Trumped

The Queen has seldom had more holes in a state banquet seating plan. The leader of the opposition, the shadow foreign secretary, the Speaker and the leader of the Liberal Democrats have all ostentatiously refused ‘Her Majesty’s command’ to attend her banquet in honour of Donald Trump next week. The fact that the dinner is in honour of our greatest ally — and in the week we celebrate D-Day — seems to matter less than virtue points on social media.

Few will appreciate the irony of this petty posturing more than the Queen herself. For it is that same tranche of the liberal elite who remain responsible for the worst state visit of her reign.

It was a Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson, who invited the brutal Romanian despot Nicolae Ceausescu and his equally ghastly wife, Elena, to pay a state visit to Buckingham Palace in June 1978. By the time they arrived, Wilson had been replaced by Jim Callaghan, who was just as enthusiastic, as was the leader of the Liberal party. David Steel even presented the dictator with a labrador puppy called Gladstone (later renamed Corbu and promoted to honorary colonel in the Romanian army).

None cheered louder than the one paper granted an exclusive interview with Ceausescu ahead of the visit.

‘Mr Ceausescu,’ gushed the Guardian’s Hella Pick, ‘has shown immense courage in asserting Romania’s independence from the Russians and encouraging Romania’s nationalism’.

Most popular

Stephen Pollard

Labour’s grooming gangs position is contemptible

That same nationalism lay behind the ruthless persecution of millions of ethnic Hungarians, not that this was of any great concern to the left, let alone to ministers. Their sole concern was a £300 million deal for British airliners.

Ceausescu was a communist with an eye for commerce. Exploring previously classified Foreign Office files for my book Queen of the World, I found that the Foreign Office was inundated with requests for introductions.