It is heartening to note that even in Labour-run Britain there is a tacit recognition of the soft power of crown and ermine even if democracy is the touchstone. That the British have pulled out all the stops to give a right royal welcome to Donald Trump—arguably the most Anglophile US President in recent memory—is proof of this acknowledgement. Pomp and ceremony, carriages and banquets, castles and heraldry, everything that no one does better than the British.

Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer had famously spiked Trump’s guns ahead of crunch talks on trade, Ukraine and much else in February by presenting him with a personal invitation from King Charles III to visit the UK, to underline the two nations’ “special relationship". A second State Visit by the same US President was unheard of: even Barack Obama, who won a Nobel Prize could not score that second trip to the UK. Trump’s case, of course, is just the opposite.

Even so, the fact that Trump readily accepted the invitation despite probably knowing the reason behind it, proves the attraction of British royalty. None of the other blue bloods around the world from Belgium to Brunei have quite the same aura and the glamour, especially in the eyes of Americans. Although they were the first to throw off the British yoke back in 1776, culturally the ties remain strong, and gives the UK a secret weapon when dealing with the US.

And that weapon is the House of Windsor. No wonder all the action of the Trump visit is centred on the historic castle just outside London whose name the current........

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