What is this democracy which Brexit protesters are demanding today?

Tens of thousands of protesters have been marching up and down today in Britain's towns and cities demanding that the government of Boris Johnson allows parliament to sit as normal and discuss Brexit - as it has been doing with no success for the last two years. In other words, cancel the suspension of parliament which has been approved by the Queen. The demonstrators I saw were in Brighton and this is what they were shouting: "What do we want? Democracy. What do we want? Democracy". Quite catchy I suppose, but for heaven's sake we're not in Beijing or Moscow or Pyongyang. This is good old Blighty where democracy is alive and well. I don't think the protesters had a clue what they were calling for, except that they have obviously swallowed whole the hyperbole spouted by the Speaker of the House, John Bercow, and others who have claimed that Boris Johnson's request to the Queen to suspend parliament from around September 9 to October 14 is a "constitutional outrage". It is, as someone astutely put it, ruthless political tactics. But it's not an affront to constitutional democracy. This method has been used before, albeit for not as long. But it's the tactics of a prime minister who promised the nation that he would take the UK out of the EU whatever happens on October 31, the last deadline imposed by the EU. So I'm assuming that every one of the protesters out on the streets today ALL voted Remain in the EU referendum. That's fine. But the democracy which they were calling for today was handed to them in 2016 when the majority voted to leave the EU. Since then, of course, parliament has done its best to thwart the wishes of the majority by rejecting the withdrawal agreement painstakingly negotiated by the Theresa May government. To hell with democracy, the MPs said, we want to stay in the EU. And that's why Theresa May was toppled and Boris Johnson took over. And that's why Boris has suspended parliament for five weeks. The House of Commons totally failed the country and its electors. Under its misguided and wayward leadership democracy faltered and collapsed. Did any of the protesters remember that as they marched along with their democracy banners?

Britain descends into Brexit madness

A former Conservative prime minister takes the current Conservative prime minister to court. This surely is madness run riot. If ever the Conservative party needs unity it's now when strategic decisions have to be taken for the future of this country. Now I'm the last person in the world who wants the UK to crash out of the EU with no deal. And, strangely, I actually don't believe Boris Johnson wants to leave without a deal of some sort. He has been upping the rhetoric in order to get the EU to back down and give a small concession so that a withdrawal agreement can be approved by the House of Commons before October 31. So the legal move by Sir John Major to take the government to court and try for a judicial review at the High Court next week to stop the suspension of parliament in order to provide enough parliamentary time to legislate against a no-deal Brexit will just muddy the waters. The blackmail card in Boris's hand - the UK out of the EU on October 31 deal or no deal - will be useless if the judges in their wisdom find in favour of Major and co and efectively give carte blanche to parliament to stop a no-deal at any cost. If Major wins he will at a stroke undermine Boris's chances of forcing the EU into offering a fresh deal, one that does not include the wretched Irish border backstop clause. Of course Major is very pro EU, and that's good. He helped negotiate the historic Maastricht Treaty in 1992 which expanded European integration. But as a fellow conservative and a former prime minister, his action against Boris looks like he has joined the Mad Hatters' Tea Party. But if the judges refuse to launch a judicial review on the grounds that the suspension of parliament is a matter for parliament not the courts, Major will have to get inside his box and keep quiet, and leave the suspension issue to all those in the Commons who claim it's a constitutional outrage. With the UK and EU negotiators now meeting twice a week, perhaps it's an indication that our EU partners have realised they MUST rewrite that May withdrawal agreement unless they are happy to lose the country with the fifth largest economy in the world and pretend nothing has happened. The EU club will be devastated whatever its bureaucrats claim to the contrary. So, I think there WILL be a deal before October 31. But only if the pressure is maintained by the Boris government all the way to the end. John Major is definitely not helping.

Afghanistan not yet ready for a US troop withdrawal

With a "peace" deal nearing completion between the US and the Taliban, the American military are beginning to get worried: politics and diplomacy are taking the place of security and stability in Afghanistan. General Joseph Dunford, the eminently sensible chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked at a press briefing at the Pentagon yesterday whether he was happy about US troops being pulled out as part of the deal with the Taliban and whether Afghanistan was ready to stand on its own two feet in fighting terrorist organisations. Dunford replied carefully to the first question because he didn't want to get in the way of the State Deartment which is in charge of the negotiations with the Taliban in Qatar, and he and Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, also at the briefing, both said Trump had promised any agreement with the Taliban would be "conditions-based" (ie, depending on security conditions on the ground). But to the second question Dunford answered "no". This is one of the major problems still left to sort out. Even if the Taliban insurgents call off their war and agree to a proper ceasefire, who is going to fight off al-Qaeda and the growing presence of Isis extremists in Afghanistan? Clearly not the Taliban; and the Afghan counter-terrorist forces, pretty good though they are, cannot do the job without US special operations troops and fancy American intelligence support. So what does that mean? There are 14,000 US troops in Afghanistan, about 5,000 of which are involved in counter-terrorist operations against al-Qaeda, Isis and the numerous other extremist groups. The Taliban negotiators will never agree to allow these 5,000 specialist troops to remain in Afghanistan. So, the idea has been put forward that they should somehow be available to help the Afghan forces from an out-of-country, over-the-horizon location. But that's never going to work properly. And again, would the Taliban allow that as part of the final deal? Most unlikely. They want all foreign troops out of Afghanistan, preferably within sx months of the deal being signed. General Dunford is not going to be in a position to demand a permanent presence of US counter-terrorist troops in Afghanistan, because the final deal is out of his hands. It will be driven by the White House and State Department. Trump has talked vaguely about the US maintaining a strong intelligence presence in the country. I assume he means that the CIA station in Kabul will be expanded, to include specalists from the para-military division of the intelligence agency. But these were the guys who helped topple the Taliban from power in 2001. So I can't see them being welcome guests in Afghanistan when the Taliban joins the Kabul government in some power-sharing arrangement. It's not difficult to see why General Dunford is so concerned about the future. The military, of course, always hate leaving a mission unfinished, and can't bear the thought of the Taliban getting back so much of what they lost in 2001. Moreoever there are already signs that the most radical of the Taliban insurgents are looking to join Isis, just as the Sunni Iraqi militants did after Saddam Hussein was overthrown in 2003. Isis commanders in Iraq were principally disillusioned ex-Iraqi army Sunnis. Thus, a mass withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan under a Taliban peace deal could lead to a substantial recruiting boost for Isis. Is that being discussed at the Qatar talks? General Dunford is retiring in a month's time but I bet he grabs every opportunity he can, privately and publicly, to put across his views that Afghanistan is not yet ready to deal with a-Qaeda and Isis on its own. But will the Afghan forces ever be good enough to take over this role without the Americans? I fear not. Isis in Afghanistan must be rubbing its hands with glee.

The Queen gets unexpected visitors at Balmoral

I don't know how much notice she got from Downing Street. But the Queen's holiday at Balmoral, her favourite stately home, sure has been interrupted. Quick breakfast with her family, then straight into a constitutional crisis. Boris, her latest prime minister, had done what he had hinted he would do which was to ask the Queen to suspend parliament from September 9 to October 14. So parliament comes back from holiday next week and is pretty well instantly sent back on holiday. No time to plot a vote of no-confidence in the Boris government, no time to save the country from a no-deal Brexit exit. Boris and co say the only reason for the suspension is so that the government can get together its Queen Speech policy programme which will be presented on October 14. No one is fooled by that, least of all the Queen I imagine. It's all about stopping the rebel Remainers - those who want to stay in the EU - from preventing Boris from sticking to his no-deal ultimatum and taking the UK out of the EU on October 31, come what may, deal or no deal, do or die. The Queen, poor soul, had no choice but to agree to Boris's demands (advice hohoho). If the monarch is requested by her prime minister to suspend parliament, constitutionally she has to accede. So that's what she has done. Yes, Prime Minister. But her constitutional dilemma is not over because now both Jeremy Corbyn, Labour party leader and the leader of Her Majesty's official Opposition Party, and Jo Swinson, the new leader of the Liberal Democrats, have demanded to see the Queen to put their views across against suspending parliament. Queenie was looking forward to a nice quiet time at Balmoral with family and dogs, but now she and her palace advisers have to work out whether these two leaders have a right to an audience. What if Nigel Farage, leader of the gross Brexit party, also demands to see the Queen. And the Scotish Nationalists and Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein and Humpty Dumpty? She needs a rest from all these people. Her husband, Philip, will be having a fit. "Don't let those scoundrels past the gates," he will have cried. At the age of 97 he can say what he likes I guess, although of course only in private, unless some royal courtier leaks his comments to the press. Boris didn't go himself to Balmoral to speak to the Queen. He sent Old Etonian Jacob Rees-Mogg, Leader of the House of Commons, accompanied by Commons Chief Whip Mark Spencer and House of Lords Leader Baroness Evans. With his usual upper class Etonian drawl, Rees-Mogg declared that the suspension of parliament was constitutionally absolutely fine. I recall when he and other Tory Brexiteer rebels tried to thwart the Theresa May government's EU withdrawal agreement, he denied it was a coup, just an act of parliamentary democracy. So the deed is done. The Queen approved the suspension and we're now heading into uncharted and uncharterable waters, headed by two Etonians, Boris and Jacob. Eton College will be proud.

CIA spy pilots and sharks

Of all the threats facing CIA pilots flying classified U-2 spy-plane missions at 70,000ft over Asia in the 1960s and 1970s, sharks were high on the list, according to new material revealed by the US intelligence agency. When Francis Gary Powers was shot down in 1960 by a Soviet surface-to-air missile while flying a secret surveillance operation over the Soviet Union, the CIA realised for the first time that the super-secret U-2s were no longer invulnerable to attack. That’s when the agency started thinking about sharks and the possibility that a CIA pilot shot down during the wars in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia might end up crash-landing on water. “While unlikely, the threat of shark attack was a very real and gruesome one for U-2 pilots conducting high-risk surveillance routes that would take them over miles and miles of shark-infested waters,” the CIA disclosed on its website. In 1968 the CIA placed an order for 50 shark screens. Dr Clarence Scott Johnson of the US naval undersea research and development centre devised a vacuum-packed bag, looking not unlike a giant condom which could fit inside a flight suit pocket. Made of a material like aluminium foil and coated in black polyester, the shark screen had an inflatable collar at the top. The pilot would unfurl the bag, climb into it, inflate the collar, then fill the bag with water, leaving just his head above the surface. The black colour was judged to put off sharks hunting for food. The low profile posture of the downed plot was also seen as effective protection from enemy combatants hunting for him. The shark screen was tested and from 1969 no CIA U-2 pilot flew off on a secret mission over Asia without one. There is no record of a U-2 pilot needing to use the protective screen in the line of duty. But US Navy experts acknowledged that the device proved to be “the most effective shark-deterrent yet tested”.

Macron makes a smart move

Emmanuel Macron is a smart politician. The French president masterminded the G7 summit in Biarritz with diplomatic elegance, keeping Trump happy while getting his agenda well aired during the get-together, with only the climate-change session taking place without the presence of the US president. But Macron's coup de grace was his sly invitation to the Iranian foreign minister to fly to Biarritz for a chat about the 2015 nuclear deal and all the trouble that has occurred since the US withdrawal as one of the signatories. That was a smart piece of theatre. But he took the precaution of tipping off Trump first and asking whether he thought it would be a good idea. Trump said fine. So the chat took place between Macron and Mohammad Javad Zarif at the French seaside resort. As far as we know there was no mingling with US officials, let alone with Trump, but the US president had given his blessing, so the Macron gamble paid off. I doubt it will lead to any change of mind in the White Houe that the 2015 nuke deal was bad bad bad, but it can't do any harm for the very affable Iranian foreign minister to be in the same French resort as the seven leaders of the world's biggest economies, albeit only chatting with one of them, Macron. Monsieur Macron is so French! He cuts a stylish figure, unlike ruffled Boris, he believes in the power and subtlety of French diplomacy and he had the sense to butter up to Trump to make sure the gamble with Javad Zarif didn't come crashing down on his head. Now if he had invited Bashar Assad to join him for lunch in Biarritz, that might have been a gamble too far. But the presence of the Iranian foreign minister who knows everyone in the West was a clever move. And Macron got away with it. Angela Merkel appeared not have been given much notice of Zarif's imminent arrival but being the trooper she is, she pronounced heself satisfied with the arrangements when a reporter asked her whether she had known beforehand. I guess if Macron had told everyone well in advance that he was going to invite Zarif, it would probably have caused such consternation, especially because of the fear of pissing off Trump, that the idea would have been scrapped. So Macron kept his idea close to his chest and gave due notice to Trump in a nicely need-to-know conspiratorial fashion which the US president would probably have enjoyed. So, M Macron, well done. An added bit of political theatre which did no harm.

Boris is moving into his stride

Boris Johnson is, I think, beginning to look comfortable as prime minister. Always a bit shambolic and not knowing where to put his hands - pockets or down by his side - and above all looking a little sheepish because he knows what a lot of people, especially in EU capitals, think of him. Since Boris took over from Theresa May, there has been a large degree of wariness, alarm and bewilderment on their part but still a feeling of confidence that they, the patrician leaders, can see him off eventually, provie hey all stick together. But less so now. Boris has the full backing of Trump and, partly as a result of that strong endorsement by the US president at the G7 summit in Biarritz, the British prime minister is moving into his stride. Not Churchillian, as he would like, but definitely Boris prime minister as opposed to Boris buffoon. He has now told the BBC that he has changed his mind about no-deal Brexit. Just a week or so ago he said it was a million-to-one chance of there being no deal. I thought that was a bit odd, seeing as how every other sentence from his lips was all about just that, the likeihood of a no-deal exit from the EU. But now he thinks it's touch-and-go. I know it's partly a political game to put pressure on the EU to offer an Irish backstop concession. But in offering a more gloomy prospect, he then fights back with a threat to keep the £39 billion the UK is supposed to pay the EU as part of the withdrawal agreement. If there is no deal, then why pay out that huge sum? It's a good argument. He has said it before many times but with the G7 as background, Boris's threat is now an ultimatum. Give us what we want or forget abut that withdrawal payment. The EU won't like that. It would set a dangerous precedent. But will it make the EU back down? I don't think it will as such but it's an important ingredient in the debate that will go on between now and October 31 among the 27 EU leaders. Meanwhile, Boris is putting his shoulders back and trying to show supporters and non-supporters alike that he is the man for the job of taking us out of the EU and surviving. Trump said he was the right man for the job. But I'm not sure that really helps at this point in time, given that a lot of people in the US don't think Trump is the right man for HIS job!!

What a shame, Hickenlooper has stepped out of the race

The slow pull-out of Democratic candidates for the presidential nomination has begun. I am sorry that John Hickenlooper has stepped down if only because a President Hickenlooper would have been brilliant. But I see that Andrew Yang, the 44-year-old business entrepeneur from New York, is suddenly surging forward. President Yang has a certain ring to it. Imagine the headline "President Yang greets President Xi". Of course he won't win the Democratic nomination but he's not out of it yet. The main contestants all have relatively ordinary names: Joe Biden, Eliabeth Warren, Bernie Sanders and Kamala Harris. Nothing exciting there. One of their problems is that their surnames don't jump out at you, not when you consider President Trump. The name Trump hits you right in the face, like an expletive. But Biden, Warren, Sanders and Harris are all run-of-the-mill boring-sounding names. This is all facetious stuff of course, just a bit of fun. But a president with the name Hickenlooper would have given the late-night show comedians and cartoonists a field day. Now he wants to be a senator instead and there are plenty of those with funny names already. Such as Boozman, Crapo, Thune and Stabenow. Meanwhile Yang is fighting an uphill task to outflank the likes of Biden and co. At some point, presumably, despite the recent surge in support, he will realise that he has not the faintest hope of beating the top four and will bow out. It's a tricky one, when to accept the inevitable without losing too much face. I can't see anyone, not even Mike Buttigieg (splendid name), ousting any of the top four contestants, although he's doing well and getting funding. Despite all the polls pointing to Biden getting the nomination, I really do believe, especially after the kicking Hillary Clinton got in 2016, that a woman is going to be selected for the Democrats. So either Harris or Warren. I would like it to be Kamala Harris but my sense now is that Elizabeth Warren will come out top and could become America's first female president.

Brexit's new 30-day deadline

So Boris Johnson has come away from his meetings with Angela Merkel and Emmanuel Macron with a new Brexit deadline. Just 30 days. In that time period he and his cleverest ministers and officials have to find a solution to the Irish backstop impasse which no one else has thought of in the last three years. It's a pretty tall order. Principally because there is NO obvious or even unobvious solution. If you have a hard border between north and south in the island of Ireland, it would be a serious breach of the Good Friday Agreement which ended the terrorist war - The Troubles as they were quaintly called - and could lead to a new era of violence. But if you don't have any checks at the border and let things carry on as they are today, then Northern Ireland, part of the United Kingdom, will have to be subject to the trade rules of the European Union and thus effectively remain in the EU single market and customs union. It's one or the other. But Boris told Merkel and Macron in separate meetings that he wanted to scrap the Irish backstop arrangement which would guarantee a free border in Ireland whatever deal the UK and EU agreed on, or if the UK crashed out without any sort of deal. If anyone has the brains to work out a way around all that, then hurray and terrific and God bless him or her or them. But, as I say, after three years of detailed and anguished negotiations, nothing that could remotely be described as a third way has emerged. There is no third way. So this new 30-day timetable offered by Merkel and supported by Macron, sounds good for Boris, except that if there really was a third-way solution, someone would have thought of it already. I think the brainiest people in the country, young or old, should be invited to Number 10 Downing Street and asked to come up with an idea by the end of the day. Or Boris should tell Michael Gove, the cabinet member with the biggest brain, to go away on his own for a long weekend and return only when he has The Big Idea. The only encouraging thing to emerge from the toing and froing between Berlin and Paris is that Boris has made it clear he really really wants a deal and is not hell-bent on leaving without a deal. He'll go for a no-deal Brexit if all else fails because that is what he has promised. But in the next 30 days, there has got to be a shift in the political tectonic plates. Maybe the hardline Protestant Democratic Unionist Party which has been rigidly opposed to being the only province of the United Kingdom to remain bound by EU rules, will change its mind for the benefit of the wider community. In other words, the DUP agrees for Northern Ireland to be uniquely subject to EU trade laws while the rest of the UK withdraws, and just get the hell on with life. Could that be a solution? A third way?

What a surprise, Trump backs down on more gun controls

The least surprising announcement from Donald Trump this week was that he is backtracking on his initial reaction to the El Paso and Dayton Ohio shootings when he said expanded background checks were needed. Now, suddenly, after a nice little chat on the phone with the boss of the National Rifle Association, Wayne LaPierre, Trump feels there are already enough background checks and so that's fine - until the next shootings of course, then no doubt it will be raised again, and rejected. Trump is trying to distinguish between healthy, rugged Second-Amendment-loving citizens and those who enter a gunshop with a mental problem but presumably who show no sign of being off their trolley, and buying an assault rifle in a bad mood. Or to put it more bluntly they enter a gunshop to buy an assault rifle in order to go off and kill a lot of people because they were bullied at school, or lost their job, or didn't like their grandmother anymore or lost their dog or just generally felt pissed off with life. The president has the solution for these people. He wants a whole lot more mental institutions to house them. Basically Trump echoed the same language used by the National Rifle Association which goes along these lines: the Second Amendment which allows everyone over a certain age to "keep and bear arms" is so important to the well-being of the United States of America that any further controls or limits would be a slippery slope towards undermining that wonderful constitutional right. Trump says there are plenty of background checks and no longer feels it's necessary to add to them. Well done Mr LaPierre, you earned your money in that phone call. It's what happens every time there is another mass shooting. Outrage everywhere, promises to do more to stop them reoccurring, and then after a few weeks have gone by, all the good intentions slip away to dust. Provided the Second Amendment remains sacrosanct, which it will while the NRA is alive and well, then there really is no solution to the gun problem in the US. There will be more shootings, more deaths, more shock and horror, but nothing will change. That's a very sad conclusion. I think I'm right in saying that there is nowhere else on this planet where this kind of regular shooting massacre takes place. Not including wars of course or the mass drug killings in Mexico. I'm talking of ordinary citizens who get driven by something in their heads to take the semi-automatic assault rifle from its cupboard and go off on a killing spree. Three or four or five times a year. Every year. But Trump's only solution is to open up more mental institutions. Terrific.

Have Harry and Meghan lost their magic touch?

I'll be the first to acknowledge that being a member of the Royal Family in this country is not a guarantee of an easy life. Privileged, yes, but not easy especially when it comes to image and the media. Basically the media in Britain love the Royal Family but also love to tease and criticise and downright attack when they think it's called for. The Queen, bless her, rarely gets criticised for anything for the very good reason that she seldom puts a royal foot wrong and has been around so long that every man, woman and child in this nation love her for what she stands for and respect her for having to deal with the pain-in-the...se prime ministers who have come and gone, and foreign presidents and other dignitaries who queue up to shake her white-gloved hand. The only time she faltered and fell out of favour with her subjects was when she stayed at Balmoral after Princess Diana died instead of returning to Buckingham Palace to witness and share the grief of the nation. She was eventually persuaded by wise counsel to leave Balmoral, much against her husband's advice, and returned to London where she was swiftly forgiven after making a wonderful speech on television. Now we have the Harry and Meghan issue. It seems a great shame that, despite a fantastic wedding, countless images of a happy couple in love and a nationwide belief that even more than Wiliam and Kate, they would be an approachable pair not given to sticking rigidly to royal protocol, there is a general and genuine sense that things have gone a touch sour. Every day there is a story in the papers that tends towards the critical, largely based on the following impression, right or wrong: that Meghan rules the roost, that she is wearing the royal trousers, as it were, and has converted Harry into someone who despises the press and gets angry at intrusions into their privacy - fair enough - and is no longer the happy-go-lucky prince with a smile for everyone. Publicly espousing the virtues of protecting the world's environment and then taking a private jet on four separate occasions to whiz off to some fancy do, hasn't helped. Meghan's continued estrangement from her father for whom one has to have some sympathy even though he and her other relatives - not her mother - pose a nightmare for Buckingham Palace, is another negative. Then there are all the rumours of a rift between William/Kate and Harry/Meghan and the latter's move to a posh converted terrace of cottages in Windsor Park and the huge bills for fancy furniture, bathroom appliances etc etc. There's clearly a degree of envy here on the part of the Queen's humble subjects, but royals splashing out on the finest interior designing when they could have gone to Homebase always stir up the wrong headlines. I'm not saying that Harry and Meghan should never step into a private jet, especially if some wealthy friend has provided it, nor should they eat on Tupperware plates - although the Queen once famously was said to have done just that - but it's all a question of image. If Harry and Meghan want to be loved - perhaps they don't care - then they should be worried about their changing image. Or at least their media advisers should be worried about their changing image. Perhaps, if it's true that Meghan wears the trousers in the marriage, the palace advisers don't dare tell her what to do. Oh dear, if that's the case. This country right now needs to be reassured that not everything is going to pot. While we all contemplate a very uncertain future for this nation, it would be nice if Harry and Meghan behaved like William and Kate who are universally loved. Perhaps that's what it's all about. Meghan can't bear it that Kate is so perfect in most people's eyes, and William, of course, is second in line to the thone. So he has other awesome responsibilities. As I said at the beginning it's not easy being a royal, but before the newspapers like the Daily Mail really get their teeth into the Harry/Meghan fairytale-turned-sour story, the couple need to get some serious PR help.

The losses to the US intelligence community

America’s intelligence agencies are still reeling from the double dose of enforced resignations of two of the most senior members of their secret community. Like the revolving door of top officials coming and going in the White House, the state department, Pentagon and justice department under President Trump, the intelligence services have now suffered the same fate, with the departure last week of Senator Dan Coats, director of national intelligence (DNI), and Susan Gordon, his deputy. It was a shakedown at America’s top intelligence organisation. This clear-out of highly experienced officials has come at a time when the US needs the best of intelligence analysis about Iran’s interventions in the Gulf, China’s moves on the trade war, Russia’s deteriorating relations with Washington and North Korea’s real nuclear intentions. What worries the US intelligence services, already attacked on numerous occasions by a president who doubts their loyalty and judgment, is that Trump is determined to appoint someone to lead the agencies who will tell him what he wants to hear, not what he needs to hear. The DNI is the president’s principal intelligence adviser. He is in charge of America’s 17 intelligence agencies, including the CIA and National Security Agency (NSA), and masterminds their overall budget of more than $50 billion (some reports say it's $70 billion). The office of the director of national intelligence (ODNI), with a staff of around 2,000 people, was created by President George W Bush after 9/11. The al-Qaeda terrorist attack which killed nearly 3,000 people exposed an embarrassing lack of coordination and information-sharing between the different services and the FBI. The only comforting news coming from the White House was the president’s announcement that he had chosen retired Vice Admiral Joseph Maguire to be acting DNI after Mr Coats left last Thursday. As director, since November 2018, of the national counterterrorism centre, one of the mission branches of the ODNI, and a former US Navy Seal Team 6 deputy commander, Admiral Maguire has a wealth of intelligence experience. Navy Seals work closely with the intelligence services, as highlighted by the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan in 2011. That was an operation coordinated between the Seals, the CIA and the national geospatial- intelligence agency (NGA) with its network of surveillance satellites. Admiral Maguire, 67, was named “Honour Man” by his class of fellow Seal trainees after he passed the rigorous selection process in 1977 while sporting a broken leg. Despite his credentials for the post of DNI, the US intelligence community fears he will just be a caretaker chief before Mr Trump turns to someone totally different for the permanent role, an individual who reflects his view of the world. "The selection of Maguire is a Band-Aid on what has otherwise been a series of serious blows Trump and his administration have inflicted on the professionals of our intelligence community,” a former CIA officer told me. “Maguire is a professional but my concern, and one that is shared by current intelligence officials, is that the temporary stewardship will represent the calm before the storm,” he said. “We have every reason to believe Trump wants a loyalist at the helm of our intelligence establishment, someone who will put his personal interests ahead of those of the American people,” he said. Coats, a political appointee without an intelligence background but with a long career of service in the Senate, survived as DNI for more than two years. But he clashed with the president on several occasions over key policy issues. They included disagreements over Russia’s malign influence in the 2016 presidential election – Mr Trump took a lot of convincing - and the president’s charm offensive with Kim Jong-un. Coats doubted the North Korean leader would ever give up his nuclear weapons, and said so in a public hearing in Congress. Once Coats had resigned, three weeks ago, and earmarked August 15 for his departure date, Susan “Sue” Gordon, his much-respected deputy with more than 30 years in the intelligence community, 27 of them in the CIA, was, by statute, the automatic choice to succeed as acting director of national intelligence. However, she was on a slippery slope. As soon as President Trump suggested he had other people in mind, she took the honourable course and wrote her letter of resignation. She too left last Thursday. US intelligence sources admitted the departure of both Coats and Gordon was a sad day. One source said Coats had been an ideal DNI who represented all the agencies as required but without interfering in the “nitty gritty” work of the different services. Ms Gordon, the source said, had left a deep imprint on both the CIA and the ODNI and her departure would leave a void in the close community. Adam Schiff, Democratic chairman of the House of Representatives intelligence committee, had put it more bluntly. He said in a statement that the exit of Dan Coats and Sue Gordon was “a devastating loss”. "These losses of leadership, coupled with a president determined to weed out anyone who may dare disagree [with him], represent one of the most challenging moments for the intelligence community,” he said. When Coats announced his resignation, the intelligence community was shocked to hear that the president wanted to replace him with John Ratcliffe, a Republican congressman and devoted supporter of Mr Trump. Representative Ratcliffe had little experience of the intelligence business. But he proved vulnerable to intense scrutiny by Congress and the media, and agreed to have his name withdrawn when the president contacted him. “The Ratcliffe nomination was an astonishing bit of political malpractice that blew up on the launch pad,” a former senior US defence official told me. “Forcing out Sue Gordon has made, and should make, people nervous about Trump’s plan to politicise intelligence assessments,” he said.

Trump too scared to stand for reelection?

So Anthony Scaramucci, Trump's very shortlived director of communications (he lasted only 11 days in the post) thinks Trump is so paranoid about the possibility of being beaten in the 2020 election campaign he will announce in March that he won't be standing for reelection. First of all I think that's nonsense. Trump will stand for reelection and fully expects to win I'm sure. But it's an interesting insight into Trump. Scaramucci must know him pretty well. He knows, as we all do in fact, that Trump rides on the belief that he is invincible and better than any of his opponents whoever they are. But does he occasionally lie in bed at night and think to himself, "Could it happen? Could that idiot Joe Biden beat me, could that dreadful woman Elizabeth Warren push me out, and as for Kamala Harris, surely no way?" But there must be a niggle in his mind. Could he endure the humiliation of being beaten by one of his Democratic rivals? He would never live it down, he would probably claim it had been fixed and would demand a recount. Trump will have laughed at the interview Scaramucci gave to Vanity Fair magazine in which he predicted the president would not stand for reelection. But he will have taken comfort from another media report where foreign diplomats appear to have resigned themselves to having Trump in the White House beyond 2020. Pretty well every government in the world made fools of themselves, including the UK, by assuming that Hillary Clinton would win the 2016 election. Everyone did, including Hillary of course. Would these foreign diplomats dare suggest to their respective governments that Trump will be beaten? No, they wouldn't. Of course the only leader who fancied Trump for the White House job in 2016 was Vladimir Putin. I wonder what the Russian leader thinks today. Has he put money on Trump getting reelected? I bet he has. He won't be put off by Scaramucci's bizarre prediction.

Trump offers peace deal on a plate to the Taliban

Donald Trump has been conferring with his top advisers about the peace deal-in-the-making with the Taliban. Beside him were Mike Pompeo, secretary of state, Mark Esper, newish defence secretary, John Bolton, national security adviser, General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Gina Haspel, CIA director. Did any of them while sat together at one of Trump's resorts have the courage to warn him aganst giving away so much to the Taliban? Both Trump and Barack Obama before him made the same huge mistake over Afghanistan. Obama finally, after lots of anguish, agreed to send more troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban but then set a timetable for their withdrawal. The Taliban must have been amazed. All they had to do was wait for that Obama withdrawal deadline to arrive and then get on with their business. Trump is now making the same mistake. He has called for negotiations with the Taliban and they have been going on for months. But he made it clear from the start that he wanted to end the war and bring all the US troops back home. Nothing wrong with that as a political vision but as soon as it was made clear by some stupid comments in Washington that Trump wanted it all to happen by the presidential election in 2020, Trump placed the US miitary and the negotiators in Qatar in an impossible position. Deadlines may make good political headlines but in the hard business of war and peace, you don't want to present the enemy with all the best cards. I think there will be a peace deal signed with the Taliban before the end of next year but it may well be a deal of shame, with the US giving and the Taliban taking. Trump may not be too worried. He knows that there are huge swathes of his supporters who want to see the war in Afghanistan brought to an end and all American troops back in their homes. They don't care about the Taliban who are not seen as a threat to the United States. They probably think al-Qaeda was finished once Osama bin Laden was killed. So why, they will be asking themselves, do we still have 13,000-14,000 troops in this Godforsaken country thousands of miles away? They will support Trump whatever the small print in the peace deal says. So the poor US peace negotiators will have to do their best with the worst hand. I simply cannot see the Taliban agreeing in writing to allow women in Afghanistan to retain all the human, civil and political rights they have won in recent years. And even if they agree, who is going to intervene if they renege on such promises when they gain access to a share of the power in the country? Will enough people in the world care? I fear not.

Hohoho Trump wants to buy Greenland

Greenland is mostly covered in ice! But Donald Trump in his wisdom fancies buying the largest island in the world from the Danes. When I first read that I thought this was a typical August story. Nothing else going on (not strictly true of course but that's what newspapers always say in August), so why not have some fun by saying the president of the United States is thinking of putting in a bid for Greenland, or perhaps Iceland or Guatemala or even the good old Dis-United Kingdom. But no, it's actually true. Greenland is an autonomous Danish territory much closer to Canada than the US. But Trump believes it could be rather useful to have the island under his wing. It's certainly in a good strategic location up near the Arctic Circle. Well stranger things have happened in the past. Like when the US signed a lease for a thin strip of Cuba in 1903 for a navy base and coal station. And, of course, the lease is still valid today. Despite Castro, Communism, the Cuban missile crisis and the longstanding hostility between Washington and Havana, briefly relieved by Obama but back to the bad old days under Trump, that south-east strip of land remains safely in American hands, well, American military hands, providing a naval base and the infamous Guantanamo Bay detention camp for suspect "enemy combatants" and terrorists - 40 of them at the last count. So why not Greenland? Trump has got his answer already. Greenland and its population of 56,000 don't want Trump coming anywhere near them thank you. They prefer to be aligned to Denmark. All perfectly reasonable. But then Trump is no fool. He must have known the Greenlanders wouldn't like being put up for sale. So it's pretty well a non-starter. I think it mightn't be a bad idea if Trump pays a brief visit to Greenland when he goes on a trip to Denmark in the not-too-distant future. I've never been but I can imagine he might be put off by the freeziness of it all hahaha!

Jeremy Corbyn has a lot of cheek

This guy Jeremy Corbyn was last week plottng to jump into a taxi and go and persuade the Queen to let him form a government. Now, after that was ridiculed, he has come up with a scheme to be caretaker prime minister of a national government. The Great Unifier! Ho ho ho. I love the bit where he promised to be caretaker prime minister for only a short time before calling a general election. But what if he changed his mind?! All this was in a letter to opposition parties and to rebel anti-leave Tories who might like Corbyn's further pledge to campaign in the proposed election for a second referendum on the EU. Well there have been some guffaws, particularly from the Liberal Democrats who don't want to leave the EU but want nothng to do with Corbyn as prime minister, caretaker or otherwise. But Corbyn's suggestion of a national unity government has stirred up all kinds of different views about which individual might actually be seen as a national unifier. One name put forward was Kenneth Clarke, former Tory Home Secretary, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Justice Secretary and Education Secretary and general good egg. He's a great guy but for heaven's sake he is 79 and an old buffer. I sat opposite him on the Tube (Metro) a few years back and he looked like someone out of a Charles Dickens novel. Another name was Harriet Harman, ex deputy Labour leader. But like Theesa May, very headmistressy. Not a unifier. I can't really think of anyone who would be so popular with everyone that he or she would unite the country. It's all somewhat hypothetical anyway since Boris has every intention of staying in power come what may. But to go back to the original script laid out by Corbyn, he thinks he can unify the country more than anyone else. He really does live in a strange world. He has prevaricated so much and for so long about the EU I still don't really know what he wants. He has been persuaded that a second referendum is a vote winner for the Labour party. But I doubt that. It will just divide the country even more. He has always been sceptical about the EU and is only cbanging his spots now because he has Number 10 in his sights, or thinks he does. So having promoted two ideas for saving the country from Boris and a no-deal Brexit and having failed to raise any support what will be his third grand scheme? You can be sure he has one developing right now.

Trump hears the dreaded word, recession

There are now serious people in the US warning of a possible recession. Trade tariffs with China are at the heart of it. Since there is no sign of an end to the trade war between the US and China, that dreaded word recession is likely to move into the forefront. All of which would spell disaster for Trump and his hopes of reelection next year. The booming economy in the US has been the one true positive for Trump, giving him short odds to win reelection because if the economy is going fine then all the bad stuff tends to get forgotten. So Trump will have a tough time over the next few months unless his trade negotiators can finally persuade Beijing to sign on the dotted line. But as I have blogged previously, China plays the long game, much longer than Washington does, and it's easier for the Chinese communist government to survive economic turmoil because Prsident Xi Zinping hopes he in the job for life. Beijing does worry about the population getting angry - look at China's reaction to the mass protests in Hong Kong. But the Xi Zinping government is not going to fall unless there's an internal political coup. Trump on the other hand could face the humiliation of being beaten in 2020 by Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren or Kamala Harris if the US economy starts to go down the tubes. He won't be able to claim recession is fake news. The last financial crisis was in 2008 and the repercussions were staggeringly bad for millions of people. Trump could never survive that sort of disaster. So we have to see in the next few months what he and his financial advisers are going to do to stop another recession hitting the US, and then the rest of us of course. Boris Johnson will also be worried, and Germany's Angela Merkel is already facing recession fears. It's time China came to a decent deal with the US which actually involves concessions and compromises on their part. Sadly, there are no signs of that at the moment.

Is a big US-UK trade deal really on the cards?

Donald Trump said it and now John Bolton, his national security adviser, has said it. If the UK goes for a no-deal Brexit, there will be a wonderful series of trade deals with the United States. Bolton, on a visit to London to see Boris Johnson who is still, amazingly, the British prime minister, said the UK would be in the front of the queue. I am assuming he chose this exression deliberately. Barack Obama had said exacty the opposite when he was president. He kindly suggested the UK would be at the back of the queue for any trade deal. Frankly, I'm no in 2016. In other words he thought he was doing David Cameron, then prime minister, a favour. Now Bolton is only saying the UK will get a trade deal with the US to do Boris a favour. For some reason that escapes me, the Trump administration thinks a no-deal Brexit is a terrific idea. Sorry, oh moustachioed one, that is such nonsense. Bolton should stick to foreign policy and security issues and leave economics to the people who passed maths at top grade at high school. A no-deal Brexit will have terrible short and medium-term financial consequences for the country, unless a massive US trade deal sweeps in to fill the huge gaps on day one. That is surely never going to happen. Trade deals take years to negotiate and even if on this occasion the Trump administration somehow managed to do it relatively quickly, I can't see Congress approving. There's the little problem of Northern Ireland and the Good Friday peace agreement. If no-deal Brexit brings border checks back again in Ireland, that could undermine the fundamental tenets of the agreement that ended the 30-year terrorist war in 1988. Terrorism could return because the new version of the IRA, the so-called Real IRA, might start fighting for Irish unity all over again. They have a sort of de facto unified Ireland because of the open border bwteeen north and south under the EU system. Nancy Pelosi and the rest of the Democratic party will not approve any trade deal with the UK if the Good Friday agreement is put at risk. So, I think it's far too glib for Bolton and Trump to promise trade goodies with the UK once a no-deal Brexit has been launched. I can see them backing off under pressure from Congress. Then where will that leave poor old Boris?

Can the Taliban ever be trusted to keep their side of the bargain?

Every time I read the latest statement from the Taliban spokesman, one Zabihullah Mujahid, on the state of play with the peace deal negotiations in Qatar between the insurgents and the US negotiating team, I get the same chilling feeling down my spine. They, the Taliban, seem pretty pleased with the way it's all going. "Long and useful" were the words the spokesman chose to describe the meeting that has just finished. Well you could say that tells us nothing. But the Taliban wouldn't use the word "useful" unless the talks were inching their way towards the sort of deal which they want. All we are allowed to know so far is that the withdrawal of US troops from Afghanistan, and presumably the coalition troops too, is being offered in return for a Taliban promise not to let terrorists have safe sanctuary in the country. That quid pro quo is meaningless. The Taliban can promise until the cows come home but there is no way they, on their own, can keep out Isis and al-Qaeda. In fact it's not their job to kick Isis and al-Qaeda out of Afghanistan. That's the job of the Afghan government with, at the moment, the massive heLp of the 5,000 American counter-terrorist forces and strike aircraft. So the only thing the Taliban actually has to promise is that they won't support either Isis or al-Qaeda, or give them training areas or provide them with arms. Well first of all the Taliban hate Isis anyway, so there's no way they are going to give them sanctuary. And as for al-Qaeda, the Taliban can easily say to the US negotiators: "Look, we're not going to let them live amongst us, provided we know who they are, and we'll give them no assistance. Promise, cross my heart and hope to die. So, in return please withdraw all your 14,000 troops." Is that really going to be the deal? There has got to be a helluva lot more to the "long and useful" talks than that to convince me that peace at last in Afghanistan is a peace at last that benefits every man, woman and child in Afghanistan.

Is the EU remotely interested in stopping a no-deal Brexit?

We've heard very little of what has been going on between Boris Johnson's Brexit negotiators and the EU counterparts but there has certainly been no breakthrough. Otherwise we would have been told. So the only impression one gets from the rhetoric is that Boris is never going to budge from his pledge to take the UK out of the EU by October 31, and the EU has made it clear it is not interested in changing anything from the existing withdrawal agreement signed by Theresa May. There is absolutely no sense of any interest by either side to reach a compromise. The reason, of course, is that there IS no compromise to be reached over the Irish backstop problem: guaranteeing an open border between north and south means Northern Ireland has to stay in the EU customs union, but that is unacceptable to the Protestant politicians in Ulster and unacceptable to the Boris Johnson government. So, you 27 EU leaders, are you going to try and think of a clever way out of this or are you resigned to a no-deal and to hell with it? My reading is that the EU is sick and tired of the UK and its refusal to do what it wants, and will therefore give Boris nothing. But I still don't get it. If the UK leaves with no deal, that surely means there have to be checks on the border between north and south Ireland. The EU will insist on it. Is the EU really thinking of the consequences when it blithely says it is fully prepared for a no-deal Brexit and has made all the necessary plans. So what is the EU plan for the Irish border issue post-October 31? The Republic of Ireland will still be a member of the EU, so it is obliged to act on its behalf. This is clearly what Boris is counting on. He wants to shove the no-deal Brexit in the faces of the 27 EU leaders and smother their stubborness with Irish backstop farmyard smells. I wonder if David Cameron, yes the David Cameron who agreed to hold a referendum on whether to stay or leave the EU, ever thought we would be in this position now. Did he think of the consequences for Northern Ireland in the event of a win for the Leavers? I feel absolutely certain he did not!

Kim Jong-un offers "small apology" for missile tests

So bizarre is the relationship between Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un that the US president has taken delight in telling the world that the North Korean leader has made a "small apology" for test-firing a bunch of short-range ballistic missiles in recent weeks. He included those two words in what Trump called a "beautiful letter". All his previous letters have also been "beautiful". Of course the North Korean autocratic leader isn't really apologising. It's not as if he blasted off the ballistic missiles by mistake. It was all a ploy to show his disfavour with the US over the American military exercises with South Korea. It's the old story. These joint exercises have been going on for years as a way of staying alert for any kind of confrontation with North Korea and for reassuring the South Koreans that the US will always come to their rescue if Pyongyang dares to attack them. But ever since Trump decided to cancel one of the biggest exercises in order to keep Kim Jong-un sweet, the North Korean chap has played the military exercise card again and again. This time he wrote to Trump and said he only fired the short-range missiles because he was upset about the exercises. Trump was so impressed by the letter that he told reporters the exercises were "ridiculous" and expensive. Kim will be very pleased with his choice of words in his letter. Now, yet another summit can be held - the third - between Trump and Kim where, guess what, the issue of nuclear disarmament will be raised once again. The second summit did not go well and Trump cannot afford to walk out again, as he did at the one in Hanoi in February. This time Trump has to get something out of his chats with Kim. Otherwise the whole world will be entitled to say: "We told you!" In other words. Kim has no intention of dismantling any of his nuclear weapons, however many more beautiful letters he writes to Trump. I hope I'm wrong but I fear I'm right.

US intelligence community in leadership turmoil

Trump has done it again. He has stirred up a hornets' nest in the intelligence community. It is his right of course to appoint whom he wants to lead the intelligence services. But he has just got rid of two decent patriots who represented and led the agencies with distinction and dedication. First to go was Dan Coats, director of national intelligence, and now his deputy, Susan Gordon, has been forced to resign. Well, strictly speaking, she had little choice. She had hoped and expected under normal constitutional rules, to move up to be acting director of national inteligence when Coats leaves on August 15. But Trump, while saying publicy that he liked Ms Gordon, made it clear he was considering others for the post. The first slap in the face came when Trump announced he had chosen John Ratcliffe, a Republican congressman and Trumpite to the core. But he stepped down when Congress, and newspapers, started bitching about the appointment, revealing his unsuitability for such an important role. Then, presumably, Trump or one of his accolytes rang Susan Gordon and said he planned to make an announcement about the acting director of national intelligence role and it wasn't going to be her. She promptly resigned after more than 30 years in the intelligence business, 27 of them with the CIA. In comes Vice Admiral (retired) Joseph Maguire, currently director of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre which means a relacement will have to be found for him if he is to become the official director of national intelligence. Maguire is actually a good guy, a former senior commander of the Navy's covert Seal Team 6. He passed the rigorous Seal training programme in the 1970s while sporting a broken leg! He has a strong Brooklyn accent and has a reputation for being affable. He and Susan Gordon as his deputy would have made a good team. But that's not the way it works. Snubbed by Trump she clearly felt she was no longer wanted and she will leave the same day Coats steps down. The problem with these instant changes is that in the intelligence business - and I'm talking here about the wider intelligence community embracing key US allies such as the UK and Australia - personal relationships are everything. Coats and Gordon had developed strong relationships not just within the 17 US intelligence agencies that come under the wing of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence but also with the heads of the intelligence services in the UK and elsewhere in Europe and in the Five Eyes intelligence club (the US, UK, Australia, Canada and New Zealand). Joseph Maguire is obviously not a novice in this world. As director of the National Counter-Terrorism Centre, the key organisation tracking intelligence on terrorists from its headquarters at Tysons Corner in McLean, Virginia, a Metro ride from central Washington, Maguire is an intelligence afficianado. But it is a shame that someone of Susan Gordon's stature and reputation should be shafted as a result of the resignation of Dan Coats.

Britain facing an historic constitutional crisis

Britain is weeks away from the biggest constitutional crisis since the abdication of King Edward VIII on December 11 1936. There is a wholesale rebellion afoot, and the Queen might have to be drawn into it for the first time in her reign. Boris Johnson is sitting on a political precipice. He has a majority of ONE in the House of Commons and between now and October 31 he and his government are going to face a vote of no confidence because of what seems to be a mad rush towards a no-deal Brexit just for the sake of meeting Boris's pledge of leaving the European Union on October 31 come what may. The Labour Party and the Scottish Nationalists are now conspiring together to unseat the Boris government, with Labour offering the Scots Nats a second referendum to go independent if Jeremy Corbyn takes over in Number 10. It's politics at its worst. But, theoretically, the following could hapen: Labour calls for a vote of no confidence in the Boris government, well before October 31. The vote goes heavily against Boris, with Labour, the SNP and more than 20 Conservatives joining together to oust the government. Boris fghts back and says he won't resign. But the Labour leadership declares a constitutional crisis, and Jeremy Corbyn is sent off to Buckingham Palace (as John McDonnell, the Shadow Chancellor, has indicated) in a taxi to plead with Her Majesty to allow him to form a government. What will the Queen do? Involving the Queen, Head of State but with no political powers as such, will present a far bigger constitutional crisis for the country than the vote against the Boris government. I expect the Queen's constitutional advisers to tell her: "Ma'am, you cannot allow Mr Corbyn to form a new government until Mr Johnson has formally resigned as prime minister and has visited Your Majesty to hand over his resignation, as the constitution requires. Your only response to Mr Corbyn must be to tell him that you are not empowered to invite him to form a new government until the present government has stepped down. Or until there is a general election and the Tories lose." It would still be a massive embarrassment for the Queen because she would be placed in an invidious position, seeming to take sides when for the whole of her reign she has meticulously NOT taken sides on anything. By far the best option would be for the Queen's private secretary to inform Jeremy Corbyn's office before he sets off in a taxi to Buckingham Palace that the Queen will not be available for an audience and that if he turns up the police at the gate will not allow him in. Such a snub, were he to go anyway would be photographed by the world's cameras and would lead to massive headlines pouring scorn on the Labour leader. Even Corbyn would want to avoid that, although some in his party might then make the constitutional crisis even worse by denouncing the Queen. Poor Queen, she loses either way. But she needs to stand firm. No audience with Corbyn until Boris has been to the Palace to hand in his resignation. That's the protocol and Buckingham Palace is built on protocol. There are two other options to avoid such a crisis: The EU agrees to change the Irish backstop in the Brexit deal leading to an agreement approved by the House of Commons before October 31, OR Boris calls a snap election, also before October 31. Whoever wins can then go legitimately to see the Queen. Assuming the former won't happen, I fear the latter option willl lead to Corbyn taking a taxi ride to the Palace after all.

US press gets a hammering over Trump and race

Up until now the major US newspapers, The New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Washington Post, have been hot on the track of Donald Trump, on occasions seeming to be so wholly obsessed with alleged wrong-doings and poor leadership that the White House has felt besieged by what they would call the unfair, biased, anti-Trump liberal press. Now suddenly the Democrats are berating these newspapers, especially The New York Times, for being too soft on Trump on the question of racism, or more pointedly, the president's perceived racist stance against illegal immigrants stirring up hatred and leading to the sort of shooting massacres witnessed over the weekend. Well, ok, The New York Times published a rather poor attempt at being even-handed in a headline post the massacres which said Trump called for unity over racism. They realised the headline had the mood of the nation all wrong and changed it after the first edition. But the Democrats, especially Beto O'Rourke, long-shot presidential candidate, got so angry he came out with the classic three-word question to the media: "What the f...?" O'Rourke whose home town is El Paso where the first massacre took place, accuses Trump and his anti-immigrant rhetoric of motivating white supremacists to grab their semi-automatic rifles and go on a shooting rampage. He cited Trump's accusation of Mexican immigrants being rapists and criminals. I don't think anyone can accuse these three great newspapers of failing to take Trump to task on every issue that has been raised in the last 18 months, from Russia collusion to immigration to The Wall to alleged business improprieties etc etc. But a newspaper, unless it's a rant sheet, has to be as objective as possible. That's essential for good reporting. Columnists can accuse Trump of being a racist. But reporters and also editorial writers have to provide a broader perspective. It's not a question of being fair to Trump, it's about reporting everything accurately. If Trump says he is not racist but wants unity in the country that needs to be reported as well as comments from those who claim the president is a racist bigot. The New York Times headline did not reflect the news story. "Trump urges Unity Vs Racism", the headline that appeared after the weekend massacres, will have massively pleased the White House but was clearly inadequate because it failed to sum up what had happened and what was reported by the paper's correspondents. So it was an error of judgment. But O'Rourke's "What the f...?" was stupid. Newspapers don't get it right every time. But don't forget, ever since he came to the White House, Trump has been railing against the media, accusing papers such as The New York Times of being Fake Newspapers. Why? Because of their relentless pursuit of the truth behind the Trump phenomenon. So, O'Rourke, don't make enemies of the media. Otherwise they might turn round and ask, perhaps in a headline: "O'Rourke, What The F...?"

Iran leader threatens a mother of all wars

I bet there was a hollow laugh in the White House when the president of Iran today promised that anyone taking on his country would face "a mother of all wars". That choice phrase will have rung a large bell in the minds of the Trump team. It was of course Saddam Hussein, long since departed from this Earth, who warned the US, before the 1991 Gulf War, that it would face "the mother of all battles" if it so much as dared to try and liberate Kuwait from Iraqi troop occupation. Well we know what happeed next. The US-led coalition entered Kuwait from Saudi Arabia and defeated Saddam's huge army in 100 days. It was the mother of all defeats, and Saddam was lucky that President George HW Bush felt the turkey-shoot of escaping Iraqi troops had gone on long enough and called a halt. Saddam survived in his Baghdad fortress for another 12 years. But if I remember right, he did not pledge a mother of all battles again when another US-led coalition was on the point of invading Iraq to topple him from power in 2003. But President Rouhani, the leader in Tehran, is perhaps not a student of history. He has come out with the same Saddam phraseology to warn off the Americans. I have absolutely no doubt that if Iran sufficiently provoked the US to fight a war, the Americans with, potentially, a small coalition by their side, would unleash another shock-and-awe war which would pulversie Iranian defences. I don't want a war, and nor does President Trump thankfully. But Rouhani still thought it was worth pointing out that if there WAS a war, Tehran's Republican Guard would put up a helluva fight. Well, Saddam's lot failed, and Rouhani's stormtroopers would also be crushed. Rouhani must know this but he stil issued his mother-of-all threat just for good measure. Perhaps he has forgotten that Iran and Iraq fought what seemed like an endless war in the 1980s and neither side came out victorious. So if Iran couldn't defeat Iraq, it has no chance whatsoever of defeating the US. I somehow doubt the Iranian people have the same faith in their military, despite the money spent on training and arming the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. Threatening the mother-of-all anything is just rhetoric and no one, Rouhani, is impressed. But watch out, Trump has another 17 months to go before being reelected or ousted, and his patience might suddenly run out. I can imagine him sitting in the White House situation Room developing a mother-of-all temper when his military advisers tell him Tehran is about to build a nuclear bomb. Under such circumstances I can't see him delaying the military option. Then Rouhani's rhetoric would seriously be put to the test.

Edward Snowden to cash in on his treachery/whistleblowing

Sitting in his apartment in Moscow, Edward Snowden, former contractor for the National Security Agency and ex-employee of the CIA, will be wondering how much money he is going to make from the publication of his account of his decision to steal a treasure-trove of top secrets from his one-time employers and hand them over to a bunch of western newspapers, including The Guardian. I have never found it easy to embrace Snowden as a brave whistleblower who saved the world or at least the concept of privacy in the world by revealing that the NSA was overstepping its powers by eavesdropping on everyone's phones/texts/emails in the United States. In hindsight it was probably time for the NSA, benefiting from huge advances in technology, to curb their enthusiasm for hunting down terrorists and basically bad people by scooping up everyone's communications in the hope of finding where and who they are. But did this justify Snowden walking out of his office with a thumb drive overflowing with thousands of secrets which would undermine/damage/destroy US national security interests? According to the chief executive of Macmillan Publishers which is eagerly planning to publish Snowden's story in September, the former intelligence contractor did the American people and the world a great service. He sacrificed his career in order to save us all, the CEO said. Well I guess he wants to put Snowden in the best possible light because that is the whole point of Macmillan's publishing venture. Will it make Snowden and Macmillan a fortune? Probably not but some newspaper will no doubt buy the serial rights and so the dollars will flow to Snowden's bank in Moscow. I assume he has a bank account in Moscow? I am afraid that I read the press release from Macmillan including the CEO's quotes with a degree of yuk yuk! I know all the arguments. He saw what was going on and decided he and he alone needed to tell the world. Just the same argument that Bradley Manning/Chelsea Manning used to leak thousands and thousands of classified diplomatic cables to WikiLeaks. Manning was sent to jail. Should Snowden be treated differently? I still feel uncomfortable about Snowden being put on a pedestal and described as a hero. No one said Manning was a hero/heroine. But I'm sure that when Snowden's book comes out - I won't mention its title - it and he will be heralded as courageous and brave and inspiring. But not by me.

Trump and his relations with the US intelligence community

From the very beginning Donald Trump has had trouble with the US intelligence community. As he once said he basically thinks he knows better than they do. So presumably he treats all the intelligence advice he receives with a pinch of salt. Now with the resignation of Dan Coats as director of national intelligence, overseeing America's 17 intelligence agencies, Trump has caused a right muddle over who is going to replace him. For once he wisely listened to all the criticism of his first choice, Republican Representative John Ratcliffe. He appeared to have selected him because he was an outspoken supporter. The only experience he had in the intelligence world was a relatively short time as a member of the House intelligence Committee. He had also made caims about past political achievements which bore little resemblance to reality when his claims were scrutinised by journalists. So apart from being a Trumpite through and through which would have suited the president, Ratcliffe had almost no qualifications for being the most senior intelligence chief in the country. He withdrew gracefully, and I suspect with relief, when Trump asked him to stand asde. Normally Dan Coats's deputy would be expected to take over as acting director while a permananet successor is found. But Trump has cast doubt on this legal procedure. He seems to want someone else to be acting director which is a terrific snub to Sue Gordon, the current deputy. Trump hs said he will only consider her as acting director. I guess the staff at the Office of the Director of National Intelligence is seething. Coats leaves on August 15, so there will have to be an acting director to fill the gap while Trump hunts for a new director. This is very much Trump's style of leadership. He never wanted to be a part of the Washington establishment. So if he can find someone else to be acting director instead of Sue Gordon I'm sure he will. He claims to like her but clearly not enough to put her in the top job, either as acting director or nominated director. He will want a chum to be in both jobs. Perhaps to make sure he only hears the sort of intelligence he wants to hear. Or is that being too cynical? One person who has remained quietly in the shadows is the director of the CIA. Gina Haspel, ever since her appointment by Trump, has maintained a low profile. After a career undercover perhaps that is hardly surprising. But the director of the CIA is a public figure. I'd love to know more about what she thinks of the world right now. Perhaps Trump will appoint her as the next director of national intelligence. Now there's a thought.

China will never bow to Trump over trade

I think it is safe to say that Beijing is playng the long long game and will never sign a trade deal with Donald Trump. In negotiations there has to be compromise with each side stepping back a little from their entrenched positions and finding a way for everyone to be satisfied. But this is not the way China works. It never has. China will sign a deal when it gets everything it wants from the other side. No compromise. Not that long ago there was talk in Washington about renewed hopes of a trade deal with Beijing. Fresh talks began with high expectations of an agreement. Then the high hopes were lowered somewhat and now Trump has decided to return to the trade tariff war after realising that China was reneging on its agrement to buy more American produce. No surprise there. China is a Communist state, not a democracy, and Communist leaders never give in to pressure. It looks bad for their image. So a trade deal between Washington and Beijing was never really on the cards. So Trump has now announced a new 10 per cent round of tariffs on Chinese imports. Beijing won't care. The Chinese know that tariffs hurt American businesses just as much as it damages China's economy and so they will wait and do nothing. This is the way they have done business for centuries. They get what they want because they never give in. This is very frustrating for Trump, the deal-maker. He must have thought that the threat of more and more tariffs would finally persuade the Chinese to come to some form of arrangement. But every time you see President Xi Zinping in public, with that enigmatic smile, you know that inwardly he is laughing at his "friend" Trump. It's the same with the North Korea problem. Trump is supposedly a great friend of Kim Jong-un but actually the only person the North Korean leader listens to is Xi Zinping. The script he is following is written in Beijing. He can be all lovey-dovey with Trump but that was always Beijing's plan. Play Trump along, give him the publicity and public relations he so loves and then whip the carpet from under his feet and make him look like a fool. Beijing will use Kim Jong-un to ruin Trump's hopes of an historic nuclear disarmament deal and will also exploit the trade tariff war to push Trump into a corner. China is not America's friend and never will be.