What characterises the age in both Britain and the United States, and indeed across the western world, is a collapse in trust in institutions.

It has scarcely been noticed that the success of the King’s state visit to the United States was also a success for Sir Keir Starmer, on whose advice the visit went ahead. In public at least, not a word passed the King’s lips without 10 Downing Street’s approval. It was a high-risk enterprise, and he would have been blamed severely had it gone wrong. As it happened, the King’s speech to both Houses of Congress was close in spirit to the things Starmer also holds dear – even if he has not managed to convey them so convincingly.

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