Trump in the Royal Carriage

Over the years, Queen Elizabeth has had to share her ceremonial carriage with all sorts of people, dictators among them. She always unfailingly smiles and waves and takes it all in her stride. She will, I am sure, be her usual gracious self when Donald Trump is siting next to her in the royal carriage during his State visit. These people who suggest the Queen will be put out/embarrassed/irritated by having to host a State visit for the new president have no real idea what she thinks about it all. She has seen and heard it all before, and if her government has decided a State visit this summer is appropriate for President Trump, then she will get on with the job as she always does. That's not the issue here. The issue is Theresa May's decision to offer a State visit straightaway. It's a huge honour for Trump and, frankly, from what we see so far, he doesn't deserve it. It's a tricky one for the prime minister. She has to keep Trump on side but without being too ingratiating. She didn't have to offer a State visit this soon. Obama didn't have his first State visit to Britain until May 2011, two years after he had assumed office, and he was viewed as a superstar president, worthy of breakfast at Buckingham Palace. So why the rush for Trump? It's obvious. Everything now in this country is to do with Brexit. Give Trump the biggest honour on the table and he will respond with a cracking trade deal. Poor Queen. She is in the middle, a royal pawn, as it were, on the chess board. She is too dignified to object. But I wonder if she, too, thinks the prime minister was a little too hasty in her wooing of Trump? We'll never know.