The language is always interesting. When it was announced that Ben Roberts-Smith was invited to the queen’s funeral, the Nine papers — with whom he’s engaged in one of the wildest and most catastrophically damaging lawsuits in Australian history — called him “a controversial former solider“. The West Australian, whose owner Kerry Stokes is bank-rolling that action, called him a war hero. Either way, if a series of reports alleging involvement in war crimes (which Roberts-Smith vehemently denies) isn’t enough to get you crossed off the invite list, what is?
North Korea’s “supreme leader” Kim Jong-un has been snubbed (but obviously not wanting to completely alienate the pro-North Korean contingent of the British public, an envoy has been reportedly invited). As former US president Donald Trump is also reportedly not invited, we are robbed of any re-creation of one of the great moments in diplomatic history, when Trump asked photographers at the Singapore summit in 2019 to make sure the two looked “handsome and thin and perfect” and Kim visibly wrestled with what to do when faintly insulted by someone you can’t treat to a nice brimming mug of VX nerve agent in response.
Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, whose soft fascism has the redeeming feature of being largely ineffective, is invited. Turkey’s Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has relentlessly cracked down on dissent, increased censorship, blocked access to large parts of the internet, and charged thousands of his citizens with “insulting the president”, will also be there. It’s not been confirmed whether Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman Al Saud will go.
The leadership of Russia, Syria, Venezuela, Belarus, Myanmar and Afghanistan are all missing from the invite list. Our working theory is that if they’d wanted to come, they really ought to have demonstrated a bit more interest in horses. How else to explain the likely attendance of Dubai ruler Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum? On the one hand he was judged by a British court on the balance of probabilities to have orchestrated the abductions and confinement of two of his own daughters. On the other, he and the queen both really liked racing.
Less egregious, but somehow even weirder, is the news that Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is handing over some of the seats on his crowded plane to London to horse trainers Chris Waller — one of the 10 “everyday Australians” who gets to go — and Gai and Robbie Waterhouse (because they “couldn’t get on a commercial flight”, apparently. Is that how it works? Should I call the PMO next time I find Qantas too much of a hassle?)
