Jonathan Freedland

It's that notion of history.

Remember, American history is quite short.

It's 250 years old.

Notice how Charles played on that.

He said, this happened 250 years ago, or as we put it in Britain, just the other day.

It's that idea that America knows it's not that long established a country.

It feels like an infant on the world stage compared to Britain or France.

And so there is a kind of deference even to a visiting British monarch.

And we've seen this week why that is such a powerful weapon in the diplomatic armory.

I thought that was very significant, particularly by naming Ukraine.

Now, usually the royal style, like that reference to the past, is sort of elusive.

It just sort of nods to something where you work out what it might mean.

And royal British, which is a separate dialect.

A subtext of a subtext.

Yes, where you have to really read between the lines.

And for example, there was a reference to the victims of Jeffrey Epstein, which I think most people, it would have passed them by.

But it was briefed afterwards that there was a line in there about those who suffer from bad things that happen on both sides of the Atlantic.

So normally it's extremely coded.

But on the contrary, with Ukraine, it was named, it's very specific.

where the King spoke as if this was absolutely a shared cause.