By Anjan Roy
Great Britain is bending backward as much as it can to entertain and woo the imperious US president, Donald Trump, who is currently visiting the country as a state guest at the invitation of the King Charles. The US president is being hosted at the 900 year old regal home at Windsor Castle, where he will spend the night.
From the word go, the British government was trying to wear its Sunday best to impress the US president. The invitation letter was handed over by the prime minster, Sir Keir Starmer, at the Oval Office in the presence of the press, stating that this was a letter from the British King.
Right from the delivery of the king’s invitation to the reception to the visiting dignitary, Britain is blazing all the guns to impress Trump and bring him around to do some trade deals and strengthen what the Britishers never tire of emphasising —the “special relationship” between England and America.
It was used to the hilt by Winston Churchill, war-time prime minister, to involve US president, Franklin Roosevelt, in the Second World War as a leading member of the Allied Forces. Roosevelt was somewhat lukewarm and was not very accommodative to Churchill’s various antics.
Now, as the situation in Europe is turning grave and the entire western Europe is feeling the heat of Russian military force, Britain is spearheading efforts to turn around Donald Trump into a more proactive mode in meeting the Russian bear-hug. On top of that, Britain is no longer the economic power it used to be and now seeking to forge ties with America for its economic rejuvenation.
However, these are for later when the US president would be visiting the country house of the British prime minister, The Chequers, where some trade protocols and technological co-operation between the two countries are set to be discussed. The base for that American largesse is being sought to be prepared by offering some of the pageantry and show of pomp by the British at the Windsor Palace and its grounds.
But as the US president is landing at the grounds of the Castle, Donald Trump will step onto a horse-drawn state carriage and there will be gun salute and a Horse Guard will escort him to the Palace entrance where the Prince and Princess of Wales will receive him. All along his brief carriage ride, royal bands will play the Scottish Highland Lady and other tunes.
The entire pomp and show has been organised keeping in mind Trump’s Scottish ancestry. As his memories go, Trump had recalled how his mother was watching enthralled the coronation of Queen Elizabeth and his father had repeatedly asked her to switch off the boring show for him. However, ever since Donald had taken the cue from his mother and has always been fascinated by the British Royal family and their ways.
The Royals will show off some of their collection of objects of Art and possibly many of those stolen from India and other countries, in course of the colonial marauding. It may be recalled that when Robert Clive had returned to England, his display of his wealth had dismayed the British lords.
At his subsequent impeachment for malfeasance, Clive had reputedly observed that he was “surprised at his moderation” in his theft given the inestimable treasury he had witnessed in the Bengal treasury. The lords at the upper house were so impressed with the answer, Clive was elevated to a lordship to be known later as “Lord Robert Clive of India”.
Many of those treasures would have landed at the royal museums at Windsor Castle and elsewhere often to be shown around to visiting dignitaries.
In his time, Donald Trump had entertained the present king, when he was Prince of Wales, along with the Princesses of Wales in his gold resort Mar-a-lago, years back. Prince Charles had at that time however, preferred to spend his night at a nearby horse ranch, than at the gold club, given the royal family’s love for horses.
Trump, of course, will not have the pleasure of a horse ride in the Palace grounds as a former US president (Ronald Reagan) had with Queen Elizabeth in course of his visit to Britain.
Nonetheless, the current presidential visit might go astray as well. Already, the abrupt sacking of the British ambassador to USA, Lord Peter Mandelson, for his close relations with the much-hated Epstein, in the child sex abuse case, had vitiated the overall air. It is Lord Mandelson who had first mooted the second state visit of Trump to bring him round to back up Britain.
It would certainly be embarrassing that an ambassador was brutally humiliated and recalled for an association which the president is also proven to have enjoyed. Some questions on the Epstein affair in the joint press conference at the end of the visit could mar the entire fascination about a royal reception and set the mercurial Trump on a different mood altogether.
The British knows Trump’s fad for pageantry and the British royal family. They are pandering to it. The most fitting projection of it all should be the balloon flown last time he visited Britain, showing Trump in a diaper. (IPA Service)
