By Sean O’Grady

Copyright independent

By all accounts, the “dignified” phase of the president’s visit passed well; any possible frictions between the disparate participants dissolved away in the warm sandstone balm of Windsor Castle – “the ultimate”, as Donald Trump put it.

Everyone at the 52-yard long table for the state banquet behaved themselves, so far as we know. Aside from graceful speeches rich in historical and cultural references delivered (but not necessarily written by) President Trump and the King, whatever was said by the guests during the evening’s drinks and dinner remains confidential.

From the glimpses in the television coverage of the reception, the new foreign secretary, Yvette Cooper, had a resigned look on her face, like her garrulous husband, Ed Balls, had just delivered the punchline of a dirty story to one of the White House officials, but we’ll probably never know. You can’t help but wonder what else might have passed between some of those attending, strategically placed as they were on the diplomatically sensitive seating plan.

Sadly, for example, the demands of what the president termed the “special doesn’t begin to do it justice” relationship, and the awe-inspiring surroundings, would have militated against a freer and frank conversation between the leaders. Had things been less constrained, his majesty might have quietly raised, as he has with his ministers in the past, the plight of the Patagonian toothfish, and the president, never noted for his environmentalism, might have inquired of him less quietly, “Who gives a damn about a fish?” If only the King played golf, or the president polo, one can only imagine how deep their personal special relationship might grow. As it stands, the two people that they might both, in happier circumstances, have been able to swap gossip about, Prince Andrew and Prince Harry, remained ghosts at this particular feast.

Melania and Camilla seemed to have been having a whale of a time, their shared experience of dealing with irascible, demanding, spoiled blokes born in the late 1940s, and who they respectively married within a couple of months in 2005, giving them more in common than might at first be assumed. Tips were no doubt exchanged about massaging fragile egos. Other placings were equally thoughtful: Susie Wiles, White House, chief of staff and one of the few people Trump listens to, was left to engage with Clive Alderton, private secretary to the King, no doubt to keep the backstairs channels between the two heads of state fully open. The chancellor of the Exchequer, Rachel Reeves, was also able to personally thank Ruth Porat, president of Alphabet and Google, for the £5bn investment in the UK. A few glasses of Pol Roger extra cuvée de réserve (1998), and a fine 1912 cognac seem the least the British could do in return for such largesse.

Very surprisingly, Rupert Murdoch was invited along, despite Trump suing one of Rupe’s titles, The Wall Street Journal, Dr Evil-style, for 10 billion dollars. And despite Rupert making the King, Queen and late Queen Elizabeth’s lives a misery and hacking the royals’ phones for years, the Dirty Digger was given a plate of organic Norfolk chicken ballotine wrapped in courgettes with a thyme and savoury infused jus to chow down on. Wisely, the Australian media tycoon was sent downwind of the most important dignitaries.

Careful and sensitive as they are, someone in the banquet planning team must have some sense of humour when constructing the seating plan. Whose idea was it, for example, to plonk Tiffany Trump, 31, the president’s youngest daughter and a current “rich kid of Instagram”, next to David Owen, 87, who served as foreign secretary almost half a century ago? Still chirpy and with vestiges of his former boyish good looks, Owen can’t have known much about Tiffany’s 2011 musical single “Like a Bird” featuring creative partner Sprite, and the rapper Logic. And, to be fair to her, Owen’s usual repertoire of anecdotes about the Shah of Iran, Robert Mugabe and David Steel might have produced some lacunae in their table talk. You never know, though, the noble lord and prominent social democrat might yet make it onto her social media feeds. In the slimmed-down royal family of today, the 75-year-old Princess Royal also has to do her bit – horsey, game but a little brusque, and legendarily hard work for her conversational partners. As her late father once remarked of her, “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay, she isn’t interested.” David Lammy and the American ambassador, Warren Stephens, had the job of keeping up their end of the small talk.

A little further along, Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAl, would have enjoyed hearing from Kemi Badenoch, leader of the opposition, and the self-proclaimed world’s first “gaffe-free” politician, on how to make his chatbots as reliably free of making mistakes as she is. It’s not yet thought possible for a full-on AI robot to turn up at a state banquet, but their time will come, possibly as a relief for all concerned. It’d be interesting to hear how Grok might answer that traditional royal opening gambit, “And what do you do?”

His majesty, with a slight swing of the fist for emphasis, declared that “in renewing our bond tonight, we do so with unshakable trust in our friendship and in our shared commitment to independence and liberty”. Indeed so, but the meal could have done with a bit more spice and inclusivity. Had Ed Davey and Nigel Farage been there, they could have been left to settle their political differences mano a mano. If a compromised and supposedly anti-monarchy figure such as Murdoch was in attendance, why not Elon Musk and his friend Tommy Robinson, surely both prime targets to be seduced by the neutralising embrace of “the establishment”, tamed by vintage port and a plate of Hampshire watercress panna cotta for the greater good of humanity. Indeed, how pleasing it would have been to have seen a mass reconciliation of the dissident elements of the Maga movement and the House of Windsor in such historic surroundings. Maybe another time. Maybe an even more historic third state visit by Donald Trump in a couple of years? The ultimate, indeed.