Blogging the televised royal banquet at Windsor Castle

Mr Trump is 3 years older than the King but, with no disrespect to the Queen, his wife looks much better. 

Mr Trump should not address "William and Kate". 

The King is hubristic in assuming the US and UK will exist for the next 250 years and beyond. I wouldn't bet on it. 

He said we and the Americans fought against tyranny and I remembered our ally was the tyrant Stalin who then extended his tyranny over Eastern Europe. 

Mr Trump, whose speech didn't sound as though he wrote it, says the word special doesn't begin to do the special relationship justice, but he knows that the only special relationship America has is with Israel.

England has a special relationship with Israel too because we buy a lot of arms from Elbit. 

Peter Mandelson did a good job as ambassador  and, partly because of him, relations between  the two countries are excellent.  

I think Mandy is very sinister and he certainly had to go but he didn't actually do anything wrong this time. 

His Epstein connections may have served him and his country well. Epstein was part of a very powerful, influential network.

State visits were rare before Queen Elizabeth II. Peter the Great, Napoleon III, the Kaiser and Woodrow Wilson came and not very many others. 

When Napoleon III and William II came we were the greatest power in the world. Now we are an American satellite trying to suck up to a very strange man. 

He is protected by a very thick wall of security from the British public, most of whom detest him.

Inviting him twice is cynical but he does not care. He is a cynic himself, though also in an odd way idealistic. 

17/09/2025. Windsor, United Kingdom. Picture by Simon Dawson / No 10 Downing Street

I thought it was a lamp too.