They’re waiting for the queen to phone
Patrick Wintour at the Guardian reports that Trump is having doubts about that visit to the UK, but the White House has issued a statement saying Nuh-uh.
Donald Trump has told Theresa May in a phone call he does not want to go ahead with a state visit to Britain until the British public supports him coming.
The US president said he did not want to come if there were large-scale protests and his remarks in effect put the visit on hold for some time.
The call was made in recent weeks, according to a Downing Street adviser who was in the room. The statement surprised May, according to those present.
May’s people refuse to comment.
“We aren’t going to comment on speculation about the contents of private phone conversations. The Queen extended an invitation to President Trump to visit the UK and there is no change to those plans.”
Yeah that’s meaningless. What plans? An invitation isn’t plans.
We don’t actually have an ambassador to the UK, by the way.
Trump has named Woody Johnson, a Republican donor and owner of the New York Jets, as the new ambassador to the UK but has yet to nominate him formally. A large number of US ambassadorial positions remain unfilled worldwide largely due to the Trump team failing to make any formal nominations.
I guess Trump is too busy tweeting and watching Fox and Friends to take care of trivia like filling ambassadorial vacancies.
The White House said in statement: “The President has tremendous respect for Prime Minister May. That subject never came up on the call.”
Jenna Johnson, a Washington Post reporter tweeted to say that the White House press secretary had told her the Guardian’s report was “false” but added that the White House “won’t say when Trump plans to go to the UK”.
FUBAR as usual.
The Queen is on twitter. Will Donnie be venting at Her Maj.?
the UK and the Queen must set some boundaries. I’m no royalty lover but I wouldn’t want his Dingy Foulness, the Trump mess, within a thousand miles of the Queen. She’s an old and dignified lady and he taints every interaction he has. The UK needs to Protect their Queen from the Barbarian Thug from the west.
Let one of the young ‘disposable’ royals meet with him. Who’s 13th in line to the throne? That number alone would send a message…
Maybe someone old and not glamorous, who doesn’t have a gilded carriage. I appoint the Duke of Kent.
Her Maj can deal with him. I’m not a fan of the royals but Liz has won my grudging respect.
My favourite story is about when she was hosting the then Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah. He was staying at Balmoral – the Queen’s large country estate in Scotland. Over lunch the Queen apparently offered him a tour of the estate by Land Rover and he agreed. He climbed into the back of the vehicle, expecting the Queen to join him, Instead, she climbed into the driver’s seat, put the pedal to the metal and didn’t let up, chatting away the whole time. Abdullah had never been driven by a woman before and was… a little unnerved by the whole experience, repeatedly asking her to slow down. Of course, during World War II, the then Princess Elizabeth had been a professional driver with the ATS (Auxilliary Transport Service) where she became a mechanic, and expert military truck driver…
This does actually appear to be a true story.
Given that, I’d actually enjoy seeing Liz deal with Trump. Pass the popcorn!
Heh! That’s tellin him!
Sadly though the bit about her WW2 driving skills has been a good deal exaggerated, I recently learned. She went for the training in April ’45, and it was just training and just a couple of weeks. It was basically so that there could be photos of her doing it. She was never actually a military driver or a working mechanic.
William on the other hand is a genuine working rescue helicopter pilot, which I find a welcome relief after Charles.
Actually, I’ve read varying accounts about her time in the ATS – it comes up in British WWII histories every so often.
She did only serve for a few weeks – she qualified in April 1945 and the German surrender came on May 8th. Once we were no longer on a war footing she was pulled out.
However, I’ve read some accounts that say the whole impetus to join the ATS came from Elizabeth herself, and the only reason she didn’t join at 17 – in April 1944 – (the youngest you could enlist) is that she had to fight the establishment to be allowed to do any kind of real war work. Lady Mary Churchill (daughter of the PM) had set a precedent by joining the ATS. Elizabeth went througfh the exact basic training the other ATS women went through – though she did not sleep in the general barracks/dormitories with the other oiks but was given special dispensation to return to Buck House at night.
She didn’t just get a driving license for a HGV. The driving instruction covered what we would now call advanced driving, defensive driving and off road driving. She had to be able to drive several different classes of vehicles and also had to be able to strip down and reassemble her vehicles’ engines – so I’m going to stick with “expert driver”. It was a tough course and not everyone passed, least of all on the first attempt.
I have my doubts about the training being purely propaganda because of how the royal family genuinely did seem to feel that they owed it to the ordinary people of Britain to stay in the capital and to “do their bit” as far as they could. Hence Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother’s comment:
And after Buck House was bombed:
Not to mention that apparently Elizabeth had been trying to persuade her father to let her do war work since 1942 when she was 15. I’ve come to think there’s a touch of “erasing women’s stories” in the, “she didn’t really do anything,” narratives. Yes, the war ended, but we have no idea what Elizabeth’s role in the ATS would have been if it continued
Charles… oh dear, Charles. A terribly well-meaning but not very bright man who has done some very good things, especially for unemployed young people, and some appalling ones by promoting far too much woo.
Yes, William seems to be steady and hard working. Harry is playing the role usually accorded to The Spare – women, partying, scandal, silliness, and anything else that fills column inches in the newspapers. Personally, I think Liz has done a good job as an unofficial ambassador for Britain. She has been hard working and, for someone of her wealth, self-sacrificing. I’d be happy for her to go on as monarch until her death then let’s dissolve the whole silly pantomime.
The fact that it comes up in British WWII histories every so often is how I recently learned that I had an exaggerated idea of the extent and nature of her participation. I didn’t mean to belittle her though – I withdraw any belittling remarks.
Oh, to be absolutely clear, I didn’t think it was you belittling her! It’s just a trend I’ve noticed – certain (mostly male) historians have a habit of examining women’s roles in history with far more scepticism than they apply to men in equivalent positions.
Of course, that’s partially how women – and people of colour – get erased from history. In both cases their contribution to UK history is there but the response of historians has been dismissive. That’s how we have people claiming there have been no – not a single one! – people of colour in the UK before the 1950s. Despite the fact we know the Romans stationed North African auxilliaries on Hadrian’s Wall (what, not a single one of those guys had at British girl in the local village or town? And not a single one of them produced a mixed race child? And not a single one of those soldiers took their retirement land grant in the prvince they’d spent so many years, and maybe had a family in?) The same goes for sailors from many different ethnicities who crewed ships during the Age of Sail. Etc. Listen to the same historians and you’d think that women prior to the 1950s never owned businesses whereas we know that, right back to the roman occupation, women were bakers, brewers, textile merchants, even blacksmiths!
Ah, but these women were the exception and, anyway, they only inherited the business from their husbands, and the businesses were probably run by their brothers or sons (except we can’t show they had either…)
So it all annoys me a little bit.