Sir Keir Starmer meets Donald Trump

A messenger was dispatched half a day’s journey before us, to give the king notice of my approach; and to desire that his majesty would please to appoint a day and hour, when it would be his gracious pleasure, that I might have the honour to lick the dust before his footstool. This is the court style, and I found it to be more than matter of form. For, upon my admittance two days after my arrival, I was commanded to crawl upon my belly, and lick the floor as I advanced; but, on account of my being a stranger, care was taken to have it made so clean, that the dust was not offensive. However, this was a peculiar grace, not allowed to any but persons of the highest rank, when they desire an admittance. Nay, sometimes the floor is strewed with dust on purpose, when the person to be admitted happens to have powerful enemies at court. And I have seen a great lord with his mouth so crammed, that when he had crept to the proper distance from the throne, he was not able to speak a word. Neither is there any remedy; because it is capital for those, who receive an audience, to spit or wipe their mouths in his majesty’s presence. There is indeed another custom which I cannot altogether approve of: when the king has a mind to put any of his nobles to death, in a gentle indulgent manner, he commands the floor to be strewed with a certain brown powder of a deadly composition, which, being licked up, infallibly kills him in twenty-four hours … To return from this digression; when I had crept within four yards of the throne, I raised myself gently upon my knees, and then, striking my forehead seven times against the ground, I pronounced the following words, as they had been taught me the night before, Inckpling gloffthrobb squut serumm blhiop mlashnalt zwin tnodbalkuffhslhiophad gurdlubh asht. This is the compliment, established by the laws of the land, for all persons admitted to the king’s presence. It may be rendered into English thus: ‘May your celestial majesty outlive the sun, eleven moons and a half.’ (Jonathan SWIFT, Gulliver’s Travels)