An inflatable blimp of President Donald Trump wearing a diaper, clutching a cellphone and throwing a temper tantrum has been given approval to fly near Britain’s Parliament here during the U. S. president’s visit to the United Kingdom next week.
LONDON — An inflatable blimp of President Donald Trump wearing a diaper, clutching a cellphone and throwing a temper tantrum has been given approval to fly near Britain’s Parliament here during the U. S. president’s visit to the United Kingdom next week.
London Mayor Sadiq Khan on Thursday authorized the 19-foot-high orange balloon’s flight path during Trump’s three-day visit that begins July 13. It will be allowed to fly for two hours next Friday morning in central London at the same time as a “Stop Trump” demonstration takes place that is expected to draw thousands of people.
Khan’s office said the “Mayor supports the right to peaceful protest and understands this can take many different forms.” London city officials previously turned down permission sought by the group behind the blimp, named “Trump Baby,” after more than 10,000 people signed a petition and contributed to a crowdfunding campaign to pay for it.
It will be anchored to a spot in Parliament Square Gardens and not allowed to fly higher than 100 feet. Big Ben, the nickname for the Great Bell of the clock at the north end of the Palace of Westminster across from Parliament Square Gardens, is 315 feet tall.
Khan and Trump developed a frosty relationship after several wars of words — spanning Twitter, media interviews and newspaper op-eds — over immigration and terrorism.
Although Khan, 47, the first Muslim elected to lead a major Western capital city, insisted in a USA TODAY interview earlier this year that his long-running feud with Trump has a deeper context: Friends fight; it’s inevitable, he said.
“The reality is that the United States and the United Kingdom have a very special bond. And your expectations for your best friend are very different to what you have for an acquaintance or a friend you maybe see only every six months,” Khan said in March.
Leo Murray, the British activist behind the “Tump Baby” balloon, told British media the idea was to try to play on Trump’s psychology. “He’s a deeply insecure man, and that is the only leverage we have over him,” Murray told The Guardian. “If we want his attention, we have to do something that humiliates him.”
On the “Trump Baby” crowdfunding website, Murray describes the blimp as an “inflatable baby with a malevolent face and tiny hands.”
When Trump visits the U. K., he will hold talks with Prime Minister Theresa May and meet Queen Elizabeth II, possibly at Windsor Castle outside London. He will also travel to Scotland, where his mother was born and where he owns two golf courses.
He is expected to encounter protests at every turn.
Trump travels to the U. K. after attending a NATO summit in Brussels and before heading to a summit in Helsinki, Finland, with Russian President Vladimir Putin on July 16.
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