A state visit is an event. A big event. Fucking massive in fact. They wheel out the horse-and-carriage sets, polish up the Coldstream Guards, dust off the Crown Jewels and, oh, provide a bit of security too. Just 40 or 50 thousand police should do it. Plus secret service, anti-terrorism boys, and any teams the recipient of the State Visit should deem fit to bring along for the ride. There are more earpieces on view than at a hearing-aid convention. But basically, London grinds to a halt (well, the traffic generally does) as the received dignitary and Mrs Received Dignitary get to enjoy British pomp and ceremony from the back of their very own Landau. And we do pomp and ceremony better than anyone. Its almost our national pastime.

And its great for tourism. Those Poles and French and Japanese simply pour onto these shores armed with just selfie sticks and little union jacks to wave about. Lovely.

So who gets invited to a ‘state visit’? Not everyone, that’s for sure. And certainly not just the people we like. They don’t need one; we’re already mates, do business, agree on things, very pally. No. We give state visits to people we need on board. The people we want onside. Certainly ones we wish to engage in business with or increase business with. That’s the whole point. We don’t go pissing away 50 million quids worth of hospitality on someone who is just a ‘good person’ who maybe sat under a tree for 7 years contemplating his navel. No, Bhudda would have had a tea on the lawn of the Palace, no more.

We had the Saudis for a state visit. Nice people. Repress their women. When they’re not stoning them to death along with any gays they find. They fund about 64% of world terrorism (all figures here have been validated by a random generator in my head), engage in torture, but just for entertainment, and they send their youths here every summer to burn rubber in solid gold Bugattis outside Harrods for a month. But we trade with them. So we invited them. State Visit. Not because we like them or agree with their lifestyle. Same with China, just last year. An abusive and repressive regime, but rich. And we want their money. So, despite the protesters lining the route to scream at President and Mrs Xi, they were treated to the best of everything. So we could do some deals.

And trumped-up (no pun intended) little shit John Bercow, the ‘speaker of the House’ in Parliament, has unilaterally decided that Donald Trump should not be allowed to address parliament if he comes over. Because Donald is a bad person (agreed) and has terrible sexist, racist views (agreed) and has no respect for the independence of his judiciary (agreed) and so shouldn’t get the honour of a speech.

The same honour that Bercow himself was instrumental in giving President Xi. Standing there in simpering sycophancy smarmily shaking the man’s hand after a grovelling introduction.

We don’t invite people here just because they’re lovely. We invite them because on some level we need them.

Keep your friends close and your enemies closer.

Happy Tuesday

A xxxx