Trump's charm offensive to Iran hits a brick wall

Donald Trump has been consistent with one thing. He has said that he is prepared to talk to anyone if they are prepared to talk to him. Even Robert Mueller!! But his latest offer of talks, this time to President Hassan Rouhani, the Iranian leader, fell on very deaf ears. Well actually Rouhani heard him all right but then got his aides to squash any such thoughts. Brick wall diplomacy. Trump probably thought, if Kim Jong-un realised it was a good idea to talk to him, then why not Rouhani who is supposed to be a reformist leader? You can understand why the Iranian said no no no. He said it would be humiliating to meet the man who scrapped America's participation in the infamous 2015 Iran nuclear deal. You can see his point. But Rouhani might reconsider, who knows. Sometimes you need to talk to your enemy. That's the oldest idea in the book but it can work. The British government spoke to the Provisional IRA through a back channel to try and get peace talks moving. The Spanish government, through intermediaries, talked clandestinely to the ETA Basque terrorist leaders. In the Cold War the US spoke to the Soviet Union. So Trump's offer, while seemingly unacceptable right now, might just be not a bad idea, even for the Iranians. But I bet Trump would shrink from meeting with the dreaded Major General Qasem Soleimani, commander of the Iranian Republican Guards Quds Force, the extremely well-funded special forces organisation responsible for Iran's malign and violent activities throughout the Middle East and especially Syria. I can't see Trump ever extending his hand to General Soleimani who only last week said he was fully prepared for war with the US after the president's threatening tweet against Iran. Iran's economy desperately needs relief from US sanctions, but Rouhani knows that Trump will never lift the sanctions unless Tehran agrees to a comprehensive new deal, not just covering nuclear issues but also embracing the activities of General Suleimani and his band of malevolent brothers. But Rouhani can't restrain Soleimani because the Quds Force commander answers only to Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the supreme leader. To the Ayatollah, the US (and Trump) will always be the true Satan. So for now, Trump's offer will continue to hit that brick wall. However, is there a secret back channel to Tehran, involving perhaps the CIA, and, if so, could this be quite active at the moment? Intriguing thought.

Oh dear, politicians who get muddled

The newish UK foreign secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is the politician who when being interviewed on BBC Radio 4 in a former government role as Culture Secretary, was introduced by the presenter who fell foul of a classic and stupendously rude spoonerism, involving the letter "H" and "C". He and the presenter recovered from that almighty faux pas and Hunt went on to greater things, a decently long spell as Health Secretary and now Foreign Secretary, following the resignation of Boris Johnson. But now he has committed the worse sin of all, by getting something basically pretty straightforward about his wife totally wrong. Visiting Beijing and standing as tall and straight as he could to underline his importance, Hunt referred to his wife as Japanese. Actually she is Chinese-born which I presume he knew when he met her and asked her to marry him ten years ago. Well, we can all get confused about people. I called someone I had known for years George when within a millisecond I knew he was Peter. But to say to your CHINESE host that you are proud to have a JAPANESE wife when you could have gained innumerable brownie points by saying she was Chinese, just like him, is so bizarre there is very little explanation that can sensibly be given without making him sound a total prat. Ok, Hunt speaks Japanese for some reason and was showing off his linguistic abilities to Wang Yi, the Chinese foreign minister, who also speaks Japanese. Sometimes the brain works in mysterious ways and perhaps because he was speaking Japanese he could only think of Japanese things and made his wife Japanese. But, no, that really isn't an explanation. What could the poor wife Lucia Guo have thought when she was informed by her husband that she was Japanese? It's much worse than a spoonerism. But it's a warning to all public figures. Always get your facts right when referring to wives, children and parents. Other mistakes can more easily be laughed off. US Presidents Ronald Reagan and George W Bush both once declared they were visiting a particular country when in fact they were in another particular country. And President George HW Bush famously vomited into the lap of the Japanese prime minister at a state banquet in Tokyo in 1992. But he never claimed his wife was anything but an American.

Trump is a unicorn, apparently

Sean Spicer, much missed former press secretary at the White House, a man with a terrible dress sense whose suits never seemed quite right for his tubby body, thinks Donald Trump is a unicorn. He said so in an interview published today in the Sunday Times to mark his memoir of his short time in the hotspot in front of a generally hostile but amused White House press corps. By "unicorn" I assume he meant the president was unique. Well he certainly is that, and Spicer still seems to hink highly of his former boss even though he was forced out of the press job for making so many blunders at the microphone. The word "unicorn" is somewhat overused these days. You can buy kids' T-shirts with unicorns on the front, so it's a kind of in-word and image. But for the record, unicorn has a number of different meanings, some of which may also apply to the president, but some may not. First of all, a unicorn refers to something that doesn't actually exist. Trump exists! Second, it can be used in a derogatory sense against women, implying that all women are the same and not worth treating with respect. Well, Trump loves women, or so he has told us on many occasions. Thirdly, apparently, it refers to a woman who has a fantasy about forming a physical relationship with a man/woman couple. Trump is not a woman. Fourth, unicorns are considered to have a divine presence and, because they are often thought of as female, are a symbol of chastity. There is no legally safe answer to this one! Fifth, a unicorn is a beast with a single large horn sticking out of its forehead. Same reply as above. Spicer, bless him, trying desperately to remain loyal to the man in the White House, clearly thinks Trump is a unique, legendary individual. By all accounts his memoir is not very good and rather poorly written. But I don't think Trump will be displeased about being called a unicorn, so he might have got one of his flunkies - perhaps Sarah Huckabee Sanders, Spicer's successor - to purchase a copy of the book for some nighttime reading.

Renewed hopes for peace in Afghanistan? I doubt it

Every now and again over the last 17 years, hopes are raised of a peace settlement in Afghanistan. The argument goes that even the Taliban are tired of war and want to do a deal under which they will be represented in government and the fighting stops. We're having just such a moment right now. Under the Trump strategy the idea has been to bomb the Taliban to the negotiating table. Not exactly a new idea. In fact that has been the only idea in the last 17 years. But under Obama the will to continue the whole war thing in Afghanistan became muddled. No one really knew how to bring it to an end, so Obama started calling for a timetable for US troop withdrawal. That was a disaster because it gave the Taliban hope that within a certain timeframe all those pesky foreigners would leave and they could get on with seizing back Kabul. Then Trump turned up and ordered a few thousand more troops back into Afghanistan to help wage war rather than sit well back from the frontline with instruction manuals for the poor Afghan security forces who have lost literally thousands of troops on the battlefield. On top of that Trump sent in more bombers and gave commanders the authority to strike at all opponents - Taliban, Isis and al-Qaeda. The dropping of munitions, as a result, has been at the highest level for several years. So, would this tougher, more bloodthirsty approach drive the Taliban to the peace table? Suddenly the answer seemed to be, maybe possibly. First of all there was that historic event when the fighting stopped for the end of Ramadan, and Taliban and Afghan military got together and hugged and played football. But that was a mirage in a desert. The ceasefire lasted three days, then wham bam, it was back to murder and slaughter. Nevertheless, the peace notion has come up again. It has emerged that US officials met a week or so ago with Taliban "officials" in Qatar to talk peace. The mood had swung back towards ending the war. Or so it seemed. There is a big effort now going on to consolidate this whisper of peace and bring this horrific war to a close. But first of all, who are these Taliban "officials"? We've been here before. So-called officials have turned out to be like seventh cousins twice removed from the real bad guys. In other words, no real clout and certainly not representing the top league of the Taliban. We don't know whose these Taliban were, or even if they were genuine Taliban just off the battlefield and smelling of cordite or minor individuals who live in Qatar and write pen letters to the Taliban commanders on the off chance they might get a reply. You detect a hint of scepticism here. I hope I'm wrong, it would be a great historic event if the war or wars in Afghanistan could finally come to an end. But I truly cannot believe that the real Taliban are remotely interested in a peaceful existence, let alone doing a deal with the hated Kabul government and especially not coming to any sort of agreement with the Americans! I simply don't believe the Taliban are interested. They are playing a game. They want the Americans and others out of their country. Then and only then will they start to think of negotiations, but with Kabul, not Washington.

Leave poor Rod Rosenstein alone!

I feel terribly sorry for Rod Rosenstein. The US deputy attorney general is getting flak from every corner just because he is doing his job as best as he can. Trump seems to hate him and perhaps slightly fear him, the Republicans are using and abusing him to get inside the Robert Mueller special counsel investigation into alleged Russian/Trump campaign collusion and two senior Republicans want to impeach him for goodness sake. It seems to me that ever since he decided to ask Mueller to be a special counsel to investigate the election interference affair, he has been marked down by the president as enemy number two. Enemy number one being Mueller of course. Rosenstein looks a decent sort of bloke, fairly mild looking, the kind of person who might look as if he is not able to say boo to a goose but who is actually incredibly conscientious and quite determined to do the job he is supposed to do as the second most senior official at the Justice Department. He was landed right in it when his immediate boss, Jeff Sessions, attorney general, recused himself from being linked in anyway to the investigation into The Investigation because it was claimed and then admitted that during the campaign he, too, had met the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak, the rotund DC diplomat who had little quiet chats with many people in the Trump campaign. As he was working for the Trump campaign at the time, Sessions, much to Trump's fury who thought he was a friend, produced some Department of Justice regulation which stated he, as attorney general, would face a conflict of interest if he took overall charge of the investigation because he had a personal and political relationship with the individual at the centre of the said inquiry. ie Trump. So in stepped Rod Rosenstein, his deputy, and the flak started to fly almost immediately. He always looks forlorn and fairly miserable when he appears on television, as if he is afraid at any moment he's going to be stabbed in the back. Well, that's exactly what IS happening. These two Republican Representatives, Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan, want him impeached on the grounds that he has failed to cough up sensitive documents about the Mueller investigation to Congress. I assume Meadows and Jordan are plotting against Rosenstein with Trump's total acquiescence. Rosenstein will probably survive. Congress is about to break up for the summer recess, so it might all just blow away. But in the meantime poor old Rosenstein is having a tough time, no thanks to Boss Sessions who is probably patting himself on the back for that cunning recusing moment which let him off the hook now firmly yanking his deputy in all directions.

Former US spy chief versus Trump

I don't know what the protocols are in the US covering former heads of spy agencies, but in the UK ex-chiefs of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ, the three intelligence agencies, tend to stay clear of politics once they retire and don't interfere in government matters, let alone criticise the encumbent prime minister or any former British prime minister. They stay in the shadows and rarely make public statements. This is definitely the UK protoco, although some past chiefs have occasionally ventured into the public limelight, notably Sir Richard Dearlove and Sir John Sawers, both of MI6. In the US, however, there seems to be a free-for-all. With the arrival of Donald Trump in the White House, one former intelligence chief in particular has been positively vicious in his attacks on the president. John Brennan, appointed CIA director by President Obama, has regularly fired off against Trump, warning the US and the world of the dangerous tendencies of Trump. All CIA directors are political appointments. They have to be chosen and nominated by the sitting president and then approved by the Senate. But they are not political animals, they are appointed to run one of the biggest intelligence services in the world and are expected to serve the president whatever their individual political persuasion. Sometimes their politics is well known. Mike Pompeo, for example, was formerly a member of the House of Representatives intelligence select committee, as a Republican. But the present CIA director, Gina Haspel, is an out-and-out CIA career intelligence officer, so she has never had to display her political leanings. Brennan served in the CIA for 25 years, so he, too, was a career intelligence officer although he served in various appointments under Obama before getting the CIA top job. In fact, in his time, he has served under six presidents, Democrat and Republican. Whatever his personal politics, he is anti-Trump. He once described Trump's "self- adoration" as "disgraceful". Ouch! More recently he has warned that the US needs strong leadership and has admitted he is worried that the country is in the hands of someone who is inexperienced in dealing with the tough issues of the world. The criticism by Brennan, and others from the same intelligence world, has seriously riled Trump who has threatened to withdraw security clearances for all of them. Actually when they leave government service, they generally no longer require such clearance. But of course there are some occasions when a former CIA director might be invited back to Langley in Virginia, the agency HQ, for ceremonies or even for briefings. I doubt this will stop but the warning from Trump was clearly aimed at getting them to shut up. Brennan is entitled to his views but to my mind a former CIA diector, with all the power that gave him during his time in office, should not make personal attacks against the encumbent president. First of all, in the case of Trump, it will make the president even more suspicious of the intelligence agency than he is already, and. secondly, it won't help Gina Haspel to win the trust of the White House. By all means, make intelligent comments about the challenges facing the president, but personal attacks achieve nothing and politicise the CIA.

Please Trump take a holiday

The whole world needs two weeks off from Donald Trump. A total rest, no Trump tweets, nothing, just peace and quiet and tranqillity. I don't mind where he goes, whether Florida or Timbuktu - does he have a golf resort in Timbuktu? - but it would be kind to all of us, specially his poor exhausted White House staff, if he spent the next two weeks sleeping, playing golf and forgetting that he is the president of the United States. I know presidents are always supposed to be on call for emergencies, but for once, let that Mike Pence bloke do something for his living. Normally his role is to stand behind Trump when he signs his name on some new executive order, looking sort of bored and uninvolved. So let's have a Pence fortnight and a rest, please a total rest from Trump. That's it for today!!!

Trump uses threats and capital letters

The joy of tweeting is that the sender can resort to capital letters when he or she really wants to make a point. Captal letter tweets are Donald Trump's favourite way of giving the strongest message to whoever is in his firing line. This week it's Iran whose leader appeared to be suggesting that if the US ever took military or any other type of aggressive action against his country, a mother-of-all wars would follow. President Hassan Rouhani was leaping on the rhetorical bandwagon to warn Trump that Iran was ready for anything. I don't know whether Trump was still in his dressing gown at the time but he railed at Rouhani in capital letters. "NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH. BE CAUTIOUS!" he tweeted. Wow, that told him. The wording is all too familiar, on both sides. It was Saddam Hussein who coined the phrase when he warned the US that it would face the mother-of-all battles if it dared to attack him. Well, the US and coalition partners did attack him and his troops and he was soundly defeated. Has Rouhani forgotten that? But Trump's capital letter words were also straight out of the Angry Trump lexicon. He used almost the same phrases when he warned Kim Jong-un against launching missiles against the US. Trump would argue that his tough words, including the now famous Little Rocket Man tweets to Kim Jong-un, forced the North Korean leader to hold a summit and talk about denuclearisation. That's all well and good but since the summit in Singapore there hasn't been a whisper of denuclearisation and there are reports of North Korea backsliding. So Rouhani probably isn't too terrified by Trump's tweets. But the constant use of capital letters is supposed to be a sign of manic behaviour, even loony behaviour. so, as Trump himself would say, who knows what will happen next?

Trump's reputation rests with lawyers

We've got to the position where a lawyer acting for a lawyer who was acting for Trump is making all the current running against the president, never mind Vladimir Putin, Kim Jong-un, Xi Zinping and the rest. Trump must be sick of lawyers, law enforcement type people, the whole of the Justice Department and don't mention the FBI. One moment Trump has a highly trusted fixer lawyer, Michael Cohen who knows everything but is totally on the president's side, the next, the same lawyer fixer lawyer is spilling all the beans to the FBI and it's revealed the FBI have got their hands on a tape which has the president talking about covering up the details of an alleged affair with some busty woman and talking about writing a large cheque - not cash - to keep her quiet. No cheque was actually written apparently. So Michael Cohen who made the tape, presumably thinking of his future, has to have his own lawyer to defend his position, so Trump now has two more lawyers to hate and shout at. Remember, Cohen was the guy who paid off Stormy Daniels, the "exotic" dancer, with a nice fat sum ($130,000). She too claimed a Trump sort-of affair. Lawyers lawyers lawyers. This is Trump's future for ever.

Who is going to stick with Trump?

I believe it's now impossible to work for Trump and do your job properly. Sarah Sanders, press secretary, does her best but she must be as exasperated as anyone in the White House. On behaf of her boss she has to come up with some sort of clarifying explanation for why Trump says this or that and then in very short order is saying something else. "Oh God, not again" must be her most often uttered private comment. But the greatest burden of responsibility for Trump's wayward comments and contradictory policy statements lies with four men: General Jim Mattis at the Pentagon, John Bolton as national security adviser, Mike Pompeo, secretary of state and, of course the long-suffering General John Kelly as chief of staff. It doesn't really matter what they advise because if Trump has decided not to be advised on a particular issue he'll do what the hell he likes. As president I guess he is within his rights to ignore everyone and go in the opposite direction to everyone else. But surely somewhere in the constitution laid down by the founding fathers there must be a clause which says the president at all times must act in accordance with the best interests of the United States, or something like that. When I spoke to a former US official who served under Obama he said that Trump only listened if the answer he got was what suited his own end. He said Trump was all for himself. That's a pretty frightening judgment, albeit coming from someone who served a very different type of president. Will Mattis, Bolton, Pompeo and Kelly be strong enough and clever enough to steer Trump in a direction that will benefit the US and the rest of the world, or will they give up and leave the near-impossible job for other people? And even if they stay, Trump is almost bound to get bored with them if they fail to do exactly what he wants, or if they fail to achieve his top priority objectives, such as a totally denuclearised North Korea. That's a great objective, no question, but if Pompeo fails to deliver, how much longer will he survive before Trump turns to someone else?

Step forward summit interpreter, tell us all.

Wouldn't it be terrific (a Trump word), fun and possibly unpredecedented if the American interpreter who took notes at the summit between Trump and Poot'n came forward to tell us all what was said during the two hours the two leaders chatted together in Helsinki? Trump hasn't told us, apart from saying it all went wonderfully well. But sitting to Trump's right was a woman, an employee of the State Department who translated every word spoken by Poot'n for Trump's benefit and then listened to the president replying. She knows precisely what the two men said. She has been identified as Marina Gross, and the Democrats want to subpoena her to force her to reveal everything. Pretty tough on her because she was just doing her job and should not really be involved in all the political schmozzle. But she is in a unique position. Only she can be trusted to give a verbatim account of the words spoken. Whatever Trump claims he said to Putin, you can't be absolutely sure he is remembering right or telling the unvarnished truth. Sorry, Mr President, but's the way it is and has been ever since you took over in the White House. There is now a third version of what he claims to have told Putin about Russian interference in the US elections. Now he's saying he accepts Putin personally would have known about any Russian hacking of the elections and told him to stop it. Ms Gross is either nodding her head in agreement or looking totally astonished by Trump's post-summit statements. So, just to clarify the whole thing, why not get her to spill the beans, all of them? But, on the whole, I think that would be unfair and would make her job in the future, and other interpreters' jobs, impossible. But oh oh oh wouldn't we love to hear what she recalls? It would be historic. Of course the other person who knows exactly what Trump said is Putin. But no one will believe what he claims Trump said, even if it is true what he says he said!!!

Trump misspoke. So that's all right then

Of all the explanations for his comments in Helsinki, the claim that he misspoke when he sided with Putin over America's intelligence services is one of the funniest explanations I've heard for a long time. Nobody believes it of course but it's extraordnary that the president of the United States can blatantly lie about something which he clearly meant to say and did say in front of the world's cameras. He said "would" when he meant to say "wouldn't". He couldn't see why Russia "would" have been involved in interfering in the US elections, rather than couldn't see why Russia "wouldn't" be involved in interfering in the US election. Wonderful, isn't it? Such a simple mistake, easily made. Misspeaking is actually quite an art form. Politicians down the years have often admitted to misspeaking. When there is absolutely no doubt what someone has said but it causes massive controversy then the only way out is to say it was a misspeak. But there's a helluva difference between any old two-bit politician admitting to misspeaking and the president of the United States admitting it, especialy when he is trying to cover up the fact that he has just said something disloyal to his own nation that there are senators and congressmen even now considering that dreaded word - impeachment. It won't happen but one litte misspeak form the lips of the US president and the whole world trembles. That's why Trump in future has to think before he opens his mouth. One misspeak is pretty careless, two would be very dangerous and three or more could bring down his administration.

Trump changes his tune...again

It has always been difficult to keep up with Donald J Trump. He says something outrageous one day, then starts to backtrack 24 hours later. Thus, his support for Putin against the wisdom of the whole US intelligence community caused such an uproar back home that once he had landed in Washington, he admitted, sort of, that his intelligence boys had perhaps got it right when they said Russia was involved in intervening in the presidential election. Actually, to be fair, he had admitted that a long time ago - last year - but from the millions of tweets and TV interviews and throwaway comments at rallies it's near impossible to remember what he said and when he said it. But all that was put to one side when Trump bellowed his support for Putin in Helsinki. Then again, that wasn't new either. He had met Putin twice before at the G20 summit etc and the Russian president had at that time denied being involved in any form of interference in the US elections. Trump, if I recall correctly, told reporters that he had no reason to doubt Putin because he was so sincere in denying Moscow's hand behind the hacking of emails. So, taking this all into account, Trump's statement in Helsinki was not new. But of course it was still outrageous, especially after he had promised to be tough with Putin and to demand to know what Russia had been up to in 2016. Basically, Trump does not want to accuse Putin of interference because he can't bear the thought that Moscow played any part in helping him to win the election. He wants the world to accept that he won fair and square because he was much much much more popular than Hillary Clinton. In fact he won because of a whole lot of reasons: Hillary was not a popular alternative, James Comey, then FBI director, made a public statement about her dodgy emailing as secretary of state at the worst possible moment AND Russia was plotting and planning to bring down Hillary and give Trump the White House. Sorry, Trump, but that's the truth. It's not fake news.

This time Trump has gone too far

Trump's siding with Putin and the Russian intelligence service against the US intelligence community is so shameful and disgraceful it is difficult to see how he can continue as the president of the United States. But this is Trump. This is pure Trump. Any other president would be up before Congress and facing impeachment. But not Trump. Tomorrow he will say something totally different, or will say it's fake news and he never said what he said. He has already put out a statement saying he thinks the US intelligence services are terrific. But basically it's all on the record, Trump said effectively he believed Putin over his intelligence chiefs, all of whom concluded, after examining all the evidence, that Moscow was behind a huge operation to interfere in the US presidential election. Putin denied having anything to do with the massive email hacking and Trump said he believed him. Putin must be laughing in his socks. What a player he is. He has conned the president of the United States. Robert Mueller who has just indicted 12 Russian intelligence agents for their alleged role in the hacking must be wonderng what the hell he is doing if everything he announces is just hurled into the dustbin by the president. Will this lead to Trump's impeachment, for being a traitor to the US? Of course not. Why? Because this is Trump, this is what he is like. He was voted in because people liked his outrageouness. Actually they love him for it. But his comments in Helsinki were still unforgiveably disloyal to his own country, the country that decided he was the right man to be the 45th president.

EU is a foe says Trump.

What a terrific passing shot from Donald J Trump as he prepares to leave the UK after four days. He descrbes the EU as a foe on trade. America's number one foe. Such wonderful timing as he is about to sit down with his friend Vladimir Putin in Helsinki. Putin who wakes up every morning with new ideas on how to disrupt Europe and drive a wedge between the US and European allies. Donald Tusk, president of the European Council, not a man with a brilliant turn of phrase, was provoked into saying that "anyone" who regarded the EU as a foe was guilty of fake news. Ha! Good choice of word. What Trump should have said in his interview on CBS was, "The EU has been pretty tough on the US with regard to trade, so, because we're all friends, it's time to make things better so we can all benefit." Does that sound like anything Trump might ever say? Eh, no. Putin must be in a splendid mood. Trump's arriving in a bad mood over Europe, so all he has to do is flatter him, congratulate him, commiserate with him over his dreadful allies and invite him to the Kremlin. Trump will then come out tomorrow and say everything is terrific. I bet he won't say Russia is a foe of the United States.

Trump: "Where the...is the Queen?

Donald Trump failed at his most important moment during his trip to Britain. He lost the Queen. One moment she was there alongside him and the next she was gone. Where the ....is Queenie? Well she was right behind him, coming round to walk on the other side. He'd forgotten or wasn't listening at the time that when he walked alongside Her Majesty past the guards in their fine uniforms he was supposed to be one side and she the other. They sort of got mixed up. Trump looked bemused. Actually he looked rather bored. He didn't seem to care whether the Queen was on his right side or his left side, to hell with the protocol. So as a result it all looked highly comical. Except, of course, the Queen would not have been amused at all. She likes things to go just so, and Trump had screwed up. Heaven knows what he did with the cucumber sandwiches off the royal cake trolley. Anyway, once he had done his bit with the Queen who has been on her throne since 1952, he rushed off to Turnberry, Trump Turnberry where he could relax without any infernal British protocol. Four days of Trump is more than enough for anyone. He's exhausting. Theresa May I think held her cool pretty well as his hostess, despite his Sun interview in which he berated her Brexit policy but then made up with her in rather cringing fashion during the press conference at Chequers. He changes his mind and mood so often it's impossible to know what he is going to say next. Whenever he didn't like a question he just said fake news. It's an all-embracing Trump phrase for all circumstances. The BBC reported that Trump had condemned the interview in the Sun as fake news. But actually he didn't do any such thing. That was just lazy headline reporting by the BBC. But Trump wouldn't care. He would have been happy with the BBC report, never mind the fact that he had defamed the reputation of the Sun political editor who had taped every word the president had said. So, Mr President, good luck in Helsinki with Poot'n. Don't imagine you're going to have an easy time with this former KGB spy. He knows how to lie and deceive like every career KGB officer.

Could Trump and Boris meet on the Turnberry golf course?

As far as I know Boris Johnson doesn't play golf very well, otherwise he'd probably be on the Trump course up in Turnberry, Scotland over the weekend, chatting and plotting how to overthrow Theresa May and remove the UK wholesale from the European Union. Donald no-mates Trump does actually have one Brit friend and that's Boris. We know that because he told The Sun political editor Tom Newton Dunn, an old mucker of mine when he was defence correspondent on the tabloid, that he liked Boris and thought he would make a great prime minister. Nice one, Donald. How best to be courteous and respectful to your hostess during your UK visit? Tell the world you think Mrs May's biggest political rival would be a terrific (read - better) leader of Great Britain. If I remember right, Boris did have some or one golf lesson during which he hit one of the many cameramen gathered round to witness the historic event three years ago. I wouldn't trust Boris on the Turnberry course. Somehow, though, I bet Trump and his team manage to engineer a meeting with Boris, and Turnberry is probably the only place to do it because the US president is pretty well tied up today at Chequers, then off to see British and US special forces doing their stuff in a training exercise and then tea with the Queen at Windsor. Of course Trump does have one other friend, Nigel Farage. But nobody cares about Farage anymore. He's not the leader of anything, except the Nigel Farage populist love-me cult. Poor Theresa can't tell Trump what to do and what not to do and she certainly can't tell him not to see or speak with Boris. So I fully expect a very public or very clandestine meeting with the former foreign secretary in which there will be much hugging and mwah mwahs. Boris and Trump are two showmen together, kindred spirits, fellow disrupters. Yes I predict a Turnberry session. But if it takes place on the golf course, watch out all spectators. The balls could fly in all the wrong directions.

Trump doesn't like Europeans

Two days of summiteering in Brussels and now in London for a four-day trip, it is becoming increasingly clear that Donald Trump just doesn't have time for Europeans, especially whingeing ones. He much prefers dangerous, non-democratic leaders like Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin and Recep Erdogan of Turkey. Europeans are boring in his view and insufficiently respectful. Trump made a great show of affection and comradeship with Emanuel Macron in the early days, but since that great moment on Bastille Day when Trump and Macron sat together to watch the military parade in Paris, the French president has made a few almost unfriendly-type comments about the US president which has turned the relationship a little sour. During the Nato summit in Brussels yesterday and today, Trump, to everyone's relief, did not say the alliance should be broken up but he was pretty rude to everyone. Basically he has no one among the alliance nations whom he likes/trusts/wants to play golf with, and he doesn't care one bit. He obviously doesn't enjoy their company and probably spent most of the time looking forward to his meeting in Helsinki with "Poot'n" next week. Trump will no doubt put on the charm with Theresa May because his advisers will have reminded him that the UK and US have a "special" relationship. But I don't believe he wants to spend hours in her company. Compare Trump's way of doing diplomatic business with, say Bill Clinton. Clnton and Tony Blair, for example, were "mates". They got on really well and had a laugh. Maggie Thatcher and Ronald Reagan got on really well, although there was no lovey-dovey as there was between Bill and Tony. Trump enjoys having no mates. That way, he is beholden to no one and can be rude to everyone. By the way he won't be rude to the Queen. There is no way he is going to say or do anything to upset Her Majesty. I'm writing this with my fingers crossed!

Trump looks forward to visiting a country in "turmoil".

Poor Theresa May. She has ministers and others resigning around her and all she needs is the president of the United States to add his pennyworth to her troubles. But Donald Trump knows how to select his words. Due in London on Thursday for a four-day trip he was asked by reporters to comment on Mrs May's current problems. He referred to Great Britain as a country in turmoil, and then, just to add a little spice to his comment, went on to say how much he likes Boris Johnson, the bete noire of the Conservative Party who resigned for....Boris reasons, and is no longer a member of Her Majesty's government. "Boris has always been nice to me," he said. Oops, Boris, so that's what you have been doing behind Theresa's back, keeping cosy with the Donald. Theresa M has to shake Trump's hand on Thursday, knowing that the president of the United States seems to be enjoying the fact that she is currently in a lot of bother. Had he been a little more diplomatic, he might have replied something along these lines, "I'm looking forward to seeing the prime minister of America's very special ally and will also have the honour of meeting Her Majesty, and, no, I'm not going to comment on what is currently going on in the UK." But that would be too much to ask. So he went for the "turmoil" option and the "my buddy Boris" line. He even suggested he might be able to see Boris while in London. When Theresa heard that I bet she said, "That bl.....man, if he so much as mentions bl..... Boris to me I shall....I shall....." But she's too British and too polite to actually say out loud what she might do. Trump also, for the millionth time, blasted off about Nato, complaining how no one was spending any money on defence. From my readng of his comments and his general demeanour I reckon he is really really looking forward to coming to Brussels for the Nato summit and to the UK to rub shoulders - per-lease don't - with the Queen. He is relishing the opportunity to shout at Nato leaders and to make Theresa May squirm by knocking on Boris's door. Trump is on a Big Guy roll.

Boris goes!!

Boris Johnson took longer than David Davis, the former Brexit Secretary, to hand in his resignation after the Chequers cabinet Alice in Wonderland session last Friday where Alice and her tea party invitees decided to back her plan for a soft-as-icecream Brexit plan. But then Boris needed slightly longer to calculate his odds of maybe becoming the next prime minister. Should he stay or go? If he stayed, would that screw up his chance of becoming leader, if he resigned, would that screw up his chance of becoming leader? Difficult one that. If he had stayed, everyone of his colleagues and non-colleagues would have thought Boris had swallowed his pride, his integrity, his meaning in life, his ambition to be leader etc etc. So now he has resigned, what are his chances of becoming leader to replace Theresa Fall when she falls on her sword and goes to live in the furthest corner of the British Isles, to get as far away as possible from her untrustworthy, pestilential cabinet comrades? I would say close to nil. David Davis did the honourable thing by resigning as soon as he felt it was appropriate. Then he made it clear he did NOT want to replace May and actually suggested she should be backed. Politics can be weird like that sometimes. But Boris had his calculations to make before popping over to Number 10 Downing St. Should he be a Leaver or a Remainer, and I'm not talking Brexit here? Well now we know, he's a Leaver (of the Cabinet). He's gone, finished. As a wit on the the Red Dwarf television show once said. "He's gone, buddy, and the good news is he's gone, buddy." Or words to that effect. Michael Gove is the dormouse in the Alice tea party teapot. The Environment Secretary, and one-time Tory leader hopeful, is as Brexit-radical as Boris and Davis and that other Brexiteer, Liam Fox, but he swallowed the cucumber sandwiches and the whole of his former political life at Chequers and came bouncing out - ok, dormice don't bounce - in favour of Theresa's plan and for supporting the prime minister in every way possible for the good of the nation etc etc. How did he not keep the smile from his face? Does he now think, after Boris's departure that he, yes he, oh my goodness he, might replace Theresa? Is there anyone not scheming in the May cabinet? Jeremy Corbyn Esq with your Marxist companions, I think you may have to prepare yourself for government. Meanwhile, as an investment, I'm putting a deposit down on an igloo.

Sure-footed London Mayor slips up over baby Trump balloon

I'm all for protest for all kinds of things when they are deserving, important, historically momentous and peaceful. A lot of people in this country appear to be against the upcoming visit of Donald Trump to the UK. They don't like him and they don't like what he is doing in America and they don't like what he has done to America's standing in the world. So they will be protesting in the streets when he arrives this week. President George W Bush faced protestors in the streets when he came to London because of the Iraq War. But for Trump's visit which will include dinner with the Queen at Windsor Castle, protestors in London have thought up a special form of demnstration which, in my view, is bad manners, discourteous, and somewhat pathetic. And the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, who has had a number of run-ins with the US president already, has approved the idea. This is to have a giant orange balloon of a baby Trump in a nappy with large safety pin hanging in the air over Parliament Square Gardens. Although Trump won't be spending much time in London during his four-day trip, this symbolic gesture of disdain and ridicule is unworthy of a great city like London and a big, big mistake by the Mayor who, as "political boss" of this cosmopolitan metropolis, has a duty and responsibility to be welcoming to guests from all over the world. The huge inflatable angry-looking baby Trump will be anchored to a spot in Parliament Square Gardens, not far from where the statue of Winston Churchill stands facing the Houses of Parliament. Mayor Sadiq Khan has made it clear he doesn't like Trump and has made some very public personal comments attacking him. Trump has done likewise back to him. But the Mayor should keep his thoughts to himself. Claiming that the balloon idea is just an example of freedom of expression sounds fine but this is different. It's childish and unpleasant and rude. The Mayor should change his mind. If he doesn't, then the Metropolitan Police should oppose it on the grounds of it being a hazard to.....whatever.

Shall we invade Venezuela, asks Trump?

Trump is not the first US president to muse about invading a country. With such massive firepower and troop power behind you, it must be very easy to think of the military option when something tricky comes up on the world stage. Like Venezuela. The reports coming out of that devastated country, ruined by the dictatorial abuses of the Maduro government, make even the most humble mortal think, "Come on let's put the poor Venezuelans out of their misery and remove that ghastly Maduro and his henchmen." Well, Trump of course is not a humble mortal, he is the president of the only real superpower left in the world, and he did just that. He pondered on the possibility of invading Venezuela while chatting to his aides in the Oval Office last August, acording to the Associated Press. Those present, including HR McMaster, then national security adviser, reacted with horror and gave Trump a million reasons why invasion would be a bad thing. But I bet Trump thought, "Such whimps, they never want me to use the military boys but what are they there for, and, by the way, I'm the commander-in-chief." So, assuming Trump has not put the invasion idea off completely, what might bring it on? Not appeals from the other South American countries, that's for sure. They have been tiptoeing around the Venezuela Problem for such a long time, they would be scared stiff at the thought of their neighbour being overrun by US Marines, never mind their dislike of the awful former bus driver Maduro. They're not happy that tens of thousands of desperate, hungry Venezuelans have fled over the borders, but they are not prepared to do anything significant about challenging Maduro himself, apart from a few sanctions and preparing to kick Venezuela out of the Organisation of American States (OAS). Big deal! So I reckon Trump will return to this invasion idea at some point. What might trigger the military option is a humanitarian disaster and mass shooting of protestors on the streets on a scale not yet seen in the country. Tony Blair, the former Labour UK prime minister, was always in favour of intervention to deal with humanitarian disasters. I can't see Theresa May signing up to any form of intervention in Venezuela. She has enough on her plate with Brexit. But Trump? Maybe.

Sanctions haven't changed Putin's ambitions

So EU economic sanctions against Russia have been extended for another six months because of Putin's long-running and continued military intervention in eastern Ukraine. The sanctions mainly target Russia's financial, energy and defence sectors. But will they, do they, make any difference? Do sanctions in general have a genuine role in bringing a positive outcome to an otherwise intransigent political blockage? Putin I'm sure is seriously fed up with countries ganging up against him as he tries to expand and improve Russia's economy. But does it actually make him think, "Oh hell, I can't take this anymore, I'm going to recall all my boys from Ukraine." Er, no. The EU sanctions were originally imposed after the annexation of Crimea in 2014. But Crimea remains annexed and no one, least of all Nato or the United States, is planning to un-annexe it. As Trump himself said, "Well they're are all Russians in Crimea, aren't they?" As for eastern Ukraine, it doesn't make the news in the West these days, so there seems to be very little willingness to help out the Kiev government. That's why sanctions remain in play because it makes the EU feel they are doing something to punish Putin. The Russian leader seems to find ways to get round the measures. But there is an argument for really tough sanctions. They can work. Maybe not with Putin, but Iran blinked. The Iranian economy was ruined by years of Western sanctions, so much so that, fearing widespread protests from the younger generation of Iranians, they agreed the now infamous 2015 nuclear deal - stopping their nuclear bomb programme in return for a lifting of economic sanctions. Success! Until Trump turned up and tore up the deal. Now the Ayatollahs have got countrywide protests all over again. Who knows, with the US reimposing all the heavyweight sanctions, perhaps Tehran will beg for mercy and agree to stop causing mayhem wherever they send their Revolutionary Guards Quds Force. Very unlikely of course, but if the US sanctions really do stir up trouble for the Ayatollahs, they might just temper their mischief-making. This is what Trump is counting on. But Putin? I expect he hopes to do a deal with Trump at their summit in Helsinki on July 16. He'll push for sanctions to be lifted and, in return, will promise (with a straight face) to cooperate fully with the US on all the major global issues. If that were to include persuading the Iranian troops and special forces to get the hell out of Syria, that would be a result. Too much to hope for I guess.

Nato planning for unity but dreading chaos

Nato planners have been beavering away at their nice new shiny headquarters in Brussels, drawing up the agenda for the July 11-12 summit and it's looking good. All the right words are being chosen, the final communique has been written in draft form and a great celebration of alliance cohesion, power and unity is just days away. BUT, there is one ingredient that could undermine, damage, destroy and totally ruin all these carefully-laid plans. That ingredient, of course, is President Donald J Trump. Nato has never had to deal with a US president like Trump. He is so unpredictable that he might just walk into the conference room on July 11, kick a few chairs over, shout abuse at everyone and storm out. He sort of did that at the G7 summit of industrialised nations in Quebec last month. Trump speaks his mind. Nothing wrong with that necessarily. But it's the way he does it, and it's quite clear that the rest of the Nato leaders are petrified that Trump will stamp all over the alliance's nice, cosy way of doing things and cause havoc. He has already paved the way by writing some stern, rather nasty letters to a number of alliance countries, including Norway and Germany, to remind them of their obligation to spend more on defence. Well, this is hardly a new message from Washington. American presidents and defence secretaries have been putting out this message for as long as I can remember. The US is fed up with shouldering the major part of the defence-sharing burden. Robert Gates, when he was defence secretary in the Obama administration, even warned the alliance at a meeting in Brussels that the US would start to consider whether to go to the aid of an alliance nation under the Article 5 clause in the Nato Treaty if defence spending was not raised to two per cent of GDP. But somehow when Trump says the same thing, people actually believe it. Again, maybe that's not a bad thing. There are countries, like Germany, who are still nowhere near their two per cent target. But they did all sign up to this target - again - at the Nato summit in Wales in 2014, and those who are well behind have been slowly taking steps to reach that percentage within the next few years. But Trump is still going to make a lo of noise at the Brussels summit next week and if he starts to insult individual leaders, like he did during and after the G7 summit, and threatens to pull US troops out of Germany and elsewhere to save the American taxpayers money, two things will happen. The Nato alliance's immaculately prepared summit communique wlll be torn to shreds, and President Putin who is to meet Trump in Helsinki on July 16, will be overwhelmed with joy. It has been his ambition to cause the break-up of the Nato alliance. He now has Trump on his side, or that's the way it seems. But remember, Trump is unpredictable. He could cause a sensation on July 11 by being very nice to everyone, just so as to wipe that smile off Putin's face.

Trump and Putin all alone with their interpreters

Trump has met Putin before. They already know each other. So they don't really need a tete-a-tete to get to know each other. But the summit in Helsinki on July 16 is going to be a twosome, no officials with notebooks. No special advisers to jog either president in the ribs when they say something outrageous. No spooks disguised as diplomats to watch and observe. Just two interpreters whispering behind each leader to keep the conversation flowing. Well I guess that's how super summits should be conducted. It has happened before. But this time it's Trump and Putin, each with a huge ego and a taste for the dramatic. What might Trump promise Putin? Will he come out of the summit with the words: "You can all rest easy in your beds, Russia is no longer a threat to the United States or anyone." I can just see Trump saying that. So being closeted for two or three hours with KGB Putin has its risks. Will Trump believe everything Putin says, like he believed everything Kim Jong-un said? Putin is not interested in helping the United States or Trump. He's only interested in returning Russia to being a great superpower. Russia First is his policy. Where have I heard something like that before?! The fact is both Trump and Putin have been dying to have a summit together ever since Donald J was elected president, and they don't want to spoil it by having a crowd of busybody officials surrounding them trying to tell them what to say and what not to say. So the two Big Bears will do what they do without any interference. As Trump loves to say whenever he is asked by a reporter to comment on bla bla bla, "Let's see what happens." No wonder everyone in Washington and around the allied capitals are nervous.

North Korea is becoming more like Brexit

I have long stopped believing anyone about Brexit. Who is telling the real truth? What is the real truth? Is Brexit really Brexit or is it like a fairground merry-go-round with a mechanical failure, so it never stops. The guy in charge of our negotiations left a key confidential document on a train!!! What more can one say? The whole process is a total farce and not a single member of the Theresa May cabinet seems to care a hoot. All they want is to get rid of May and push to become the new leader. If ever we needed another Maggie Thatcher or Winnie Churchill it's now. For god's sake someone tell these people to put their country first before their personal ambitions. The same goes, although in a different context, with the North Korea issue. John Bolton, national security adviser, has actually said on television that the US plan is to totally denuclear and de-ballistic missile North Korea within a year. If that were to happen, even I would vote for Trump. But can Bolton be trusted? Could he ever be trusted? TWELVE MONTHS to turn North Korea into a non-nuclear state. How is it possible to believe that is going to happen? Even Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, predicted a longer timetable than that. So what is going on in the White House? Are the American people all being fooled so that Trump can look like a mighty magician to help the Republicans win more seats at the mid-term elections for Congress? Like Brexit politicians, can we believe anything that is ever said ever again? I now have two growing feelings that get bigger and bigger every day: Trump will win a second term and probably push for a change in the constitution to stay for a third term, and Jeremy Corbyn will become Britain's next prime minister. Whether that will mean we get a better Brexit deal than under a May government I haven't a clue.

Kim Jong-un is cheating already

In return for gratefully receiving Donald Trump's unsolicited decision to stop all military exercises between the US and South Korea Jim Jong-un is pushing ahead with his programme to develop more weapons-grade uranium and planning, according to US intelligence, to hang on to a proportion of his nuclear material as part of his "agreement" to denuclearise. I'm not sure how the CIA and NSA know this is what Kim Jong-un is planning to do, unless, of course, they overheard him chatting to his nuclear weapon advisers. But what Kim seems to be planning and what Trump said about North Korea no longer being a threat to the world don't quite gell. When, if ever, is North Korea going to start eliminating its nuclear weapons? The omens are not good, and the longer the US intel boys come up with stuff about North Korea cheating, what then can be said about the Singapore summit? Trump was convinced that by talking face-to-face with Kim, his big personality would be enough to impress the North Korean leader and persuade him that good relations with the US was better for him and his regime than going on making more and more nuclear bombs. But actually Kim must have planned it all beforehand. Play the beaming leader, let Trump think he, Kim, has changed his ways and talk glowingly about a new era, but then carry on as before. This is where Trump and Mike Pompeo, his secretary of state, have to start being truly tough. Present the intel evidence to Kim and tell him the whole deal is off unless he opens up all his nuclear plants to the outside world. Trump will be desperate to hang on to his foreign policy scoop but it will come to nothing if Kim snubs his nose at the US president and continues to pursue his nuclear dream. Nothing is simple and straightforward at this level of politics and diplomacy, and Trump was wrong and premature to announce that the threat from North Korea was over.