By Matt Frei

Copyright channel4

Grigory Potemkin of the eponymous village fame would have been disappointed by today’s royal procession at Windsor Castle for President Trump and the first lady. Potemkin would have rented a cardboard crowd of some kind to make the host feel as if the real people adored him. Instead the backdrop for this procession for the unprecedented second state visit of a US president were the fields and lonesome sheep of Windsor Great Park.

Their bucolic peace was disturbed by the clatter of hoofs, the crunch of golden carriage wheels on gravel and the tinny sound of bugles. The route was lined by Beefeaters and other splendid uniforms placed at regular intervals protecting the sovereign and his guest from the home county emptiness.

The whole point of pomp and circumstance is not to be in purdah. It is meant to awe the subjects. It is easy to forget that the same route taken today by the royal party was once taken by Harry and Meghan on their wedding day to the jubilant throng. And we know how that special relationship ended with the crown.

I doubt Trump would have cared that he was shielded from the turbulent human froth of central London. He probably thinks they are all losers anyway.

Number Ten would have been relieved too. Any piece of unscripted human interaction that could upset the delicate balance of this diplomatic juggling act is imagined with dread on Downing Street. The press conference at Chequers has more unexplored ordnance than a Ukrainian battlefield. The one name that connects the King, the president and the prime minister is of course Jeffrey Epstein, through the brother, the friendship and the sacked ambassador.

In case anyone had forgotten, the Led by Donkeys protest group projected a supersized image of Trump and his late estranged friend on the ramparts of Windsor Castle. Digital nuisance was one threat this late medieval fortress was not built to guard against. Four people were arrested. The image has gone. But not its memory.

The disdain and dislike with which Trump is viewed in his favourite kingdom – apart from Saudi Arabia and Qatar – is hardly new or surprising. Nor is the requirement of royalty to do what they’re paid to do: to grin, bear and engage in small talk.

But once upon a time the pomp and circumstance underpinned a reassuring alliance at the heart of what they used to call the west. The US president and the UK prime minister provided – on the whole – an English-speaking duo of mutual admiration at the heart of the post-war alliance.

Think of the so-called special relationship, lubricated by royal pageantry as a sort of minimal maintenance contract. Churchill and Roosevelt set the standard. One power on the rise. The other on the wane. But two leaders of equal stature. Sometimes the relationship failed: Prime Minister Eden cold-shouldered by President Eisenhower over the Suez crisis. Sometimes it was actually love rather than Love Actually. Tony Blair’s closeness to George W Bush post 9/11 became a Fatal Attraction – while we are on movie themes.

At the time a senior British diplomat pulled me to one side and said:

“Matt, the world is a jumbo jet. The Americans are in the cockpit. We are alone in first and everyone else is in economy.”

Or, from another diplomat: “We are the Athens to their Rome.” And we know which empire had a more lasting impact.

Such misguided arrogance was soon exposed when Donald Rumsfeld, the then US secretary of defence, told his British counterpart that if the Brits had to bother with an approval vote in parliament then they need not trouble themselves. America can take on Iraq without our help. Thanks but no thanks.

Whatever wrinkles or brief ruptures there were in the “special relationship” could be papered over with a nod to shared values and history. A bust of Churchill was also always at hand. The problem now is that the British public, and I suspect their sovereign, fear that the values of their esteemed guest no longer align.

Elon Musk may have fallen out with Trump but they are still in tune on ideology. So when Musk tells 150,000 protesters in central London on a giant screen erected by his best English friend Tommy Robinson that “violence is coming to you”, this rubs up badly against protocol and democratic decency. The fact that a visiting American president has to be shielded from the angry public speaks volumes.

The fact that the president’s best British friend is a man called Farage, who has parked his tanks on Downing Street lawns, is a problem. What’s more, Trump loves a winner – even one who doesn’t particularly love him. And Keir Starmer is not doing much winning these days.

So to the final reality check amongst the golden pomp: despite the AI deals being done, the only thing Great Britain has to offer that the president really cares about is a sleepover at Windsor and a huddle with the royal family. Making some unforgettable TV moments for his own collection. And even if King Charles, in the privacy of a golden carriage, is able to use the moment of royal theatre to shave a few percentage points off our steel tariffs, who is to say Trump will honour the deal after the first vexing question about Epstein at Chequers?

Let alone Ukraine, Gaza and the recognition of Palestine, promised by this prime minister. The field is full of mines.

And how ironic is it that almost 250 years after America rejected our monarchy and embarked on the most powerful republican experiment in history, the successor of George Washington wants to reign like a King George.

The rash of gold in the Oval Office and the shows of cringing fealty round the cabinet table would have made many monarchs blush with embarrassment. In terms of values, the Atlantic Ocean has never felt wider.

The sobering truth is that we are no longer sitting in first class. It feels like we are standing up in some heavy turbulence serving the heated peanuts and diet cokes to our American passengers and pilots.

This article was first posted on Substack. Subscribe to Channel 4 News.