The case for rejoining grows stronger

There is a lot of unsavoury pearl clutching going on amid calls for Starmer’s resignation over the vetting of Peter Mandelson’s suitability for appointment as Britain’s ambassador to the USA. It's all getting completely out of hand. I don’t know if a reasonable person could accuse him of misleading the House of Commons if he himself had been misled by the permanent secretary at the Foreign Office, Ollie Robbins. Statmer is due to make a statement to MPs tomorrow, and I assume we will get closer to the truth then. I should say that Robbins doesn’t believe he did anything wrong. I don’t have any particular reason to support the PM, he’s far too timid on Europe for me, but neither do I think he would have deliberately misled parliament. 

Donald Trump: "He's an idiot."

Being president of the USA is the most important job in the world, bar none. No other position of power compares in terms of the consequences for everyone and everything on planet Earth. The occupant can have a profound effect on our security, health, environment, living standards and even the progress of humanity. The Iran war is the most current example of that. Thousands have already died, or been badly injured. Infrastructure is being destroyed daily, people in the region are suffering displacement and terror, economies across the globe are grinding to a halt, oil supplies are struggling, and the price has doubled in the past five weeks.

Trump's ultimate contradiction

Trump is a walking mass of contradictions. You can find any number of examples on social media where he has in the past said and done the opposite of whatever he happens to be doing today. I have no idea why anyone still takes him seriously, or tries to parse his rambling narrative for signs of meaning. It is fruitless work. The only certainty is that he will shortly argue the reverse and accuse those who draw attention to his incoherence of peddling ‘fake news’ - a phrase he claims to have personally coined. These inconsistencies occur on a daily, even hourly basis, but after a decade or more, they have become accepted and even normalised. They are his signature philosophy.

Trump: When a madman rules the world

My mother-in-law spent her last couple of years in a care home specialising in mild dementia cases, and it wasn't unusual when we visited to find ourselves in slightly bizarre conversations with other patients in the public areas. I swear they were more lucid than yesterday's press conference-cum-cabinet meeting at the White House, which increasingly has the appearance of a secure institution for one man, while those around him humour his wild, off-the-wall ramblings. The terrifying thing is that the man happens to be Donald Trump, the President of the USA and the head of the most powerful military force in history. 

Starmer: the pressure builds

The irresistible pro-EU forces gathered against Kier Starmer and his Brexit red lines continue to grow, like water rising dangerously behind a structurally faulty dam. It is clearly only a matter of time before he is forced to make serious concessions, erase the red lines and fully commit to rejoining the EU. This week, the Spanish PM said societies can "review their mistakes" and admit the chosen path was the wrong one. He was followed by a declaration from the French foreign minister that Britain would be greeted with “open arms” if it decided to return to the single market. These are important indicators.

Trump's Iran escapade is already out of control

Donald Trump's personal war in the Middle East, barely two weeks in, has rapidly spiralled out of control.  Within days of being launched, he had declared it "already won" and mocked Kier Starmer, who he claimed was contemplating sending both Britain's aircraft carriers into the region, saying: That's OK, Prime Minister Starmer, we don't need them any longer - But we will remember. We don't need people that join Wars after we've already won!"  The president was specifically warned that Iran would likely seek to close the Straits of Hormuz before he made the decision to begin air strikes, but dismissed the idea, believing they would 'capitulate' within days.

Brexit. Still deceiving ourselves

The recent report by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee to assess the government’s progress against its own objectives for their UK-EU “reset” is revealing. The 2018 comment from Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bettel about Britain, that “they were in with loads of opt-outs, now they are out and want a load of opt-ins”, was never truer. Cameron in 2015 was trying to negotiate more opt-outs but in the end didn't satisfy the Eurosceptics in his party, or in the country. Since then, we have had Brexit, followed by five years of struggling to negotiate opt-ins with some limited success. The reset is simply the latest iteration.

Iran: Trump lights the blue touch paper

Among the more ludicrous reactions to Donald Trump’s war on the Iranian regime (and it is his own personal war) was the sight of Russia’s ambassador to the United Nations condemning America and Israel for Saturday’s brutal assault on cities and installations across Iran. This was at an emergency meeting of the Security Council, which only exposed what a pathetic body Trump has reduced it to. Prattling on about peace and security and passing resolutions that nobody sticks to. It’s a total waste of time. Israel claimed that the Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei had been killed by a missile launched into his compound, which the Iranians first denied before it was finally confirmed by state TV.

Gorton and Denton: Everyone's a loser

The Green Party took the Gorton and Denton by-election, with Labour being pushed down into third by Reform. It was a contest without any winners, and the best thing to celebrate was Matt Goodwin failing to get elected as an MP. At least there is one less divisive voice in the House of Commons. The one person who might raise a quiet glass this morning is Andy Burnham, who will be able to claim he could have won the seat for Labour. If anything, the result strengthens his quest to replace Starmer as party leader. In the end, the pollsters were wrong. It wasn't the tight result they had been forecasting. The Greens won by over 4,000 votes. Reform's support in the constituency was well overstated.

King Donald the Deranged

The US Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision to rule Trump’s tariff policy unlawful was one we should have expected. The only surprise was in learning that three justices, Kavanagh, Thomas and Alito were so biased toward Trump and the Republican Party that they actually argued he could apply import taxes (tariffs) on Americans without any input or approval from Congress. If you want to read the entire 170 page judgement and the dissenting opinion, it’s HERE. The SC found that the legal instrument that Trump used, the International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA), allows the president to ‘regulate’ trade but not by imposing tariffs.