Why statecraft and diplomacy matter
This is Paul Lay's second guest newsletter for Reaction. Iain Martin will be back next week.
Paul Lay is writing the newsletter until Iain Martin is back from holiday next week. Paul is senior editor at Engelsberg Ideas. He is a former editor of History Today, reviews for The Times, the Telegraph and Literary Review, and is the author of Providence Lost: The Rise and Fall of Cromwell’s Protectorate (Head of Zeus, 2020), which was shortlisted for the Cundill History Prize.
‘There’s no magic money tree’, posted Martin Abrams, a Green Party councillor in Streatham, South London, in one of many supposedly wry criticisms of the state banquet held for President Trump at Windsor Castle on Wednesday. Yes, it was a lavish affair, the kind of thing the Brits do sublimely well, which clearly impressed and flattered the Donald into behaving himself, mostly.