THE state banquet for President Xi Jinping and his wife Madame Peng Liyuan has a distinctly Scottish flavour.

The 170 guests in the Buckingham Palace Ballroom will tuck into fillet of West Coast turbot and Balmoral venison together with, for dessert, a delice of dark chocolate, mango and lime.

The fine food will be washed down with a wine-list that includes a 2007 Meursault Premier Cru and a 1989 Chateau Haut-Brion.

The musical programme, played by the Countess of Wessex's String Orchestra, includes a number of Chinese folk songs, which are likely to go down well with Madame Peng, who is a famous folk singer in China.

Among the pieces will be a medley entitled Chinese Folk Fantasy, Eleanor Rigby by the Beatles and Nobody Does It Better, the theme tune from the Bond film The Spy Who Loved Me.

There will also be a Pipe programme to include the Sound of Sleat performed by the 4th Battalion The Royal Regiment of Scotland and the Army School of Bagpipe Music and Highland Drumming.

While First Minister Nicola Sturgeon has not been invited to the banquet, her colleague Angus Robertson, the SNP leader in the Commons, has.

The talk at Westminster had been whether Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, known for his tweed jacket, would adhere to the dress code. In the end, he appeared wearing the customary white tie and tails.