referenced the importance of Nato<\/a>, called for continued support for Ukraine, warned of the dangers of isolationism. Mentions of Magna Carta and the principle that executive power is subject to checks and balances received rapturous applause from Democrats. There was a very firm mention of \u201cmy prime minister\u201d, Keir Starmer, whom the president has publicly insulted, and the king\u2019s own love of the Royal Navy, which Trump has mocked.<\/p>\nKing Charles addresses the joint session of congress. Photograph: Chris Jackson\/PA<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s difficult to imagine he could have gone much further in what he said and what he didn\u2019t say,\u201d said the contemporary political historian Anthony Seldon, praising it as \u201cexceptional\u201d. \u201cHe judged it incredibly well: very brave, very smart, very clever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Such speeches are teamwork. Good speechwriters know the character of their principals well.<\/p>\n
Charles\u2019s key aide, private secretary Sir Clive Alderton, is certainly well placed to give crucial input. Chief point man for dealings with No 10, an experienced diplomat and former ambassador who knows the Foreign Office inside out, he served Charles first as Prince of Wales and now as king, and will have liaised with No 10 and the Foreign Office.<\/p>\n
A first draft will have set out government, diplomatic and trade objectives and key points the monarch wished to make. Buckingham Palace, Downing Street and the Foreign Office will have been in lockstep on this \u2013 they could not afford not to be.<\/p>\n
Input is likely, too, from Charles\u2019s deputy private secretary, Theo Rycroft, who has been in the diplomatic service since 2009, and the king\u2019s director of communications, Tobyn Andreae. Across the pond, the UK ambassador, Christian Turner, and deputy, James Roscoe, a diplomat and former communications secretary to Elizabeth II, will have been discreetly channelling the White House view.<\/p>\n
Drafts will have gone back and forth, checking for tone, balance and any late-emerging issues. Work on refining this high-stakes speech continued right up until the morning of delivery to Congress, it is understood.<\/p>\n
Throughout the whole process, the king plays a major part in crafting. He makes marks by hand, in red ink, to drafts printed out for him, writing commentary in the margins at considerable length, adding things in and crossing things out. He will also have held meetings with Alderton on the subject.<\/p>\n
King Charles III is greeted by attendees after addressing Congress. Photograph: Kylie Cooper\/AFP\/Getty Images<\/p>\n
He is said to be good at jokes, with no need for a joke writer. Certainly there were many, which lightened the tough message. Though which genius came up with the idea of giving the president a bell from HMS Trump, a T-class submarine launched in 1944, is not immediately known.<\/p>\n
What resulted was an address that appealed to much of the US political class, if not the Trump administration, according to Murphy.<\/p>\n
But its impact should not be judged immediately. \u201cTrump will be back to being Trump on Monday,\u201d said Seldon. \u201cBut I wouldn\u2019t judge its impact by what Trump is going to be saying on Monday. I would judge it in the long-term sense, by what the Republicans and the Democrats do; how they view Nato; how they view the Ukraine war; how they view America\u2019s unilateral behaviour; how they view executive power in the person, which is to take more power than the founding fathers intended when they carefully devised the separation of powers.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to judge it in the long term. He could not have done any more.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jonathan Dimbleby, the king\u2019s biographer and friend, felt the address contained both an \u201cimplied rebuke to Trumpery\u201d and an \u201celoquent plea\u201d to remember democracy, the rule of law and checks and balances, as well as stressing that the relationship between Europe and the US was now more important than ever before.<\/p>\n
It would have been \u201choned, honed and honed again\u201d. \u201cThere\u2019s nothing in that speech that No 10 would not have given approval to, and large parts of it will have been drafted by No 10 and the Foreign Office, alongside the palace,\u201d he told the BBC\u2019s Newsnight.<\/p>\n
Lord Darroch, former UK ambassador to the US, believed it was \u201cbrave and bold and actually really excellent\u201d. While there was no direct criticism of the US administration, \u201cit was full of implied rebuke\u201d, he said. Citing references to climate change, and Nato\u2019s support for the US after 9\/11, they \u201cwere signals of implied rejection of some of the things that Trump says\u201d, he told Newsnight.<\/p>\n
The Republican senator and Trump supporter Lindsey Graham said the king had given a \u201cmuch-needed morale boost\u201d for US politicians.<\/p>\n
The Republican congressman and former diplomat Michael Baumgartner thought Charles did \u201ca great job for Great Britain\u201d, specifically picking out the king\u2019s comments on strengthening military capability.<\/p>\n
However, somewhat throwing the king\u2019s own words back at him, he said: \u201cWhat matters is not words but actions. And we\u2019ll need to see action from the British people in terms of fulfilling those promises as well.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for whether it would heal the rift between president and prime minister, certainly Baumgartner\u2019s personal feelings towards Starmer appeared unchanged. Referring to him as a \u201cleftist weeny\u201d, he told Newsnight: \u201cI think we saw in the king what we traditionally would like to see from Great Britain.<\/p>\n
\u201cCertainly Keir Starmer<\/a> does not have a lot of respect. He is not perceived as being strong and capable here in the US.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Donald Trump called it \u201cfantastic\u201d, Democrats cheered references to Magna Carta, while the joint session of the US…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":557469,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-557468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557468","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=557468"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/557468\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/557469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=557468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=557468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=557468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}