Jonathan Freedland

In fact, it isn't.

There are plenty of Republicans who have gone very cold on aid to Ukraine, but he put it right back on the agenda.

And I also thought there were even, again, coded, but not that coded, references even domestically.

And there was one passage where he talked about the importance of Magna Carta,

and how that has been cited in over 160 Supreme Court judgments, especially, he said, those that relate to checks and balances on the power of the executive.

Democrats in the hall got the message, leapt to their feet, applauded, thinking, here is the king.

of England, of Great Britain, of the Commonwealth, who is joining the No Kings movement in America.

The irony.

The irony of it by siding with the idea that Donald Trump, the executive, the president, cannot be a king.

So by royal standards, it was actually pretty direct.

Yes and they've

They've said that there are sort of legal reasons why they can't really do that.

I'm not so sure about that.

But when I heard that line, I did picture those speechwriters in Buckingham Palace sitting around with officials.

And I suspect that's the diluted version we heard, that there was probably one originally.

that was much more unmistakably about the Epstein victims.

And this became so general.

I mean, it really could be the victims of drug addiction or poverty or homelessness.

It could be anything, ills that exist in both our countries.

So that felt to me like a very carefully sort of lawyered and diplomated version of it.