SARAH VINE: The night I saw a flash of anger from the Queen while Trump held court at a State banquet in his honour By Sarah Vine Published: 21:05 EDT, 20 August 2024 | Updated: 21:05 EDT, 20 August 2024 e-mail View comments You don’t get to the grand old age of 96 without learning a thing or two about human nature. Imagine if the late Queen had kept a log of all the many dignitaries she’d had occasion to meet during the course of her record-breaking reign. What a fascinating document that would be, what insights might lie within its pages.
After all, as Craig Brown points out in his brilliant new book, A Voyage Around The Queen (serialised this week in the Mail), she got to meet practically everyone of significance over the past 70 years, including some distinctly dodgy characters. Nicolae Ceaușescu, Bashar al-Assad, Robert Mugabe, Idi Amin, Donald Trump , Emperor Hirohito, Vladimir Putin – they were all entertained by Her late Majesty. Apart from the time she supposedly hid behind a bush to avoid speaking to Ceaușescu, if she had any sort of opinion about her guests she tended to express it tangentially.
Queen and Trump at the state banquet in 2019, when they 'sat next to each other...
at the top of a huge U-shaped table groaning with beautiful blooms and glittering crystal' For example, Lord Blunkett once recalled how, during Vladimir Putin’s State visit in 2003, the Russian premier arrived almost 15 minutes late. When his entourage finally swung into view Blun.