The one-to-one sessions take place today when he is expected to come under pressure from Biden and the EU leaders over the NI protocol. We shall see.
This morning the BBC are reporting that Biden wants Western democracies to oppose China's growing influence in the third world where they continue to invest billions. Johnson's plan to cut foreign aid - just when aid is most needed and against the wishes of parliament - will not go down well.
We are in danger of being at loggerheads with the EU, USA and China all at the same time.
I note that professor Chris Grey, who writes what is surely the internet's best blog on Brexit (The Brexit Blog) - going for quality with one post a week compared to my daily effort - writes about Britain's Brexit shame this week and the way Brexiteers are wallowing in self-pity about how the EU is mistreating us. He says this
"It is grimly ironic that this goes on at the same time as, reflecting the never-ending Brexiter obsession with World War Two, Johnson crows about ‘renewing the Atlantic Charter’ against the backdrop of an aircraft carrier. Grimly ironic, too, that his government goes on endlessly about pride in being British and showcases its “GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland” campaign whilst doing so much to shame and sully Britain’s reputation."
I am afraid on this point I must disagree with him. Johnson does shame the country but he didn't get to be PM with an armed coup, the people elected him and we shouldn't forget it. We shame ourselves in the same way the American's did with Trump.
Neither man should ever have got to any high (or even low) office. They are both congenitally unfit for serious government and the world knows it. The last five years have been a lesson in how far Anglo-American leadership of the world has slipped. This isn't something that has impacted all Western democracies, it is uniquely a British and US problem.
The fact that Trump still enjoys a lot of popular support in America is stunning to me. It's obvious he is a total moron with the intellectual firepower of an eight year old, yet 70 million Americans voted for him last year. Johnson has an 80 seat majority and a double digit lead over Labour. What does this tells us except we are living in societies where a majority, or near majority, of people don't understand the world and are either too idle or too dim to find out.
In a democracy people get the government they deserve.
Grey talks about how we are now entering "a crunch period" on the NI protocol and how Brexiters are in denial about where responsibility lies. He says they have shifted from lying to electors (and perhaps to themselves) to lying to the outside world.
There is no doubt things are going from bad to worse but Johnson's more immediate focus will be on the lifting of covid restrictions on June 21. It looks like he will be forced into delaying by up to a month and this will cause an almighty row in the Tory party and with anti-vaxxers everywhere.
His delay in closing the border to flights from India earlier this year, because he desperately wanted to go there to meet prime minister Modi for discussions on a post Brexit trade deal is going to blow up in his face if restrictions have to be extended. While flights from Bangladesh and Pakistan were halted, flights from India, where covid cases were similar if not worse, went on as normal with thousands of people arriving from the sub-continent, many of them almost certainly suffering from the so-called Delta variant.
Now cases in this country are starting to rise exponentially and it is clear that the 21 June date will have to be put back. This is a symptom of Johnson's inability to take unpopular decisions in a timely way and a repeat of what he was doing throughout last year.
However, even this is unlikely to dent his popularity among voters.
The New York Times had an article yesterday about this: Boris Johnson Is a Terrible Leader. It Doesn’t Matter.
"Story by story, scandal by scandal, Mr. Johnson has been exposed as a slapdash, venal, incompetent leader. But it doesn’t seem to matter. The Conservatives, despite the controversy, are still comfortably ahead in the polls..."
So, yes he does shame Britain but it isn't his fault. It's ours. Look around at your friends, colleagues and neighbours, the ones who voted for him. Until they feel shame, we are truly lost.
