Extraordinary

The Guardian reveals the contradictions in Trump's assessments of Putin:

Donald Trump has spoken, sometimes gushingly, about Vladimir Putin on more than 80 occasions in the past few years. Putin has been far more tight-lipped with just a few references to Trump

“Do you think Putin will be going to The Miss Universe Pageant in November in Moscow – if so, will he become my new best friend?” June 2013

“I do have a relationship with him” November 2013

“When I went to Russia with the Miss Universe pageant, [Putin] contacted me and was so nice” February 2014

“He could not have been nicer. He was so nice and so everything. But you have to give him credit that what he’s doing for that country in terms of their world prestige is very strong” April 2014

“I own Miss Universe, I was in Russia, I was in Moscow recently and I spoke, indirectly and directly, with President Putin, who could not have been nicer, and we had a tremendous success” May 2014

“Putin is a nicer person than I am” September 2015

“I will tell you that I think in terms of leadership [Putin] is getting an A, and our president is not doing so well” September 2015

“Yes [we met], a long time ago. We got along great, by the way” October 2015

“I think the biggest thing we have is that we were on 60 Minutes together and we had fantastic ratings. One of your best-rated shows in a long time … So we were stablemates” October 2015

“I have no relationship with him other than he called me a genius” February 2016

“I never met Putin. I don’t know who Putin is. He said one nice thing about me. He said I’m a genius. I said thank you very much to the newspaper and that was the end of it. I never met Putin” July 2016

“There are a lot of killers … Do you think our country is so innocent? Do you think our country is so innocent?” February 2017

“And I can tell you, speaking for myself, I own nothing in Russia. I have no loans in Russia. I don’t have any deals in Russia. President Putin called me up very nicely to congratulate me on the win of the election” February 2017

   

Off his head

President Trump is losing the place:

Donald Trump was on Sunday accused of encouraging his supporters to attack journalists, after he tweeted a video of himself at a pro-wrestling event throwing to the floor a man with a CNN logo for a head.

The video, sent as CNN broadcast its Sunday talk show State of the Union, came the morning after an appearance from Trump at an event in Washington honouring veterans, in which he used his speech to further his attacks on the press and broadcasters. “The fake media tried to stop us from going to the White House. But I’m president, and they’re not,” he said.

Insanity.

Music of the week

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

Yeah, but no, but maybe yeah eventually, but no right now. To paraphrase Little Britain’s gormless teenager Vicky Pollard, that’s roughly where the government stands, at the time of writing, on whether public sector workers are going to get a decent pay rise. Although by the time you read this, who knows?

Hours after suggesting on Wednesday that “we understand people are weary” of austerity and that the cap on public sector pay might thus be lifted, Downing Street was backtracking, squeaking furiously that actually nothing had changed. Yet all the time, Tory MPs were getting fat hints that, so long as they voted down a Labour amendment to the Queen’s speech which called for the scrapping of the cap right now, something might well be worked out come the autumn budget.

Officially no, but maybe yeah before too long. And if Westminster is struggling to work out what all this actually means, God alone knows how teachers and doctors and police officers, and the firefighters so recently lionised for risking their lives in Grenfell Tower, are supposed to make sense of it.

This Tory Government does not appear to realise that the political games they play affect people's lives.


   

She made a difference

Well done to Stella Creasy for demonstrating that politics matter.  The Guardian reports:

A decades-long struggle to give Northern Irish women access to terminations on the NHS in mainland Britain was unexpectedly won in the space of 24 hours on Thursday, as the UK government dramatically changed its policy in an attempt to head off a damaging Tory rebellion on the Queen’s speech.

Dozens of Conservative MPs were understood to have expressed to Tory whips their support for an amendment by the Labour MP Stella Creasy to allow Northern Irish women access to NHS-funded abortions in Great Britain. 

Women from Northern Ireland are currently charged about £900 for a termination if they travel to have the procedure in mainland Britain, a policy upheld by a supreme court case earlier this month. Northern Ireland has some of the most restrictive abortion laws in Europe and it is almost impossible for a women to have a safe, legal abortion there.

   

Like ferrets in a sack

Rudderless.  The Guardian reports:

Government hints at a possible end to the cap on pay rises for public sector workers have descended into utter confusion after Downing Street rapidly changed tack, insisting that the policy of limiting annual rises to 1% would remain in place.

Hours after a senior Conservative source indicated that ministers would review the cap at the next budget, saying people were “weary” after years of belt-tightening, Theresa May’s spokesman said this was not the case. “The government policy has not changed,” he told a No 10 briefing, repeating the phrase or variants of it 16 times as he was pressed on how this could tally with the earlier comments.

Not waving but drowning.

Down the pan.

 

Quote of the day

From The Red Box:

When the Tory attack on Labour is that its Brexit policy is not clear, it would help if the government position wasn't also mired in confusion.

David Davis, the Brexit secretary, came to The Times CEO Summit and said Philip Hammond, the chancellor, says "a number of things that are not quite consistent with each other". Hammond, meanwhile, went to Germany and gave a speech mocking Boris Johnson's claim that Brexit would allow Britain to "have our cake and eat it". 

There are also splits on how long a transition deal might last, what new customs arrangements might look like and the speed with which new free-trade deals could be struck. Thank goodness these people aren't running the country or anything.

Indeed ...

   

Oh Theresa ...

Music of the week

I don't know what the world is coming to ...

Ed Balls and Yvette Cooper at Glastonbury:

"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel."

Cabinet Ministers can be pretty stupid.  The Independent reports:

Calls by a Cabinet minister for broadcasters to be "patriotic" over Brexit have been branded "sinister" by Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron.

Leader of the Commons Andrea Leadsom drew fire after making the remarks in a heated TV clash.

"It would be helpful if broadcasters were willing to be a bit patriotic," she told BBC Newsnight. "The country took a decision, this Government is determined to deliver on that decision."

Flummery

The Times attends the state opening of parliament:

This may have been a depomped ceremony but everything is relative. Yeomen with bouncing plumes still marched along the Royal Gallery; there was parping brass at the monarch’s arrival; and the leader of the Lords carried forth on a stick the Cap of Maintenance (not to be confused with George Osborne’s Hi-Vis Jacket of Construction). Up in the gallery we reached for our Biros of Whimsy to scribble upon the Notepads of Irreverence.

The crown, too heavy for the Queen on such a hot day, had been sent ahead in a separate car and was sitting there on a cushion. The royal head was instead covered with what appeared to be the flag of the European Union: a blue floral number with a circle of yellow dots. You can take the girl out of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha but . . .

It is time that we got rid of all the nonsense: gold sticks in waitng, ladies of the bedchamber. Lord Maltravers Poursuivant and all.

   

So far, not so good ...

I rather doubt if this sort of language in The Guardian is justified:

British negotiators have capitulated to key European demands for a phased approach to Brexit talks, agreeing to park discussions on free trade until they have thrashed out the cost of the multibillion-euro UK divorce settlement.

Putting a brave face on a concession that may further strengthen the tactical dominance of the EU, the Brexit secretary, David Davis, insisted his initial retreat remained consistent with long-term government strategy.

To desribe a tactical reverse as capitulation verges on hyperbole.  If Davis has his wits about him (which I accept is sometimes doubtful), he will know that all the issues are interlinked.  It is thus impossible to come to an agreement on the divorce bill without reference to future payments associated with membership of the single market; nor can the position of EU nationals in the UK be separated from the question of the movement of labour from the EU post-Brexit.  And over all hangs the question of the future jurisdiction of the ECJ.

 

Music of the week

 

The lads done good!

Terrific stuff.  Scotland beat Australia by 24 points to 19.  Outstanding team effort, but Fiin Russell and Johnny Gray immense.

Wayne Barnes and his determination to be the centre of attention is a pain in the arse.

 

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

Leadership requires courage, imagination and empathy. In the two long days since the first flames licked up the newly fixed cladding on Grenfell Tower in west London, the prime minister has failed to show any of these qualities. On Wednesday, the first day, she said nothing at all until 6.30 that evening. On Thursday morning she ventured out to the scene of the disaster, where she rightly congratulated the emergency services on their inexhaustible efforts. But she made no contact with the shattered survivors, nor the faith workers and volunteers who have poured in to the area with such compassion. Less than an hour later Jeremy Corbyn arrived. He listened to people, he hugged them, he promised to find out the truth and told them he would speak for them. Theresa May could have said and done all of those things, but she did not.

Live Grenfell Tower fire: six victims provisionally identified, say police – latest updates

Follow the latest updates as police say they expect death toll to rise in wake of Grenfell Tower disaster in west London

Read more

    

Finkelstein's logic

The Times explains why we are up a gum tree:

To understand the nature of the position we are in, there are two things that need to be appreciated.

The first is that Theresa May does not want the so-called hard Brexit that is associated with her. If we crashed out of the European Union without a deal, it would represent failure to her. The reason she says that “no deal is better than a bad deal” is because she wants a deal. Her attitude is that, just as there is no point paying for Trident and then saying you would never use it, you should not unilaterally disarm before talks.

It was because she believed it would be a bumpy ride on the way to a negotiated settlement that she needed a proper majority in parliament. Without one, brinkmanship with negotiating partners would not be credible. And she felt she did not have one.

Now she certainly does not. Indeed, it’s far worse than that: she would be attempting to persuade the EU to agree a deal that they would be able to see would not get through parliament.

The main reason it would not is that Labour has designed its position to allow it to vote down virtually everything. Its stance is a classic of opposition policy-making. Labour insists any deal must deliver leaving the single market while guaranteeing all the benefits of the single market; it must put jobs first, protect workers’ rights and end free movement. Without a deal like this they would not be in favour of leaving — but they want to emphasise that they are indeed in favour of leaving.

There is basically nothing remotely achievable that they can’t oppose. You can call this shrewd, pragmatic, muddled, infuriating, understandable, irresponsible, reasonable in the circumstances — you can call it what you like. It is what it is.

Which leaves us up the creek without a paddle.  Cameron with his referendum has a lot to answer for ...

The Laurel & Hardy strategy

The Times reports:

Theresa May bought a stay of execution as prime minister and Tory leader yesterday with a display of contrition before MPs, declaring: “I’m the person who got us into this mess and I’m the one who will get us out of it”.

Don't hold your breath ...

Quote of the day

From The Times Red Box:

Good morning,

I don't like to worry you but overnight Theresa May again promised to bring stability. Who knows what forces of chaos this will unleash.


Judging by the prime minister's track record, by the end of the day the lights will have gone off, the Queen will have abdicated, and we will find ourselves at war with Narnia.


I plan to retire to the Second World War air-raid shelter we have in the garden. I may be some time.

And so, even the Tory press is mocking the Dear Leader.

It's a bit of a mess

Whither Brexit now ...   The Guardian reports:

Britain’s EU partners were left baffled by the result of the general election, and no wonder. The Conservatives campaigned for the right to strike a hard bargain and failed to get it. The Liberal Democrats campaigned for a second referendum and failed to get that either. Labour perhaps best captured the confused mood of the voters by insisting that while the result of the referendum should be honoured, the aim should be to continued membership of the single market. Some voters want a clean break. Some voters want Brexit in name only. Some voters want to have their cake and eat it.

Difficult to see a path leading to a satisfactory conclusion to the Brexit negotiations, whatever you deem that satisfactory conclusion to be.

The present government's objectives in the negotiations (exit from the single market and from the customs union) may have changed; on the other hand, thay may remain the same.  And the government will struggle to remain in office to fulfil whatever objectives they set themselves.

I would refer you to the wise words of Sir Richard Mottram, former permanent secretary at the DETR:

“

We're all fucked. I'm fucked. You're fucked. The whole department is fucked. It's the biggest cock-up ever. We're all completely fucked.

”

   

Quote of the day

Politico reports:

White House deputy press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said “the president is not a liar” after former FBI director James Comey blasted the White House for telling “lies, plain and simple” about the circumstances surrounding his firing last month.

Then why are his pants on fire? 

   

Interesting ...

Watching the BBC coverage of election night.  Dimbleby and the rest of them seemed to have missed the fact that a hung parliament might just - possibly - hand to Jeremy Corbyn the keys to 10 Downing Street'

OK, it's a stretch, but it is far from impossible that the Tories will fail to command sufficient support in the Commons.

Which would really be a turn-up for the books.
   

Quote of the day

From Bloomberg (here):

For a few hours on Sunday, Ariana Grande, a 23-year-old pop star from Boca Raton, Florida, was the leader of the free world. ...

Two weeks after 22 people were killed and more than 60 injured in a terrorist attack at her "Dangerous Woman" concert in Manchester in the U.K., Grande returned to the city to hallow the ground and soothe the survivors. In the process, she rededicated her generation to the proposition that all men -- and women, most definitely women -- are created equal.

While President Donald Trump gutter-tweeted argle-bargle and played another round of golf, Grande delivered what will likely stand as the official American response to the bombing in Manchester and to another terrorist attack, the night before the concert, in London.

...

Trump's White House is as culturally barren as it is politically toxic. Given a president who spreads division at home and abroad, it's especially important to have visible counterpoints in politics, sports, business and the arts. At a crucial hour, the pint-sized Grande showed that America is still big. It's the White House that's gotten small.

   

Where does this lead ...

May is sounding tough:

Theresa May has declared she is prepared to rip up human rights laws to impose new restrictions on terror suspects, as she sought to gain control over the security agenda just 36 hours before the polls open.

The prime minister said she was looking at how to make it easier to deport foreign terror suspects and how to increase controls on extremists where it is thought they present a threat but there is not enough evidence to prosecute them.

The last-ditch intervention comes after days of pressure on May over the policing cuts and questions over intelligence failures, following terror attacks on London Bridge, 
She said: “But I can tell you a few of the things I mean by that: I mean longer prison sentences for people convicted of terrorist offences. I mean making it easier for the authorities to deport foreign terror suspects to their own countries.

“And I mean doing more to restrict the freedom and the movements of terrorist suspects when we have enough evidence to know they present a threat, but not enough evidence to prosecute them in full in court.

“And if human rights laws stop us from doing it, we will change those laws so we can do it.”

Human rights legislation is there to protect the public from an overweening government.  The kind of government that says it is entitled to take legal action against individuals because it thinks those individuals may be dangerous, without having to prove its case in court.  So the government can lock up or penalise anyone it chooses.  Throughout the centuries, the dream of totalitarians.

And it is wholly unlikely to discourage malcontents from using vehicles or knives to injure innocent bystanders.

 

Return of the Maybot

The Guardian continues to poke fun at the Prime Minister:

The Supreme Leader had never been more clear about anything. The country was talking about one thing and one thing only. Brexit. So she had come to the same library in the Royal United Services Institute in Whitehall where she had launched her leadership campaign almost a year earlier, to talk about Brexit. That’s what the public was demanding and that’s what the public would get.

There were a few puzzled faces in the audience. They were under the impression that what most people had been talking about over the past couple of days was Saturday night’s terrorist attack in London and they had reasonably assumed that the Supreme Leader might have something to say about it. Apparently not. “More than ever, the country needs strong and stable leadership,” she said. And that was why she was calling on everyone to strengthen her hand so her leadership could be even stronger and more stable. The Maybot was back up and running.

Mistaking the groans of resignation and despair in the room for confirmation that her message of reassurance was getting through, the Supreme Leader went on to deliver much the same non-speech she had repeatedly given over the previous seven weeks. The same sentences that never quite made sense even on their own. Let alone when they were connected to all the others.

She alone had a Brexit plan. A plan she couldn’t fully disclose, other than to say no deal was better than a bad deal. Jeremy Corbyn didn’t have a plan because his plan was different to hers. “We will show leadership, because that is what leaders do,” the Maybot concluded, her algorithms no longer fully operational. “There is no time for learning on the job.” This was the closest she came to saying anything heartfelt. She’d been trying and failing to learn on the job for 12 months.

She is making Corbyn look better and better.

A knave or a fool

Either Trump knowingly misconstrued Mayor Khan's statement or he failed to understand it:

Donald Trump has criticised the mayor of London, hours after seven people were killed and 48 injured in a terror attack in the centre of the city.

“At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack,” the president wrote on his personal Twitter account, “and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’

In response, a spokesman for Sadiq Khan said the mayor had “more important things to do than respond to Donald Trump’s ill-informed tweet that deliberately takes out of context his remarks”.

Khan commented on the attacks in a statement overnight and in a television interview earlier on Sunday. In the interview, he said there was “no reason to be alarmed” by an increased and armed police presence in the city that day.

 Either way, Trump is a disgrace.

   

Silly old buffer

I'm not old - I'm a not so active adult?  The Guardian reports:

People should not be called old until they are seriously frail, dependent and approaching death, one of the UK’s leading social scientists has told Hay festival.

Sarah Harper, a gerontologist who is director of the Oxford Institute of Ageing, proposed a different approach to the language we use about ageing, suggesting that people in their 60s and possibly 70s and 80s should still be considered active adults.

“We should not even be calling people old until they reach what [the historian Peter] Laslett calls the fourth age; that time where we will become frail and enfeebled,” Harper said. “Old age should be the fourth age. Everything else should be active adulthood.”

She said there was a danger of neglecting what true old age should be: a time of withdrawal and peace and reflection. It can be a difficult time but “it is a time we need to claim as a special time because we are finite beings … we will die”.

I rather doubt that we wrinklies give two hoots as to the label used to describe us.  But a little more care and consideration on the part of younger members of society would not go amiss.

   

Quote of the day

From The Guardian (here):

Two weeks ago, when the Supreme Leader informed the country there was a realistic chance of Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister, everyone dismissed the idea as scaremongering. It now turns out she was acting on insider information.

Only she knew just how mediocre she really was and that her mediocrity would be inevitably found out. Only she knew that she was planning to release a totally uncosted manifesto with policies that would have to be ditched before the election even took place. Only she knew that she was strong and stable enough to turn a 24 point lead in the polls into a mere five.

As John Cleese once said, " 'It's not the despair.... I can take the despair. It's the hope I can't stand".

   

Quote of the day

From The Times (here):

Mrs May repeated her mantra to Andrew Neil last night that the election comes down to whether she or Jeremy Corbyn should negotiate a Brexit deal with the EU. It remains a fairly strong line, although that is like saying that Victoria Beckham would be a better replacement No 8 for the Lions rugby squad in New Zealand than Nicholas Parsons.

   

Election poster of the day

More here


    .

Not so strong and stable?

The BBC comments on Mrs May's latest u-turn, modifying the proposals for social care in England:

Suddenly, only four days after the Tory manifesto was published, Theresa May has added one rather crucial proposal to her social care plan - a limit or a cap to the amount of money one individual could be asked to pay.

She is adamant that she is not budging on her principles, and was clearly irritated by questions after her speech that said she was backtracking.

But the manifesto did not include the notion of a cap, and just yesterday ministers publicly rejected such an idea.

One senior minister told me "we always knew we were going to need to give protection to those with very high care costs".

They said the prime minister sees trying to fix the social care system "as a big, big deal and she is prepared to use political capital to do it".

But having to clarify the manifesto within days creates a whiff of panic.

And I rather doubt that the addition of an unspecified cap will go very far towards appeasing those opposed to the plan.  Further concessions on the way?

This is what happens when party leaders do not think things through and do not adequately consult their colleagues.  It might be described as a failure of leadership ...

 

Music of the week

Paranoia of the day

From The Sunday Times (here):

Even the election date has it in for Labour. A change.org petition is demanding the month of May be renamed “Corbyn”. The petitioner rages: “We want a calendar for the many, not the few. The insidious presence of May on our kitchen walls and calendar apps is a clear, unfair advantage to the Conservatives”. 

They may (hah, again) not have noticed that the election date is in June?

 

A born diplomat

President Trump takes his usual sophisticated dialogue into conversation with the Russians.  The Times reports:

President Trump told the Russian foreign minister that he was relieved to have sacked his FBI director and allegedly described him as “a nut job”.

Barely an hour after Mr Trump had departed Washington for his first foreign trip yesterday, it emerged that the president had used an Oval Office meeting with Sergey Lavrov to explain his decision to dismiss James Comey the previous evening.

According to a document that summarised the meeting, Mr Trump told Mr Lavrov: “I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job”.

The Talleyrand de nos jours, he is not ...

 

Quote of the day

And after the Manifesto Launch:

Forward together, the Supreme Leader left alone in her five-car motorcade. The cabinet were left to fend for themselves in the broken down bus.

   

Aw diddums ...

Infamy, they've all got it infamy.  The Independent reports:

Donald Trump has said that “no politician in history...has been treated worse or more unfairly” than him.

“Look at the way I’ve been treated lately, especially by the media,” the US President told cadets graduating from the US Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut.

“No politician in history, and I say this with great surety, has been treated worse or more unfairly. "

Nobody likes me, everybody hates me, think I'll go and eat worms ...


 

Not exactly encouraging ...

OK, so he's not an Einstein.  But even so, this seems excessive.  The Times reports:

Speeches at President Trump’s first Nato summit next week will be limited to four minutes, in order to keep him engaged.

Nato officials may also adopt tactics from the White House, such as repeating the president’s name and using maps and graphs, to keep him interested in proceedings. Mr Trump asks his staff to restrict memos to one page and few of his meetings last more than 15 minutes.

The National Security Council officials have taken to including Mr Trump’s name in “as many paragraphs as we can because he keeps reading if he’s mentioned”, a source said yesterday.

Treat him like a child, and he'll act like a child.

   

Chaos theories

The tide of daily revelations about the state of affairs in the White House is beginning to have an effect on the real world.  Bloomberg reports:

Growing concerns over the turmoil engulfing President Donald Trump’s administration weighed on risk appetite, boosting the yen and gold and sending U.S. stock futures lower.

S&P 500 Index contracts declined with equities across Asia on reports that Trump asked FBI Director James Comey to drop an investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn. The dollar was already in retreat after a report that the U.S. president shared terrorism intelligence with Russian officials, an action he has since defended. The Bloomberg Dollar Spot Index dropped for a sixth day, crude extended losses and volatility indexes climbed.

“At the very least the view is that Trump’s economic policies will be delayed over this, and the dollar is being sold,” said Tomoichiro Kubota, an analyst at Matsui Securities Co. in Tokyo. “At the moment there’s a strong sense of investors trying to gauge how far this will go. It’s a situation where you can’t completely rule out the possibility of impeachment down the road, so it’s difficult for investors to buy.”

That pre-supposes that you regard the financial exchanges as part of the real world.

Poster of the day

h/t Norman

Stuff for Jeremy and Kezia to think on

Another Labour manifesto and, once again, the focus is on income tax and corporation tax, perhaps understandably, as these - together with VAT - form the bulk of tax receipts at the national level. But is the Labour Party missing a trick or two? Here are some other areas which seem to me to be ripe for attention.

1. When I buy shares on the stock market, I am charged stamp duty of 0.5% of the purchase price, the proceeds of which go to the Treasury. Is there any reason why this should not be increased to 1% or 2%? Certainly, share investors would squeal, but they are not short of a bob or two; otherwise they would not be putting their spare cash into the stock market.

2. I am allowed to earn capital gains on the stock market of up to £11.300 annually before such gains become eligible for income tax. Why is there this exemption from income tax? Like anyone else, I benefit from the standard income tax allowance. Why do share investors get this extra tax benefit?

3. Similarly, I am currently allowed to receive £5000 in share dividends before I have to pay any income tax on such receipts (although that was scheduled to be reduced to £2000 in 2018-2019). Once again, what is the justification for such favourable treatment for those not obviously in need?

4. Of course, in addition to the above, I can avoid any tax liability (other than stamp duty) by putting £20,000 a year into a stocks and shares ISA. Nice for me, but what does it contribute to the common good?

Can we afford these tax fripperies for the middle class when the NHS is going down the plughole, when welfare benefits are being hacked back, when schools are grossly underfunded and when there are serious financial problems providing care for the elderly?

   

In the doghouse again

The dangers of amateurism:



More here.


 

Music of the week

Pettiness

Trouble at t'mill.  The Sunday Times reports:

The Today programme has long been known for annoying the nation’s politicians. And, with its weekly reach of more than 7m listeners, the Radio 4 show has also not been immune to its own internal rivalry.

Now two of the presenters are understood to have raised concerns with senior BBC bosses about the “uncollegiate” behaviour of Nick Robinson, who joined Today in 2015 after a decade as the corporation’s news-breaking political editor.

One of the presenters went to Gwyneth Williams, controller of Radio 4, while the other went to Gavin Allen, controller of daily news programmes.

Their worries centre on Robinson’s sharp elbows as well as tussles over who is on the rota to appear for big occasions, such as post-budget and after the election when Robinson wants to be on air.

...

With a team of five presenters — Robinson, Humphrys, who has been on Today for three decades, Justin Webb, Mishal Husain and Sarah Montague — there has long been an element of rivalry.

With the exception of Ms Husain (who seems to be relatively normal), the other four are a bunch of patronising plonkers, so far up themselves as to be right pains in their respective fundaments.

Bring back Naughtie, even if he does on occasion ask the most convoluted questions.

 

Dinner in the White House

Time Magazine explores President Trump's culinary preferences:

The waiters know well Trump’s personal preferences. As he settles down, they bring him a Diet Coke, while the rest of us are served water, with the Vice President sitting at one end of the table. With the salad course, Trump is served what appears to be Thousand Island dressing instead of the creamy vinaigrette for his guests. When the chicken arrives, he is the only one given an extra dish of sauce. At the dessert course, he gets two scoops of vanilla ice cream with his chocolate cream pie, instead of the single scoop for everyone else. 

When you're the Donald, you get to eat what you want, even if it is childish ...


 

Off the leash

Trump lashes out:

Donald Trump has said that he "was going to fire" former FBI Director James Comey regardless of input from the Department of Justice – contradicting claims from his own White House staff.

"Regardless of recommendation, I was going to fire Comey," Mr Trump, said in an interview that marked the president's most extensive comments since the firing of the former FBI Director, whom he referred to as a "showboat" and a "grandstander".

"The FBI has been in turmoil,” Mr Trump claimed. “You know that, I know that, everyone knows that.”

The comments, in an interview with NBC's Lester Holt, departed from the White House line: that a meeting with the Justice Department convinced Mr Trump to dismiss Mr Comey. Deputy White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders had claimed that advice and letters from two Justice Department officials swayed Mr Trump's hand.

The FBI may or may not be "in turmoil" but the White House certainly is.  And it is less than dignified for the President to be abusing a former employee.

This would never have happened under President Bartlet - where is CJ Cregg when you need her?

Quote of the day

The New Statesman gets lost in labels:

No liberal globaliser or free-market ideologue, Mrs May believes in social cohesion and a strong state as well as reducing immigration. Her language is communitarian and softly nationalist. Her government is not neoliberal: more accurately, it is post-Thatcherite. From the beginning, Mrs May has been clear that she would wish to regulate as well as intervene in markets that are perceived to be rigged or broken. Ed Miliband would approve. You could say that she is Britain’s first post-liberal prime minister.

Well yes, you could.  But would it add to the quantum of human knowledge or understanding?

 

Promises, promises ...

Why do politicians make promises that they know cannot be delivered?  As The Guardian notes:

“Imagine if Jeremy Corbyn were to be prime minister,” the Supreme Leader said. No one in the room, or indeed the country, had been considering this possibility for a second, but the May Team, that happy band of brothers – not to forget a couple of token sisters – closed their eyes and did their best to pretend. Labour’s promises were all undeliverable, Kim Jong-May insisted, before outlining several undeliverable promises herself.

Starting with reducing the number of people coming into the country to the tens of thousands. A target she had consistently failed to get anywhere near during the six years she had been home secretary. There was no contradiction. The Supreme Leader was always right, even when she was wrong. She had got away with it then and she would get away with it now. Anything to get the Ukip vote out. Strong and stable leadership demanded nothing less.

Even if she were to succeed (which is far from being on the cards), what would it do to the economy? Or to the health service, which is reliant on immigration?

The Tories are making ridiculous promises in a cynical attempt to sway those who are concerned about immigration.

 

Quote of the day

From The Observer (here):

There are only two people in the country still trying to sustain the fiction that the general election is competitive. One is Theresa May. “I don’t take anything for granted,” she says, with the most implausible humble-bragging. The other one playing pretendy politics is Jeremy Corbyn, who has to maintain the line that four weeks of further exposure to him, Diane Abbott and John McDonnell will miraculously change the country’s estimation of their suitability to form the next government.

Depressing ...

 

Music of the week

Hard to believe

Yes, it's true, the Tories won Ferguslie Park and Shettleston.  What is the world coming to?

 

May's wobbly Wednesday

Just because she's paranoid does not mean that Johnny Foreigner is not out to get her.  The Guardian reports:

As her limo returned to Downing Street from Buckingham Palace, Kim Jong-May strode purposefully towards the lectern set up in front of No 10. It was time to address her subjects.

There were dark forces at work, she said gravely. The lights were going out all over England. She had tried to be reasonable with the enemy by telling them exactly on what terms Britain was prepared to leave the EU. But the untrustworthy Johnny Foreigner had just thrown it back at her. The continental press had deliberately misrepresented her plans for intergalactic domination. Stick-It-Up-Your-Juncker had dared to say he thought the negotiations might involve negotiation. Deadly threats had been made against the UK. 

All of these acts had been deliberately timed to affect the result of the general coronation that would take place on 8 June. There was a global conspiracy at play to make sure she was deposed as Supreme Leader and replaced by the EU collaborator Jeremy Corbyn. Forget the opinion polls that suggested she was heading for a landslide victory. They were just part of a Brussels dirty op. Unknown to everyone in the country but her, the EU had secret agents waiting inside every polling station to stop every Conservative voter.

Only one thing could save Britain at a time like this. “Strong and stable leadership,” she said, sounding ever more deranged and unstable. Kim Jong-May’s eyes glazed over in rapture. All her life she had waited for this moment and now she had got her wish.

What would she be like if Labour actually did pose a threat to her hegemony?

   

Arithmetically challenged

She's had her chips

Is Theresa May a bit of a plodder?

I'm beginning to wonder.  Her constant reiteration of "strong and stable leadership", her avoidance of  interaction with any voters other than committed conservatives and her failure to answer perfectly reasonable questions appear to suggest a lack of emotional empathy.  While, by all accounts, the Tory manifesto will say as little as possible about anything.  Now we have reports of this latest bust-up with EU representatives, suggesting that she has yet to come to grips with the realities of the Brexit negotiations.

Is there evidence of a cool tactical brain behind the bland and blunt - if dogged - refusal to engage with her interlocutors?  Or is she just not up to the job?  Who knows?

 

Sticks and stones

Is there any real need for the Deputy Leader of the Labour Party to descend to the level of the Foreign Secretary?  The Guardian reports:

Boris Johnson will be subjected to a Boris-style attack on Tuesday from the deputy Labour leader, Tom Watson, who will describe the foreign secretary as a “cheese-headed fopdoodle”.

The description follows Johnson’s description of Jeremy Corbyn as a “mutton-headed old mugwump” in his first intervention of the election campaign.

In a speech to the shopworkers’ union Usdaw’s annual delegate meeting in Blackpool, Watson will say: “Boris Johnson is a caggie-handed cheese-headed fopdoodle with a talent for slummocking about.”

A fopdoodle is defined online as a stupid or insignificant fellow, a fool or a simpleton. Cheese-head, confusingly, is a name for a type of screw with a raised cylindrical head, while a slummock is an untidy or slovenly person.

Good fun and all that, if a little strained.  But such name-calling is not raising the tone of the debate; nor is it adding to the enlightenment of the general public.

 

It has a certain comedic charm

Here

 

Tory tax bombshell!

Well, that's clear enough.  The Guardian reports:

Theresa May is likely to abandon the Tories’ “triple tax lock” commitment and has ruled out increases to VAT, but signalled that she could allow a future Conservative government to raise national insurance and income tax.

The prime minister, whose government was recently forced into an embarrassing U-turn over plans to raise national insurance for the self-employed, said she did not want to make promises that she would be unable to keep. As such, she would not commit to renewing her predecessor’s policy that prevented the government from increasing any of the three major taxes: VAT, national insurance and income tax.

So vote Tory and prepare to pay higher taxes.  And, if you''re a pensioner, say cheerio to the triple lock.

   

It's only 25 big ones ...

I don't suppose he needed to increase his mortgage:

Former Prime Minister David Cameron has found a new way to chillax with his morning edition of City A.M. after he bought a £25,000 "shepherd's hut" for his garden.

The hut, made by Oxfordshire-based Red Sky Shepherd's Hut, now sits in the Camerons' garden.

 Nice for some ...