster.” Wind is woke, everyone. It has terrible ratings. The worst. It should have been cancelled long ago. Wind was Biden’s fault. There would never have been wind if Trump had been president.
Back to his peace deals. “Azerbaijan and Albania. It was going on for years!” And between Arcadia and Atlantis and Asgard, too! So much peace! All the wars were over! Some people were saying it was the greatest peace there had ever been.
GB News, the broadcast wing of Reform, invited Trump to attack the UK over freedom of speech. The president chose not to engage with that one at all: free speech was last month’s agenda. This month’s is shutting down TV shows that make jokes about him.
They were so close to the end of the press conference, and it had gone so well, when Beth Rigby of Sky nearly upset the whole thing, asking Trump what he thought about the firing of fellow Jeffrey Epstein chum Peter Mandelson.
Tomorrow the beast could change his mind, and announce that he’s never met Starmer
Did the prime minister hold his breath? He needn’t have worried. I don’t know him, actually,” Trump replied. Was he daring the room to point out that they had met repeatedly and recently, or had he genuinely forgotten who the British ambassador to Washington was? Starmer stared very hard at the piece of paper in front of him and then swiftly brought things to a close.
The greasing seemed to have paid off. “I just want to thank you, prime minister, for the great job you’re doing,” Trump said. Does any of it mean anything? Not really. Tomorrow the beast could change his mind, and announce that he’s never met Starmer. But for one evening, the kingdom, on its knees, had bought off the monster.
