King Charles Is Doing an Impossible Job in America

It’s 250 years since the US dumped George III, but as his most recent successor celebrates America’s Semiquincentennial in Washington DC it seems royalty is back in vogue. Monarchy-loving Donald Trump is so excited at hosting King Charles III and Queen Camilla, he’s predicting their three-day junket will “absolutely” help repair the tattered special relationship, which has been plunged into the deep freeze because of Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s refusal to join in the president’s Iran folly.

Such was the intemperance of Trump’s response — describing Starmer as “not Winston Churchill,” torpedoing a UK deal to return the Chagos Islands to Mauritius and threatening to hike trade tariffs — that some British politicians called for the royal visit to be cancelled.