The British public has had a surfeit of China in the last few days. President Xi Jinping was given a state welcome with all the flummery and pageantry which British tradition can summon up. These included a drive down the Mall to Buckingham Palace with the queen.
The Chinese community in London were mustered to greet him and to ensure that the small group of protesters who had been corralled together by the police could be neither seen nor heard by the Chinese president (or was he to be regarded as "emperor"?). There was a state banquet at the palace and the usual formal dinner at the Guildhall in the City of London.
The choreographed press conference only allowed two questions. Prime Minister David Cameron and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne were determined to avoid anything that might embarrass the leader of a superpower and tarnish in any way the gold-plated commercial and financial package accompanying the unsmiling dictator.
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