Nail bite government

Theresa May and Donald Trump have few things in common. But one thing they now share is unpopularity. Trump's popularity has slumped both at home and abroad, and Theresa May's popularity or unpopularity is no longer relevant to her survival. Her political survival depends on ten MPs from Northern Ireland who, for one billion pounds, have agreed to prop her up when she requires a vote in the Commons. In the outside world that would be called blackmail or bribery. But this is politics and politics is a dirty business. So in the House of Commons tomorrow (Thursday) the prime minister is likely to get enough support for her government's Queen's Speech manifesto to be voted into the statute books. If this happens, she will carry on and just might still be in power in five years' time. It probably won't happen, but with the vote tomorrow in her favour she will struggle on at Number 10 Downing Street and beat back all her opponents, many of them in the Conservative Party. It's extraordinary how circumstances change. All the newspaper columnists were of one voice, Theresa May was going to be pushed out. But politicians know, or should know, that the last thing the electorate wants right now is another election. It would be obscene, especially after Grenfell Tower and the terrorism attacks. We all want the government to get on and sort things out and make as good a deal as possible out of Brexit. Trump, on the other hand, has very little going for him at the moment, except, by some miracle, the Supreme Court decided to partially uphold his wish to ban the entry of people from six Muslim countries into the US. The Supreme Court, unlike the lower courts, always takes into account the majesty and uniqueness of the presidency. The president of the United States has constitutional rights. He has executive powers laid down. He had a mandate for banning those from Muslim countries after winning the election. So the wise men and women of the Supreme Court decided that the lower courts were wrong to go against the president. It's an interesting argument which may, in the end, be overturned once the judges have had a further look at the issue in the autumn. Trump, I suspect, will regard the polls showing his unpopularity as fake news. It won't bother him. After all, he believes he has won a famous victory in the Supreme Court. Theresa May, on the other hand, will be far more sensitive to her unpopularity. Every day, for her, will be a nail biting experience. She knows there are men and women in her party plotting behind her back. The only MPs she can truly trust are the ten members of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, bought with a large amount of cash to do her bidding.