I'm John Bledcher with my colleague and friend Joseph Sternberg for the Wall Street Journal editorial page in London.

And Joe experiences the media of the British Empire. Once upon a time, now come to BBC 4 and other

wonderfully smart and witty presentations of politics. It comes down to Kirst Starrmer, whose poll numbers are

poor. So is Mr. Trump's poll numbers right now.

And there is apparently a feud between them, although I'm not sure at any given day.

The moment here is for the king to arrive in America at the end of this month, April,

and make a speech before a joint session of Congress and everything will be healed. Is that

an expectation that I got out of a fairy tale or is that happening, Joe? Well, the visit definitely

seems to be on track, although it's this interesting question what it is going to end up

accomplishing from a diplomatic perspective because there are serious differences right now.

I mean, the Iran War is probably the biggest one where, of course, Trump is very anxious and

frustrated that European allies, particularly the Brits are not participating in American

efforts to reopen the Strait of Hormuz.

And this episode, as we've previously

discussed, John, is really revealing that Prime Minister Kier-Starmer is not cut out for the job

that he's in. He's proven very indecisive. He's struggling to rally his party behind him.

And Britain has an underlying military readiness problem, shortcoming, which this episode has exposed.

So I think that that kind of irritant is likely to last for a long time now in the U.S.-UK.

relationship.

But I think that there is some optimism that the King's visit can engender a certain amount of good feeling.

And because Trump does seem to put

a lot of store in that kind of personal connection, maybe it will end up helping, at least in the

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