James Landale

I think it's, does the White House allow some of these arguments to sink in?

Do they think, actually, hang on a minute, there is an advantage here.

Do we need to think differently because of the way the whole Iran thing's gone?

Do we need to think differently about alliances, blah, blah, blah?

If America, for example, wants to focus on China,

and a bit on the Middle East, is it not better to have allies in Europe kind of doing what the Americans want, you know, sort of as a form of an alliance?

Now, you know, the realist will go, this trip's not going to make a blind bit of notice, and a difference, and that actually Donald Trump will carry on being Donald Trump, and this is separate.

This is about, you know, the soft soap and the emotion, and it doesn't touch the American concerns over lack of British military firepower at the moment.

But I thought that was the interesting question.

Does the White House think the president likes the king, the king makes an argument, should we therefore listen to that argument?

I don't know the answer to that question yet.

I'm more a Jack Reacher guy.

Yeah, in that genre.

That's where I sort of land.

It does feel like an end of an era.

It's certainly an end of an era in my career because many, many years ago, I was the House of Lords correspondent for the Times newspaper.

Remember it well.

And I spent a lot of time there talking to hereditary peers.

But what was interesting was during the Blair election of 97, the two things that always got a good... I was on Blair's bus, and the two things that always got a big cheer was getting rid of the Royal Yacht

which was considered a waste in those days.