Clint Eastwood, The Greatest, is 90 today

There is no greater Hollywood legend than Clint Eastwood in my opinion. Today he is 90 and I want to use my blog for once to wish him a Happy Birthday rather than comment further on the violence hitting US cities still after the tragic and brutal death of George Floyd. Clint Eastwood has been my favourite male film star for so long and I'm hoping that even at such a venerable age he will continue to be in and/or direct movies. I'm sure he will. Ever since he rocked onto the television screens as Rowdy Yates in the 1959-1965 series Rawhide and then as the deadly loner gunman in A Fistful of Dollars in 1964, a bad but extraordinarily wonderful and entertaining Spaghetti Western, I have been a huge fan. I should rattle off just a few of his great films. Great in my view: Dirty Harry - an unrivalled brilliant film playing Inspector Harry Callaghan, always chosen by his overwhelmed boss to do the dirty jobs - In the Line of Fire, a classic combination of thriller and romance as a secret service agent protecting the president, Unforgiven, brilliant almost beyond words, Pale Rider, sinister and awesome to watch, The Good, The Bad and The Ugly, a terrible film really but I loved it, Where Eagles Dare, one of the best war films ever made, Firefox, a totally thrilling film where Eastwood is a superstar fighter pilot stealing a Russian prototype jet fighter, The Bridges of Madison County, Clint at his most romantic, and Gran Torino, a fabulous film with Clint, a bad-tempered combat veteran living amongst Korean immigrants in Detroit. Some critics said Gran Torino was racist but if you actually watch the film it's exactly the opposite and wonderfully affectionate and very Clint. It's almost my top favourite Clint film, and it's not just because of the beautiful Gran Torino car in his garage! A wealth of extraordinarily brilliant films, not to mention the ones, like the exceptional Million Dollar Baby which he directed but didn't star in. So, Clint Eastwood, a very Happy Birthday and thank you.

Trump's call for shooting of looters in George Floyd death case hardly helps

Riots have continued across America over the death of 46-year-old George Floyd. President Trump's angry response to the rioting, calling for violent protestors and looters to be shot by the police is like throwing a hand grenade into a crowded room. Ok I agree the violence is terrible and needs to stop but I doubt it will calm down with the president in the White House urging police officers to bring out their guns. Trump said the rioting dishonoured the name of George Floyd but the problem is that the circumstances of the death have stirred up all the pent-up anger and frustration and fear that lie in the hearts of African-Americans who are convinced that Floyd died because he was a black man. The white ex-police officer - ex, because he was fired straight after the death - has now been charged with third degree murder. In other words, the prosecuting authorities do not believe it was a premeditated murder which would have led to a first degree murder charge. But Floyd died as a result of the brutal treatment he received when he was arrested. Those now rioting across America have all seen the video of the arrest. Trump needs to calm them all down, not incite the police to open fire. Apart from anything else, his response to the rioting is a seriously bad political move with the presidential election only five months away. Joe Biden called for calm. I make no further comment.

Does Donald Trump still like Xi Zinping?

It's difficult to know what's going on in Donald Trump's mind over China and Washington's relations with Beijing. On the face of it, relations are getting worse by the day, and China seems to be lapping it up. After the thunderous clapping that greeted President Xi Zinping's arrival at the National People's Congress this week, the Chinese leader looks more and more pleased with himself. Everything is going right for him. The coronavirus pandemic is no longer a big issue for him, as things have calmed down. He has even agreed for there to be an inquiry into how it started. Meanwhile he is stamping his vision of a Great China on the rest of the world. The new security law imposed on Hong Kong is a slap in the face not just for the people of the former British colony who fear for their freedom and human rights but also for Washington and London who can do absolutely nothing about it except to cry foul. Trump is talking about sanctions and Dominic Raab, the UK Foreign Seretary, has said that any Hong Kongers with British passports will be allowed to come and live here. But it's peripheral stuff. If there are riots in Hong Kong, under the new law, the Chinese military will be able to move in and restore order. After the mass protests in Hong Kong last year, it was inevitable that Beijing would bring in new tough laws. The Covid-19 pandemic provided the perfect opportunity for Beijing to make its move. And now one of China's top generals is saying that Taiwan will be smashed by force and taken over unless it agrees to reunify with mainland China. Again, if that happens, there will be very little the mighty US can do about it. Zinping won't do that, not yet, he is too crafty a leader to grab everything he wants all at the same time. He has said in the past that he wants Taiwan reunified to the mainland by 2050 and that he is prepared to do it by force if necessary. I seriously doubt he will wait that long. Whatever Trump does to punish China whether it's over trade or Hong Kong or Taiwan, President Zinping I have no doubt feels he will be able to deal with it and rise up even stronger in the eyes of the Chinese people. Presumably Trump's China advisers are telling him this. So what does Trump think now of his friend Xi Zinping? Does he still like him, does he stil think he is a great leader? There will come a point when Trump has to make a decision. Right now he's trying both options, keeping friendly with Zinping and being tough on sanctions and other diplomatic measures. It's difficult to see how both paths can be followed for ever. The key to this current confrontation is image. Zinping wants his own country and the rest of the world to treat him with the utmost respect. He needs a glowing image to pursue his ambition to convert China into a world military and economic superpower. That could be his weakness, and one that Trump might be able to exploit as the Chinese leader marches on with his all-powerful persona.

The video of the gasping George Floyd in Minneapolis is so horrific

I need to be careful because there could be prosecutions involved in the death of the 46-year-old black security man George Floyd on the street in Minneapolis. But the horrific video of the scene shortly after Floyd had been arrested is so disturbing that I cannot avoid commenting on it. The deaths of black men arrested by white officers in the US have occurred on so many occasions over the years that it is impossible not to conclude that racism lies at the heart of these fatal incidents. It's not just racism, it's a sense that one type of human being has no worth or value while others do. I say that in this latest case because of the video. The arresting officer, weighing I guess about 250 pounds, is kneeling on Floyd's neck with his face pressed down hard on the ground. It is obvious that the poor man is struggling to breathe. Indeed he says so in short gasps. What is deeply upsetting is that the officer appears unaware of the suffering of the man beneath his knee. There is an almost casual look on the officer's face, as if he is saying to himself, "well I've got this under control, this guy is not going to cause any problem". Floyd later died. It's the routine casualness that is most shocking about the incident. How can this still be happening in the US today, how is it possible for a police officer to make an arrest for an alleged forged cheque in a grocery store and end up pinning the arrested man lying full stretch on the pavement and his face ground into the concrete like he didn't need air to breathe? Andrew Cuomo, New York governor, put it most succinctly when he asked how it was possible that lessons from other similar incidents had not been learned. I fear the answer is that racism, simple unadulterated racism, is here for all to see, and lessons are never learned when racism is the trigger that leads to an incident of this horrifying nature. I wish I hadn't seen the video but it is everywhere.

Boris is in trouble. What would Maggie Thatcher have done?

If Maggie Thatcher had had a Dominic Cummings I reckon she would have fought tooth and nail to keep him and would have told all Tory MPs who were pontificating aboout his coronavirus rule-breaking drive to Durham, 260 miles from London, to stop being disloyal and basically shut up. In this interminable Dominic Cummings saga which will just not go away, you would expect the political Opposition to cause an outcry because it has given them a wonderful chance to knock Boris and his whole government and accuse them all of hyprocrisy. But the growing list of Tory MPs who are also in outcry mode is like kicking your own boss in the nether parts. Most of these MPs probably wouldn't be MPs at all if it wasn't for Boris winning an 80-seat majority in the last election. So I think Boris would be in his right to tell them all to pipe down. But all he did when he was confronted by many of them today in a video meeting was to ask them quite nicely to move on so that he could continue to run the country through its worst health crisis since 1918. Maggie "the lady's not for turning" Thatcher would have been much more headmistressy and by the time she had dealt with the disloyal MPS they would have felt they had all been delivered a very painful kick in the whatsists. The trouble is Dominic Cummings is not noted for being a jolly good sort of chap, the type you can have a quiet drink with in the gentleman's club. He's a bruiser, a shouter, a scary guy who never holds back when he thinks he is confronted by an idiot. And, by the sound of it, he thinks most people who turn up at Downing Street for whatever reason are idiots. So for any of these Tory MPs now calling for Cummings to be sacked, this is revenge time, a great chance to get back at the man who was nasty to them the last time they tried to see the prime minister. Sweet revenge is an opportunity not to be missed. But if Boris is not going to be permanently weakened by this whole sorry mess, he needs to strike back and remind the members of his party that he is the boss and he has made his decision to keep his chief adviser and it's time they showed their support and stopped wallowing in self-righteousness about the Cummings family taking action to protect their four-year-old son. Maggie would have seen them off by now.

It's the economy, stupid. Trump wins!

I'm not an economist, many of the fancy words used by financial wizards go over my head but sometimes common sense works just as well. Let's take the US and UK economy. On the face of it America and Britain are going to be paying huge debts for so long that we will all be crippled with higher taxes and reduced public spending for decades, unemployment will stay in the multi-millions, businesses will go bankrupt, airlines will struggle to survive and the tourist industry will collapse. As a result the balance of power in the world will dramatically change, with the US down in the doldrums, China reigning supreme and Britain finally losing its Great tag, reduced to a mini-mini power begging for trading partners. I hope you're still with me because none of this will take place. Yes it's true that the US and UK goverments have borrowed beyond prudence to prevent the biggest slump since the 1930s, but if my common sense thinking is anywhere near correct, those huge debts will be paid off sooner than people think and both the US and UK economies will go from down in the depths to high high jinks in a relatively short timeframe. As I think I have written before, this is not like a real shock financial crash, this is a government-administered financial crash, all carefully orchestrated and manipulated. But you can see from the gradual and not so gradual lockdown-lifting that income-generating is going to climb a steep curve very rapidly. People and businesses are rushing back to work. Here in the UK most shops are going to reopen from June 15. People will go out and spend money. Furloughs will be ended, the government will stop having to pay billions in unemployment benefit. Slowly slowly then quick quick the economies in the US and UK and elsewhere will bounce back so fast you will wonder why we were all so worried when this wretched pandemic began. First of all it must be said that not every business is going to suddenly go into the black after borrowing beyond any sense to survive. Many small businesses will not come back at all and remember all the restaurants and pubs which still cannot open their doors and here in the UK there is still no date yet for them, and times are going to get harder and harder. They may not survive. But generally speaking, there is every chance, provided there is no second surge of the virus, that the economic news in, say, two or three months time will be very favourable. If that happens in the US, and suddenly the millions claiming unemployment benefit are earning money again, and paying taxes, then the political advantages for Donald Trump will be massive. As an Obama economist says today in the Politico news website, Trump will reap the benefit of a dramatic change in the country's economic fortunes. He is right. Even if voters are concerned that Trump's handling of the pandemic has been all over the place, if the economy is bright and shining for most people by the time they go to vote in the November election, Trump will win because there is nothing Joe Biden can do or say to persuade voters that somehow in his hands the economy would be even better. It's going to be a tough time for the Democrats between now and November. Biden knows that famous phrase, "It's the economy, stupid". It's always the economy, stupid. So if Obama's former economist Jason Furman and my common sense are right, Trump will be reelected.

Joe Biden appears in public disguised in a black mask

The Democratic party presumptive presidential candidate emerged into the public eye for the frst time since lockdown in the United States, in a face-covering black mask. Even now it seems such an extraordinary sentence to write. This is truly a madly different world we live in. Joe Biden has, until now, been talking to the world from the basement bunker of his home in Wilmington, Delaware, his face for all to see, albeit on video. But today, Memorial Day, he emerged with his wife Jill, both of them in black masks. Donald Trump of course has appeared dozens of times in public, and always without a mask. Somehow I cannot imgaine Trump ever agreeing to cover his face when he is outside the White House. It would be beneath his dignity, even though there are many people who might think he should be setting an example. But Trump is Trump. Biden on the other hand thought it was important to show how responsible he is by covering his face. Trump must have smirked when he saw him. As far as the president is concerned, the coronavirus pandemic in the US is over and masks are for whimps. So that probably means Trump thinks Biden is a whimp for making his first appearance in public for two months in a black mask, although it would be wise for him not to say so. I think Biden was actually quite sensible and brave to cover his face, but there will be many who will draw the comparison between Trump's and Biden's different approach to the virus. If the US is getting back to normal too early, then the masked Biden will be seen as the man to trust. If the US return to normality works in Trump's favour and there is no resurge of the virus and the economy starts to bounce back, Biden may be viewed in a different light. Either way, the race for the White House is now up and running with the appearance at last of Biden in the fresh air. It's going to be one of the dirtiest campaigns ever!

The rise and rise of public righteous outrage

I've seen it so many times before. Once a political and media momentum builds and builds there is nothing you can do eventually but just give in to what everyone seems to want. It's tantamount to a lynching. So it is with the momentum now building up over Dominic Cummings and whether or not he should resign or be sacked for breaking the government's lockdown rules. Now it's being claimed that Boris Johnson's chief adviser broke lockdown on another occasion, the claims all appearing in the Guardian/Observer (for the uninitiated the Observer is the Sunday version of the Guardian, ie the same company) and the Mirror/Sunday Mirror. The sound of righteous indignation is getting so loud that the walls of Number 10 Downing Street are likely to fall down. I suppose what I dislike most is the self-righteousness of the whole story. First the woman who contacted the police when she spotted Cummings at his parents's house in Durham, 250 miles from London, second the oh my goodness you naughty boy horror splashed all over the Guardian and Mirror, and thirdly, especially thirdly, the self-righteousness oozing with cream and honey of the Labour, Scottish Nationalist, Liberal Democrat AND Tory MPs demanding that Cummings be sacked. I wonder how many of those pontificating to the newspapers, television and radio have actually 100 per cent kept to the government guidelines!! You see, now I'm doing it. This is the way British society has become. Tell on your neighbours, run to the press when you spot a well-known person doing what he/she ought not to be doing, feeling self-satisfied for exposing a breach in government guidelines. I know it breaks up the awful stories about families being destroyed by the virus deaths, but this undignified hunt for breachers, and in particular the rather gross blood-lust public lynching of Cummings is unseemly and irrelevant. There are fantastic people working in the NHS and all over the place keeping this country from going downhill into an abyss and all anyone seems to care about is a journey made by the prime minister's chief adviser which ended with no one dead or ill. But the momentum is now overwhelming with more and more Tory MPs siding with the Opposition, venting their manufactured wrath so that they can feel oh so righteous because they of course would never even consider breaching the government's rules. So, unless Boris stands firm and is prepared to suffer politically as a result, Cummings may be pushed out of his job. Whether or not you like Cummings I think it's all very sad.

The rise and rise of public snoopers

Some woman in Durham in the north of England decided it was her public, moral and responsible duty to ring the police to complain that she had spotted Dominic Cummings, Boris Johnson's chief adviser, in her home city which is roughly 250 miles away from Downing Street when the country was supposed to be in "Stay at Home" lockdown, and what were they going to do about it. At the time both Cummings and his wife were suffering from Covid-19. So, massive alarm bells and shouts of double standards and calls by Opposition MPs and leaders for him to resign forthwith, citing other examples where public officials had had to go after being similarly spotted by members of the public doing what they ought not to be doing. This all makes me depressed and worried about our society, filled, it seems, with snitches who presumably get pleasure out of exposing fellow human beings and running to the police. Now I accept that we are all governed by the same anti-virus guidelines and it is imperative for those who represent the government in some form or other that they set an example. But it is pretty pathetic and uncomfortable that people feel it is the right thing to do, not only to tip off the police but also to go to the newspapers to ensure that the individual spotted breaking the rules is showered with the worst kind of publicity. In Cummings's case, so I read, he had to make a decision when both he and his wife found they had the coronavirus symptoms. They have a young child, and grandparents who live in Durham. So, in the child's interest, they drove to Cummings's parents' home, handed him over to them and then went into self-isolation. Downing Street is saying they self-isolated in a separate house in Durham. So it's not like he was spending time in a second home in the country, as Scotland's chief medical adviser did, forcing her to resign, or allowing his married lover to visit him at his home, as one of the government's main scientific advisers did, and was also forced to resign. Cummings as far as I can judge went to Durham for the sake of his son's health. Well, critics will say I'm splitting hairs and all three examples fall into the same category and therefore Cummings should resign. The Guardian and Mirror which got the story and leapt on it to attack the government produced huge headlines. My view is, for God's sake, leave the man alone. He and his wife were ill, they were worried about their son and what to do about him. Which family in this country would not have done exactly the same thing? Boris appears to need the advice and strategic brain of his senior adviser and therefore in this time of crisis, the prime minister should not be deprived of his right-hand man. The outraged cries of the familiar rent-a-quote MPs should be ignored.

Tara Reade, accuser of Joe Biden, is getting the media third degree

Tara Reade who is sticking to her guns that she was sexually assaulted by Joe Biden when she worked for him as a junior assistant 27 years ago, is currently being given the third degree treatment by the media. So muuch dirt has been dug up about her past activities that her credibility in relation to the assault allegation is looking pretty vulnerable. First of all it must be said that whatever she may or may not have done in her life, it does not automatically mean that it should cast down on the accusation she is making that Biden pressed her up against a wall in the Senate building and made certain suggestions which she found embarrassing, uncomfortable and unpleasant. She remains adamant that this took place and that he did other things to her which, if she had gone to the police at the time and made a formal complaint, Biden would have been investigated. She didn't go to the police but she says she made a complaint to the Senate human resources department. Mysteriously the written complaint can't be found. So now here we are 27 years later, Biden is up for becoming president of the United States in November, and the details or alleged details are being made public. Strangely her lawyer today said she was no longer a client although he tried to make it clear that his decision to opt out of the case was not a reflection of his view of his client's veracity. So no explanation at all for this sudden dropping of Reade. But perhaps it had something to do with the plethora of articles which have been appearing in recent weeks about Reade's past. First, a bunch of people who over time got to know her and helped her out with work and accommodation claimed she was a nightmare to deal with, that she didn't pay rent on time or at all, that she borrowed money and didn't pay it back etc. Now it's being reported that her educational achievements, like a BA honours degree, were not quite as grand as she claimed. She never completed her degree course, says the college which she attended, and further doubts were cast on her claim to have a law degree. She had appeared as a prosecution witness in numerous court cases as an expert in domestic abuse offences, partly based on her educational status. Lawyers are now reexamining all these cases and the media has really been going to town on her. Pretty merciless stuff. If it's genuine journalism aimed at finding out the truth about the allegation against Joe Biden, then fine and responsible and acceptable. But if there's a political kick to this, ie reporters being told to go out and dig dirt on this lady in order to help Biden win the presidency, or not lose it because of her, then that's something else altogether. Either way, the focus on her is not going to go away, and unless that complaints form is found in the Senate archives, Reade's credibility is going to be up for grabs. The lawyer's exit certainly doesn't help her cause.

Xi Zinping is enjoying US criticism over coronavirus because it helps him domestically

I think it's fair to say that the more Donald Trump criticises China for everything that's going wrong with the world the bigger the smile on the face of President Xi Zinping. Criticism is viewed as a badge of honour in Beijing and as Trump's rhetoric assails China almost every day, Zinping uses it to prop up his personal position as the standard bearer of Chinese excellence and the hero of the Chinese people, and also to underline to his domestic audience and to the rest of the world that the Chinese Communist Party is the winner out of the coronavirus pandemic and the democratically-run Western nations are all failures. Zinpng has I believe cemented his legacy as a Great Leader in the eyes of the Chinese people by launching what is probably one of the most effective gloabl disinformation campaigns ever seen in modern times. The message from Beijing is that the CCP has driven the virus from China and the country is getting back to economic greatness, and the the US is sinking further into an abyss with Trump on the edge looking down into disaster. I wonder if Trump and co have realised this, that the constant attacks on China are just building up Zinping's status. Look what he has been doing under the cover of the pandemic: being ever-more aggressive towards Taiwan with military shows of force up the Taiwan Strait, stirring it up in the South and East China Seas, and now in the latest move, producing a tough new security law to stamp down on freedom of expression and rights to protest in Hong Kong. It's a cynical move, following the huge protests against Beijing in the former British colony last October. Zinping does not want to see a repeat of those public and globally publicised street demonstrations that led to clashes with the police and Beijing-supported white-shirted security extras. So new legislation will be put to the National People's Congress and it will be rubber-stamped and passed into law. Beijing knows there will be worldwide criticsm but as I said at the beginning, the more criticism Zinping gets the better and tougher he will be viewed by his fellow Chinese in China. It seems he cannot lose.

Should a black woman be chosen to run with Joe Biden? Yes

Joe Biden is not expected to select his presidential running-mate until July but the debate going on in the Democratic party is all about one question: should the former vice president pick a woman of colour as the Americans prefer to say. My view for what it's worth is a definite yes, and I say that for several reasons: first of all there are some brilliant possibilities among the potential candidates, many of them of African/American background such as Senator Kamala Harris (California) and Representative Val Demings (Florida), second it would send such a good message to voters wanting to vote for Biden but still a little wary, and third, and most important, because of Barack and Michelle Obama. Obama's success in being chosen as the president instead of tough-cookie, Vietnam prisoner of war, legendary senator John McCain, was not because Obama was black and McCain was white but because the youthful, elegant Barack Obama inspired the nation to vote for him. The fact that he was black was of course historically momentous for the United States and therefore made his victory even more special. Michelle turned into a global superstar, like her husband. Then along came Donald Trump and Mike Pence, two white men of wholly conservative persuasion, and started obliterating everything Obama had stood for. Things now need some readdressing. If Biden picks an African/American running-mate it will be seen, hopefully, as a signal to the whole country and to the world that the Oval Office is as much a preserve for black and Asian leaders as it is for white. It would also be a sgnificant gesture to the Obamas and to the people who adored them that, having set the precedent in 2008 and changed history, the 44th president was not a one-off but the first of many to come. These four reasons are why it should be relatively easy for Biden to say to himself, "I'm going to narrow the choice down to African/American candidates. Sorry Elizabeth Warren". Just as Obama was a first, so too would be a black female vice president. And that, I think, would be good for America. That's if Biden and his running-mate succeed in beating Trump and Pence, and that is by no means a foregone conclusion.

How was Trump allowed to take an anti-malarial drug to stave off coronavirus?

The president of the United States is the most watched, monitored, followed, protected, eavesdropped on human being in the whole of America. Every time he gets up to move to another room, well-dressed heavy-chested blokes whisper into their wrist microphones that POTUS is on the move, every time he goes to the bathroom, there are people around to follow him, wait for him until he has finished and then follow him wherever he wants to go once relieved. There is not a minute of any day throughout the year that POTUS is not observed by at least one paid flunkey and often by 21 flunkies. So how in heaven's name is Donald Trump able to go to his bathroom and help himself to one tablet of hydroxychloroquine every day? Actually you are supposed to take it at mealtime or with a glass of milk, so pehaps he has his little bottle of tablets sitting on the dining table when he waits for his food. But when you are paid to guard and look after the president and you see him popping an unknowntablet into his mouth, are you supposed, by law, to step in and seize the tablet for analysis? Trump revealed very casually that he had been taking hydroxychloroquine for about a week and hey presto he was fine and didn't have the virus. Ergo! But dear Mr President, that's a bit like the old joke: a man is sitting in a railway carriage throwing small pieces of pink paper out of the window. A fellow passenger asks him why he is doing it. He replies: "It's to keep the elephants away." "But there aren't any elephants," the bewildered fellow passenger says. "Well there you are, it's working," says the man. Why does Trump think that by taking a drug which most medical advisers advise AGAINST taking for coronavirus sufferers it will keep the virus away? Did he read it on Google? A lot of people have taken this drug in some countries, like Spain for example, but only as a medecine for those worst-affected by the virus, and for many victims of coronavirus the drug has brought on very unpleasant side effects. But Trump ignores all that and takes his daily tablet as if it is the only thing saving his life. OK he's taking zinc too and that might be harmless and certainy less controversial. But you do you wonder what gets into the head of the president of the United States, and why isn't the Secret Service intervening? They have to worry about anything and everything entering the mouth of the president, be it a double burger with melted cheese, a peanut bar or slice of Eton Mess. And what about the presidential physician Sean Conley, why isn't he doing something to stop this fad for an unwise anti-malarial drug? Conley put out a statement confirming Trump was taking it and that discussions had taken place about the pros and cons of having a daily dose after the discovery that one of the president's military valets had been tested positive for the virus. But he didn't say whether he thought it was a good or bad idea. Yu can bet your life that if Trump gets ill as a result of this obsession with hydroxychloroquine, his personal physician isn't going to last very long in the job.

The UK surviving on confetti money

I know the US finance people talk in trillions and we in UK only talk of billions but basically it's the same. Both economies are surviving on what I can only call confetti money, or Monopoly money or money that appears to grow on trees. Both the US and UK are now running their economies on a philosophy of pure socialism. Handing out money to the workers to keep them afloat, saving businesses and industry with huge injections of cash and even, in the US case, sending cheques to every household just to keep them alive and smiling. It's no longer a market capitalist economy. It's a hand-out economy Soviet-style. In the good old days of the Soviet Union there was never any unemployment because the Kremlin made sure everyone had a job even it meant just turning up at the factory and clocking in and then sitting around all day or polishing door knobs. So millions and millions of people have been furloughed - such a common word today but rarely mentioned pre-virus days - and the government has paid a large percentage of the wages. All fine and wonderful. But when will the financial pain arrive? No government can borrow billions/trillions of cash without having some plan in mind to pay it all back. The interest rates are thankfully low at the moment but even so, interest is going to pile up and at some point we, the taxpayers, are going to have to foot the bill. Higher taxes, frozen wages, reductions in public spending on a huge scale? How is it going to be done? No one is telling us. But you can see why most government leaders are now clamouring for everyone to go back to work to generate some revenue for the treasury departments. Every country is in recession, with a few exceptions, so the payback for all the money hand-outs is coming soon. We can't live on confetti money for ever.

How many coronavirus victims would have died anyway?

There's a new argument in the US, and perhaps to a lesser extent here in UK, that the daily coronavirus death statistics are not really real because they include a huge number of people who would have died anyway, either through some other disease or old age or obesity or diabetes or whatever. In other words, the argument goes, it's not right to say that Mr X or Mrs Y were the latest victims of Covid-19 when the former had a chronic heart problem and the latter was 103. This argument which fits well with those who are still convinced that the whole pandemic is a giant linguistic overkill and that the lockdowns were a massive overreaction. We have columnists in the UK who are fervent supporters of the overreaction brigade and go on to say that as a result economies are being needlessly destroyed. It's a compelling argument but you have to put yourself in the mind of a government faced with the prospect of tens of thousands, nay possibly millions of citizens dying terrible deaths in hospitals and care homes unless the whole country is banged up at home and forced to work from the sofa. Pretty well every government has resorted to the same lockdown methods. Sweden has remained an exception but the Swedes haven't exactly escaped virus deaths, so the Swedish model is not necessarily one to follow. Anyway it's too late now. So back to the debate about statistics. How many deaths can be solely attributed to the virus as opposed to all the other diseases and illnesses which cause deaths every year? In the US this is now becoming a political issue. If someone dies of a heart attack but also had Covid-19 symptoms, should that person's name be added to the list of coronavirus victims? The largely conservative-minded commentators and politicians seem to be saying that if there wasn't a pandemic around, this individual would probably have passed away in due course and so should not be labelled as a Covid death. I fear the argument is somewhat specious. A very large proportion of the fatalities HAVE involved people with, as they say, underlying health problems, such as diabetes, heart problems, lung problems, etc. In other words once the virus was added to their existing frailties, their immune system just couldn't cope under the strain and, in some cases, their vital organs collapsed. Who knows whether they would have survived another six months or three years or longer if the virus hadn't taken their life away? The fact is Covid-19 hurried them to their deaths and in many cases in a horrible way. So no sensible person can morally or truthfully claim that coronavirus had not played THE crucial role in destroying people's immunity. So whatever the political arguments for changing the statistical basis for counting the daily deaths, there is no getting away from the fact that the US and UK, combined, have currently lost nearly 125,000 people through the virus. And that's why lockdown was imposed. Can anyone seriously claim that if there had been no lockdown whatsoever in either country, the death toll would still have been 125,000 in the US and UK? Surely it would have been much much higher.

US coronavirus death toll heading for 100,000

What is the explanation for the extraordinarily high death toll in the United States, so much more than anywhere else in the world? With all its fantastic technological, scientific and medical talent, is it politics or just a simple refusal by a huge number of Americans to abide by the two-metre social distancing rule? America is a country of fantastic potential and ability and yet the pandemic is doing its best to conquer America's indomitable spirit. A death toll of 100,000 is terrible and it will probably climb much higher. That original estimate of up to 250,000, could that happen? The UK is no example either. The death toll is still rising and could reach 40,000 soon. But when you look at the death figures around the world, and see 3,000 here, 450 there, 1,200 somewhere else etc, and then you check out the US and UK and it's inexplicable. I see Russia is having a bad time too and I'm truly sorry for that but we won't get accurate figures probably, so it's difficult to guage where Russia will sit in the death chart. China is the one that daily astonishes me, Still only 4,000 or so deaths. So it has to be the case that the more ruthless you are in imposing lockdown restrictions within your own country, the more effective it will be in countering the virus. That goes without saying, I suppose. From Beijing's point of view, the logic is simple: communism works and democracy doesn't. So for President Xi Zinping, the future is bright. As long as there is no resurgence of virus infections in China, he will be seen as a national hero by the Chinese people because he will be able to take the trophy for saving the country from suffering millions of deaths. The Chinese communist party reigns supreme, never mind the fact that due to Beijing's failure to shut down all its airports, tens of thousands of Chinese people flew out of China to visit relatives in the west, taking the virus with them and spreading it everywhere. I don't think there's much doubt about that. But President Xi will still be viewed by the Chinese people as their saviour. It's difficult to imagine the American people thinking of Trump as the nation's saviour when the death toll is so high and getting higher and there appears to be total confusion about what is allowed and not allowed. The country is getting back to work but will it have disastrous consequences? I sincerely hope not. The same goes for here in the UK. It's fingers crossed time!

Half-way point in lockdown-lifting is probaby the most dangerous

It's a bit like being in prison for seven weeks and then being told you can go home for a weekend as a trial to see if you're ready for full release. So you go home for the weekend, enjoy Sunday roasts for the first time for ages and go to the pub and you start to think, why the hell should I go back to my cell. I'll do a runner. Yipee Sunday roasts for ever! So, in this virus world we have all been told that we can take as much exercise as we like, we can see a friend from another household provided we stay two metres apart, we can sit and eat pub food so long as we are in the back garden and blaa blaa blaa social distancing, we can go back to work provided etc etc etc, we can drive our cars to a beauty spot quite a long way from home, we can go to restaurants but only to take away takeaways. The point is that suddenly we can once again taste some of the things that not so long ago we took for granted. And slowly slowly there is building up inside the body and mind the feeling that it's all over and to hell with rules and regulations and government guidance. That's why this phase of the lockdown-lifting is potentially so dangerous. Give a man or woman a sniff of freedom and he/she wants more. I want more. I want desperately to go to a pub or restaurant or the cinema or theatre or the opera and go on holiday. Anywhere. The impact of the Boris Johnson easing of restrictions and similar moves made across the United States and in Germany and France and Spain and Italy and throughout Europe have raised hopes that normality is just round the corner. But it's not. And the signs are that the infection rate is going up not down as a result of the lockdown-lifting. The dreaded R for Reproduction rate has hit 1 in the UK which means that if it goes any higher, the virus spread will accelerate because every infected person will be expected to pass on the virus to more people than if the R is below 1. Germany was among the first to lift restrictions and BANG the infection rate has gone up. About two-thirds of states in the US have lifted restrictions but scientists are warning it's too soon. Maybe it's too soon for everyone. But the step had to be taken, we couldn't go on locked in our houses and flats for any longer. But if the infection rate shoots up across the globe that would be an unmitigated disaster because it would be telling us that the virus is more powerful than any government leader anywhere in the world. The virus wins. Please God that's not going to be the case. That elusive first taste of freedom has brought smiles back to a lot of faces and everyone wants to move to the next stage, not go back to square one.

Trump and Pence can't meet up even with social distancing

It comes to something when the president of the United States cannot/is not allowed to physically meet up with his vice president to chat about whatever the boss and his deputy chat about. Coronavirus has hit the White House, after one of Trump's military valets and Mike Pence's press secretary tested positive for Covid-19. Both the president and the vice president are healthy and have tested negative every time they have been checked which is daily at the moment. But the White House must be an eerie place right now. Trump and Pence can speak on the phone or do Zoom or whatever but they can't be in the same room at the same time. The Secret Service must be having nightmares playing a sort of hide-and-seek game to keep the two chaps at bay. I can just see it: "Mr Vice President turn left, the president is coming!" I presume that's the same for their respective staffs. The challenge is to make sure neither Trump nor Pence get the virus, and above all to make absolutely sure that if they do get it they don't get it at the same time to put them both out of action, ie incapacitated, for a few weeks because then a scenario which Trump could never allow to happen might have to happen. Nancy Pelosi, as third in line to the throne, as it were, would be marched in to take over the Oval Office until either Trump or Pence got better. Acting President Pelosi. Oh my goodness that would be such misery for Trump. Anyway the very glamorous new White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, has told reporters that both Trump and Pence are so healthy that they, the reporters, should be shouting hurray and yippee. She and the rest of the White House staff, she insists, have not even contemplated a scenario in which both leaders have taken to their beds. So for now Trump and Pence must keep their distance from each other. Remember Mr President and Mr Vice President, Nancy is waiting in the wings.

The lockdown picture is getting more and more complicated but let's stop whingeing

Today in the UK it was relaunch day in the continuing coronavirus saga. And by all accounts and reports it has been a pretty confusing day in England with people rushing back to work and filling trains and buses. Not what Boris Johnson wanted but he can't have been surprised. People are more fed up than scared which means a helluva lot of them have decided it's time to get back to work whatever the consequences. Pray God this doesn't mean a mass surge in infections. But, despite Boris's insistence that if infections rise he will clamp down once again and return everyone to their stay-at-home situations, there is such a longing to get back to some form of normality that I think it would be very difficult for the UK government to reverse the new policy. We've had lockdown for seven weeks and with so many confusing guidelines coming out of the government I fear many more people will revolt and start doing what they want to do. Within limits of course. You can't just pack your bags and head off for a long holiday in France or Italy or Spain or the US. Today the mayor of Washington DC for example has extended lockdown until June 8, going against the Trump edict for everyone to go to work. So no flights to Washington. Trump still wanders around, visiting places, without wearing a face mask which hardly sends the right message. His medical advisers must be beside themselves. They advise one thing and the president appears to disagree. It's beginning to be the same here in the UK. After seven weeks of daily briefings from the top medical experts most people are statistics-fatigued. No one really knows the true figures of deaths. In the UK it's currently more than 32,000, yet there are claims that the real figure is more than 40,000. Why? And how is the counting done? Hospitals and care homes are now lumped together but who is counting the Covid-19-suspected deaths at home? Despite the grim statistics is it time for this country to break out of the coronavirus-obsessed way of life. Every conversation, every newspaper, every television news programme are all about coronavirus. Yesterday there was an appalling terrorist attack at a hospital in Kabul. Not something to lift ones spirits I admit but there was not a single mention of it on the main BBC TV news. Bizarre. So if the lockdown is really moving into the next phase, with more freedom for all, let's start talking about something else, anything but coronavirus. Thanks to Boris we now have extremely complicated new rules to adhere to, but let's just get on with it and stop listening to people whingeing. Time for a renewal.

Obama criticised for speaking out against Trump

The usual gentleman's agreement is that former presidents let the encumbent president get on with the job without criticising him or his policies. Barak Obama I guess couldn't help himself when he was asked during a telephone chat with former members of his administration about the Trump team's handling of the coronavirus pandemic and gave his view: catastrophic! Well it was a phone conversation, not a public statement or an oped in The Washington Post. But of course his comment was leaked to all the newspapers and it certainly looked as if he had violated the presidential club rules. He was echoing what a lot of people in the US are saying about Trump's somewhat varied orchestration of the virus battle, but Obama as Trump's immediate predecessor was opening himself up for criticism. And sure enough it comes from that delightful man Senator Mitch McConnell, Republican majority leader of the Senate. He pointedly remarked on CNN that Obama should have kept his mouth shut and said his comments were classless. I don't think he meant that. I think he meant Obama was lacking in class which is sort of the same thing but not quite. Anyway McConnell was not slow in coming forward with his view against Obama. I don't suppose Obama will lose much sleep over Senator McConnell's attack on him. McConnell after all was the man who when Obama was president made it clear he had only one aim during the administration of the first African/American to become president which was for him to fail. And by God he did his best at the Senate to ruin Obama's administration, blocking everything Obama tried to do. How about that for sheer spite and political anarchy? For my money, McConnell should keep his mouth shut. With any luck the Republicans will lose control of the Senate and he will not be around any more to screw up the next president if it happens to be Joe Biden or some other Democrat. Meanwhile Obama will probably bite his tongue the next time he has occasion to speak about Trump and coronavirus. On the whole it probably is better that former presidents keep their views about the current president to themselves.

What will life be like in, say, six months' time?

As the first tentative steps are taken here in the UK and in the US and Europe to ease coronavirus pandemic lockdown restrictions, can we start to imagine what life might be like by the end of 2020? The realists are adamant that until we get a 100 per cent-proof vaccine our lives will continue to be largely governed by the way the virus spreads or doesn't spread. I think that has to be right but no one and no economy can wait that long. It might be six months away or 18 months. So it is inevitable that between now and Christmas most countries are going to take the risk: build up the economy and pray there is no resurgence of the pandemic while observing sensible social distancing guidelines. I don't know how that is going to work. How can millions of people go back to work and yet still stay two metres apart in the workplace? The strict social distancing rules are bound to be broken. Even today in London, the first day of Boris Johnson's please-go-back-to-work edict, there have been scenes of overcrowding on public transport. Boris's plea about going to work but not using public transport is, first of all, a contradiction, second, a kick in the teeth for the public transport industry and third, a catch-22 dilemma for any worker living 20 miles from his factory construction site whose car has packed up, his bicycle tyres are rubbish and he can't face the three-hour walk. Well, that is of course a worst-case scenario. But the Boris appeal will pose transport problems for a lot of people, let alone the concerns they will have about how close they will need to work with colleagues once they have made the journey to work. The virus has I think created two sorts of people: those who are petrified about getting the virus and experiencing the terrors of ventilator survival as portrayed on our TV screens every night and others who believe they will never catch it and even if they do they will get through it quickly with no lasting damage. Those in the latter category in the UK at least might tend to add, "Well look at the statistics, it's still a very small percentage of the total population who have got the virus, 31,000 deaths out of 65 million." I expect a lot of people will be in both camps. Of course they don't want the virus, they don't want to even think of the possibility of actually dying from it but surely it will soon be over. On the ecomomy front there are divergent views. Certainly there is a recession going on, economies are falling rapidly, by as much as 20 per cent. But the optimists point out that this is not like the 2008 financial crash which had long-term damaging consequences. Economies are failing today, not through some irresponsible banking gambles but because governments have literally closed down for business. So the huge damage will continue for as long as the ecoomies are shut down but as soon as the virus is beaten or contained, the doors will open and economies will rapidly bounce back. Hopefully by the middle of next year. The Bank of England seems to have this view. So does Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary. And so does Donald Trump. Let's hope they are right. But a lot could go wrong in the meantime, not least the risk that vast numbers of companies will go bankrupt and never reopen, airlines will wither, the tourist industry will never recover, hotels will stay shut for ever and every other restaurant will vanish. Today on the first day of the Boris lockdown changes I am determined to stick with the feeling that everything or nearly everything WILL bounce back and we will return to a normal life. In six months' time, life will be much much better!

Boris can't win on the pandemic issue

Boris is to speak to the nation but most of what he is going to say has been leaked already. Such is the way of things these days. So no more Stay at Home slogan but instead Stay Alert which is fairly meaningless. It's a bit like the advice from the police after a terror attack. A police chief comes out and appeals to the public to remain vigilant. It sounds sensible but as everyone knows, how on earth do you remain vigilant if you go about your normal business? Do you go nowhere near where the terror attack took place, or do you watch out for anyone who looks like he could be a terrorist or just avoid anywhere where there are lots of people around? After a day or so vigilance just becomes a shrug of the shoulders. I remember after the July 7 2005 bombings in London I did for several days look out warily for anyone wearing a backpack on the Tube. The London bombers all wore grey back packs containing explosive devices and it made me realise how many thousands of people walk around with very simiar backpacks. It was impossible to consider them all as potential terrorists and after a bit I gave up noticing. After 9/11 whenever I was flying off somewhere I watched everyone in the check-in queue and anyone looking swarthy with a long beard became an instant suspect. It was irrational but perhaps undestandable. That wore off too. Now we have our prime minister about to put us on national Stay Alert status. I suspect it won't have any impact at all. Stay at Home does have impact because it means what it says. There's no ambiguity or flexibility. But Boris can't win this one. He knows he has to give everyone a little hope that things are improving and the only way to do that is to allow people out of their homes more than at present and to encourage people to go back to work if possible. But if there's a surge in new infections he might have to reimpose the Stay at Home slogan. That would, to say the least, be unfortunate. China and South Korea have both suffered upticks in infections after lockdown measures were lifted. The same will probably happen here and in the US where Trump is urging a back-to-work policy. Steven Mnuchin, US Treasury Secretary, has warned that the US economy could be permanently damaged unless business gets back to normal soon. So I'm sure that the US will start reopening and there could well be a surge in infections. But I suspect Trump will carry on regardless. Boris will probably do the same unless there is a real risk of the NHS being overwhelmed with new infections. The figures are coming down but we are nowhere near reaching zero. So whatever Boris says tonight it's going to be a gamble. If he gets it right and it works he will be hailed a political hero. If he gets it wrong or everyone ignores him and Covid-19 gets a new lease of life in the UK, he will be blamed. As I said, he can't really win this one. The economy might get a small boost but not nearly enough to save the country from recession. Without question it is not yet time to start planning holidays. There is a long way to go before Covid-19 is no longer the main topic of conversation.

Trump snub to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman?

The US suddenly decides to withdraw F-15s and Patriot missile batteries from protecting key installations in Saudi Arabia. Is that a redeployment decision to put these weapon systems in other places where they are needed most or is Donald Trump stamping his foot and ordering the Pentagon to remove these aircraft and anti-missile batteries to punish Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman for personally creating an oil supply catastrophe right in the middle of the coronavirus pandemic? I support the latter reason. The F-15s and Patriots were sent urgently to Saudi Arabia after the devastating drone and cruise missile attack by Iran on one of its main oil processing plants. It was devastating because it was incredibly accurate and well coordinated and not only temporarily crippled the plant but caused a massive impact on oil prices and supply. Now, it is argued, especially after the drone-attack killing of Qassem Soleimani, the head of Iran's foreign arm of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, these protective systems are no longer needed because Iran has gone quiet. Well that's asking for trouble from Tehran. One of the reasons why Iran has gone quiet is that the country is hit with the coronavirus pandemic like everyone else. MBS as he is rather affectionately called - though without actual affection - started the oil drama when he decided to go to oil war with Russia abd began pumping out oil at a vast rate. In a short time there was a huge over-supply of oil, the price of a barrel of oil fell to zero and the world economy shuddered - on top of the economic crisis caused by coronavirus. The combination was lethal. Trump must have fumed. Here was his so-called Middle East friend playing god with oil prices when the world economy was desperately in need of some form of stability. Trump reportedly warned MBS at the end of April to cut oil supply or lose his US military protection. A deal of sorts was struck and there was a 10 per cent reduction in oil supply in the world but huge damage was done. Russia's economy, so reliant on decent oil prices, took a dive. So is Trump now reminding MBS that whatever he does the US holds the ultimate card: American military protection. MBS has already pushed his luck with Trump on a number of occasions, notably the killing of Saudi dissident journalist and Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in October 2018, and perhaps Trump thoght it was time to teach him a lesson. It is obviously denied in Washington. It's just a routine redeployment. There is no such thing as a routine redeployment in the Middle East. Every military move is spiced wth politics, warnings, threats, ultimatums and finger-waving. MBS has just had the Trump finger-waving warning.

Mike Flynn is innocent OK!

Lieutenant-General Mike Flynn, briefly Donald Trump's first national security adviser, admitted he lied to the FBI when they asked hin whether he had had any contacts with Russian officials in 2016 before Trump became president. He HAD talked to Russians, notably the Russian ambassador in Washington when he was a leading light in the Trump campagn team. Lying to the FBI is a federal offence and he was charged and he pleaded guilty. That now seems a long time ago, a different world. Flynn never served a day in prison. He subsequently reversed his guilty plea, causing the Justice Deparment to relook at the whole case. William Barr, attorney general appointed a fancy lawyer to investigate and he came up with the conclusion that there wasn't really a case against Flynn because the FBI has mishandled the case and the material against Flynn wasn't right, or wasn't right at the time or wasn't material that should have been material when the FBI first asked their questions or......you get my drift. The fact is that at some point Flynn under questioning admitted he had lied to the FBI and announced that in return for some deal, presumably to do with prison time, he would be pleading guilty. Of course this was all part of the Russian-interference investigation by Robert Mueller, special counsel. Flynn was one of his big-name arrests. Today, as a result of the legal inestigation, Barr has decided there is no case and the charge has been dropped. Trump who has been vociferously fighting for his old mate Flynn and has been accusing everyone involved - not Flynn - of treason and treachery and corruption, insists Flynn is a fine gentleman and that it was outrageous that he was ever charged with anything. Barr says Trump's opinion was not part of the decision he made about dropping the charges. It was based on a legal process and had nothing to do with politics. Well it is a truism that in the end everything is to do with politics but Flynn is free and the Justice Department says justice has been done. The man currently with a smile on his bewildered face must surely be Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador in DC and now back in Moscow. He knows whom he met and no doubt remembers everything he and Flynn spoke about in December, before Trump officially took over as president the following month. Lifting sanctions against Russia was whispered? Or was that at some other meeting? It's difficult to remember so much time has passed. Oh and by the way there was someone else at that December meeting. Jared Kushner, Trump's son-in-law. It's all wonderful stuff really.

How can Boris start lifting restrictions after the death toll disaster?

Whichever way you look at it the coronavirus story in the UK is a disaster. More than 30,000 deaths and a long way to go. Little small UK with more deaths than any other country in the world other than big powerful US. It's difficult, nay impossible, to look at the statistics and say "job well done, so now let's all go into the parks and buses and rejoice". The death toll is truly shocking and yet it's still not seen as a calamity for the Boris Johnson government. Boris may not be feeling so confident as he was before he caught the virus but he has to get a grip on his cabinet. There are a lot of cabinet ministers around but who really knows what he or she is doing? Is it in fact a solid-gold five-star cabinet or a cabinet with mostly run-of-the-mill individuals with no dynamic leadership qualities? I don't want to be harsh but somewhere along the line a whole bunch of mistakes and errors of judgment were made and now we have more than 30,000 dead people. If that record says anything about the quality of the Boris government and the expertise of the scientific and medical officials advising it I'm not sure I have much confidence in hearing and reading that Boris on Sunday is going to lay out a path through the lockdown to a more normal existence. One newspaper even daftly headlined the news today with the words "Magic Monday", as if following Boris's statement on Sunday we were all going to be able to open our front doors on Monday and go running into the streets naked and shouting whoopee. There is no magic moment coming. It's going to be a hard slog, and restrictions should be lifted one tiny bit by another tiny bit. There can't be any other way. This country is going to be falling into recession whatever happens in the next few weeks, so let's get the lockdown-lifting programme right. Someone has been leaking stuff to all the newspapers as if the Sunday statement is going to be a jolly sort of affair with the word "normal" being splashed around like tomato ketchup on a juicy burger. See what I mean about the lack of leadership within the government? Why were all those overhyped headlines appearing when Boris surely is going to be ultra-cautious on Sunday and warn us to stay patient and endure a few more weeks before he can consider any major changes. The 30,000 didn't die so that we can all now drive headlong to the beaches. I want to see my family and friends as much as anyone and am dying for hugs and dancing jigs but if that appalling death toll shoots up to 50,000 there will be the harshest of judgments made by all sensible people. Many countries I notice are already looking at the UK experience with astonishment and dismay. They can't understand how we handled it so badly. Boris has the opportunity to try and put that right.

US military chief General Mark Milley doesn't agree with his commander-in-chief

Not for the first time, the most serious-looking man in the whole of the United States, General Mark Milley, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has made his view clear about the origins of the coronavirus pandemic. Or to be more precise, he has made his view clear about where the virus did not originate from. With that steely face of his, he told Pentagon reporters that there was no evidence at all that the virus had slipped out of the Wuhan institute of Virology, accidentally or deliberately. He said he believed - and that's obviously from looking at all the available covert and overt intelligence - that the virus was formed naturally. ie it's Nature or more specifically bats responsible. So if Milley who sees the same intelligence as the president and the secretary of state is convinced it was a natural phenomenon and had nothing to do with the said institute, how can Trump and, even more, Mike Pompeo, go on and on about how the Chinese research laboratories in Wuhan lie at the heart of the pandemic? The answer, of course, is easy. General Milley is an apolitical military man who speaks the truth as he, a four-star general, sees it, unmixed with any other considerations. If you ask General Milley whether China can be trusted, he will reply that that's above his pay grade - the military love saying that - and that the answer to that question shuld be relayed to the state department which deals with diplomatic stuff. So, asked if there is any evidence that the virus came from the Wuhan institute Milley replies in a straightforward way. No evidence that he has seen. But Trump and Pompeo look at the evidence or lack of it but then add a big political twist mixed with a hint that there is intelligence out there which perhaps even Milley hasn't seen. Milley doesn't do politics. Trump and Pompeo live politics. I think most people will probably understand that. What it's all about of course is finding someone to blame. The Chinese are doing their best to reverse the pointing finger, claiming that US Army athletes who took part in the 2019 Wuhan military games October 18-27 brought the virus over from the US, also from a secret laboratory, and that's how it started. Remember, the first "evidence" of a coronavirus case was on November 17 in Wuhan, so I think that bit of Beijing propaganda can be dismissed out of hand - the US athletes had left three weeks before - and anyway if an American athlete took part in the games suffering from coronavirus symptoms woulnd't that have been spotted by the US medical team, let alone by the athlete himself? So I remain totally sceptical about both sides' propaganda allegations and prefer to stick with my friend General Milley. He's not my friend obviously but if he was I would encourage him to look less desperately stern and tense when seen in public, although I fully appreciate he has a very very serious job.

When will the real US presidential election campaign begin?

Donald Trump's Fox News interview in front of the statue of Abraham Lincoln was supposed to be the launch of the president's campaign to get reelected in November. But somehow it still doesn't feel as if the Trump/Biden race has actually begun. Will it/can it ever get off the ground while the coronavirus pandemic is still tearing its way through the US with no significant let-up in the fatality toll? Everything is one way or the other linked to Covid-19, whether it be relations with China or America's military might or White House battles with the intelligence services or the future of the US economy. Meanwhile Biden is a quiet voice from his basement, having little or no effect on anything. Bizarrely Biden is still ahead in the polls but that has surely got more to do with Trump's pretty extraordinary outbursts about coronavirus than any confidence the nation is feeling about a President Biden. Unlike in many countries where the deaths graph is now heading downwards fairly steadily, the US figures are still alarming and the predicted total of 100,000 is unbelievable. How can this be? It's time Biden emerged from his basement and started telling the people what he really thinks about the pandemic and how the US should be tackling it even if that will inevitably risk some sharp responses from the president. Biden needs to stand up and be counted, as they say. He is the Democratic party's presumptive presidential candidate - unless something dramatic happens (see previous blog on this subject) - but the Biden bandwagon has come to a halt. He should get out and move around the country somehow, observing of course the social distancing rules. Perhaps this is as yet impossible because of the cavalcade he would need to have around him. But there must be a way of getting him projected into frontline news better than he is at the moment. Right now it's almost as if there is not going to be an election in November. The Trump administration is to borrow $3 trillion to pay for the impact of the pandemic on the economy. That is a staggering sum and US taxpayers will have to pay for that for decades to come. But there is no real debate about it. The same thing is happening in the UK, vast sums being borrowed to pay the wages of millions of workers who have been laid off. Let the US presidential campaign begin I say. If Biden is not up to it, let someone else who is. Trump calmly warns that the total death toll could reach 100,000 which he describes as "horrible" and yet he is as good as cheering on the states who are beginning to lift lockdown restrictions. Trump is desperate to get the economy working again. Perfectly understandable but never mind the consequences? Where is Biden? Get out of your bunker.

Trump's attacks on China have a hidden motivation: Joe Biden

Of course, I hadn't seen it before. Trump's persistent attacks against China over the coronavirus pandemic have had a hidden motive. The attacks are genuine and politically thought out and actually somewhat justified seeing as how it looks like Beijing deliberately let its nationals fly around the world after the lockdown in Wuhan to ensure everyone's economies would be damaged, not just China's. But at the back of Trump's mind, the name Joe Biden is lurking. If the whole of the US gets really angry about China's role in spreading the virus and this is one of THE big issues for the November presidential election, Trump will trot all kinds of things to claim that Biden is soft on China. His whole career record vis a vis China will be dredged up and voters will be made aware that Biden can never be trusted to be tough on China, while he, Trump, is as tough as tough can be. It makes a lot of political sense. So even if the Tara Reade sexual harrassment case doesn't undo Biden over the next few months, then the China issue will be the battering ram to undermine the former vice president's White House ambitions. It's not subtle but it could be very effective, especially at a time when the whole country is demanding to know who to blame for destroying everyone's livelihood and the US economy. I anticipate some belicose rallies in which pictures of Biden shaking hands with President Xi Zinping will be aired with suitably pointed captions. The fact that Trump has also shaken President Xi's hand and has previously glowed about how fine a man he is and that he is his friend will not be mentioned by the Trump campaign team. Biden and his backers should prepare themselves.

The US has got to get its anti-coronavirus act together

The most troubling thing right now about the coronavirus pandemic is that the US is still hopelessly divided over what to do, how long to maintain lockdown and how quickly businesses and industry etc should reopen. State by state different decisions are being taken and you only have to watch the US TV news to see that a lot of people are just not bothering to social distance at all. US Navy Blue Angel and US Air Force Thunderbird jets flew over Washington in a display on Saturday in honour of the doctors and nurses and others saving lives around the country. Fine, but thousands of people turned out to watch and there were massive crowds, all seemingly ignoring the rule that they should stand two metres from each other. I'm sure every country in the world, with the exception of China and possibly South Korea, has faced the odd occasion when crowds have gathered and the police have had to move in to disperse them. But in the US this is a huge problem. There are protests in numerous states with people shouting to be allowed to go back to work, and their protests were, if not encouraged by Trump, at least supported by him. There is a kind of anarchy going on in the States. Like the funeral that took place in New York last week of a much-loved rabbi. Literally thousands of people attended. There wasn't a hint of social distancing and the police had to take drastic action to split them all up. But it was too late. I think this all part of the American psyche. Americans, possibly more than any other nation's citizens, just hate being told what to do. They value their freedom and rights to such a degree that any administration or state governor dictating how they should conduct themselves is met with instant suspicion. The guidance issued by the federal government and by individual governors is for their own good but if an American wants to go back to work, whatever the consequences to his health or to the health of others, he will demand it is his right. Am I being fair? Having lived in the US for three years, I know that individual freedom plays a key role in American society. It's all about the US constitution. We here in Britain don't have a constitution but we love our freedom as well and especially our free speech, but if the government, backed by scientific and medical advice, lays down how we should live our lives during the coronavirus pandemic, on the whole we listen and adhere to the guidelines, although there are always individaul exceptions. In Sweden the government has been far less proscriptive and controlling and yet the Swedish people have largely been sensible and adhered to a sort of social distancing arrangement. One of the problems for the American people is that the messages from the White House and state capitals have been so mixed. I doubt there are many people who could state without equivocation exactly what the US administration wants its citizens to do. But even if they did and the message from the White House was not so ambivalent, there would still be rebellion from those who believe their constititional rights are more important than sticking to rigid health guidelines. The US is already easily the worst-hit nation in the world and I fear that if lockdown restrictions are lifted on too grand a scale, there will be terrible consequences.

Is this the month of lockdown restrictions lifting?

Even Boris Johnson, the only leader in the world to have been in intensive care suffering from severe coronavirus, is now contemplating when to start lifting lockdown. I can't imagine the pressure he must be under from business leaders and from his own Chancellor (Finance Minister) Rishi Sunak to let people go back to work, but despite his understandable caution he has two responsbilitie: to keep people safe from the virus and also to get the economy going as soon as possible. The two don't really mix very well. Risks will have to be taken. The US is in exactly the same dilemma at this point in the pandemic. With 30 million Americans now on unemployment benefit, that sort of state assistance cannot go on for long. Plus there is another factor to take into account: a lot of people are now fed up with lockdown and desperately want to go back to normal, whatever normal will look like post-Covid-19. Trump is watching China and seeing Beijing getting the Chinese back to work and kick-starting the economy. OK China suffered from the virus earlier than any other country - well of course it started there - but even so, if they can begin driving ahead economically while the US and the rest of the world is still floundering then the balance of power on this planet is going to change quite rapidly. China will rule! President Xi Zinping is not going to take any prisoners, he will see the advantage of being ahead of the field and if anyone is going to exploit that it's him. The world needs to watch out. Even though we are all behind the curve as it were vis a vis China and the pandemic, the US, UK and the whole of Europe need to get moving or suffer the financial consequences. So, Boris, next week when you lay out your phased restriction-lifting programme, you will need to give business and industry and restaurants and hotels and airlines and the tourist industry and shops and schools etc etc a definite timetable for returning to a life that is a helluva lot more normal than today's normal. Most people no doubt just worry about themselves, their families and friends and their jobs. But Boris and his fellow leaders around the world need to worry about China.

What happens if Joe Biden crashes politically? Could Hillary step in?

Joe Biden answered my blog of yesterday (hahaha) and appeared on MSNBC today to deny in an interview that he had ever sexually assaulted former Senate aide Tara Reade. He was unequivocal. It (the allegation of sexually assaulting her in a Senate corridor in 2003) never happened. As one of his current aides said this week: "First, it never happened and second, it never happened." So it never happened, Tara Reade has got her facts wrong, Biden didn't do it, any of it, or it was someone else or her memory has played tricks or she is just a plain lying accuser. He didn't say all of that of course, but every viewer will have come to those sort of conclusions if Biden was telling the absolute truth and nothing but the truth . The trouble is - and this is always the problem when someone is accused of a sexual offence which he/she denies ever took place - little doubts linger, and little doubts lingering when the accused is hoping to become president of the United States in a few months can grow into bigger lingering doubts about almost anything else he says or does. Now that's grossly unfair if he is a totally innocent man who would never sexually harrass or assault any woman ever. But once the seed of doubt is sewn it's very difficult to just cast it to one side and leave it as a past issue which has no relevance to today. Nevertheless, let us do that. Let us put the Biden/Reade contest to one side and examine whether Joe Biden is going to make a terrific president. The signs are not that good. He stumbles with his words, looks a bit confused on occasions and absolutely cannot light up a rally or a room like, I'm afraid, Donald Trump does. So what on earth will happen if Biden crashes well before election time and the Democratic party hierarchy suddenly decide he is not their man after all for taking on Trump. I don't know whether that could happen but it might if things go really badly for Biden over the next few weeks and months. There is a fascinating article in The Hill today - a really excellent Washington-based news website - which provides one possible answer and it's Hillary Clinton. Wow, is that just a total no no or is the ex-First Lady, former presidential candidate and Secretary of State literally waiting in the wings to step forward as the only alternative to Biden if he fizzles out? According to the article that's exactly what she IS doing, putting herself about, appearing on TV as often as possible and desperate to be noticed. I don't know what the rules are but could Hillary really be scooped into the nomination seat without having campaigned in any of the primaries? The first person who would object like mad would be Bernie Sanders, and understandably so. He sweated blood and tears to get where he got in the nomination race, and only dropped out when he realised that Biden was going to win more delegates. So Bernie would want to step in if Biden crashed. But do the Democratic liberals want radical Bernie in charge? Then there is the woman chosen by Biden to be his running mate, whoever she is. If it's, say, Amy Klobuchar or Kamala Harris, would either of them be acceptable as the instant replacement for Biden? I doubt it. Neither of them have the true experience to become an instant president although Barack Obama did of course. Hillary will have gone through all this in her mind and just perhaps she might have a tiny thought that she could be the Democratic party saviour to take on Trump for a second time. And this time, win. It seems far-fetched but The Hill article makes it sound not impossible. If Hillary has read it, she will have a certain bounce in her feet today. It couldn't happen could it? It might! I bet she would worry Trump more than Biden.