Category Archives: Politics

Starmer’s Sunday Surprise

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I wonder how long it took to get those signs printed.

International affairs continue to move at a dizzying pace. Far from being able to write comprehensive essays about events, it’s as much as I can do to keep up with the photographs being uploaded.

Shortly after meeting President Trump individually, Starmer, Macron, Zelenskyy and many other heads of government met at Lancaster House for an emergency summit on the Russia-Ukraine war. This was sometimes described in the press as a European leaders meeting, but that was not strictly true as it also included Justin Trudeau, a North American.

Back in D.C., Ambassador Mandelson has already caused a minor diplomatic row by airing a view on the Trump-Zelenskyy negotiations which contradicted British government policy.

The Downing Street Flickr account uploaded many photographs of Starmer’s bilateral meeting with Trump as well as of the conference he hosted. The White House also released photographs of the former and the European Commission of the latter. This presented a challenge for me when organising the files on Wikimedia Commons. For the scenes at the White House I decided to use “Trump-Starmer bilateral” for the American photographs and “Starmer-Trump bilateral” for the British ones. For the summit I put (UK pic) and (EC pic) in brackets. Further complicating matters is that London, Brussells and D.C. all sit in different time zones so that the meta-data on different cameras are inconsistent.

Following the meeting, Zelenskyy flew to the Sandringham estate for a meeting with His Majesty. Today Trudeau did the same. The choice of Sandringham for this part was confusing for three reasons:

  1. Sandringham is a privately-owned property, yet clearly matters of state were being conducted.
  2. The King’s main London residence at Clarence House is only a minute’s walk from where the summit took place, whereas the journey to Sandringham is over a hundred miles.
  3. Sandringham is normally only used by the royal family from Christmas to early February, not into March.

Sadly, no government photographs of the royal meetings were taken, only commercial ones. Although this could be considered a private rather than an official visit (and certainly not a state one) I was a little disappointed that the Ukrainian president was not appointed an honorary GCB.

The presence of the Prime Minister of Canada at an otherwise-European conference may seem a little strange, but of course Canada is a nation directly adjacent at the opposite end of the main adversary, as well as bordering the United States. Among the proximate causes of this summit is that the latter, long considered the keystone of any global military policy, may now me as much an antagonist as Russia is.

Given the great affection in which Canada is held by the British public, as well as the long-standing cultural and constitutional links between the United Kingdom and its former dominion, many viewers expressed disappointment that Starmer, whether in his meeting with Trump or at the subsequent summit, did not explicitly push back against Trump’s threats of both economic and actual warfare against Canada, which they interpreted as indifference to attack on a senior Commonwealth partner. That our shared monarch did not comment on the matter either was also of grave concern.

The King, of course, can only make an official statement on such a politically-charged issue on the formal advice of his Canadian government. It is yet to be confirmed if any such advice was given at today’s meeting. I can only hope that when such a statement is made, it comes with the correct coat of arms to hammer the point home!

Then again, it is also worth remembering that we are only a week from Commonwealth Day, and with it the annual Commonwealth Message. As the position of Head of the Commonwealth is one which has no formal powers even in reserve, it is one from which His Majesty can speak without ministerial advice. While a dedicated diatribe in such an instance would be inappropriate, a coded reference or two would not go amiss.

A Look at Some Letterheads

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In the past five days President Trump has in rapid succession hosted bilateral meetings at the White House with Emmanuel Macron, Sir Keir Starmer and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I have not watched any of these events in full in order to write a proper political analysis – frankly, the small snippets I did see were already enough to leave me rocking in a corner – so am instead simply focusing on some aspects of government heraldry.

During a meeting in the oval office, Starmer gave Trump a letter from Charles III inviting him on a second state visit to the United Kingdom. The letter was marked “Private and Confidential”, yet presenting it in this way meant nearly all the words were caught on camera. I have copied out the text below (keeping the line breaks and punctuation the same) with equals signs representing the words that got obscured:

Dear Donald,

I just wanted to write and thank you for receiving====
in Washington so soon after your Inauguration. Given the====
breadth of challenges across the world, I can only think that====
of our two countries has a vital role to play in promoting and====
the values which matter so much to us all.

I remember with great fondness your visits to the United Kingdom
during your previous Presidency, and recall our nascent plan for you to
visit Dumfries House, in Scotland, as the global pandemic began and all
bets – and flights! – were off… I can only say that it would be a great
pleasure to extend that invitation once again, in the hope that you might at
some stage be visiting Turnberry and a detour to a relatively near
neighbour might not cause you too much inconvenience. An alternative
might perhaps be for you to visit Balmoral, if you are calling in at Menie.
There us much on both Estates which I think you might find interesting
and enjoy – particularly as my Foundation at Dumfries House provides
hospitality skills-training for young people who often end up as staff in
your own establishments!

Quite apart from this presenting an opportunity to discuss a wide
range of issues of mutual interest, it would also offer a valuable chance to
plan a historic second State Visit to the United Kingdom. As you will
====, this is unprecedented by a U.S. President. That is why I would find
it helpful for us to be able to discuss, together, a range of options for

location and programme content. In so doing, working together, I know
we will further enhance the special relationship between our two countries,
of which we are both so proud.

Yours Most Sincerely

Charles R

The letter is described as emanating from Buckingham Palace, and is topped by the familiar red outline of the British royal arms, still the old version with St Edward’s Crown.

On a related note, Starmer recently announced that, owing to the escalation of international military tensions, his government would be redirecting funds from international aid to defence. Anneliese Dodds, Minister of State for Development, resigned from the government in protest. The Prime Minister’s response to her resignation is published on Gov.UK as a PDF. His letterhead is the lesser version of the arms, again still using St Edward’s Crown.

One place (or rather a great many places) where the Tudor crown can now be seen in use is in the arms of Queen Camilla, as used by companies to which her royal warrant was granted late last year. The first example I’ve actually seen (through other heraldists pointing it out online, rather than in person) is Heaven Skincare, which proudly displays the warrant in the navigation bar of its website. Deborah Mitchell, the owner, Tweeted a photograph of the coat of arms on her branded packaging earlier today.

UPDATE (February 2026)

The Queen’s Warrant has also been given to the luxury department store Fortnum & Mason. The Wikimedia contributor Hayden Soloviev has uploaded two shots of her arms displayed one of their London stores.

The Dark Lord Rises

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A longstanding frustration of British heraldists and constitutionalists is the misuse of the word “Lord” in conjunction with a person’s given name. “Lord” can, of course, have many different meanings depending on context. In particular, its placement before or after a person’s first name.

When “Lord” is placed before a person’s first name and surname (i.e. the place where a knight would put “Sir”) it indicates said person to be the younger son of a marquess, duke or occasionally prince – e.g. Lord Nicholas Windsor, son of the Duke of Kent; Lord Ivar Mountbatten, son of the Marquess of Milford Haven. When placed directly before the surname (or territorial title) omitting the first name, it indicates that the person is a baron, viscount, earl or marquess (most usually the former) in his own right – e.g. Lord Winston, Lord Stansgate, Lord Attlee and Lord Lothian.

Sometimes, where it is necessary to preserve the first name, the word Lord can be written between the two – most famously in the case of Alfred, Lord Tennyson. It is also possible for the same person to occupy both states – the two-time Victorian prime minister John Russell was the younger son of the 6th Duke of Bedford and was later created an earl in his own right with the earldom using his surname as the title, thus going from “Lord John Russell” as a commoner to “John, Lord Russell” as a peer. If the use of commas between parts of a person’s name is not practical, especially in long lists of names where it may cause confusion, then one can sometimes get away with using brackets for this purpose instead e.g. Lord (Andrew) Lansley.

I bring this up due to the recent appointment of Peter, Lord Mandelson to be His Britannic Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America. His page on Gov.UK and the titles of a series of recent Flickr photographs both incorrectly call him “Lord Peter Mandelson”, thus greatly elevating the prestige of his parentage.

(Just to confuse you, Mandelson actually does have noble heritage on his mother’s side, but only from another life baron – Lord Morrison of Lambeth – whose own origins were distinctly proletarian.)

Once these photographs had been transferred to Wikimedia Commons, I made sure to change the names and captions to something more suitable.

Thankfully the Court Circular for 3rd February does better, stating that

The Lord Mandelson was received in audience by The King and kissed hands upon his appointment as His Majesty’s Ambassador to the United States of America.

On the day of his arrival, the British Embassy in Washington D.C. Tweeted a video of him giving a fluffy speech about his new role, accompanied with a sickeningly-dreamy montage and backing tune. Interestingly, the Tweet and the speech simply call him “Peter Mandelson” without mentioning his peerage at all. Since there did not appear to be a text copy anywhere, I have typed out his speech based on the subtitles. I have copied the punctuation exactly as it appeared there, despite this not always matching the way Mandelson actually spoke the words. Actually, given the syntactical incoherence of some of the sentences, I suspect he spoke in free-form and the written version came later. I have numbered the lines for ease of analysis.

  1. Hello, I’m Peter Mandelson, and I’m proud to serve as His Majesty’s British Ambassador to the United States of America.
  2. It’s great to be up and running in the US, a country in which I have spent so much of my adult life and admire so much.
  3. I’m speaking to you from the Ambassador’s Residence, a building that symbolises decades of friendship, hosting countless presidents, prime ministers, politicians, royalty, and many ordinary American citizens.
  4. I’m crystal clear: the UK has no closer ally than America.
  5. And no one does more than our two countries together in intelligence sharing and defence.
  6. With our jet fighters, our naval missions, and army special forces operating together in the world.
  7. Our deep economic and cultural ties are unrivalled.
  8. Looking ahead, President Trump’s administration is shaping up to be one of the most consequential periods in modern America.
  9. I feel energised by the opportunities opening up to work more closely together in tackling threats to our security, and collaborating together in exploiting new technologies to boost jobs and higher living standards.
  10. I was born in London to a middle-class family.
  11. My father was from Jewish parents whose own father helped found a local synagogue.
  12. My loving mother was always there for my older brother and me, and my father worked hard to send us both to university.
  13. At Oxford University, my passion for learning and to drive change was ignited.
  14. I’ve served as a legislator, elected first to the House of Commons, and more recently, in Parliament’s upper house.
  15. I’ve also helped found and grow a successful international business, promoting market access and investment around the world.
  16. I’m ready to bring my policy knowledge, entrepeneurial spirit, and experience at the highest levels of government to this role.
  17. As Northern Ireland Secretary, I was responsible for implementing the Good Friday Agreement, which finally brought peace to that troubled part of the United Kingdom.
  18. Today, the UK Government’s number one priority is economic growth.
  19. More than 1 million Britons work for US companies, and a million Americans work for UK firms.
  20. The UK and US already have $1.5 trillion invested in each other, and I’m confident we can go even further and faster together.
  21. I’m hugely grateful for the warm welcome since our arrival, Reinaldo, with whom I have lived happily for 28 years and I are so happy to be here making our home in the great United States of America.
  22. We look forward to exploring this magnificent country, from coast to coast, from state to state, and meeting many new friends along the way.

The montage includes a close-up shot of the pediment on the southern facade of the residence, as well as a clip of Mandelson speaking behind a podium (location unknown, but presumably within the embassy itself). Both the pediment and the podium feature the British royal arms, the former (built in 1928) using the Tudor crown and the latter (made at some point in Elizabeth II’s reign) using St Edward’s crown.

Lines 10-14 are most in need of analysis: His reference to “a middle-class family” overlooks that his grandfather, though not yet ennobled, was already a Companion of Honour and had been an MP for decades with several cabinet posts under his belt. Line 11 should really be split up to read something like “My father was from Jewish parents. His own father helped found a local synagogue.” as the single-clause formation he actually used implies his paternal grandparents were siblings! Line 13 is a little confusing – if he didn’t already have a passion for learning then how did he get into Oxford in the first place?

The inconsistency in line 14 is especially frustrating – he refers to Parliament’s lower house by name but its upper house merely by that description, despite the montage including a clip of his introduction ceremony. The verb “elected” obviously only applies to the former. The sentence would work better as “I’ve served as a legislator, first elected to Parliament’s lower house, then appointed to the upper house.” instead.

The assertion made in line 4 could also be a little disappointing to some of Britain’s European and Commonwealth allies – especially, given recent events, the ones in Canada.

UPDATE (11th September)

Whoops, that didn’t last long, did it?

A View of Prescott’s Funeral

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The Lord Prescott, former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, died on 20th November last year but his funeral only took place today.

His can reasonably be considered the greatest political heavyweight (no pun intended) among all Hullensians of this or the previous century and his death brought about the highest concentration of political celebrities the city has likely ever seen.

The window of time in which I was able to visit the site in person was unfortunately brief, but I was able to catch the moment the hearse and limousine departed (they were indeed two Jaguars) and the guests came streaming out of the main doors of Hull Minster.

I did not see any of the current cabinet, but I was able to spot a few local grandees (flooding minister Emma Hardy, former Home Secretary Alan Johnson, former energy minister Graham Stuart and former EU Secretary Sir David Davis) as well as some national ones (former Welsh first minster Mark Drakeford, former LibDem leader Lord McNally and Lord Speaker Lord McFall of Alcluith).

EXTERNAL LINKS

Getting Some Reception

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Today Buckingham Palace hosted a reception for recently-elected members of the House of Commons and recently-appointed members of the House of Lords. They included, of course, the Reform leader Nigel Farage – a fact which was the cause of the majority of press coverage from the event. He can be seen in photographs with his deputy Richard Tice conversing with the Duke & Duchess of Edinburgh. What they actually discussed is mostly unknown.

What makes Farage’s presence in particular so significant is that any kind of public appearance alongside the royal family can be taken as an important mark of legitimacy for politicians and similar figures – a recognition that they have gained some ground in the political mainstream. Farage, both as leader of Reform and as leader of UKIP, has long had conflicting impulses regarding such recognition, claiming to resent his exclusion from the perks of “the establishment” while also leaning hard on his status as an outsider.

The tradition of inviting MPs and peers to Buckingham Palace is not new, and prior to Brexit it was also custom to invite British members of the European Parliament, in which capacity Farage attended in 2007.

These events became a subject of controversy after the 2009 election, which saw two seats won by the British National Party. The party leader Nick Griffin ultimately had his invitation to a 2010 garden party withdrawn after he used it for political advertising. The party’s other MEP, Andrew Brons, still attended.

Farage himself has long been keen to maintain political distance from the BNP and similar organisations, though inevitably some have slipped through the cracks.

A Look at the Briefing Room

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Having established that Downing Street Flickr photographs are free to use, let us look closely at a few of them:

There was a storm of press indignation in 2021 when it emerged that Boris Johnson had spent £2.6m on the outfitting of a dedicated press briefing room in Number 9 Downing Street, after nearly a year of doing daily COVID updates from what was supposed to be the state dining room.

The room was mainly wood-paneled, but with large blue blocks on the backdrop. The middle such block had a faint monochrome outline of the lesser royal arms printed on it.

Following last year’s general election, Sir Keir Starmer reverted to using the state dining room for a few months while the conference room underwent a minor remodeling. In its new guise the blue drapes (deemed too partisan) have been removed and the carpet changed to a neutral grey one. If future premiers also tinker with the design here, perhaps Britain will have some counterpart to the Oval Office after all, though I wouldn’t bet on it as the recent tradition of each incumbent getting a different lectern took over a decade for the press (let alone the public) to notice.

The lesser arms are still displayed behind the Prime Minister, now in white on a black oval. The recent illustration is used, showing the Tudor crown. It still appears that Elizabeth II’s lesser arms have not entirely been phased out though, since on a recent visit to Auschwitz a wreath was left with a condolence note on government stationery, the old version of the arms still clearly in view.

Joy to the Web, the Lords Have Come

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To commemorate the fortieth anniversary of the broadcasting of proceedings from the chamber of the House of Lords, that house’s YouTube channel has uploaded a series of lengthy extracts from said first broadcast – Wednesday, 23rd January 1985.

Said day is noteworthy for including the maiden speech of the 1st Earl of Stockton, aged 90.

Truth be told I had seen some of these clips years earlier – including Stockton’s speech – as they were uploaded by the amateur channel Coljax Parliament. I assume these were originally recorded with a home VHS system from the live television broadcast. Still, it is nice to have these on the official channel. I hope that this is not a one-off and that Parliament will take to uploading more of its old archive footage, since ParliamentLive.TV only goes back to 2007 and footage earlier than that is restricted to what can be found on British Pathé or C-SPAN.

As the press release notes, Parliamentary cameras are now remotely operated and, while picture quality isn’t perfect, the colours and lighting tend to be reasonably well balanced. The early footage had the camera operators just behind the bar of the house, operating manually. This makes for better angles and movement (I daresay it looks almost cinematic, rather than like CCTV footage.) but there is an awful lot of Black Crush between peers’ jackets and the background shadows. I had originally thought this to be a result of compression and degradation in Coljax’s tapes, but it now seems it was like that in the master footage too, which is a pity.

Turning Back the Clock

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Yesterday the Presidency of the United States of America changed hands for the third time in eight years. Certain of the modern innovations, such as the changing of the websites, are now feeling routine. This time, at least, Trump seemed to have a whole new website design ready, in contrast to his first term in which he reused the template from Obama’s for the first year and a half. I note that “trumpwhitehouse” is still used as the name for the archived site (and social media accounts) from his first term. It remains to be seen how the new ones will be archived come 2029.

The 2017 inauguration ceremony played out in essentially the standard format, albeit sullied a little in retrospect by the 45th President’s bizarre assertions about the size of his crowd relative to the 44th’s. It might have been feared that such statistics might become a subject of long-running competition and controversy, but by chance they have been inapplicable to the inaugurations of both 2021 and 2025 for opposite reasons: Biden’s inauguration was still held on the steps of the capitol but had the few attendees spread far apart and no public audience at all due to a combination of hygiene measures for the ongoing pandemic and security restrictions following the recent riots. Trump’s readeption, but contrast, was moved indoors and had hundreds of guests packed like sardines due to the extreme low temperatures.

Another important distinction is that the outgoing leader attended the event and recognised his successor – despite there being no favour to return in that regard.

I was also a little confused by the timing – the transition of power takes effect at noon (translating to 5pm in British time). This is observed to the second in terms of websites, but the ceremony itself pays little heed. I recall that in the inaugurations of 2017 and 2021 the President-elect finished taking the oath and began making speeches from behind the lectern several minutes before his predecessor’s term had actually ended. This time noon struck slightly before the new incumbents took their oaths. It was a little ironic that Vance’s promise referred to “the office on which I am about to enter” even though looking at the clock he had already entered it about forty seconds prior.

The ceremony included a performance of Battle Hymn of the Republic. Some may say that Dixie would be more appropriate given the cultural alignment of so many of Trump’s supporters. I thought that the singing style of this particular arrangement sounded a bit Russian, though it probably wasn’t a deliberate allusion this time.

One of the less overtly-political joys of new presidencies is the redecoration of the oval office, akin to the unveiling of a new Starfleet bridge or TARDIS console room. I know of no phenomenon remotely equivalent in any other country. In this case there was little cause for excitement as the 47th President’s office is back to looking almost exactly as it did for the 45th. It helps, of course, that the 46th didn’t change the drapes or the wallpaper in between. Presidential transitions also seem to be developing tetrennial tradition of moving the bust of Winston Churchill from one part of the White House so that Nicholas Soames can be interviewed about the Special Relationship, thus providing certain newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic with editorial material for the next few days.

Our Lady, Our Prince

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A magnificent ceremony was held last night in Paris to commemorate the re-opening of Notre-Dame Cathedral after years of restoration works. Many world leaders attended and, as usual, this gave the opportunity for political networking.

The American delegation was rather strange – the First Lady Jill Biden and her daughter Ashley were in attendance but the 46th President himself was not. The 45th & 47th President Donald Trump did attend however. He was without family for the occasion, making the event feel like the setup for a very strange episode of Wife Swap.

Trump is in the strange position of being a past and future but not current head of state, though it would be hard to tell from his interactions on this visit and his coverage in international press more generally you could be forgiven for assuming that Joe Biden had already long since left the stage. A similar phenomenon occurs during every post-electoral transition period in the United States, but the striking difference in personalities between incoming and outgoing leaders this time around leaves the latter seeming an even lamer duck than usual.

I am not entirely sure which order of precedence was being followed for this event – hosted by the Catholic Church in France rather than the French government – Mr Trump was seated directly beside M. Macron while Dr Biden was two spaces further along. Other national representatives filled the next section, including the President of Ukraine.

Macron, Trump and Zilensky had a much-covered trilateral meeting before the service. The President Re-elect then went to the British ambassador’s residence for a bilateral meeting with the Prince of Wales. The press reel from their discussion does not include much of the dialogue itself, but does include the amusing moment when the two men sit in awkward silence while waiting for the film crew to shamble in after them – complete with camera wobble and heavy footfall.

It has been difficult to find free photographs of the event – neither the British nor American governments appear to have taken any, Wikimedia Commons currently has eighteen pictures licensed by the Italian President’s office and the Ukrainian President’s licensed a further eight. I hope more will emerge in time to come.

Notes on the Qatari state visit

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Today and yesterday the United Kingdom hosted Sheikh & Sheikha Tamin & Jawaher bin Hamad Al Thani, Emir & Consort of the State of Qatar.

The visit included a speech by the Emir to the British Parliament and a state banquet at Buckingham Palace – likely the last for some years as the building is soon to be closed for a major renovation project. He also gave a speech at Mansion House and received a tour of Westminster Abbey.

As is typical, the visit involved an exchange of honours. The King appointed the Emir as an Honorary Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. This is consistent with his father who was given the same honour in 2010, but it feels like a category error as normally royal heads of state are made Stranger Knights of the Order of the Garter while the Bath is given to elected presidents – the most recent being last year with Yoon Suk Yeol of South Korea, who coincidentally is also back in the news today. The Emir in his red sash stuck out a little next to all the British royals wearing blue ones.

Charles had already been awarded the Collar of the Qatari Order of Merit in 1986. Yesterday he was presented with the Sword of the Founder Sheikh Jassim bin Mohammed bin Thani.

The recent state visit also saw growth in the Royal Family Order of Charles III: The Queen having appeared as the founder member at the Japanese state visit earlier this year, the order is now also seen sported by the Princess Royal, as well as the Duchesses of Edinburgh and Gloucester.

I notice a discrepancy in the spelling of the visitor’s title – the royal and parliamentary sources say “Amir” but the newspapers and Wikipedia say “Emir”. Getty is inconsistent, even sometimes within the same photograph caption.