HARDMAN: Can Charles smooth over the gaping chasm between UK and US?,
Well that’s the conversation-starter sorted out when the King meets President Trump this time tomorrow. For both heads of state belong to the same exclusive club: world leaders who have come under attack in public – and survived.
In the King’s case, it was during his 1994 tour of Australia that a gunman came charging through the crowd in a Sydney park firing wildly at the royal dais.
No one knew that the rounds were blanks as the then-Prince of Wales calmly stood his ground while his protection officer, Colin Trimming, jumped in front of him.
The attacker – a young man who, astonishingly, would later pursue a successful career as a lawyer – was swiftly tackled by police and bundled away while the Prince simply straightened his tie and resumed his engagement.
There is a similar sense of ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ here in Washington as the White House prepares to welcome the King and Queen for the monarch’s first state visit to the USA.
President Trump’s response to last night’s apparent assassination attempt at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner was not to retreat to a bunker but to host an immediate White House press conference, where he reflected that his is ‘a dangerous profession’ and that his would-be attacker was a ‘lone-wolf whack job’. This was, after all, the third time that an assailant has tried to kill him.
It was, incidentally, the best-dressed press conference in modern Washington history as all those present were still in ballgowns and black tie, having been herded out of the ballroom of the Washington Hilton just as the burrata salad starter was landing on their tables.
A black tie-clad President addresses reporters after Saturday night’s shooting
Indeed, British diplomats may be a tad relieved that all those media folk will now be fixating on last night’s drama at the Hilton rather than the catalogue of awkward bilateral stumbling blocks that have dominated the airwaves in recent days and weeks.
Following on from rows over defence spending and the shortcomings of the Royal Navy, the most recent has been a leaked Pentagon email suggesting that the US may no longer support British sovereignty over the Falkland Islands.
However, these are all matters for the British Government. And the King is not coming to Washington as a minister (he will have the Foreign Secretary in his entourage to handle all political matters) but as the representative of the British people. He comes bearing the UK’s best wishes for the USA’s 250th birthday.
The only row which he will be addressing is the one between George Washington and his own great, great, great, great, great grandfather, George III, which resulted in the Declaration of American Independence in 1776.
A gunman opened fire on Prince Charles in Sydney in 1994
The King will be hoping to avoid discussing throny political issues with Mr Trump
He might also touch on the unfortunate postscript of British troops torching the White House in 1814. However, the subsequent trans-Atlantic alliance between our two nations has proved to be one of the most consequential in human history and beneficial to the entire planet, never more so than during the Second World War.
All that shared sacrifice, along with all our other deep-rooted commonalities, will be the focus of the King’s speeches.
This visit is about looking forward and looking back while trying not to look too closely at the present. However, the King will undoubtedly want to commiserate with his host while also saluting the President’s sang froid under fire. He has been there before himself.
