Whipped from the American ambassador’s residence in Regent’s Park, Donald Trump was flown to the greatest lock-in of all time at Windsor Castle – the palace, not the pub.
Kept away from a British population that largely reviles the 47th president of the United States and leader of the free world, Trump received the full Downton Abbey experience, with bagpipes and drums, to keep him on Britain’s side, but away from the Brits.
He was given a ride around the Windsor estate in a golden carriage alongside King Charles, followed by the Queen and Melania. Like the world’s most indulged tourists, they were given a full right royal experience on a British heritage safari.
Guardsmen and sailors, men barking orders, flashing swords and stamping their feet for an audience of one, while cattle chewed on in the background.
Trump will not, however, be told the truth about this United Kingdom, which his Make America Great Again ideologues have smeared as being on the brink of civil war amid mass stranglings of free speech, no-go areas, and immigrants running amok.
In fact, new figures show violent crime in London is down 13 per cent – lower than Paris, Berlin or Copenhagen. The mayor of London’s office says there has been a significant fall in the most serious offences in the capital over the last year: 30 fewer killings, 115 fewer gun crimes and the murder rate in London is now lower than every US state.
Even knife crime, often amplified in the UK as being at epidemic proportions, is down by 14 per cent. Nationally, violent crime is down from 2.01 million to 1.94 million.
All while the number of immigrants has been increasing. No one can argue that immigrants cause a fall in crime. But they cannot argue that foreigners come to Britain and create havoc – because they just have not.
In July, Trump said, while visiting Scotland, that with immigration to Europe, there will be “murderers, there’ll be drug dealers” and that if Europe did not “control” immigration, “you’re not going to have Europe anymore, as you know it”.
It is unlikely that, as the British soldiers march past and the Anglo-American fighter jets cut the skies above Windsor, British officials will want to put the US president straight about what’s happening in the country.
Keir Starmer needs him to have a lovely time and to leave with a party bag of Disney memories so that Trump doesn’t hit the UK with random tariffs or clamber further into the lap of Vladimir Putin.
Starmer won’t make these points in private because he doesn’t make them in public either. Immigration isn’t even a big-ticket political issue in the UK.
According to a survey conducted by Britain Future, two-thirds of Britons did not place the issue of immigration in their top three issues when voting in the last election.
Only a fifth thought it was a number one priority for a new government, according to the liberal think tank after polling British attitudes this year.
Trump is bringing tech leaders with him to meetings with the British government because they want him to shelve legislation that they claim will inhibit free speech, but the UK government wants to use it to protect children from online abuse.
Starmer has defended the UK’s record on free speech in all of his encounters with Trump – so he may just hope that it doesn’t really come up at Windsor or at Chequers later on.
After all, only a third of Britons believe that the UK’s relationship with the US is “special”, and two-thirds don’t like Trump.
That they’re willing and likely to have taken to the streets to say so is why the US president is being feted behind doughty walls at the great British Windsor Castle lock-in.
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