2 hours ago
5
Thank you for Simon Tisdall’s well-crafted article incorporating an alternative draft speech for delivery by King Charles to the US Congress later this month (Protocol be damned: here’s what King Charles should say on his visit to the US, 12 April).
While many readers would agree with the gist of Tisdall’s draft, I and many others would also welcome the inclusion of even sharper, targeted criticism of key individuals in the current US administration, including Donald Trump. Such direct confrontation appears to be the only tactic that gives Trump even the slightest pause for thought in relation to his most recent ludicrous statement or action.
Given that, in reality, the suits within the palace, the Foreign Office and Downing Street will ensure that such an alternative draft never sees the light of day, it would be refreshing to think that the king might recall his youthful penchant for stepping into controversial issues and say to himself: “Sod it – I’m 77 and I’m going to tell it as I see it.” One can but hope.
Phil Murray
Linlithgow, West Lothian
Notwithstanding Simon Tisdall’s hopes for the forthcoming royal visit to the US, there’s always the risk of being Trumped. Finding an excuse to cancel and retain our one bargaining chip, even at this late stage, is surely preferable.
Isn’t the painful truth that once we’ve played the king, we have, to quote the president on Ukraine and Iran, no cards left?
Dr Anthony Isaacs
London
King Charles should be hospitalised to have an emergency operation on his bone spurs.
Ruth Lewis
Nunthorpe, North Yorkshire
Simon Tisdall is too experienced a journalist not to know that the king’s visit will be a stage-managed endorsement of President Trump. Whatever the noises off-stage from No 10 and Windsor, both King Charles and Keir Starmer will be willing collaborators in this project. If the government really wanted to distance itself from the Trump project, rather than be seen as willing collaborators, it would have cancelled the visit.
The mood music coming from the Labour leadership before and after the election was nuanced appeasement. Trump was now president and it was in Britain’s interest to recognise this fact, so we have this obsequious fawning – a fact demonstrated from the start when Elon Musk’s appalling slurs against Jess Phillips passed almost without comment from this government. Having demonstrated some independence from US policy on Iran, we are collaborating wholeheartedly in the project, making our bases freely available for use by American Iran-bound warplanes.
Much as I want Simon Tisdall’s article to have some impact on government thinking, I expect it will have no impact on our government of “Atlanticist realists”. If there are any defenders of western liberal democracy, they won’t be found in No 10 or the House of Windsor.
Derrick Joad
Leeds
