World stability is getting shakier by the day thanks to Covid

This year will be notorious in history not just because of Covid-19 but because of the way it has been exploited. Look around the world and see what is going on. Russia is being more aggressive than ever. The Russian military are currently engaged in the biggest naval exercise off Alaska since the Cold War. And when a US B-52 bomber flew over the Black Sea in international airspace two Russian Su-27 Flanker jet fighters intercepted it in such a hair-raising manner, literally wooshing past the bomber's nose just 100ft away, that the US Air Force pilots must have thought a collision was imminent. It was Russian bravado at its most dangerous. The Pentagon complained but the Kremlin doesn't care. Then there's Turkey war-rattling with its old enemy, the Greeks, never mind that both countries are in the same Nato alliance. China loosed off some carrier-killing missiles in the South China Sea to remind the US that its nuclear-powered carriers are vulnerable if they come too close to what Beijing views as its domain. Everywhere governments are struggling to cope with the Covid pandemic, warning of second waves hitting their populations in the autumn. There is an overwhelming sense that governments have lost their grip, there are still too many unknowns about this virus. After half a year of fighting the virus, we are still at the pandemic's mercy. The longer it goes on the more, I fear, certain countries will seek to exploit it. What the world needs is stability and responsible leadership. We're not getting it.

Classified intelligence in the US is a political weapon

John Ratcliffe, the Trumpite director of national intelligence, has caused a political uproar by declaring in a letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee that, in future, secret briefings on foreign interference in the 2020 presidential election will be given in writing and not by witnesses appearing before the committee. In other words no searching questions allowed. The reason for making this decision comes right at the end of the letter to Senator Marco Rubio, acting Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, and Senator Mike Warner, the leading Democratic member of the committee. It says this step has been taken to stop the leaking of classified briefings on the election to the media. It is true to say that in Washington there is no such thing as secret intelligence. One way or another, classified material gets into the papers and it's more often than not as a result of "Congressional sources" revealing all to their favourite reporters. It has been going on for as long as I can remember. Intelligence is a big political weapon. It can be used by both sides in the political game to exploit their particular views. In this case, Ratcliffe has taken action because the most sensitive issue right now, two months before polling day on November 3, is foreign meddling, particularly by Moscow which seems intent on trying to make sure Trump is reelected. Secret briefings on this issue have made big headlines in the papers. Personally if members of a committee which is privileged to receive classified briefings from America's top intelligence chiefs then leave the chamber to ring their newspaper contacts that's a clear case of irresponsible, even unlawful, politicising of an issue affecting national security. But this is Washington. This is what happens and has always happened. Also, it is right that the public should know exactly what is going on vis a vis the Russians and other possible meddlers before they vote on November 3. But this surely can be done in unclassified statements from the White House or the intelligence community. The danger of senators leaking what they have heard in classified briefings is that they might reveal something which gives away to the enemy, whoever the enemy is, what the US does to get its information, including its secret sources. The problem is that if Ratcliffe is now only going to allow written briefings the contents could still and will still be leaked to the media, with the added political twist no doubt. Basically everyone by now knows that the Russians want Trump to have another four years and are doing all kinds of social media, cyber and propaganda stuff to persuade the voters to go for Trump and not Joe Biden. Ratcliffe's decision to stop direct briefings to the Senate and House intelligence committees on this issue only serves to give the impression that he is trying to suppress what is going on. Whether that is true or not.

Getting people back into their offices

The one positive out of the long months of coronavirus-driven lockdown and working from home is that a large proportion of people have saved money. Quite a lot in some cases. No commuter travel costs. No lunchtime sandwiches round the corner from the office. No going out to restaurants, cafes, cinemas, theatres, bowing alleys, gymns, swimmming pools. Suddenly there's money in the bank. But now the UK government and the US government and no doubt many others around the world are trying to persuade everyone to go back to work and sit in their offices rather than work from home. Not for their sakes but for the sake of the general economy in city and town centres which are dying on their feet through lack of people. All the shops and restaurants that rely on the lunchtime trade are going out of business. It's desperate for them. But how can governments persuade people to stop working from home when they can prove they are functioning perfectly well on their computers at home and, as a bonus, seeing more of their children and saving loads of money. No one enjoys commuting by train into work, wasting valuable time and spending hundreds or, in many cases, thousands of pounds a year in travel costs. But at some point people who were perfectly prepared to do the train or bus journey into work every day five or six months ago will have to make a decision that benefits not just their employers but also the myriad of small businesses that depend for their very existence on the commuters. We can't have ghost cities and towns for ever. If we are to return to some form of normality then the millions of people who have settled into a way of life based around working from home will need to get up and go to work. Otherwise the general economy is never going to revive. Rishi Sunak, the UK Chancellor, came up with the idea of offering to help pay for people to go back to restaurants by slicing £10 per person off the bill for a meal. Pehaps now he should think of a way of persuading people to go back to work with a special one-off bonus for those who return to their offices and give up their work-from-home routine.

"No one will be safe" if Biden wins

Are there any rules in politics? Is there a clause somewhere in the US constitution for example which states that all men or women elected to be president of the United States are obliged by statute to tell the truth and nothing but the truth? Well no there isn't but perhaps it should be added as an addendum. Donald Trump has taken truth and accuracy to a new level, downwards. Like that wonderful expression "alternative facts" coined by Kellyanne Conway, the soon-to-depart Trump counsellor. She used it when trying to put across the view that more people had attended Trump's inaugural ceremony in 2016 than the number given by newspapers, the police and many others. Trump has a wardrobe of alternative facts at his disposal and uses them liberally. Take his comment about Biden during his big acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention on Thursday. He said the US would not be safe under Biden because he planned to release from jail 400,000 criminals on to the streets "and into your neighbourhoods" and then defund all police departments across the country. Presumably so that those 400,000 freed criminals can go whoopee and start looting shops and banks at will. It's a great line but is it truthful or accurate or honest? I can't remember Biden hinting at doing anythng like this. But he probably said something about the police after all the shootings involving white police officers opening fire on black people, and he may have said he was worried about overcrowded prisons. I'm not sure. But under the alternative facts syndrome, Trump presumably felt he was justified in going the whole hog and warning people that if they voted for Biden they should expect a knock on their door the next day and be confronted by an Armelite-carrying hoodlum just released from jail. Trump also took credit for reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs. But I could have sworn Barack Obama did that in a piece of legislation in 2014. That's a classic piece of alternative facts. Some people might think Obama was responsible for reforming the Department of Veterans Affairs but if you look at it from a different angle - Trump's angle - he, Trump, did it. Unless you are a devoted Washington politics addict you're not going to know whether Trump did it or Obama did it but if Trump says he did it, then hell of course he did. It's outrageous but if you can get away with it, who cares. Or that at least seems to be the strategy behind many of the claims Trump made in his acceptance speech. IF the whole country believes everything Trump says, whether an alternative fact or a real fact or a blatant untruth, then he will be reelected in a landslide. Biden and Kamala Harris are hoping that not everyone will believe Trump is telling the truth.

Tanks a million but you're finished

Tanks are so yesterday. Or so think some sections of the UK Ministry of Defence which believes that tanks have had their day and can be mothballed just in case they might be needed in some future conventional land war. Well it's true to say that the last time Britain sent tanks off overseas to fight a war was 17 years ago against the Iraqi Republican Guard. The British Challenger 2 tank unquestionably played a role not only in defeating the Iraqi regime forces in the south around Basra but also in protecting soldiers. Likewise the Warrior infantry fighting vehicles which are also facing the scrapheap. It IS possible that tank warfare is a thing of the past and wise defence ministries now need to focus more on moving into a new high-tech warfare mode, spending money on long-range super-fast missiles and drones and cyber weapons. But can this country, or any country, really know for sure whether tanks are no longer going to be needed? Tanks are the real symbol of land warfare. The US are retaining their tanks although only with the army. The Marine Corps is in the process of divesting itself of its 200 or so tanks, as well as its heavy artillery, preferring to switch to a lighter more flexible warfare rolle. The Royal Marines don't have tanks. Never have. Tanks are the preserve of the British Army and if they all get mothballed, then the army will be deprived of one of its reasons for existence. The Royal Tank Regiment, the King's Royal Hussars and the Queen's Rpyal Hussars would disappear or be obliged to take on a different role altogether. By the way, as General Lord Dannatt, former Chief of the General Staff, stated on British Forces Broadcasting Service today, the idea of mothballing tanks in case they might be needed in the future is both naive and impractical. It would be like putting an E-Type Jaguar into a garage for several years and expecting it to come roaring out into the sunlight in full working order. The mighty tank battle between the latest Russian high-tech tank and the mothballed British Challenger 2s! I don't think so. Basically the Challenger 2 has had its day. It has been around for more than 20 years and needs replacing which would mean allocating billions of pounds for a new tank in the next few years. Where would the money come from? That's why there is talk now of scrapping or mothballing the Challenger 2s and Warriors. It's about money and don't let anyone claim otherwise. But if the removal of the tank from a battlefield in which the British Army has a role to play is going to make sense it will have to be shown that the UK government has a proper strategy for the defence of this nation. In other words, if not tanks, what else? Will it be hypersonic missiles or super drones capable of destroying the enemy? Probably. But only heavy armour can actually hold ground against a charging enemy, so do we just leave that to others while we fancy around with super high-tech wizardry? Is that the strategy? It better sound good when the current defence review is completed in November. Otherwise anyone with any knowledge of defence will say the review was all about saving money, not spending it.

Eat out to help out plus a dose of Covid-19

The UK Chancellor Rishi Sunak came up with this brilliant idea: Go out and eat in a restauant and we, the Treasury, will cover 50 per cent of the bill. It was a way of encouraging people to leave their homes and eat in a restaurant desperate for customers. It might as well have been called Save Our Restaurants. Instead he thought up "Eat out to help out". It sounds a great idea. But there's a big drawback. Many of the restaurants don't seem to care a hoot about the social distancing guidelines and the masks. It's just put as many bums on seats as possible and get that lovely money back from the Government. Take Brighton for example, a very popular seaside resort with tons of young people. The meal deal lasts from Monday to Wednesday and I can tell you that every restaurant and cafe in the centre of Brighton tonight was crammed full of people. Every table was booked and every table was filled with people. There was no social distancing. I visited about eight restaurants trying to find somewhere to eat and was met with shaking heads and rooms sizzling with people cheek to cheek. It was like a mass rave party. No sign of the police though. So here's the big drawback to the Chancellor's good idea. The chances are that the Monday to Wednesday 50 per cent off have a a meal out dictat will cause Covid-19 spikes around the country becau se none of the guidelines are being followed. It's a free for all eating bonanza.Nobody cares who is sitting at the table a foot away from them. It's cheap food!! I hope I'm wrong.

Will the world be a safer place under Biden or Trump?

Will the steady hand of President Joe Biden or the wild gesticulating of President Donald Trump bring a safer world? The way the world is going it's hard to see which of the two men is more likely to contribute towards global stability, peace and prosperity. Trump's unpredictability and liking for instinctive go-it-alone announcements have certainly added a certain je ne sais quoi to world politics but I doubt that has made the planet a safer place. It has certainly irritated Xi Zinping, the Chinese president, caused Vladimir Putin to smile and flex his chest muscles, confused Kim Jong-un to such an extent he seems to be not in the best of health right now and angered beyond description the ayatollahs in Tehran. Plus most of Europe has had enough of Trump and Trumpism. But will Biden's more nice-man approach keep everyone happy? Well, first of all, except in Moscow, there will be a huge sigh of relief. However, I fear that after Trump's battering approach towards foreign policy, not many capitals are going to be in the mood for doing instant deals, whether trade, diplomacy or nuclear (in the case of Tehran and Pyongyang) with Biden in the White House. There will be a period of curiosity, suspicion and wait-and-see. What's most important is for Washington and Moscow to get together to extend the New Start Treaty to maintain or reduce the level of nuclear warheads each country has for another set period. The current treaty is due to end on February 5 2021. Trump insists on having China as part of the negotations because Beijing has been accelerating its nuclear warhead stockpile. China has shown no interest but might Beijing agree under President Biden, rather than under President Trump? With the Chinese you never know and I haven't any idea whether Xi Zinping might prefer to do a deal with Biden or Trump. But what I can predict is that at this stage if China continues to show absolutely no interest in joining strategic nuclear arms reduction, Beijing will get a much tougher response from Trump than from Biden. That's all I'm saying. I'm not advocating a second-term Trump but I think Trump will be tougher than Biden in confronting the rising threat posed by China. Putin would definitely prefer Trump to win but does that mean he will be ready to do a nuclear deal with him? He just might because Russia can't afford a nuclear arms race. You could argue that on that basis he might also be prepared to come to a deal with Biden. The answer to the question above is therefore impossible to say right now. Either way we are in for an unsettling period in world politics.

Trump believes economy will save him

Donald Trump never looks defeated. In his opening remarks to the Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, he claimed the US economy was going to do a V-shaped upward leap and look pretty good by election time. He helped the economic boost along by announcing last night that he was pushing a coronavirus treatment to be given to patients as quickly as possible. That alone excited the stock market. A few announcements like that and Trump could make the Dow Jones go wild with excitement. You could argue this is manipulating the stock market. It's a bit like Vladimir Putin declaring that Russian scientists have developed a vaccine for Covid-19, beating every other country to the winning tape. The rest of the world doesn't believe him. In response Trump is now hinting that he is going to buy millions of vaccine samples from the Oxford research laboratory that is currently engaged in developing a vaccine. It's not ready yet and probably won't be till late next year. But Trump has decided he wants to grab this vaccine now to distribute to the nation. Like Putin's vaccine, the "Trump" vaccine, courtesy of the Oxford researchers, might do wonders to the US economy even if it's totally premature to try and stave off the pandemic with a vaccine not yet fully tested on human guinea pigs. In politics everything can be manipulated to boost Trump's chances of being reelected. The Democrats, still on a high after their nomination of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris, are going to need to be super cunning to outfox the incumbent president.

So Joe Biden might stay for eight years

I think for the first time Joe Biden has said he is fully prepared to serve two terms - the full eight years - if he is elected president in November. By which time he would be in his mid-80s. He is currently 77 and his next birthday is November 20. That's a bit of a blow to Kamala Harris, his running-mate, who I bet thought to herself that if Biden does just one term she will slot in nicely for the job in 2024. Also, the thought of being vice president for eight years rather than four years probably doesn't ound quite such fun. But then Biden did it and now look where he is. The big question is whether a man in his 80s is a sensible age for being the president of the United States. A lot of people seem to be implying, if not saying outright, that Biden already has his forgetful moments, suggesting that by 2024 and beyond he might be totally gaga. Well these days when fit older people look pretty damn good and young for their age I reckon dear old Joe (you see, I'm doing it now!) will take it in his stride. And if he does find it too much after four years, one hopes he and/or his wife Jill will make the decision to hand over the reins. In any event, making an announcement now that he is definitely going to be a one-term president would be disastrous politically for him personally and bad news for the Democratic Party which would have to accept that they are pitting their nominee against the incumbent president who is desperate to serve for eight years. So his remark during an interview that he is ready to serve for two terms is a good move on his part. But it won't remove the concerns over whether he has the staying power to last eight years and it will give Trump and co some fun over the next few weeks.

Boris hides away in a very small tent!

It's a relief from all the dire predictions of gloom in most newspapers most of the time. The picture of Boris Johnson in beenie hat nearly covering his eyes and a checked shirt supposedly holidaying in a tiny tent near a three-bedroomed cottage on a Scottish clifftop raises a smile. But also total disbelief. Boris in a tent that would fill up once he had managed to squeeze his body through the front flap. And even the cottage looks somewhat primitive and distinctly non-glam for a prime minister who normally enjoys the good life. Is he really staying in such a remote place near a cliff edge with his wife and four-month baby boy and his police bodyguards etc? I think it would be great if our prime minister was summering in a tent in Scotland. It would be a contrast to some of his predecessors who seemed to find some wealthy supporter to give them an expansive villa in the sun. Tony Blair always had villa-owning friends. So did Maggie Thatcher. Theresa May enjoyed her walking holidays. The picture of Boris in a beanie hat was more than enough to lighten my mood today. But him lounging in a tent? I don't think so. Perhaps that's where his bodyguards are sleeping.

Pompeo in his US military quarters

There's nothing like a good old story of bureaucracy gone mad. A memo has emerged which reveals that a US Navy lawyer got all concerned and precious about the fact that Mike Pompeo in his early days as Secretary of State applied for and received a house to rent on a military base. I can imagine it's quite tricky to find the secretary of state a safe place to live in or near Washington while he serves his country in one of the top cabinet jobs. The threat assessment for a Donald Trump secretary of state must be quite an interesting read. So someone, whether Pompeo or one of his flunkies, thought up the idea of him and his family renting a military house. A lot cheaper, instant top security living behind the wire and the sort of place where Pompeo could read his classified documents without having to worry about prying eyes. He initially plumped for a US Navy house not far from the State Department but in the end rented a house on the huge US Army base at Fort Myer in Virginia which incidentally also houses the National Security Agency headquarters which looks like a giant container ship with a massive car park to match. So, nice and secure for Pompeo and cheapish for the taxpayers. But oh my goodness this US Navy lawyer chap has come up with all kinds of legal and moral and constitutional reasons why it could be wrong for the secretary of state to be housed in military quarters, especially since every house on every base was normally supposed to be accounted for for much-needed officer types. He implied in the memo which has now emerged under Freedom of Information that some poor officer might have been ousted to make way for Pompeo. According to the memo unearthed by a watchdog group called American Oversight, the picky lawyer said the whole matter raised "factual, legal, fiscal and ethical" issues. As far as I know Pompeo is still living at Fort Myer which is a 40-minute ride into Washington on a good day. Pompeo recently showed him and his family playing a board game inside the house to prove he was still alive and well in lockdown. Pompeo was top of his class when he attended West Point military academy way back but under normal regulations that wouldn't allow him to rent a military house. But it seems to me that it sounds quite sensible for the secretary of state to have a house in a secure area like a military base which is close to Washington. Unless of course he really did have to kick out some poor colonel or general from his quarters! There's a quote in Politico on this story from Patrick Kennedy, a former undersecretary of state for management who says: "You don't always have to find something that says, 'yes you can do this'. In some cases you have to avoid situations that say, 'no you can't'. " I love that.

I think there is now an unstoppable momentum for the Democrats

Listening to and watching Kamala Harris, Joe Biden and the old guard - Bill Clinton, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton - it's such a reief to hear words of hope and optimism and a better future and, in Kamala's case, spoken from the mouth of a new generation. America has been in the hands of an old and often angry man for the last three and a half years and, if Biden wins, will be in the hands of an even older (only slightly) older man for the next four years. But Kamala will be there by his side. OK, Mike Pence is much younger than Trump but he still looks and behaves like an older generation apparatchik. Kamala is fresh news. She is the new Democratic party. She will help to bring in new and younger talent. I hope. While she and the others spoke at the national democratic convention without any crowds to cheer them on, Trump was monitoring every word and rushing to his phone to tweet abuse, all in CAPITAL LETTERS. The way he is behaving reminds me so much of Richard Nixon, another angry man who never accepted that democracy meant you had to obey the laws of the land, even, and especially, as the president. Trump's capital letters were a sign I think of his growing awareness that he might not get reelected, and once that takes hold, we are bound to see more and more tweets about how the November election is going to be rigged and will need to be discarded. As the countdown begins, the final stretch of the 2020 election is going to be one of the dirtiest and most painful campaigns in living memory. Painful for the American people, that is. Throughout it all Kamala Harris has got to raise everyone's spirits and keep her eye on winning. But watch out for those Russians. They are plotting and planning to keep Trump in the White House, and how they are going to try and besmirch Kamala and Joe Biden we have yet to see. It won't be pretty, that's for sure.

Is the Boris government up to it?

I've been trying to think positively about the Boris Johnson government, trying to say well it's early days and it's a really tough time to be governing with the pandemic and lockdown and the economy going down the tubes and exam results to be fixed etc. But there comes a point when you think - just like I'm sure people are in America - do they know what they are doing. The fiasco over exam results was the nail in the government's rapidly under-construction coffin. U-turns all over the place. And still there's chaos. Students who thought they would get good grades for A levels were informed by some robot - algorithm - that they only deserved poor grades, following the cancellation of the real exams because of coronavirus. How could an algorithm have any real insight into how a student might do? Predictions are for teachers, not computers. So after nationwide protests and students on TV looking miserable and crying, the government changed its mind and said, leave it to the teachers. But by then the damage was done and universities had alloted places only to those who had received good grades by the computer. Chaos and more chaos and it was all so unnecessary. What worries me more than anything is that this same government is currently engaged in yet another defence and security review. It was always claimed in the past that defence reviews were solely based on the role the UK should play in the world but we all knew that it was really about money. How much could we afford to spend on the Army, Royal Navy, Royal Air Force and Royal Marines. Now here we go again with another interminable look at where the UK wants to be in terms of defence roles and the UK's place in the world. Oh dear, I fear another disaster is coming up. There is already talk about the Royal Marines being merged with somebody or other. The Boy Scouts? Can they seriously be thinking of reducing the size of the Army, already struggling to survive at 78,000? The Navy is happy because they have two huge aircraft carriers to gloat on, the first one due to become operational in the New Year and the second one still under construction. The F-38B short take-off and vertical landing aircraft will be ready sometime in the future. The conclusion of the defence review in the hands of Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, and Dominic Raab, the Foreign Secretary, is almost bound to be off key. If it says we need to cut the Royal Marines, reduce the Army to 65,000 soldiers, abolish all tanks, and spend even more money on the carriers, can we please have another government U-turn?

The Somali elephant shrew is back

Amidst all the gloom and doom of the pandemic and lockdowns and social distancing and the possibility of Donald Trump being reelected, there is one piece of excellent news this week: the Somali elephant shrew, thought to have been extinct for 50 years, has been rediscovered alive and well and looking really cute. Pretty well everything about the environment and climate change is negative but this dear little mouse with the long nose looks to be in good shape. We need these moments to give us hope that Mother Nature hasn't totally given up on us. The one rediscovered after half a century is living in Djibouti. I always think it's amazing and uplifting when a new tribe is discovered buried in a jungle, living like prehistoric natives unaware of mobile phones, closed circuit television, laptops, surveillance satellites, artifical intellligence, self-driving cars and Donald Trump. There they are surviving in their own special way, not needing to rely on all the gadgets that obsess our daily lives. I feel the same way about this elephant shrew. He has somehow managed to survive despite everything going so wrong on the planet. God bless you little elephant shrew. May your future be long and safe.

Edward Snowden, dollar millionaire

Edward Snowden, long-time resident of Moscow, has been called a lot of things since he removed thousands and thousands of top secret secrets from his employer, the US National Security Agency, seven years ago and spilled the secret beans to all and sundry. Every secret, big and small, was splashed all over the papers and on television and radio around the world. It was a massive leaking of classified material, the biggest ever. He hopped quickly to Hong Kong to hand over his treasure-trove to journalists before heading for Moscow which welcomed him with open arms. So since then he has been called a traitor, a whistleblower, a blaggard, a freedom of speech hero, an enemy of the state (US state) etc etc. You take your choice. Mine has always been that, whatever positive achievements his treachery may have brought about in the sense of reducing the mighty NSA's powers to eavesdrop and snoop on everyone from American citizens to Angela Merkel, he still stole a vast stock of highly classified material from his government employers and therefore betrayed their trust in him. What he did was against the law. It was therefore a crime, alleged or otherwise. But now we learn that he has also made a lot of money from his betrayal. Court documents have revealed that he is a dollar millionaire from all the fees he has been charging for speaking engagements from Moscow, and also of course the royalties from his book. The US government is trying to grab the profits he has made on the basis that if he committed a federal crime he shouldn't benefit financially from his wrongdoing. This is where the documents have emerged. There has been a long-running court case to deprive him of these profits. Here are a few examples: $50,000 for speaking to a Hong Kong brokerage firm called CLSA in 2015, $25,000 from the University of Waterloo in Ontario, Canada, and $32,000 to a Portuguese tourism office. I presume his speeches to these various organisations were full of anecdotes about how he got all the stuff out of the NSA one dark night and how he saved the US and the world from the nasty American eavesdropping satellites. That's a lot of money for boasting about his alleged achievements. I'm not a fan, never have been and never will be. The court documents show he has made $1.2 million since exiting the US and American federal lawyers want it handed over. All of which stands in contrast to an extraordinary statement by President Trump the other day when he said he might consider pardoning Snowden. Does he think that will win him votes? I guess it might. But the US intelligence community will surely fight that tooth and nail? Bloody hell, he'll get a Nobel Prize next!!

Will Mike Pence last the course?

There have been rumours for a long time that at the last moment Donald Trump will drop Mike Pence as his running-mate for the November election and go for someone who will lift his chances of being reelected. Trump is so desperate to get reelected that I believe he will do almost anything to make sure he does. Dropping Mike Pence must be on his shortlist, especially now that Joe Biden has selected Senator Kamala Harris to be his running-mate. Kamala Harris versus Mike Pence in a TV debate? Pence will lose, if only because he is such an uninspiring personality. For Trump to match Biden and Harris he would need to turn to someone like Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the United Nations, who would undoubtedly spice up the president's campaign. But right now Trump is spending most of his time trying to undermine the US Postal Service so that he can force people to go out and vote on November 3 rather than rely on mail voting. Voting by mail scares Trump because he has convinced himself that it will lead to mass fraud, in other words he might not win. If mail voting does go ahead despite the lack of proper funding, the Postal Service has already warned that the millions of postal votes will not be counted in time to bring an instant result. It could take weeks or even months. This is all part of a dangerous game that is taking over the election process. The possibility of the 2020 presidential election going seriously wrong is now looking increasingly likely. The constitution itself is at stake. Even if Biden and Harris score a resounding victory in November there is a big chance that the incumbent president will stay put claiming fraud and inaccurate counting. I hope I'm wrong.

Kamala Harris is going to face a tough time

It's one thing to be selected as the first black woman - or woman of colour - to be a vice-presidential candidate. But quite another to endure the sort of limelight she is already receiving especially from Donald R Trump. Kamala Harris is a tough lady and I think she will be fine. She would't have accepted the job without having gone through in her mind all the likely repercussions. But Trump really did start off the anti-Kamala campaign in true style, calling her "nasty" and "horrible". He really does have a limited vocabulary when it comes to personal abuse. I'm sure the senator and former attorney general of California can cope with that. But what I fear is that being the first woman of colour to be a potential Vice-President of the United States she is going to face a lot more of that sort of personal attack. Trump is already saying she shouldn't be allowed to stand as vice-presidential candidate because her parents are immigrants of Jamaican and Asian origin. Well we went through all that nonsense when Barack Obama was running for president. Trump failed then to convince the American people that Obama was a non-American and he will fail again I'm sure to undermine Kamala Harris's eligibility to be the next vice president. Nevertheless there is something wholly distasteful and, dare I say it, racist, about the attacks so far on Biden's choice of running-mate. I'm sure Trump and co would have attacked anyone whom Biden selected as his vice-presidential choice. But Biden chose Kamala Harris and she is a black woman. The attacks on her personally are therefore dishonourable and....totally unsurprising!!

Harry and Meghan are not short of bathrooms

Harry and Meghan bless them have bought a house in Santa Barbara which has 16 bathrooms. Now I believe it's always a good idea, if you can afford it, to have a couple if not three bathrooms if you have a medium-to-large family to avoid the interminable wait outside the loo door when a member of the family is inside trying to complete a Sudoku. But 16 bathrooms!!! Now I appreciate that being a prince means you come from a long line of multiple bathroom owners. Buckingham Palace, for exampe, has 78 bathrooms. But then Buck House has a total of 775 rooms and they are often filled with frightfully important visitors and their flunkies. But Harry and Meghan have truly gone to town with their house purchase. It has nine bedrooms, more than enough to invite a near-neighbour Oprah Winfrey over with all her cousins. The mansion to be the new home for the prince and his Hollywood wife cost more than $14.5 million which we are told breathlessly by local estate agents is a snip because the previous owner had wanted $34 million. It has everything a young couple needs these days: large swimming pool, tennis courts, gymn, games room etc etc. I would say that's a touch more upmarket than their previous residence at Frogmore Cottage in Windsor Great Park, although even that property apparently had ten bedrooms. The point of all of this is that their purchase of what is called The Chateau in Santa Barbara makes their break from the Royal Family and from us lot still living as subjects of Her Majesty the Queen in Great Britain even more permanent. There is no going back and that makes me sad and probably will eventually make Prince Harry very sad and homesick as well.

Joe Biden went for my favourite choice!

I have been going on about Kamala Harris for months. So it's a moment of great satisfaction for me personally that Joe Biden has finally decided to agree with me and has chosen the Californian senator and former presidential hopeful to be his running mate. It is without question the right choice. All the newspapers have focused without any surprise at all on her being the first black woman ever to be chosen as a potential vice president and the first woman of Asian origin. But it's a crying shame that it has to be like this, that the colour of her skin has to be given such prominence. But even in these supposedly more elightened times, skin colour is still an issue. But for me Kamala Harris stood out amongst the original bunch of candidates as someone with style and leadership potential and experience and looked and sounded great. So, not a difficult choice as far as I'm concerned. But dear Joe has taken his time and been through all the review process before realising that she was always the frontrunner. There will of course be critics who will say Biden should have gone for Elizabeth Warren or Susan Rice. But now Kamala is the one I hope the Democratic party as a whole will praise her to the skies and give her all the backing she will need as Trump and co try to undermine her career and reputation and remind us all every minute of the day that she took Biden to task for his doubtful - he denies it - anti-racism past. I think Kamala Harris will be a star and I hope that another star of the Democratic party, Michelle Obama, will help her and guide her about what life is like in the White House. But first of course she and Biden have to beat Trump and Mike Pence and that is still not a given.

Thank you and goodbye - Trump's response to tough questions

Donald Trump has a new way of dealing with impertinent reporters who ask tenaciously penetrating questions on such matters as the Covid-19 pandemic and his handling of it, the trade war with China and his handling of it, Russia's interference in the 2020 election and his handling of it, whether masks are a good thing or a bad thing and his handling of it, riots and looting in American cities and his handling of it etc etc. He glares at the individual reporter, says "thank you and goodbye", and turns away from the lectern in the White House media briefing room and high-tails it back to the Oval Office where reporters are not allowed. In the old days, well older days when Trump was first president, he would stay and get angrier and angrier at the reporters in front of him but hold his ground, like the famous back and forth he had with the White House reporter from CNN Jim Acosta who asked the same question again and again and again. Eventually Trump said he was a bad man and should shut up and waved his index finger at him, and then carried on with other questions as if Acosta no longer existed. He then got his media team to ban Acosta from the White House. Now that was all great theatre and filled the headlines. I thought at the time Acosta pushed his luck and eventually became boorish, with him at the centre of the row instead of the question and the answer it probably deserved. But Trump has learnt his lesson from the Acosta days, particularly when he faces female reporters. Female reporters in Washington seem to be especially insistent and demanding and you can see Trump just longing to leave the lectern and go face-to-face with them. But, presumably after advice from his press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, he has realised that shouting back doesn't get him good headlines. So, instead, he does the lectern whirl around and bids the room good day. Whether this premature ending of the press conference irritates the rest of the White House correspondents or whether they all go along with the female reporter who has prevented them from asking their questions I don't know. But I expect it's a bit of both. Can you imagine, you are sitting at the back of the room representing a less glamorous newspaper and have this tantalising question to ask the president about a visit he made to blah blah blah, and suddenly Trump is off, and that woman reporter from a posh newspaper is still standing up demanding an answer to her interminable questions, you might be less than pleased. I can recall standing - no seat for the gentleman from The Times - right at the back of the media briefing room and waving my arm in the air pointlessly to ask a question and never being called upon to address the president. And that was with Barack Obama. Life is tough as a reporter in the White House!

Will Joe Biden's chosen running mate turn him down?

Now we're told Joe Biden will announce his selected vice presidential running mate NEXT week. But what if he decides to go for Senator Kamala Harris and she says no thank you. She would be an excellent running mate as I have said from the very beginning. But now someone who knows her and in fact used to date her, briefly, has come out of the woodwork to say that if she wants to be president some day, being Biden's vice president would be a disastrous move. Well, it's the old argument isn't it? Vice presidents on the whole go nowhere after being the Number Two, and during the time they are in the White House as the boss's deputy they don't seem to do very much except look supportive. Like Mike Pence now. There are exceptions. George HW Bush was vice president and rose to the top job. And Dick Cheney was the most powerful and influential vice president in the history of American politics but only because George W Bush let him. Would Joe Biden allow or want Kamala Harris to be super-powerful in his administration? I seriously doubt it. But of course in her case there is one factor that can't be ignored. Biden is 77 and he may not want to be an eight-year president - or be capable healthwise of doing two terms. In which case Kamala Harris would have a sporting chance to win the top job. But by 2024 she would be facing some pretty big guns from the Republican Party, notably Mike Pompeo, Nikki Haley, Marco Rubio and, I suppose, Mike Pence. Her only guaranteed chance of being president would be if Biden keeled over and had a heart attack or was generally too ill to perform the duties of chief executive. But let's not finish off poor old Joe and speculate on his early demise. He looks pretty slim and healthy and I hope he lives a long and fruitful life whether he becomes president or not. Kamala Harris or whoever becomes the running mate cannot count on anything bad happening to Biden and it would be grossly disrespectful and unseemly to have such thoughts. So it's back to the old old argument. Will being chosen for the vice presidential running mate role be the kiss of political death for Kamala Harris? Her former boyfriend (briefly!) ex-Mayor of San Francisco Willie Brown says she would be better off going for the job of attorney general. If she did well in that post it would be a good platform for her for a go at the presidency in 2024. My advice? If Biden asks you to be his running mate, say yes, Kamala, but if Biden wins in November, don't do the job like Mike Pence. Be a star in the land.

All the bad guys want a piece of the US election action

There is no such thing anymore as a normal, ordinary straight-up-and-down election with two opponents and the voters free to choose whom they prefer. In the US right now there are so many different actors trying to muscle in, it's a wonder the voters know who to believe from one day to the next. According to the latest US intelligence, China, Russia and Iran are the key players who are trying to persuade American voters to go for their chosen candidate or just to interfere for its own sake because they can. The assessment of William Evaniva, director of the US National Counterintelligence and Security Centre and a veteran intelligence official with decades of experience, is that China is interfering in the election because they don't want Trump reelected, Russia is doing the same but in order to back Trump to beat Joe Biden, and Iran is doing malicious stuff to screw it up for Trump because Tehran thinks the current president will carry on doing what he has done since he first came to the White House, introducing hefty sanctions to destroy the Iranian economy and stop them from developing a nuclear bomb. So Biden doesn't exactly get the green light from any of these countries. Their focus is on Trump one way or the other. Hopefully the American voters are wise enough to ignore all this outside interference and just vote according to their own instincts and political tastes without reading or believing all the tosh that China, Russia and Iran are spewing out. They will need Bill Evaniva to come back again and again to warn everyone what is going on.

God has entered the presidential election campaign

At some point God often enters an election. In the US presidential election campaign Donald Trump who clearly believes he has a divine link to the Almighty, has made the claim that Joe Biden, his Democrat rival, is against God and against the Bible and that if he gets elected president he will hurt God. It's a pretty bizarre accusation seeing as how Biden has always emphasised the importance of faith in his life. But God is now an issue. I don't know what was behind Trump's accusation. It came out like he knew something we didn't but basically he must have thought it was a good campaign idea and it probably is, especially in the US where religion and God and the Bible are put on the same pedestal as the constitution and the right to carry guns. Tony Blair when he was prime minister once gave a hint that he was a chosen one (by God) when he glanced upwards when he was asked a question about how he had made a certain decision. He may have been joking but somehow I doubt it. Trump I'm sure feels he is a chosen on. So if he loses the November 3 election and Biden sweeps into the White House where will God fit in then? Mind you, if Trump loses to Biden, God and the Bible are the last things he will be thinking about. His first and only thought will be that he was somehow robbed, either by the mail voting system or by the Chinese.

Joe Biden says no no no to border wall

This is what I love about political leaders! One comes into power and spends big money on his or her pet project and then he/she loses the election and the next one comes in and vows to knock it all down or stop building it or remove all the money for the next phase or just gets parliament/Congress to vote against it. Whatever it is. This is what is happening with The Wall across the Mexican border. Trump promised to build a wall across the whole frontier and badgered the poor old Pentagon to cough up billions of dollars to help pay for the construction. Trump didn't do that well. He did manage some wall-building but much of it was just replacing old fencing with new defences but The Wall has been getting longer bit by bit. Now Joe Biden who looks more likely every week to be the next president of the United States has made it absolutely clear that the Trump Wall will be cast aside. No more building, no grabbing of land from farmers, no more expense. The Wall is so yesterday and so Trump. It's over, kaput, finished. Well I'm no fan of the Trump wall, it's a mighty waste of taxpayers' money and pretty inhumane for the poor, desperate people who have walked for a thousand miles to get to the dream land in the north, away from their miserable often frightening lives in Guatemala and Honduras and Mexico where they have had to face living with the horrendously brutal and murderous drug cartels. Who wouldn't want to flee from that sort of existence? Dealing with this problem has to be done humanely and sympathetically and compassionately. But Trump wanted a huge wall to stretch across the Mexico/US border to keep them out, never mind what sort of terror they had escaped from. OK, so I'm against the wall. But all that time and money is going to get thrown away if Biden becomes president. Four years of wasted effort. Trump has been trying to destroy Obamacare ever since he entered the White House and still hasn't come up with a decent alternative. I just feel sorry for the poor American taxpayer. Their hard-earned money gets thrown into stupid projects like The Wall and then the next fellow comes along and leaves what has been built to rot away. Another white elephant bites the dust.

The mask era can be deadly

Apart from the unbelievable explosion in Beirut and the images which depicted what looked like a mini nuclear blast (but wasn't), the other story I found deeply disturbing was a report coming out of Paris. A man in his 40s enters a laundromat wearing a mask and sees a man standing there without a mask. He asks him to put on his mask to conform with the rules. The maskless man goes out outside and calls in three mates carrying baseball bats and they proceed to beat up the poor defenceless masked wearer, wielding their bats and striking his head and body. The vctim spends a week in hospital with a traumatised brain and bruises all over his body. Do I dare say it, this is the world we now live in? My experience: walking along a narrow pavement in a country village at the weekend with my oldest son, a couple up ahead walking towards us on the other side of the parked cars in the road. He is shortish, shaved head, tough-looking, she looks perfectly nice. As they pass, we smile and say hello, but once they are a few yards on from us, he turns round and shouts: "I hope you get Covid and f..... die." Clearly we should have said thank you very much for keeping apart by walking in the road. But he took it as an example of f.....middle class w.....s snootily ignoring him. Really alarmingly unpleasant. So this IS the new world. I have stepped off the pavement a million times since the pandemic arrived and a smile or not is fine. But beware the angry man, and beware the man without a mask who wants to make a statement. There are a lot of people around for whom the mask has become a symbol of hate and rebellion.

Trump is way behind Biden in California

California has always been a Democrat-favouring state but the latest poll shows Trump is very nearly 40 points behind Joe Biden. That's not just a huge gap, it's a hit in the face for the president as he tries to revamp his campaign to get reelected in November. Figures like that not only tell him how unpopular he is in the country's biggest state but also reflect a general mood in the country about the way Trump's first four years are being judged. Voters seem increasingly alarmed by the fragmented way the coronavirus pandemic has been handled. There is so much uncertainty and not much leadership. Polls often get it wrong but all the recent voter surveys have been unanimous: Biden is streets ahead of Trump. Not because he is a fantastic candidate for the presidency or inspires everyone with confidence and hope but because of the growing disaffection for Trump. Unless things dramatically change for the president, he is going to join the small elite club of presidents who only managed one term in office, either voluntarily or because they were ousted. This is one club that Trump never thought in a million years he would be forced to join. He still doesn't believe it but it's growing more likely every day.

For heaven's sake Joe Biden make up your mind

It's beginning to be a joke. Joe Biden just cannot make up his mind who to choose as his vice presidential running mate. If he gets elected on November 3, is he going to go through the same agonies over who to choose for his secretary of state and defence secretary and White House chief of staff and chief bottle-washer and.....? The papers are full of all his hesitations and doubts and changings of mind and musings. For heaven's sake pick the woman you like best and get on with it. At this rate he's going to select the wrong one. I can feel it in my bones. There will be a huge sigh of relief when he does make up his mind, followed by oh my God he has picked the wrong one, why didn't he go for XXX? As I wrote in a previous blog, having made the decision to pick a woman and definitely not a man, he has already limited his options, however good the women candidates are. In my view, instead of showing how strong he is by saying women only, he is now just demonstrating his weakness and prevarication by spending so much time worrying who will fit the bill best. It doesn't bode well for a decisive president. Surely gut instinct is the best formula for this selection process? I think Trump would have made up hs mind pretty quickly, not that he would have gone for a woman-only ticket. He chose Mike Pence without too much brouhaha and stuck with him, even though it would probably have been better for him and his prospects of reelection if he had dropped the automaton Pence and picked someone more glamorous and dynamic. Does Biden not have a gut instinct? The other thing that is definitely a sign of weakness and indecision is that it has become almost a given that if Biden wins he will only serve one four-year term because he would be in his 80s by the time his first term had been completed. Biden as far as I know hasn't stamped on this generally accepted view. But why hasn't he? Is he also thinking to himself, oh dear, I have to pick a person who will take over from me after my four years are up because by then I'm going to be all weak and feeble. I wouldn't want to vote for a man who thinks like that. I'd prefer someone who says, I'm a fit 77-year-old and by golly I shall be a super-fit 81-year-old and can't wait to serve my second four years. Actually I find this all rather pathetic. For goodness sake, Biden, sign up for the full eight years or drop out.

Beware: Russian agents are in town (Washington DC)

Here we go again. The Russians are at it once more, sending agents into Washington and elsewhere to spread fake news and false information around the place in order to bolster Donald Trump's chances of being reelected. It's apparently totally brazen but the American people so far have been kept blissfully unaware of what is going on. Why? Because the intelligence that has unmasked the Moscow plot is super-secret and can't be revealed to the public. That's what you call a Catch-22 situation. How do I know what the Russians are up to? Well, privileged members of Congress have received a top secret top-classified briefing and have tried to hint at what is going on without breaking their obligation to keep everything to themselves. Nancy Pelosi, House Speaker, and one of those who knows what's happening, didn't give much away other than to say that she was concerned the intelligence community was not being more open so that voters could be kept abreast of the Russian skulduggery. But others have been a little more indiscreet. Here is Democratic Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut who reveals a spicy piece of intelligence but hides it in a conditional clause. Very clever. "If the Russians are sending agents to the US to interfere in the election I don't care whether they are working for the Republicans or Democrats, there's no reason for not making that information public," he said. Remove the word "if" and you've got the story. Pelosi spoke of some "very specific ways" the Russians are interfering but couldn't reveal more. Someone else mentioned "Ukrainian actors". So watch out for a mass of dirty laundry about Joe Biden and his son Hunter and the Ukrainian gas company the son worked for. It sounds to me like the Russians are being so blatant that it has been pretty easy for the intelligence services to pick up on it. I expect over the next 90 odd days before the November 3 election, the "intelligence" will all come out one way or the other. But you can be certain that the president will downplay it all, if not dismiss it as fake news.

No election and Trump is still president in 2021?

Let's for the sake of argument theorise that the November 3 presidential election in the United States of America does NOT take place. As Politico brilliantly points out today, if there is no election Trump still has to leave on January 20 2021 because under the constitution he has to leave office after he has completed his four-year term on January 20 2021 UNLESS he is reelected to serve another four years. So, if there is no election in November, he still has to leave office. Politico goes on about who might take over under the rules and comes to the conclusion it would probably be Joe Biden in a temporary capacity until an election IS held. There are all kinds of complicated reasons for this, not the least being that the Senate will no longer be controlled by the Republicans after January 3 because they would no longer be registered members of the Senate until they also get reelected. But let's look at it another way. Let's say Trump makes a proclamation on, say, October 21, that he has taken legal guidance and for the safety of the nation and for the future of democracy and justice in the US, he has decided that it is in the best interests of the country that he remains as president until the pandemic is finally washed away, and that, therefore, he will continue to rule from the White House until a special committee of Congress comes to a conclusion that the pandemic no longer threatens the American people and a proper election can take place in, say, six months, leaving time for a full-throated campaign by both sides. I can see Trump doing exactly that. It would be a sacrifice on his part, a sacrifice for the nation. America First, time for personal sacrifice by the president himself. It might just work. It wouldn't be constitutional but times are unique and unique times call for unprecedented action. I could write the script. As of today nobody supports any suggestion of delaying the election, not the Republican party hierarchy, definitely not the Democrats and not by anyone who has any knowledge of the constitution. But desperate measures for desperate times. This story floated in a Tweet by the Man Himself earlier this week is not by any means the last we have heard of the option to delay the election. No, sir!