During Donald Trump’s first term as president, part of which coincided with Boris Johnson’s time as prime minister, I visited a secondary school in Yorkshire, where the headteacher was bemoaning their effect on his efforts to teach.
“It is very hard to persuade children how important it is to tell the truth,” he said, “when the prime minister of the country they’re from, and the president of the country we are supposed to see as the greatest place on earth, are both liars.” Worse, he added, some of the pupils believed – not unreasonably given the nature of the Trump-Johnson ascent to the top – that they made it there not despite being liars, but at least in part because of it.
After Joe Biden defeated Trump at the polls, and Johnson’s lies and immorality finally did for him, there was room to hope that a political page had been turned, the bad guys had lost, and a return to basic standards in public life was possible.
That is why it is both depressing and dangerous that Trump won again, having made, according to Washington Post fact-checkers, 30,573 false or misleading claims in his first term.
I don’t especially want to be in a position where if the US and China are giving different versions of events, you believe China. But when Trump sits down with TIME magazine and says he has spoken with the Chinese president, Xi Jinping, about the trade war he launched on so-called Liberation Day, and the Chinese immediately deny that any such talks have taken place, they sound more convincing than he does. Especially given that in the same section of the same interview, Trump boasts (his default position) that he has made 200 deals since Liberation Day. I think if this were true, we would have heard from at least one of the 200 on the other side of the deal.
When he is not lying about the big geopolitical and geostrategic matters, he is lying about so-called bread-and-butter stuff too. Gasoline last week “hit $1.98 in a couple of states,” he said. Not true. The national average was $3.17, the lowest state average was $2.70, the lowest charged by a single gas station was $2.19. Despite that, by the following day, he announced that petrol was below $2 in a third state. Not true.
Three times last week, he claimed that grocery prices had fallen. Not true. In fact, they had seen the highest month-to-month rise in three years. Most bizarrely of all, he claimed that “as you know, the cost of eggs has come down like 93, 94% since we took office”. Were that true, eggs would now cost consumers under 38 cents per dozen. But it’s not, so they don’t.
The big bread-and-butter price lies are all about trying to disguise the even bigger truth that his tariffs will drive the cost of many groceries even higher. If your pants are on fire as often as Trump’s, is it too much to hope that, eventually, the whole show will burn down?
“I know that table,” I thought, as Steve Witkoff, Trump’s special envoy for all the things secretary of state Marco Rubio should be doing, walked in for his fourth meeting with Vladimir Putin. Indeed, I have sat at it alongside Tony Blair, first with Boris Yeltsin on the other side, later with Putin. These were never straightforward meetings.
The rather splendid glass-topped table is oval, white with a gold trim, little pictures of plants painted into it all the way round. At a push, you could fit a dozen or so people around it, though normally you would be looking at four on each side. Certainly, the Russians had four… Putin, Yuri Ushakov, his veteran foreign policy adviser, Kirill Dmitriev, his envoy on foreign investment, plus an interpreter. That is a lot of political and diplomatic experience.
On the other, Witkoff and a translator. His friends say he is tough, smart, and nobody’s fool, and I guess you need some of that to become the property billionaire that he is.
However, especially since the meeting took place amid continuing Russian attacks on civilians in Ukraine, he really should have tried a little harder not to come over as a total fanboy. He arrived clutching a small notebook, and the “so pleased to see you” look on his face had me wondering if he was about to ask Putin for his autograph.
Perhaps he got a selfie at the end of the meeting instead, before Putin went back to bombing and pretending to be interested in a peace deal.
I’ve been reading a German book, Krieg Ohne Ende (War Without End), by Michael Lüders, about the history of the Israel-Palestine conflict. It is written very much from the Palestinian perspective, as might be expected from the former president of the German-Arab Association, and recent election candidate of the left wing Sahra Wagenknecht Alliance.
Britain’s role in the history of the region, what he sees as both America and Germany’s postwar blind loyalty to Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu’s determination to avoid a two-state solution, and the hard right’s campaign to make Gaza and the West Bank part of Israel, all come in for detailed analysis and brutal judgement.
There is also reported within the book, stated as fact, that Israel spent millions of dollars amplifying on social media the message that Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party he led were antisemitic. Quite a revelation, if true. I think a proper investigative reporter (I retired from that side of journalism many decades ago) needs to look into it.
When Emmanuel Macron steps down at the next French presidential election, as his second term comes to an end, he will still be under 50 years old. That leaves a long time to be carrying “former French president” as your main calling card. So what will he do with the rest of his life?
In France last week, I learned from a friend an aspect of the French constitution that may provide the answer; namely – Donald Trump eat your heart out – that French presidents are allowed only to serve two consecutive terms. There is therefore nothing to stop Macron from seeking a third term, five years after he has left office. In 2032, when the election after next is due to take place, he would still be just 55.
Ah, I hear you say, but he has lost a lot of the popularity that saw him soar to the presidency when still in his late 30s, and win his second term despite all the turmoil and challenges swirling around him. However, one thing I have noticed about the French is that they tend to be a lot fonder of their presidents out of office than in. So don’t rule it out.
You heard it here first!
Does anyone know when the end-of-season lap of honour became a thing with football clubs? I certainly don’t remember this happening when I was growing up, but now it seems to take place at all clubs, after their last home game of the season.
That cannot have been easy for Queen’s Park Rangers players and staff, who had to take their “opportunity to thank the fans for your wonderful support” after losing 5-0 at home to promoted Burnley. Fair to say quite a few of their fans had left before the lap of honour got under way, while we were still celebrating in the away end.
