To celebrate the Commonwealth Day, Monday, March 10, King Charles III was to offer a first playlist, selected by him, on the Apple Music music service. From Bob Marley to Kylie Minogue, via Grace Jones, the British monarch wants to celebrate tunes that “Make us travel”. Charles III is in his element: he uses the usual soft power of the royal, symbolic and ceremonial family. Like his mother, Elizabeth II (1926-2022) before him, the king is very attached to maintaining the link between the 56 members of the Commonwealth, a very disparate club of ex-colonies of the United Kingdom.
But, since Donald Trump has applied to destroy the Western liberal order inherited from the post-war period, by dropping Ukraine or by displaying its territorial ambitions on Greenland and Canada, the Keir Starmer's Labor Government assigns much more serious and risky missions. Downing Street and Foreign Office rightly consider it as their master card to avoid punitive customs duties on British exports in the United States or to preserve the “Special relationship” so dear to British diplomats and leaders. The official invitation of the monarch to a second state visit by Donald Trump to the United Kingdom counted a large part in the success of Mr. Starmer's first interview in the White House, on February 27.
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Source: Lemonde