President Trump is feeling taste of British people anger in his current UK visit

Opinion Poll indicates that the Maverick leader has approval of only 16 per cent

By Anjan Roy

In the days prior to World War One, England had a popular song:

“We don’t want to fight,

But if we have to,

We have the men,

We have the ships,

We have the money too”

In these days, a bankrupt Great Britain was seen to genuflect sheepishly in the last two days before an immature visiting US President who pretends to be a king, to win over his sympathies in the face of an existential threat from its traditional foe, the Russian bear. The spectacle really drove home the point that once great Britain had already shrunk to the size of little England.

Russia is at the doorstep of western Europe and one of the vaunted West European nations are in a position to field a battery of soldiers who could really put up a fight, that even a small Ukraine could stage for the last three years.

As a matter of fact, Donald Trump himself had posed this awkward question before the visiting British prime minister, Sir Keir Starmer, if Britain could really defend itself against Russia. Sir Keir had no real answer and could feign only an embarrassed smile ..

Faced with the predicament, England sought to conjure up a spell of nineteenth century grandeur to solve a geo-political crisis of the twenty-first century: it was seeking to wean over the support of the imperious Donald Trump in meeting the Ukraine crisis. A hint of the strategy was witnessed when King Charles mentioned the Ukraine war in the context of the Anglo-American joint fight in Second World War to maintain what is often referred to as “common fight to preserve our common values of freedom” etc.

However, the strategy of casting a spell around a deeply resented American president could be staged by placing him in a golden cage. The entire exercise for impressing Donald Trump of the so-called “special relationship” between the two countries could be held strictly in a bubbled atmosphere of a royal estate, far away from the capital London.

Donald Trump was shielded in a most suffocating manner within the precincts of the grounds and castle, while in the rest of the country people were expressing their disgust at the show of sheepishness. How far it will bear fruit would be clear only subsequently.

US president, Donald Trump, may be enjoying the pomp and splendour of a state visit in the United Kingdom on Tuesday. But he is actually in a bubble, far away from the British public who have gathered in the capital, London, and elsewhere in the country to give even to their feeling of disgust and condemnation at the carefully organised show.

The British are known for catchy, crisp and terse observations. The one high profile London protest march had this slogan emblazoned on its placards: “Dump Trump”. That gave out the essence of the public feeling about the US president and his politics.

Shortly before the trip, an opinion poll revealed only 16% of the British public approved of Trump, the rest had varying degrees of rejection of Trumpian politics from mild disapproval to vitriolic rage. These are being expressed in public meetings which had gathered at various places.

A leading politician had even rejected her invitation to the Trump lunch at Windsor Palace. On the other hand, some protesters had projected a Trump picture with the ignominious Epstein on the walls of the Windsor Palace.

Large bodies of protestors were moving in London. Some protestors are urging the British government to show some backbone and not bow down so low to humour Trump and his demands.

Indeed, the British government and security establishment appears to have been well aware of the feelings of the public and therefore all care was taken to shield the visit from the public and inside the closely guarded palace walls. Even the political meet is scheduled to held in the country home of the British premier far away from London and other popular venues.

As the procedures for a full scale spell of somnolence were being cast over the credulous US president by the cringing British, realpolitik was ruling out elsewhere in the world.

Russian president, Vladimir Putin, had order a vicious attack on the main railway track in Ukraine which links the country with western Europe. Throwing all pretences to the wind and defying the US president’s umpteen appeals to rein in Russian onslaught in Ukraine, the Russians are on a merciless mission.

A practitioner of hardline diplomacy, president Putin had called up his “friend”, prime minister Modi, on his 75th birthday and described him as a world statesman. This was his bid to show he had friends all across, and the western ploy to distance him and isolate him on the world stage had failed. A week back, Putin was with Xi Jinping and host of other leaders from the global south in the SCO summit in China.

On the other side, the European Union had also reached out to India and fast forwarded its talks for a trade agreement with India. The EU appears to have strait away rejected Donald Trump’s appeals to slap 100% tariffs on India and China for their purchase of Russian discounted oil.

Much to the chagrin of the US president, the Europeans themselves have kept on buying Russian energy even in the midst of secondary sanctions for such behaviour. What savage duplicity in the name of stagecraft, while ordinary and innocent Ukrainians are being butchered. There appears to be an edition of Macbeth in the 21st century.

Unbeknownst to him, Donald Trump is being churned in a witches’ cauldron with the spell of pomp and old dinner silverware in the royal gardens in Windsor. The spell might shatter immediately outside of the golden cage. (IPA Service)