Yorkshire’s great but Trump visit set to overshadow all
As if Prime Minister Theresa May didn’t have enough on her plate with Brexit, on Friday US President Donald Trump is due to arrive. Neil Hudson looks at the week ahead.
ED BAND
Starting on a light note, former Labour leader Ed Miliband is set to host the Jeremy Vine Show on Radio 2 (again – he did it last year), beginning a three-day stint today. The politician, whose tenure as Opposition leader was curtailed by, among other things, his inability to eat a bacon sandwich gracefully, will be entertaining people on air from noon to 2pm.
ROYAL CHURCH
Today will see the christening of Prince Louis. The youngest son of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge will be christened by the Archbishop of Canterbury at The Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace. Prince Louis, who was born on April 23, will join a long line of Royals who were baptised at St James’s. It is also the chapel where the Duke of Cambridge’s mother, Princess Diana, lay before her funeral in 1997.
AIR POWER
Carol Vorderman, erstwhile
Countdown host and now a fully qualified pilot, will be spreading her wings, so to speak, as she promotes the premier of Spitfire, a documentary about the infamous plane and its role in the Battle of Britain.
Sticking with all things aeronautical, tomorrow there will be an RAF flypast over Suffolk as part of its centenary celebrations. Then on Wednesday, there will be an Air Power Conference in the capital, when leading figures in the defence industry will speak at an event billed as the ‘jewel in the crown’ of the RAF’s big week.
SHOW GOES ON
Tomorrow sees the start of the 160th Great Yorkshire Show, which runs until Thursday. Some 300,000 visitors are expected to pass through the gates in Harrogate.
The Yorkshire institution will showcase some of the best of British farming, food and everything to do with the countryside, from time-hallowed traditions to state-of-the-art farming machinery.
The first show was held in 1838. From 1839-1841, it was held in Leeds, Northallerton and Hull. The first attendance figures from 1842 in York showed 6,044 visitors. The show was cancelled from 1915-19 because of the First World War and again from 194048 because of the Second World War. It was also cancelled in 2001 because of the Foot and Mouth outbreak and in 2012 due to unprecedented rainfall. The first show at its permanent showground was in 1951, when just over 54,000 attended.
TRUMP TOWN
On Friday, US president Donald Trump is due to visit to UK. This could be a busy day, as Theresa May’s Brexit White Paper is also due to be published, assuming it hasn’t already been torn up, leaked to the press or sent back to the drawing board.
It will be Mr Trump’s visit, though, which will loom large over everything else, not least because there will be a six-metre balloon depicting Mr Trump as a nappy-clad orange baby floating over Parliament Square Gardens from 9.30am-11.30am. The ‘protest’, which cost £16,000, was given permission last week by London Mayor Sadiq Khan. A number of other demonstrations are planned, including a ‘Stop Trump’ march. Whatever happens, expect the unexpected.
RAIN OR SHINE?
And finally, Sunday is St Swithin’s Day. Legend has it that whatever the weather on that day, it will set the pattern for the next 40 days.
Given the recent heatwave, some among us might be hoping for rain. However, while the folklore maintains a certain air of romanticism, the veracity of the myth is not matched by the evidence – since records began there has not been one incident of a 40-day stretch of unbroken weather following July 15. At least not in the UK.