Chinese president hosted by Queen at Buckingham Palace state banquet.

The banquet at Buckingham Palace is reaching the end of its musical programme by now to the strains of ‘Nobody Does it Better’

Bond fans will of course recognise it as the theme tune from The Spy Who Loved Me, which is about the disappearance of two nuclear missile submarines. 

The programme finishes with pipe music from 4th battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland and the Army School of Bagpipe Music.

We’re going to wrap up this blog now, but will leave you with this representation of the Xi visit, courtesy of Steve Bell:

Steve Hilton, David Cameron’s sneaker-clad former chief strategist, has been telling the BBC that the UK shouldn’t be “sucking up to China”- rather it should be pushing for sanctions against Beijing.

He told BBC’s Newsnight: “I think this is one of the worst national humiliations since we went cap in hand to the IMF’s in the seventies”.

As well as China’s human rights record at home, Hilton cites China’s “relentless cyber attacks,” adding: “The truth is that China is a rogue state, just like Iran, and I don’t understand why we are sucking up to them.”

“Why are we not rolling out the carpet to a country like India?”

Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive at WPP, is also a guest on the programme and disagrees:

“To suggest that we are not going to roll out the red carpet for Prime Minister Modi [of India] is false. The answer is to do both.”

“You ignore China at your peril. Our experience has been that the Chinese do listen and learn and we underestimate their capacity to listen and learn.”

Then President Xi toasts with the Duchess of Cambridge to his right. Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images

First President Xi toasts with the Queen to his left. Photograph: WPA Pool/Getty Images

Photograph: Martin Argles for the Guardian.