Chris Mason: Trump visit puts focus on pageantry after PM's tough fortnight

After the fortnight the prime minister has had, a spot of rarefied pageantry is just the ticket.

The government weathered a three-hour monsoon of questions in the Commons on Tuesday, which amounted to MP after MP asking why on earth Lord Mandelson was appointed as our man in Washington in the first place, and then why it took so long for Sir Keir Starmer to realise his position was untenable.

Today they can hope, if only briefly, the questions of who knew what and when and the questions about Sir Keir's abilities to do his job can be dislodged from our screens.

After all, President Trump craves the best pictures and pictures are what any state visit are (pretty much) all about.

The next few days amount to the UK offering a vital ally the full works of what he loves: royalty, military bands, a flypast, a banquet and plenty more besides.

It is the latest point in the arc of the unlikely friendship between Sir Keir and the president, almost exactly a year after they first met at Trump Tower in New York, before the American election.

The rhetoric is already flying higher than the planes that will zoom over Windsor Castle later.

The British embassy in Washington may not currently have an ambassador, but it is still in possession of superlatives.

"The UK-US relationship is the strongest in the world, built on 250 years of history," it claims.

The prime minister's official spokesman added that the next 48 hours would see an "unbreakable friendship reach new heights".

Many, including his political opponents, acknowledge that the prime minister can chalk up as a triumph his relationship with President Trump.

But it is also true that the relationship remains a rollercoaster and will always be one.

Sir Keir wants to lean into the economic wins the UK-US relationship can bring.

The latest announcement from Microsoft is a case in point.

But the news about tariffs on UK steel remaining in place is a case in point about that unpredictability.

Officials say the state visit created an impetus for both sides in recent months to chivvy commercial deals along so both sides had wins they could announce to their domestic audiences during the visit.

Thursday will be the more explicitly political day.

The news conference will be another wild ride of uncertainty for the prime minister, because as senior government figures frequently acknowledge, it is impossible to be certain what the president might end up saying.

And beyond the likely warm words, there are disagreements or at least different emphases on a wide range of issues: the UK's imminent recognition of a Palestinian state, the war in Ukraine and, yes, Jeffrey Epstein.

Questions about the convicted paedophile, who died six years ago, look likely to follow the president over the Atlantic, courtesy of the made-in-Britain-row about Epstein and Lord Mandelson.

As the president enjoys 48 hours in the land of his mother and is the guest of royalty, the noise of controversy from back home may yet greet him – all thanks to the row that has been happening here.