Keir Starmer cap and letter from the king in hand

There probably hasn't been a more cringing moment than when Keir Starmer, prime minister of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, reached into his suit jacket pocket and VOILA, like a vaudeville conjuror, produced a letter from Buckingham Palace addressed to the Lord and High Master Donald Trump, inviting him to tea and a State visit to Balmoral. If King Charles III was watching which I assume he was, he must surely have cringed, too. It was bad enough to watch all the touchy touchy, let-me-caress your arm, oh Mr President. But the letter emerging was truly awful. Trump obviously knew it was coming but he played along with the script and asked Starmer whether he should open it now before all the cameras. Starmer seemed to nod but basically he was pleading with him: "Oh yes, Mr President, now is a good moment because then the whole world can see how well we are getting on, and His Majesty back home is dying to see your reaction." Poor Charles, it has come to this. The special relationship between the US and Britain is now all about pompery and ceremony and not a lot else. Couldn't Starmer have shown a bit more backbone and told the president to stop behaving like a dictator! A truly sorry and nation-belittling White House comic opera.