Pomp, pageantry in the shadow of paedophilia and Gaza

Once again, Windsor Castle has been polished up like a set piece from Downton Abbey on steroids, as the gilded halls resound with the clinking of crystal glasses and the murmuring of courtly sycophants. 

This week’s spectacle was ostensibly a state banquet, but in truth, it looked more like a grotesque tableau staged by the world’s most shameless hypocrites.

There was Donald Trump, the reality-television-turned-political-disaster, being feted as though he were a Renaissance prince rather than the crude braggart whose cultural contributions extend to golf course vandalism and all-caps tweets. 

Behind him and the British lame-duck Prime Minister Keir Starmer, loomed Britain’s freshly disgraced ambassadorial "fixer" Peter Mandelson — once whispered about for his close proximity to Jeffrey Epstein’s little black book. One could almost hear the ghosts of Windsor whisper: “Really, is this the best company we can keep?”

It was pomp, pageantry and polishing of silver under the rotting shadow of paedophilia scandals that refuse to die. 

For a nation obsessed with class, this was a damn poor show. The supposed custodians of dignity and tradition now bow and scrape to men who treat morality as a disposable napkin.

Meanwhile, as foie gras is forked delicately onto the porcelain plates of the mighty, children in Gaza starve in a famine not of nature’s making but of politics’ cruelty — engineered and sustained with the knowing complicity of Washington and Westminster. 

The contrast could not be obscener: Windsor’s guests sip champagne while Gaza’s families sip from puddles.

The British elite, ever keen to preserve the theatre of respectability, have forgotten the script. Their genuflection before Trump exposes not “class” but naked desperation - desperation to cling to relevance, desperation to curry favour, desperation to pretend the empire’s gilded mask still shines. In truth, the sun has set on the British empire.

If Britain still wishes to be seen as a beacon of decency, it must do more than roll out red carpets for disgraced billionaires and strongmen. Because at Windsor, the pageantry is not glorious; it is grotesque. The silver may sparkle, but the conscience is tarnished beyond repair.

Kua Kia Soong is a former MP and director of human rights group Suaram.