Trump jokes with Putin about election-meddling

If everyone followed Donald Trump's example in the way he remonstrated with Vladimir Putin at the G20 summit in Japan, the meeting of leaders would be a laugh a minute. He seemed to joke with Putin, warning him in a lighthearted voice not to meddle in US elections hohoho. Putin must have been delighted. Then along comes Theresa May - yes she is still British prime minister bless her - and scolds him in a shoolmistressy sort of way about Russia's Novichok attack in Salisbury last year and said the two identified Russian intelligence-officer suspects must be brought to justice. Imagine if she had followed Trump's example and had said: "Look, Vlad, be a good fellow and sort out this Novichok stuff, then we can all go back to being frightfully friendly, don't you know." Vlad would have hooted. Instead, he gave a grimace which implied he was not remotely worried about Theresa's warning and said he had done everything that was necessary and that was an end of it. He also said traitors to Russia had to be punished but then quickly said he wasn't meaning that Skripal had been punished. Just a reminder: one woman, Dawn Sturgess, died when she picked up a bottle in the woods near Salisbury and thinking it contained perfume put some of the liquid on her skin. It was Novichok. Three others nearly died: Sergei Skripal, former GRU Russian intelligence officer and double agent for MI6, his daughter, Yulia, and Detective Sergeant Nick Bailey who was also contaminated by the nerve agent rubbed on to the front door knob of the Skripal house. These two Russians who so blatantly were caught on camera near the house and in Salisbury before flying back to Moscow need to appear in court. But they never will, not with Theresa in charge and not with either Boris Johnson or Jeremy Hunt in Number 10 Downing Street. Putin will have taken huge comfort from Trump's flippant remark.