Overseas guests

[maeveiscurious]

Interesting statement today

Please only bring one extra person to the funeral, fly commercial and there will be a park and ride.

Good on them for stating this early on. So many countries arrive with a huge entourage and their own cars.

Scaled back and environmentally friendly .

Some (most?) will have embassies I guess but all of them, and enough for the entourages?

Genuine question, but why will the world leaders need entourages? Do they have to provide their own security?

I imagine all the leaders travel with staff, assistants etc. But the entourages won't attend the actual service. Australia has sent the prime minister, and the governor general and their partners, plus 10 'ordinary Australians' who are of course amazing people.

The invitation does not extend to former POTUS such as Obama, Clinton, Trump, etc. Its only for the current POTUS and FL.

Sounds nicer what the Australians are doing. Canada, as a commonwealth country, also gets to send an extra 10, but they are choosing (amongst others) the former living prime ministers - including the one that was only PM for 100ish days, before losing so badly in the election that her party ended up going from a majority, to only 2 seats! And it was years ago. But they can't not include her if they are including other former prime ministers, so she has to go. I could think of other people who might deserve to go more than her - ordinary Canadians involved in good causes, former governor generals, all sorts of people seem like better picks to me. But I'm not the one picking.

I hope the Obamas get an invite of their own, once it's known how many spaces there are left after the world leaders.

I guess some of them provide their own security, but must also get some from the UK from people familiar with the plan.

I guess embassies are probably the most likely accommodations

POTUS is coming on his normal jet. He has an exemption. No bus for him.

I believe it's the African nations being forced to come on a fucking bus.

I thought it was pretty much all the other foreign leaders coming in on a bus, apart from Biden, which does make sense really given his security risk is a lot higher rather than some special treatment because they like him more or anything

For Prince Philip's memorial, almost all the royals came in on a bus too - probably speeds things up and makes the whole traffic, cars waiting during the service, processing into the abbey, collecting after etc easier. So I don't think a bus is necessaril anything problematic in itself

I think it’s extremely unlikely it’s just African leaders going on the bus.
Please tell me where you got this misinformation from? Or did you just make it up?

I think I remember reading somewhere that the European royals would be accommodated by the palace, which makes sense as they are mostly blood relatives of the Queen. Then everyone else would be staying in nice hotels in London - I guess there was probably some prearranged plan to allow this to happen smoothly.

I also think by 'bus' they likely mean posh, security checked and appropriate coaches not that they have borrowed a load of tfl double deckers.

Interesting if they can still get enough rooms in decent hotels, as the news was that not long after it was announced, you couldn't get hotel rooms in London at all. I suppose there well still have been the really posh expensive ones left!! It would be awful if the fancy hotels started chucking booked-in people out, because the leader of whatever country wanted to stay there.

Royal guests at the palace makes sense.

And I expect some at least could stay at embassies or other residences owned by them.

I'm sure the buses will be very smart coaches like they had at Prince Philip's thing. They won't want it to look undignified in any way. But a procession of 500 smart embassy cars or whatever would take forever and need a lot of management of timings and traffic and so on, whereas a smaller number of coaches that they are in control of is probably easier. Security will be a nightmare either way! And Biden of course really needs his own security.

I imagine that someone's job at the palace was to ring the hotels and reserve multiple posh rooms as it was being announced (or possibly that there is a long-standing arrangement with certain hotels to automatically reserve a certain number of non-booked rooms in the event of the death of the Monarch), which could be why there was suddenly none available.

The Guardian long read on London Bridge is down said that European royals are accommodated at the palace and everyone else at the Claridges.

Is anyone else imagining all these world leaders on a bus looking like they're on a trip to Margate?

Same here and I imagine that it will be the majority view here.

That's a bit of a security risk if you've got all the other leaders in one place overnight

I'm just fascinated by all the little details surrounding the planning of it all! I could believe that they'd have somehow booked out various posh hotels as soon as the funeral date was announced, though I hope it doesn't mean bumping others elsewhere.

reading with intrigue

That’s really sad @PizzaFunghi about Joe Canada have chosen their 10.

New Zealand have also chosen 10 and have the highest ranked Māori, the first female high court judge, a female soccer player, the head of the Returned serviceman’s association. I can’t remember all the others but they include someone to represent the Arts and an ex-diplomat and a volunteer who has been recognised in the honours list. They have made it clear they have tried to get a broad range of people but that it also was influenced by who was available to travel.

Also Kiri Te Kanawa who sang at Charles and Diana’s wedding will be attending. (Wonder if there was some interesting talk about whether that was appropriate!).

Australia seem to have chosen on a similar basis as well as choosing reps from each Australian state. Not sure if there was Palace guidance or if reps from the 2 countries had a chat and decided on this approach.

yes it is a bit. I think they tried to choose some others as well - I just saw part of the list in the newspaper but haven't looked at the whole thing - but I just found the part about the previous prime ministers, including the disastrous one, a shame. Maybe she's gone on to do more newsworthy things since. And if they wanted some of the previous ones to go, I guess they couldn't exclude her, but they didn't have to pick the previous ones unless they had been particularly close to the queen during their terms (and maybe some of them were, so I can't really criticise that). The Governor General is a First Nations woman, though, so I'm sure she'll be going.

There was a picture of Trudeau on twitter this morning taken by a journalist who'd run into him accidentally coming back from a walk to the same hotel. So I guess that means many of them are staying in hotels (it was St James, apparently - is that Claridges?), as are many of the media. I'd totally forgotten the fact that all the world's media would also need hotel rooms!! That adds even more complications to the planning. They must have had some mechanism arranged for block booking hotels for all this kind of thing.

Apparently there were contracts in place with some hotels such as Claridges and probably the Goring which meant that the minute her death was announced rooms were made available for the funeral.

That's a bit of a security risk if you've got all the other leaders in one place overnight

Is it easier to have them all in one place and have really intense security or to have them in multiple places and need security in all of them?

A certain level of security is always needed. How much more do you need for 100 people rather than 1?

The royals used buses to travel to Charles and Camilla's register office wedding. I watched it on the telly - it was quite funny seeing them all getting off bog-standard coaches.

Quite a bit more, I'd think, but then I know nothing about how these things are planned and managed, which is why I find it all so fascinating!

The security risk might be higher with them all in one place, just because it makes it a much greater target as the consequences would be so much higher if so many leaders were involved in any incident.

Whether that higher risk, and the higher security for one place, is more than the security needed for lots of places, I don't know.

I am surprised that media and world leaders are in the same place, as that could come with its own difficulties

I just saw they're all coming on a bus from "a west London airport" (Thiefrow?) and have a vision of them all standing round the baggage carousel arguing over whose luggage is whose ...

I guess they must be going (probably) independently out to the place the bus collects them from then, from their central London hotel(s), but maybe there are smaller buses to the bus?! And lots of them arriving today and going to the lying-in-state, too, so other additional independent security arrangements for that. I imagine some will bring their own security to work alongside the official security once they get here.

I guess they must be going (probably) independently out to the place the bus collects them from then, from their central London hotel(s), but maybe there are smaller buses to the bus?!

That's even better, PizzaFunghi - some poor sod's got to make sure they're all on the right ones, and would you want that job??

It all reminds me of (I think) the King of Jordan at Edward's wedding, where apparently he'd never been on a bus before and was thrilled rotten. No reports as to whether he was mooning at the windows though ...