Suing The BBC

There is an argument that the British monarchy brings in so much tourist revenue that it "earns" its tax-funded luxury. Quite how this squares with France being the most visited country on Earth is beyond me. When did the French last have a king?

No — hereditary privilege belongs on the same pages of history as the plague. It is ridiculous that so many of us in modern democracies do not elect our head of state. That we accept the notion that some people ought to be raised in palaces, others in slums. Whenever I watch (virtually any!) Disney film, my thoughts are with the peasants.

Even so, I can't help noticing a fundamental difference between the Anglosphere's only monarch and the president of its largest republic. Donald Trump is suing the BBC. Can you imagine a universe in which King Charles III lowers himself to sue a foreign media organization? For the king to wear the title of "civil claimant" beneath the crown? It's unthinkable. The embarrassment and insult it would cause to everyone living in the Commonwealth Realms — whether we're monarchists or not — is beyond belief. Class as social stratification needs to end, but class as a personal virtue should be championed and embodied by a nation's ceremonial leadership.

Let's back up a second — the BBC was wrong. An independent production company called October Films Ltd made a BBC Panorama episode about Trump. This included a poorly edited twelve-second snippet of his speech in January 2021. The BBC should never have allowed an outside production company to get within a thousand kilometres of such a sensitive topic. It was a bad call, and apologizing was the correct course of action.

Donald Trump then had the opportunity to show magnanimity. As the head of the world's most powerful conventional military, any time a US President lets something slide, magnanimity is what the world sees. Never weakness. Instead, Trump chose petulance. His juvenile desire to behave like the 6'3" little-big-man of the Oval Office has put America on a visceral collision course with its closest ally. This could not have come at a worse time for British-American relations.

I live just north of London, and I regularly drive past Stansted Airport. It's a fairly unique airport in that its runway has ideal qualities for security teams, so almost everyone important lands there. During Trump's first state visit in 2019, the roads were lined by photographers and anorak-wearers, and seeing Air Force One overhead was the main event in every nearby town (admittedly, it was usually viewed negatively). When he visited this September, crickets and tumbleweed. The anti-American sentiment in Britain — that had never really extended beyond grumbling and a few thousand placards — has become something real. The British public are pretending that Trump's America isn't there.

Our politicians were seemingly taken aback by this. The September state visit was held behind closed doors for fear of protests ruining it. The President was moved from Stansted to his ambassador's residence at Winfield, then to Windsor Castle, and finally to the Prime Minister's official country residence. All behind heavy security and lots of line-of-sight space for the ostentatiously visible Secret Service. There even appears to have been a plan to disperse protestors in Windsor, but when officials went to tell them nothing would be happening outside the castle walls, the only trouble they found were four people and a projector.

Every Brit know what this means. We have three forms of interaction — banter, argument, and silence. The latter can be deafening. The "special relationship" — a term only ever taken seriously by Britain's more toadyish politicians — is all but over. The British public has left. It feels like we are no longer two nations divided by a common language, but merely two nations. British prime ministers are most to blame.

First, Tony Blair allowed Britain to become a poodle to the George Bush Jr. administration. I remember being woken up during his state visit by an Apache helicopter hovering low over our house, as though London were a conquered province. The whole thing was a humiliating kick-start to Britain pulling away from the trans-Atlantic alliance. (Trump, by the way, has proved a much better guest). Then, when Obama turned America's attention to the Pacific, David Cameron had an open goal to increase British influence in the Atlantic. Instead, he panicked, divided the country, and put his party to the sword over the European Union. Theresa May, Boris Johnson, and Rishi Sunak staked their legacies on securing a trade deal with the United States, and publicly failed as Britain's economy sank.

The British public is turning its back on its most powerful bilateral relationship not because it hates the other side. But because it's been twenty-eight years since we had a leader willing to publicly stand up for our part in it. The relationship, special or not, is naturally unequal. The United States is much bigger, and far more powerful. But the Swiss don't fall to their knees and open their mouths every time the French and Germans visit. It is possible to be a junior partner and maintain your dignity. Britain needs a prime minister to stand up for it, and loudly.

Keir Starmer has the chance. Donald Trump attacking our state broadcaster is a bull charging at the heart of the British psyche. Starmer must grab it. He doesn't even need to win. Just putting up a fight will do.

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