Trump's visit proved the utter corruption of our political and media class

Aside from the spectacle of our leaders openly prostrating before Trump, the truth of Britain’s “special relationship” with the US was mostly found in unscripted moments around his visit

I don’t know about you, but I find myself increasingly at a loss to put into words the extraordinary times we are living through.

Even the best satirists cannot compete with the astonishing, comic scenes offered to us by the British and US ruling classes during Donald Trump’s visit to Windsor Castle and Chequers.

King Charles giving Trump the run-around of his taxpayer-funded mansion and grounds simply served to underscore Britain’s vassal status.

But the king’s flaunting of his, and our, servitude to the US imperial order somehow failed – as it might have done in times of old – to contribute any greater stature to the perma-tanned gangster-in-chief. He just looked even more the spoilt, giant toddler in need of constant distraction and pacification.

Stuff him in the golden carriage-pram and let him roll around the grounds, out of sight, for an hour or so. Let him play with some soldiers and watch fast planes flying overhead. Let him dress up and have a party in the big dining hall.

All of this in the hope that he wouldn’t throw a temper tantrum and stick nasty tariffs on our goods.

Maybe his scriptwriter understood that postmodern irony was the only proper response. He slipped into Trump’s after-dinner speech an approving reference to George Orwell, the author of the dystopian novel 1984 about a society where everyone is enslaved to Big Brother.

What might Orwell have made of that?

Aside from the spectacle of our ruling class openly prostrating before Trump, the truth of Britain’s “special relationship” with the US was mostly found in the unscripted moments around his visit.

It was Trump explaining to a rogue Australian reporter, who tried to question the US President about his corrupt personal affairs, the implicitly transactional relationship between world leaders and the media: journalists get access to the centres of power but only if they don’t probe too deeply.

Trump made clear: “You are hurting Australia very much right now. They want to get along with me. Your leader is coming to see me soon. I'm going to tell him about you.”

Which career-minded journalist wants to lose their job – or to be held personally responsible for the imposition of a new round of US tariffs?

Which perhaps explains why, when Trump and Starmer faced the press after their meeting today, the journalists selected to address the pair obediently delivered only softball questions.

Those not in fear of their professional standing – that is, ordinary people – were free to take to the streets to protest the visit. So long as there was no danger Trump might be exposed to their clamour.

Four members of the group Led By Donkeys who dared to organise a protest that might actually be heard were arrested for “malicious communication”. They projected onto one of Windsor Castle’s towers a nine-minute documentary charting the decades-long, intimate relationship between Trump and notorious child-sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein.

According to the 1988 law, a communication is malicious if it is “threatening, indecent, grossly offensive, or a known falsehood”. As the film was entirely truthful and nothing in it indecent or threatening (except to the US President’s reputation), the British police are presumably interpreting “grossly offensive” to mean anything that might offend Trump – which covers a huge number of truthful things.

It is not just journalists who have an entirely transactional, principle-free relationship with power. The visit was a potent reminder that politicians do too.

Yvette Cooper, the new foreign secretary, warmly greeted Trump as he stepped off his Air Force One plane in London. That is the same Cooper who a few years ago, when safely in opposition of course, made an impassioned speech denouncing Trump in no uncertain terms as a sexual predator we should have nothing to do with.

If that turnaround seemed baffling, Tory politician Penny Mordaunt was on hand to remind us what political principle looks like.

Questioned by the new Green Party leader Zack Polanksi, she called out as “student politics” his – and presumably most reasonable people’s – opposition to Trump banning books, militarising the police and reversing women’s long-fought-for reproductive rights.

Mordaunt, like King Charles, Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper, is an adult in the room. They understand that principles are a luxury we cannot afford.

Let genocide in Gaza roll on. Describe the starvation of children as “self-defence”. Define anyone trying to stop it a “terrorist”.

Because the worst crime in the world is to behave like principles matter, and to imagine that saving innocent lives is more than just silly “student politics”.

[Many thanks to Matthew Alford for the audio reading of this article.]

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