King Charles’ state visit to the U.S. was slightly overshadowed by an inconvenience, when on April 28 the Financial Times released the leaked comments of UK Ambassador to the US, Christian Turner, who is accompanying Charles on his visit. “My advice to my prime minister is ‘I can’t just put my hands on my ears and say it’s special, it’s going to be fine’… Special relationship is a phrase I try not to utter because it’s quite nostalgic, it’s quite backwards-looking, and it has a lot of sort of baggage about it. I think there is probably one country that has a special relationship with the United States, and that is probably Israel,” he told a group of students in February.
Turner also said in the recording that he did not believe the UK and the US were in a “moment of rupture,” but that “we’re certainly at the end of an era and the era is changing.” He also criticized the U.S. political system for failing to hold associates of Jeffrey Epstein accountable, calling it “extraordinary” that the scandal “hasn’t touched anybody” in the U.S., despite the fact that senior British figures have been “brought down” by the affair.
