A million have signed petition to prevent state visit, but US president would only be latest in a long line of embarrassing guests

Britain has a long history of inviting controversial and embarrassing guests on state visits. Donald Trump is likely to fit in well with this tradition.

Although the Queen plays host to the visitors, invitations are initiated by Downing Street. The visits are nearly always politically inspired, designed to increase Britain’s diplomatic influence and business links. But they can have the opposite effect, with a tendency to backfire or cause lasting damage.

The 1973 visit of Mobutu Sese Seko, the then president of Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), is a good example. At the time, Mobutu was described as an important cold war ally helping curb the spread of Soviet influence. But as his people knew to their cost, the Queen’s honoured guest was a homicidal dictator who embezzled up to $15bn (£12bn).

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Mobutu Sese Seko made a state visit to Britain in 1973. He embezzled up to $15bn as leader of what was then Zaire. Photograph: Remy de la Mauviniere/AP

Post-empire Britain’s attempts to retain leverage in Africa also came a cropper with Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe’s first (and only) post-independence leader. Mugabe got the royal treatment in 1994. He has spent the ensuing period ridiculing the UK as a failed imperialist power, rigging elections and blaming London for his country’s problems.

Another state visit that showed how out of touch British leaders can be with public opinion was that in 1978 of Nicolae Ceaușescu, the hardline communist leader of Romania. Britain seemed to think it could encourage Ceaușescu to embrace pro-western reforms. The Romanian people gave him a different kind of reception in 1989 and he was summarily executed by firing squad following major protests.

The looming Trump visit is consistent with the British government’s broad-minded approach to handing out invites to Buckingham Palace. Another diplomatic démarche dreamed up in 2003 by Whitehall’s foreign policy masterminds saw Vladimir Putin, the KGB man turned Russian president, toasted as the UK’s new best friend. That didn’t work out well, did it?

Signatories to the online petition calling for the Trump invitation to be rescinded may take comfort from suggestions that state visits can carry the kiss of political, if not mortal, death.

The Shah of Iran came calling in 1959. He was ultimately booted off the Peacock Throne and died in exile. Tehran has been a problem since. Assorted kings and various real or imagined foreign royals met a similar fate after crossing the sombre portals of Buck House. They include Emperor Haile Selassie of Ethiopia (1954), King Faisal II of Iraq (1956), King Paul of Greece (1963) and King Mohammed Zahir Shah of Afghanistan (1971). All these monarchs and their ruling houses have since been wholly erased from the world stage, precedents that Trump and his familial entourage might bear in mind as he takes the royal carriage tour of the Mall.

Some state visitors were not so much criminal as plain embarrassing. Included under this heading are President Suharto of Indonesia (1979), another supposed cold war ally who was responsible for appalling internal repression, and Emperor Hirohito of Japan (1971), the second world war leader whose presence many in Britain deeply resented. Chinese leaders, the most recent of whom was the president, Xi Jinping, in 2015, often appear more embarrassed than their hosts; with good reason, given Beijing’s human rights record and its failure to keep promises in the former British colony of Hong Kong. Adding insult to injury, David Cameron made Xi drink a pint of warm beer.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Xi Jinping, the Chinese president, and the then UK prime minister David Cameron drink beer at a pub in Cadsden. Photograph: Andy Rain/AFP/Getty Images

Embarrassing for different reasons was the state visit of Charles de Gaulle in 1960. The self-styled liberator of France despised the British and the British despised him. His visit did little to change attitudes. Following that diplomatic triumph, mutual Anglo-French disdain became a tradition cherished by both sides.

It was largely maintained by De Gaulle’s successors, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing (1976), François Mitterrand (1984), Jacques Chirac (2004) and Nicolas Sarkozy (2008), all of whom reportedly complained about the food at the state banquet.

Part of the problem is that having hastily executed their royal family, the French feel resentful of Britain’s. In contrast, some state visits have been universally applauded, including those of Nelson Mandela in 1996 and Lech Wałęsa of Poland in 1991.

Although his achievements are immeasurably fewer, Trump is demanding the full works, including banquets, pageantry and golf at Balmoral. Maybe he expects the Queen to caddy. Assuming his visa is not cancelled, he will follow a string of recent US presidents including Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W Bush. The latter’s visit in November 2003, eight months after the invasion of Iraq, once again demonstrated the British government’s keen sense of the public mood and deft diplomatic touch. At least Tony Blair was glad to see him.