Top US intelligence chief declassifies unproven allegation against Hillary Clinton

Inexplicably, John Ratcliffe, the director of US national intelligence, has decided NOW to declassify details of an investigation into whether Hillary Clinton plotted to stir up a scandal involving Donald Trump and the Kremlin during the 2016 presidential election campaign. The claim had come from "Russian intelligence sources", allegedly. So the imputation is that, according to some sinister and mysterious Russians, the then Democratic Party presidential nominee deliberately fabricated a scandal linking Trump in a dark deed with Moscow to make sure he didn't win the election. Ratcliffe, a Trumpite and appointed to run the 17 US intelligence services earlier this year, admitted in a letter to Lindsey Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, that he didn't know whether any of this stuff was true. But still thought it was a good idea - less than five weeks from the November 3 election - to get the allegations out into the open. I thought intelligence services never put anything into the public domain unless they had pretty good proof that what they were doing was truthful, honest and accurate. Or am I being naive? This stuff about Hillary sounds and smells more like Russian dark disinformation to me. If this is the case, then Ratcliffe who should know better has done Moscow's job for them. Extraordinary. Hillary's spokesman described the contents of the Ratliffe letter as "baseless bullshit". I can just hear Hillary herself saying that. So much of the scandalous allegations about the 2016 presidential election was baseless bullshit, on both sides of the fence, Republican and Democrat, that it is impossible to know how much was pure Russian skuldugerry and how much was pure American political skulduggery. But for Ratcliffe, in his current position, to spread the word that Hillary may have been at the centre of an evil plot to tie Trump in with Moscow yet at the same time wash his hands of it is pretty outrageous. But then everything is outrageous about American politics right now. And don't tell me the Ratcliffe letter doesn't stink of politics. Just look at the Trump/Biden TV debate last night. Like two alleged grown-ups scrabbling around in the sandpit. Trump looked wild and violent and rabble-rousing. Biden just looked old.

Trump didn't pay tax shock! Like a lot of wealthy people

Nancy Pelosi says Trump's failure to pay tax over a long period is a national security issue. Somehow I doubt it. Trump like a lot of big-time dollar earners think of crafty ways of getting round their tax liabilities. That's why they employ accountants to see if they can avoid paying tax if there is any loophole around which can make it look lawful. Judging by the revelations in the New York Times which has found some source or sources inside the Inland Revenue Service prepared to hand over masses of confidential Trump tax return documents, the president lost so much money on his multiple property and business ventures that he was able to offset the losses against his tax liabilities for years. But I thought we knew that. So the revelations are not that revealing and not at all surprising. When the first lot of Trump tax "scandal" stories broke some years ago, the president summed up why and how he avoided paying millions of dollars in tax every year. He said he was smart. In other words, smart at avoiding paying tax because he had fancy accountants to skirt round the edges of what is allowed and what is forbidden. Would the American people think more of Trump if he had paid the full whack of taxes every year? Well, possibly. It's a bit like presidents who somehow managed to avoid the draft because they had an in-growing toenail or dodgy hearing. Trump of course escaped being sent to Vietnam because he had bone spurs in his heels. Nasty! But avoiding Vietnam and avoiding paying taxes somehow seems all part of the man who sits in the White House and a lot of Americans don't care very much because they vote for him and will vote for him again in November. The tax issue will come up in tonight's presidential TV debate in Cleveland Ohio, especially after Joe Biden cleverly published his 2019 tax returns on the eve of the debate. Now that's smart. But I doubt Trump will care a fig. Just as he claimed the New York Times tax revelations were "fake news" he will probably say that Biden's tax returns are fake news too.

What will history conclude about the UK government's anti-coronavirus fight?

I think it would be pretty fair to say that most people in the United Kingdom are now more confused than ever about what they can and cannot do to help counter the pandemic spreading further. There have been so many edicts, often contradicting each other, that it really is impossible to be sure about anything from day to day. Rule of six, mingling households, self-isolation, lockdown, masks here but not there, drinking until 10pm, then crowd out in the street, it's all getting mixed together in a mish-mash of pleas and rules and guidance and orders. Thousands of students go up to university for the first time and start enjoying the social get-togethers and then have to stay in their rooms and not move because of the sudden surprise surprise surge in virus cases. It's not just a farce. It's a romping disaster. I know we are all being warned that Covid-19 is the deadliest pandemic to hit the world since the last deadliest pandemic but is it right that it has totally taken over our lives? The Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak (future prime minister) said that we shouldn't live in fear of the virus. He's right. The students, bless them, are doing just that, living in fear and confusion. If this was a flu epidemic, would everyone be running around in circles not daring to go left or right? No, flu is flu, you feel awful for a few days, take to your bed and suffer from the heavy hot hot headaches and then after a bit get up have some food and get on with your life. For the majority of people catching Covid-19 that is also their experience. Obviously for the rest, the experience is much much worse and potentially life-threatening. But people die of flu every winter. In fact I think I'm right in saying that now in the so-called second wave of coronavirus fewer people are dying each day of the disease than would normally be dying of flu at this time of the year. This is not to play down Covid-19. Some of the images of the pandemic will remain with us for ever. But to counter coronavirus the government and all its ministers are giving the impression that they have turned into headless chickens. So when we get assurances that if Brexit goes ahead without an EU trade deal fixed by the end of October it will all be fine, absolutely no one believes them. No one!!

Amy Coney Barrett could make the difference on November 3

In every possible way Judge Amy Coney Barrett could become the big issue in the US presidential election. Appointing a new justice to sit on the Supreme Court in the United States is a big big big political event. It's huge! I don't suppose the majority of people in Britain have a clue who serves on the British Supreme Court. It's just not that big a deal. The Supreme Court here in UK is about the law. In the US it's about the law AND politics and social mores and, yes, it can be about who becomes the next president of the United States. So no pressure, Justice Barrett! By all accounts she is a seriously brainy lady but she is also super-conservative in her views on life - like abortion for example (against it big time) - and deeply religious. In other words perfect for Trump to select and move into position in the Supreme Court before November 3 to make sure he has the balance of conservative thinkers on the bench totally in his favour when the votes start coming in. Judge Amy Coney Barrett tells us it's all about the law but, hey lady, you know it's about much more than that. This is why the Democrats are going to fight tooth and nail to stop her being confirmed before the election, so that if Biden wins, she will be forced out of the reckoning and someone more liberal-minded can be slotted in. But confirmation has to be made by the Senate, not by the House, and the Senate is Republican-controlled. So unless a bunch of Republican senators decide to go all soft and refuse to vote for her confirmation there is every chance Trump will force the whole process through in double-quick time and get her seated well before November 3. Even Senator Mitt Romney, Trump's biggest critic in the Republican party, has agreed that the president has the right to nominate a new member of the Supreme Court even in an election year. Polls suggest the majority of voters would prefer the decision on the new Supreme Court justice, following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, should be postponed until after the election. But there is no way Trump is going to delay anything. I see fireworks ahead but success for Trump.

Biden sounds like he expects to win

The US presidential election campaign has reached a fascinating point. The first of the big TV debates between Trump and Biden will take place in Cleveland Ohio on Tuesday. But still the biggest and most interesting story is Trump's game-playing about whether he will stand down if he loses or whether he will find some legal or other reason for disputing the result if it goes against him and hanging on until it gets decided in the Supreme Court. The danger here for the Democrats and in particular for Biden is that they are beginning to sound too confident that Trump will lose. In fact Biden in a TV interview predicted that despite all the things the president has said about not necessarily leaving if he loses, Trump will step down peacefully in November. Biden clearly believes the polls and is fully expecting to beat Trump and become president in the normal way, leading to the traditional inauguration ceremony on January 20 2021. I think he said what he said to try and be nice to Trump and to paint him as a democratic president (with a small d) who will accept defeat gracefully. I think he must have said that with his fingers crossed under the table. Nobody really knows what Trump will do if he loses. If he loses really badly, then it's difficult to see how he can argue a case for asking the Supreme Court to decide. But if it's close then I fear we will have the full works, a mighty battle in the courts, with Trump staying on in the White House for as long as he can. It could be months of crazy government. The Republican hierarchy however are saying that there won't be a battle and that if the president loses he will go. All nice and quiet. It's what the constitution demands, they say. Yes, but this is Trump. He has given enough warning that he might not leave. The more confident-sounding Biden becomes that he will win might only encourage Trump to become more and more subversive, never mind the constitution.

Is a vacccine going to save us all?

What seems like a long time ago, we were all told that a vaccine against coronavirus was what would finally make the pandemic vanish but we would have to wait a year, maybe two or three years before the injections could begin. Now we're told that even if there is a successful vaccine, coronavirus is here to stay, like flu and colds. Not such a killer, but still around. And who knows perhaps another virus will emerge from somewhere and hit us all over again. It's hardly surprising that people have become somewhat disillusioned by the vaccine dream. There has been too much politics involved. First it was Russia claiming to have found the silver bullet but it was too early and no one believed Moscow. Why would you? Then Trump promised a vaccine by election day. Well you can't get much more political than that. Again, no one believes him. Now China claims to be heading the race and should have a real vaccine before anyone else and will be ready to sell it to every country on the globe. Well of course they will but who wants it? Yet another Made in China product! No one has a clue who is telling the truth and because of that the queues to get the first jabs will probably be quite short. The people I admire most are the volunteers who have said they are prepared to be given the vaccine and then be dosed with the virus to see if it works. That's amazing. Thank you. But I still worry about whether the vaccine, be it Oxford, American, Russian or Chinese, is going to save the planet. Obviously I hope it does, especially now that we are entering the second wave of the virus and the gloomy statistics are returning to ruin our daily lives.

Senior retired military don't like Trump

Nearly 500 retired military, diplomats and ex-administration officials have got together to sign a statement that supports Joe Biden for the presidency in November and warns against having another four years of Donald Trump. They'd rather have Biden in charge of the nuclear button than the present president. Well, it makes good headlines for the Democrats but I doubt it will have much impact on the average voter in the US. There is unquestionably a large masse of people who have served various administrations in either a military or civilian capacity who no longer or never did trust Trump as commander-in-chief. Many of the individuals on the list are not household names but there are a few big guns amidst the 500. The backing of the military is crucial for any president and Trump believes that the rank and file love him. To an extent that is true. He has given them big pay boosts and increased defence spending. But recent polls carried out among servicemen and women have shown that the president's popularity is waning, and judging by the number of resignations and sackings in Trump's administration since he came into office in January 2017, the top military are as about as wary as they could be whenever Trump gives them orders. James Mattis as defence secretary deliberately disobeyed some of Trump's orders if various memoirs are to be believed. Now we have a heap of retirees who have spoken out against Trump as commander-in-chief and praised Biden for being a decent chap who will woo back all the allies who have become disenchanted with both the president and the country he leads. Will Biden be the man to make all the allies happy again? I guess with his time as vice president under Barack Obama at least everyone knows him and will have made up their minds a long time ago whether they rate him as a leader. I think it's true to say that if Trump loses in November and does actually get round to leaving the White House with his luggage, there will be a great sigh of relief amonsgt the European allies at least. Biden would be so much easier to deal with. But Trump would say that's a weakness. Only his tough hit-em-hard approach to European allies had made them, or some of them, increase defence spending, he would argue. But still, Biden as president would be a helluva lot quieter and more gentlemanly. Whether, ultimately, that would be best for this challenging world we live in, that's another question. But 500 retired American military chiefs and diplomats have declared they have more faith in Biden than in Trump. So there.

Is the CIA wary of telling Trump what he should know about Russian interference?

In the intelligence world, secret stuff gets compartmentalised. Depending on what it is, it can also become an obsession for those who are engaged in working the material and sorting it into something meaningful. Take the Russian issue. Trump doesn't like being told that Putin is once again interfering in the US election. He didn't like it, in fact dismissed it, when the US intelligence community all agreed that Moscow DID inerfere in the 2016 election in order to ensure Trump won the White House and not Hillary Clinton. Now, as the 2020 election approaches, the US intelligence community is once again convinced that Putin is up to his old tricks and this time is interfering to do down Joe Biden's chances of winning. The CIA has a very secret department internally called Russia House and the analysts working inside spend every hour of every day focusing on what Moscow is up to. Of course they become obssesed. That's their job. Just as the team that was tasked with finding Osama bin Laden became obsessed with doing just that - tracking down the founder of al-Qaeda and delivering him up. It took them ten years. Now the Russia House is coming up with juicy stuff about Moscow's dirty doings behind the scenes in the 2020 election and according to a brilliant piece in Politico is finding it difficult to persuade Gina Haspel, CIA director, to pass it all onto the White House. Former CIA officials have claimed Haspel is reluctant to believe everything the Russia House is telling her and doesn't want to rock the political boat by revealing all to Trump who, judging by his previous reactions about Russian skulduggery, would bite her head off. So, the argument goes, don't tell Trump anything that will make him shout and scream but just give him stuff that he will be happy with. If this is true, then it's very bad news for the intelligence business because it means that secret material is being suppressed for the sake of keeping the White House happy.I don't know if this is true. I hope it isn't. Gina Haspel is not a political person by nature. She is a career intelligence officer, one who has spent most of her working life in covert operations around the world. But now she is the CIA director she is responsible for making decisions about what should or should not be passed on to the president. There is nothing new about that. I don't think anyone seriously doubts that Russia is trying to interfere in the 2020 election. The Russia House appears to have the evidence. But Trump doesn't want to know. For Gina Haspel it must be tricky as hell to decide what to tell him. But she will surely act with her instincts as a career intelligence officer and tell him what he needs to know, whether or not he scolds her or not.

Stay-at-home-go-to-work-stay-at-home edict

It was Michael Gove who first gave an inkling of what Boris had in mind and then Boris confirmed it. Gove, Cabinet Office Minister Extraordinaire (or some such title) suggested quite sweetly on the radio that after all it was probably best that people now going to work in their offices, as ordered/pressed by the government, should go home and start working from home. Again. Boris then stood up in the House of Commons and put us all on lockdown duty. Not quite lockdown as per March but pretty well lockdown. So not full lockdown but as close as dammit. Schools and universities will carry on functioning but everyone else should return to their sitting rooms. And if they don't there is a new threat. Not from Covid as such. But a last resort turn to the military to make sure everyone is wearing a mask, not mixing households, not engaging in raves on the local common, not playing rugby or doing anything sweaty like that, and basically not doing as they are told. Troops will be on standby to rush in with firepower - Boris's word - to instal discipline amongst the daring-to-disobey section of the community. Wow. It has come to this. The army is to be brought in. Now I'm all in favour of the government taking sensible precautions to keep this wretched virus pandemic at bay. But we are going backwards. The economy which was just beginning to stir itself and look slightly healthier is now going to hit rock bottom. And yet, as we know from the last seven months, managing everything on the basis that the worst scenario is the right scenario is potty. The quarter or half a million people who were going to die, as predicted by the government health advisers, never happened and is never likely to happen. Even with the 5,000-a-day infection cases in this second wave the number of deaths is very low. The total figure is more than 41,000 but it has been more than 41,000 for weeks and weeks. I know there are terrible stories of older folk being separated from their families as they lie in hospital intensive care units. It is heartbreaking.But the pandemic has to be seen within a context of balanced decision-making. Apocalyptic warnings of doom and disaster and Britain being on a "perilous" turning point are madness. You don't want to panic the country, Boris, but that's what you are doing. We want the truth but we don't want the truth as seen by the medical data analysts who have all been proved wrong from the beginning. Stay at home, sorry go to work, sorry stay at home, go on holiday, sorry don't go on holiday, start planning for family Christmas, sorry no Christmas this Christmas, just a few more weeks, sorry at least six months. Lockdown shockdown!!

The Osama bin Laden raid when Joe Biden advised "Don't go."

Rewriting history is a common feature of all politicians. What someone said some years ago comes back to bite them when they are standing for office and that's when the rewriting or reinterpreting begins. Take Joe Biden and the Osama bin Laden raid in May 2011. I was Pentagon Correspondent for The Times in Washington at that time and remember everything very very clearly. After Barack Obama made his historic announcement that bin Laden was dead, killed in an extraordinarily daring and risky raid on his secret compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, not far from a garrison bustling with Pakistani troops, there was a lot of focus on what the options had been for Obama, especially when it became clear that there remained serious doubts over whether bin Laden was actually in the compound. Yes, a tall bloke about the right size was seen walking inside the compound but always with his head down. None of the US surveillance satellites could pin down the face, just the slope of the shoulders and the walk. Never the face. My recollection is that when Obama asked how strong the intelligence was that the founder of al-Qaeda was the walker in the compound, he was told it was around 60 per cent strong. That's not a helluva lot, although other intelligence that had persuaded the CIA to pay attention to the Abbottabad compound was pretty good. Very good in fact. The options in front of Odama were basically: drop a huge bomb on the compound and annihilate it, carry out a special forces raid to make sure the target was the right one and capture or kill him depending on the circumstances, or wait. There were two very strong voices that advised the third option. One was Bob Gates, the defence secretary, and the other was Joe Biden, vice president. They both told Obama that it made sense to wait until the intelligence was much stronger. The bombing idea was fairly swiftly rejected because if they obliterated the compound they would never know if bin Laden was there and pulverised amidst the compound rubble. So it was special forces raid or delay. Obama went round the table in the White House situation room. He asked: "Go or don't go?" Both Gates and Biden said: "Don't go." Gates has never tried to rewrite history. In fact he fully acknowledged the advice he gave to Obama in his excellent, although somewhat overlong memoir, "Duty". He also confirmed Biden had taken the same line as him. Don't go. Now, as Biden enters the final six weeks before he will know whether he is to be the 46th president of the United States, there seems to be a different interpretation doing the rounds. In fact Biden has actually denied he was against the raid. He claims that after the meeting broke up in April 2011 he walked beside Obama through the White House and told him that he, the president, should act according to his instincts, guessing that he was up for authorising the raid. And he claims he told Obama that he was in favour of the raid. Obviously only Biden and Obama know what was said between them after the situation room meeting. What I do know is that inside the situation room when Obama asked him in front of everyone else whether he should go or not, Biden replied, "Don't go." The following morning Obama rejected the advice of his vice president and defence secretary and authorised the raid. The only person in the meeting who was adamant that the special forces raid was the right option was Leon Pannetta, then CIA director. Obama backed Panetta and sure enough the tall man walking round in circles in the Abbottabad compound WAS Osama bin Laden and he was shot dead as soon as he emerged from his bedroom on the first floor as two members of US Seal Team Six climbed the stairs. Personally I don't see anything weak or wrong about the Gates/Biden advice at the time. The intelligence wasn't strong enough and perhaps a delay of a few days to allow for a few more turns of a surveillance drone over the compound in the hope of catching bin Laden looking up might have made Obama's decision easier. But the fact is Obama decided to risk it. The CIA after all had spent ten years trying to find bin Laden. If the director of the CIA thought the intelligence was sufficient to go go go, then hell, go go go. What's not acceptable is for anyone who said "don't go" to now claim that actually he privately advised Obama to order the raid. Only Obama knows the truth but I'm pretty sure he won't be telling the world that his former vice president is telling a porky. Mind you, Obama has a memoir coming out after the November election. Perhaps he will reveal all then.

The repercussions of the death of Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg

The death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the most prominent and influential liberal member of the US Supreme Court, could not have happened at a more inopportune moment. Just 44 days before the November 3 presidential election, her death could present Donald Trump with the "trump card" he wants to ensure he is reelected. A change in the political balance on the Supreme Court, with Republican-appointed judges outnumbering the Democrat appointees could make a difference on the day. Why? Because Trump, if he loses to Joe Biden, will want to dispute it, claiming the result is rigged or fake or false or unsustainable or unacceptable and he will appeal to his friendly judges on the Supreme Court to back him up and produce a swift decision that will leave him in the White House. At least that's what I suspect he has in mind. And in the absence of the ever-sensible and inspirational Justice Ginsburg, the cards have suddenly changed in Trump's favour. He will nominate a replacement justice next week, a woman he says, who will have a reputation and record for conservatism of the highest order. It won't matter how often and how vociferously the Democrats urge the president to wait for any replacement decision until after the election, Trump will go ahead with his nomination this coming week. He is not in the business of being nice to the Democrats. Especially not now. Poor Ruth Ginsburg. How hard she must have struggled to stay alive until after the election, knowing the repercussions that would follow her death. She was a fine and battling lady. But Trump will benefit from her passing. There is no way round it.

Two US Space Force officers saved hundreds of lives

A STORY THAT DIDN'T MAKE THE TIMES~ Two female officers of the newly-formed US Space Force have been singled out for praise for saving the lives of hundreds of American troops attacked by Iranian ballistic missiles in Iraq in January. The two women, Captain Tasia Reed and Lieutenant Christianna Castaneda, were responsible for operating missile-warning satellites on the night Iran launched ten ballistic missiles on al-Asad air base in western Iraq. The base where 1,500 US and coalition troops were located had been on high alert for a revenge attack by Iran following the American drone strike outside Baghdad international airport which killed Major-General Qasem Soleimani, leader of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Quds Force. Captain Reed and Lieutenant Castaneda were on duty with the US 2nd Space Warning Squadron at Buckley air force base in Colorado in charge of four infrared surveillance satellites designed to detect the heat source of a ballistic missile launched from anywhere on the globe. The satellites also had a special sensor called a “step-starer” which could focus on a specific region, as was the case on the night of January 8. The US Space Force was only formed in December 2019 and for the two officers it was the first operational mission involving American troops under ballistic missile attack. General John “Jay” Raymond, chief of space operations, credited Captain Reed and Lieutenant Castaneda with personally planning the satellite-warning mission in the lead-up to the Iranian attack which provided the best-possible sensor coverage of the area. The coverage “resulted in vital early warning getting to the theatre of operations and preserving the lives of US personnel and their partners,” General Raymond said, speaking to a virtual conference of the air force association. “They operated the world’s best missile warning capabilities and they did outstanding work,” he said. US commanders at al-Asad, northwest of Baghdad, had prior intelligence warnings on the evening of January 7 that Iran was planning a missile attack. Many of the troops were flown out of the base. Captain Reed, 34, joined the military in 2011 as a cyber systems operator. Lieutenant Castaneda, 32, also joined in 2011 as a cryptologic language analyst. Those remaining behind to guard the base relied on the infrared satellites and the space force squadron in Colorado which gave them around 15 minutes to take cover before the arrival of the missiles. Although no one was killed, 110 US troops suffered from traumatic brain injury of varying severity. The US Space Force was set up at the instigation of President Trump. It was the first new military branch to be formed since the US air force was separated from the army in 1947. More 9 of 14,246 ends ends

A second-wave national lockdown could lead to more bursts of anger and violence

It's the worst possible news. The UK government is considering, nay planning, another national lockdown to try and make inroads into the second coronavirus wave already upon us. If I was a restaurant/pub/cafe/business/gym/swimming pool/etc owner I would now be despairing. After all the agony of trying to keep afloat financially in the last six months and beginning to see that sweet light at the end of the long dark pandemic tunnel, back it all comes again. The scientific experts warn the second wave will be even worse. More people will die, care homes will once again be breeding grounds and NHS intensive care units will be overwhelmed. It is tragic and cruel and totally depressing. While I suppose it is right to prepare for the worst and to tell us all that a second lockdown is on the cards, can we not just be trusted to be sensible, like the government did in Sweden, and carry on as normally as possible without having to be locked away in our homes? I fear not. Just look at the example that has come out today of a brutal assault on a 63-year-old man on a bus in London. The victim was followed onto the bus by a large well-muscled man wearing a mask UNDER his chin. In other words, no mask. So when he sat down next to the 63-year-old, the latter got up and moved to the back of the bus for health safety reasons. The man then followed him and delivered a vicious beating and kicking to the head. The victim woke up in hospital. This is what happenes in this Covid-19 world. Dare to make a protest about someone not wearing a mask or not wearing a mask properly on public transport and you risk a beating. I'm assuming the bus driver must have opened the doors, allowing this brutal attacker to escape, because the police are hunting for him. If we have a second lockdown, people are seriously not going to dare to go outdoors if this sort of incident becomes common. There is evidence of a growing anger and opposition to government Covid-19 rules, however sensible they are, and a second lockdown could be a disaster in every possible way. Let's hope it can be avoided.

White American police officer orders dog to bite black man

Sometimes headlines tell you everything you need to know. The content of the headline above is subject to police investigation and has already led to a criminal charge. But as is the way in the US justice system there is no such thing as subjudice. When someone gets arrested for some heinous offence, the defence attorneys and prosecutors and neighbours et al come out to say exactly what happened and who is to blame. You can't do that in the UK. Reporters in the UK know that there are things they cannot write for fear of breaching the most basic legal tenet in the history of the British legal system which is that a man or woman is innocent until proven guilty in court. In the US that's so different Thus we have the latest scandal involving a white American police officer and a black man arrested arising from some domestic dispute. The officer, one Nickolas Pearce from Utah, arrives on the scene in Salt Lake City and orders Jeffery Ryans, a black man, to get to his knees in his back yard. He had already warned him that if he didn't get on his kness he would get a bite from his canine. Ryans sinks to his knees with his hands raised as high as he can get them and then, and only then, does Officer Pearce order his dog to give the guy a bite in the leg for good measure. The bite is said to last 20 seconds. While on his knees and getting bitten another police officer steps forward and handcuffs him. Now, for American folk this may be just another day in the Salt Lake City police department. But in a country where white police versus black men as an issue has become one of the most controversial scandals in recent years, the dog-biting episode makes for very uncomfortable reading. You could argue, I suppose, that had the person involved in the domestic dispute been a fine upstanding white fellow, Officer Pearce might have acted in the same way. Go, Fido, bite him! I don't know but I doubt it somehow. Anyway, the result is that Officer Pearce has been charged with second degree felony assault, and the bitten Jeffery Ryans has got a nasty toothmark gash on his left leg and is heavily bandaged. In America, it is said, black people are warned from a very early age that if a police officer tells you to do something you do it, no argument. The trouble is the black man in this case did do as he was told but still got bitten by the white man's well-trained dog. The law will now take its course. Hopefully.

Could John Bolton go to jail?

John Bolton after a long career serving different presidents and building a reputation as a hard-man security and foreign policy warrior, is potentially in a lot of trouble with the law. He is being accused of publishing classified information in his recent mmeoir. It's a classic move by an administration that doesn't like being attacked by a former member of the cabinet and generally these sort of counter-punches end up going away. But could Bolton go to jail? The judge involved in the Justice Department case against Bolton declined to stop publication of the memoir, "The Room Where It Happened", but did conclude that the former national security adviser had deliberately flouted the non-disclosure agreement he had signed when he was appointed. A grand jury is now looking into the judge's decision to see if Bolton should face criminal charges. It would be a sweet moment for Trump if Bolton were to be charged because the president has a very simple notion of what is and what isn't classified information. In his view which he has expressed on several occasions is that EVERYTHING he, the president, says to his officials and advisers is by its very nature top secret. Everything. That means that when Bolton wrote what Trump said to him, whatever it was, that's classified. Therefore he, Bolton, is guilty of revealing classified information. Somehow I doubt a grand jury would go along with that. The judge just said that it looked like Bolton was in breach of his non-disclosure agreement, not that he had revealed secrets in breach of national security. Nothing that has come out so far from Bolton's book looks as if he has revealed things that nobody knew about. But if the Justice Department case against him is going to revolve around the legal argument that to betray Trump by writing nasty things about him is the same as breaching national security rules then it could be a long and complex court case.

Will Joe Biden's plan to move politically left turn off the voters?

Bernie Sanders was the first one to come out of the woodwork to raise concerns among the most liberal Democrats that Joe Biden might not be progressive enough if he were to win the White House in November. Bernie, the veteran socialist campaigner, appears to have stirred things up. Now Elizabeth Warren, a likely candidate for membership of Biden's cabinet, is also thought to be pushing hard behind the scenes for a very progressive manifesto that would include a massive economic stimulus package that would dwarf Trump's attempts to save the economy from the Covid-19 pandemic's destruction and he has spent nearly $4 trillion. There will also be tax swipes against the rich plus a much harder-hitting attack on Wall Street than Obama ever considered. In fact Obama hardly touched Wall Street, much to Bernie's dismay. Biden is under pressure to go left left left and rebuild the US economy with the help of a gigantic borrowing programme. If voters in general get the feeling that Joe Biden is going to be a socialist president, chucking out everything Trump has tried to do to improve the economy, will this be an election winner? Socialism is a tricky word in the United States The great progressive socialist reformers like President Theodore Roosevelt changed the US for the better. His "square deal" programme for the average American transformed lives and livelihoods. But this was at the turn of the 20th century. We're in a different world today. Many Americans still have the attitude that life is about taking care of yourself in your own way and the less government interferes the better. They certainly don't want some all-embracing socialist system that in some way undermines the American Dream. To them, socialism is a bad word. As indeed it is to Trump who will no doubt harangue Biden and the Democrats for wanting to turn the country into a benefits, welfare nation incapable of fending for itself. Biden will have to be careful not to turn himself into a Bernie Sanders. Bernie was never going to win the presidency because of his perceived extreme socialism. Biden dare not go down that road or he will lose the election race. On the other hand if he is too middle-of-the-road, he will be decried as another Obama who for all his political and personal talents never did quite enough to rescue the economy from the 2008 financial recession and often prevaricated over key foreign policy decisions. Whatever Biden decides to offer the American people, Trump will be right behind him to pounce with warnings of socialism with a very big S.

UK warns over Russia's nuclear-powered cruise missile

MY TIMES STORY NOT IN THE PAPER TODAY: A British intelligence chief has warned of the future threat posed by a Russian experimental nuclear-armed cruise missile designed to fly at under the speed of sound around the Earth for years. “Moscow is testing a subsonic nuclear-powered cruise missile system which has global reach and would allow attack from unexpected directions, “Lieutenant-General Jim Hockenhull, chief of defence intelligence, said. General Hockenhull appeared to be referring to the SSC-X-9 Skyfall, first revealed by President Putin in 2018. The cruise missile is to be powered by a mini nuclear reactor, potentially giving it almost limitless range and endurance. One of the experimental missiles exploded in August 2019, killing seven people, at a military base in Nyonoksa in north-west Russia, indicating that the programme was suffering from significant technological challenges.However, General Hockenhull warned that such a missile would give the Russians a “near-indefinite loiter time”, posing a constant threat. Russia’s development of this novel ever-present missile system is one of the future threats being taken into account in the UK government’s security and defence review which is due to be published in November. General Hockenhull said the nature of warfare was changing rapidly in ways that would challenge the West to keep pace with adversaries “who do not play by the rules”. In his 2018 speech Mr Putin said the cruise missile powered “by a small-sized superpower nuclear power plant” would be “low flying and barely noticeable” with an “unpredictable trajectory”. The cruise missile, called Skyfall by Nato. has a claimed in-service date of 2025. It was high on a list of several new weapon systems announced by the Russian leader in 2018. Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, cast doubt on Mr Putin’s new “wonder weapon”. “Of all the new Russian weapons the one I thought the least likely to enter service was the nuclear-powered cruise missile,” he said. “The view from the US community is that the Russians are struggling to make this work,” Mr Barrie said. “For a missile to be able to loiter for years, I find it hard to believe simply because if there is anything mechanical that relies on oil, that’s going to go wrong at some point however good the nuclear reactor is,” he said. The Ministry of Defence’s intelligence chief was speaking at a media briefing at RAF Wyton in Cambridgeshire, where the UK’s hub for the five-nation Five Eyes intelligence organisation is located. The other members of the exclusive intelligence club are the US, Australia, New Zealand and Canada. About 700 analysts from all five countries are housed at RAF Wyton.

California and Oregon serve as a frightening warning for all of us

If it wasn't for the coronavirus pandemic and the concern over the future of the world economy, the terrible fires in California and Oregon would be alarming the whole world. Why isn't climate change the biggest topic for the US election campaign? Well, it's simple. Trump for a start doesn't believe climate change is responsible for anything going wrong with the world's weather, and Joe Biden who does have a big climate-change plan ready to go, apparently, has been running such a low-profile quiet campaign that he has, in my view, made insufficient impact to persuade the American people that he can save the US and the planet from being burnt up or flooded in the next 20, 30, 40 years. What's happening in these two US states right now - intense heat, loss of life and property and endless fires - should surely serve as a warning to all politicians of whatever persuasion. I don't think it will persuade Trump to drop his scepticism about climate change but on his visit to California to see the devastation I hope he might just begin to have second thoughts. What worries me is that in America - also in the UK - there is no unanimity on this issue. Governments who do believe the climate is changing for the worse claim to have grand plans and promise to lower the carbon signature etc. But we are no longer talking abut something that will hit the planet so far in the future that it's difficult to get really worried. This is happening now and will get worse. I'm sure the people of California and Oregon are now becoming climate-change converts. Perhaps, as a result, the fires in these two states could become a major political issue when Americans vote on November 3. And maybe even Trump will see the way things are going. Could he lose the election because of his wilful rejection of the climate-change disaster facing the planet? Probaby not. But if the fires are still burning in California and Oregon, it might just have an impact on voting.

President Trump and his new secret nuke

MY STORY UNUSED IN THE TIMES TODAY: The Pentagon appeared unaware yesterday of what President Trump had in mind when he declared the US had built a new secret nuclear weapon. “We’ll have to refer you to the White House to clarify what the president meant in his remarks,” a Pentagon spokesman said, after Mr Trump’s claim appeared in The Washington Post, based on interviews with the journalist Bob Woodward. Although the Pentagon was reluctant to make any comment, there appear to be several possible candidates for this “new weapon”. In February the Pentagon confirmed that a US Navy ballistic missile submarine, USS Tennessee, had deployed for the first time with a new low-yield nuclear warhead on at least one of the 20 Trident missiles on board. The explosive yield of the W76-2 is secret but is estimated to be around five kilotons, compared with the maximum 455-kiloton warheads on the other Trident missiles. The smaller warhead was developed as a deterrent to Russia whose military doctrine embraces the concept of using tactical nuclear weapons in a limited regional war in the event that Russian conventional forces failed to achieve victory. There are also Pentagon plans to design a next-generation warhead for Trident missiles, called W-93, due to be in service by around 2040. The details of this new weapon are classified. Another candidate is a nuclear-armed hypersonic missile. The US Air Force has expressed an interest in having such a system fitted to the next intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which is currently under development and is due to replace the Minuteman III, already 50 years in service. Northrop Grumman, the US defence company, has his week been awarded a $13.3 billion contract to develop a new ICBM called the “ground-based strategic deterrent” (GBSD). Expected to be built by around 2028, the whole programme could be worth more than $85 billion over the next few decades. In his remarks to Mr Woodward for his new book, Rage, not yet published, Mr Trump is quoted as saying: “I have built a nuclear – a weapon system that nobody’s ever had in this country before.” “We have stuff that you haven’t even seen or heard about. We have stuff that Putin and Xi [President Xi Zinping, the Chinese leader] have never heard about before. What we have is incredible,” Mr Trump said. Mr Woodward said US officials had confirmed the president’s claim and were surprised at Mr Trump’s disclosure. The president has made other claims in the past about the development of new weapon systems. He has on a number of occasions spoken of a “super-duper missile”. It turned out he was referring to the first successful flight test of a hypersonic glide vehicle in March. This was part of the Pentagon’s accelerated programme to develop a non-nuclear hypersonic weapon that would travel on the edge of the Earth’s atmosphere at up to Mach 20, or 20 times the speed of sound. Russia and China have similar programmes. In remarks on the super-duper missile in May, Mr Trump claimed it would fly “17 times faster than what they [Russia and China] have right now”.

Was Trump right not to panic the people over coronavirus?

In his latest book Bob Woodward of Watergate expose fame reveals that Donald Trump accepted the seriousness of the upcoming coronavirus pandemic way back in February but kept his alarms to himself and adopted an optimistic view for the public so as not to spread panic. Woodward interviewed him months ago. But now The Washington Post has publicised some of the juiciest morsels from the as yet unpublished book, Rage, and the paper has made a huge fuss over how the president effectively lied to the country about the severity of the pandemic. Most of the stories that appeared in the early stages of the pandemic seemed to suggest that Trump was dismissive of the whole thing, saying the US would keep the virus at bay. But now according to the Woodward account Trump was deliberately playing down the impact of Covid-19. Trump has hit back, saying if Woodward thought his approach was dangerous for the nation then he would surely have written something about it a long time ago. I suspect Woodward, being an old pro, thought he would keep that bit close to his chest imagining what a big headline it would make nearer the time when his book was about to hit the streets. I don't think that's too cynical. Anyway, Trump is angry and is attacking Woodward, athough to be honest he was asking for trouble giving the veteran reporter 18 hours of his time to help fill out the book. Why on earth did Trump agree to it? Well it's obvious. Everyone, from presidents downwards, wants to be interviewed by Woodward because he is the most famous reporter in the US. Sorry Carl Bernstein, fellow Watergate investigator, but he makes bigger headlines than you do and has churned out so many books I assume he is already preparing to do one on Joe Biden whether he makes it to the White House or not. Someone in the White House will say to Trump: "Don't worry Mr President, all publicity is good publicity." But it's a thin line. Will the public accept Trump's insistence that he wanted to keep the nation calm and tried to be a reassuring president and not create panic, or will they think, as The Washington Post and many others are claiming, it shows he was ignoring what was going on and lied to the nation about the risks of Covid-19? With more than 190,000 American deaths from Covid-19 and the biggest deficit in US history, I guess many people might say: "You should have told us the truth from the beginning." On the other hand there is merit to the argument that Trump was trying to stop panic and as a leader that wasn't necessarily a bad thing to do.

Trump is scaring people to vote for him

I lived and worked in the US for three years. That does not mean I can claim to be an expert in making any judgments about either the US or Americans in general. However, for what's it's worth here are my judgments. I believe the American people are currently scared about the future. They are scared about the economy, they are scared that America is no longer the all-powerful nation it used to be, they are scared they are no longer special. There are too many enemies: coronavirus and China topping the bill. They want a mighty champion to lead them to a wonderful and prosperous future for them and their kids. Now you could argue that all this uncertainty and fear and doubt is Donald Trump's fault. He is the president of the United States after all. So under his watch a lot of things have gone wrong. He is to be blamed, one could argue, and please God let's have Joe Biden to put it all right. And Kamala Harris. But this is America. This is NOT the way it works. OK, a lot of people, mostly Democrats but a lot of Republicans too, do blame Trump. The coronavirus pandemic has not been handled well, China has been taken on but remains a serious threat to everything American and politics from the White House has become a daily shouting match. But in many people's eyes Trump and only Trump is the man to take them out of this chaos, and they will never see Biden as their champion. Maybe he's just too nice and ordinary for the American voters who want a Big Man with a loud mouth and a tub-thumper for putting America First. That catchphrase of Trump's still rings true today. American voters like a man who puts them and their nation first before all those damned interfering foreigners. Trump is now doing what he does best. He is adding to the fear by claiming a vote for Biden will lead to destruction and anarchy. The more he says it the more people will or might believe it. It's raw, brutal politics and it's coming from a man who always said he wasn't a politician, not like all those namby-pambies in Washington. Biden has promised to reinstate integrity and revive America's Trump-shattered reputation around the world. But a huge number of Americans really don't worry about America's reputation in foreign capitals. All they want is for their nation to be the best, the most powerful and the most dominating and they want a warrior in the White House who will fight for them and keep them safe. Do they see Biden as a warrior? No they don't, in my view. Do they want the next four years to be calm and peaceful and boring? Weirdly, the answer could also be no. What they want is a fighter, a scrapper who will bestride the world stage on their behalf and take no nonsense from anyone. Concession, compromise policies is not for them. They have had a mighty beast in the White House for three and a half years and they just might want to hang on to him for another four years, to hell with all those liberal nancies. I realise this sounds like I'm referring to the extreme conservative section of the US. But America is different from any other country. As the 2016 eection showed there were people of all different persuasions who openly or secretly were Trump fans. They probably still are, despite what has been one of the most outrageous, controversial, alarming first presidential terms in US history.

Two fuselages, two cockpits, one plane: Twin Mustang for sale

AN EXTENDED VERSION OF MY STORY IN THE TIMES TODAY: For an enemy fighter pilot spotting the US Air Force Twin Mustang for the first time it must have seemed like a severe case of double vision. It consisted of two aircraft – two fuselages, two cockpits - joined by the wing and a horizontal stabiliser to form a two-for-one aerial dogfighter. In the Korean war in the early 1950s the P-82 Twin Mustang gave the Americans an instant advantage because of its double-dose speed (maximum 475mph), acceleration, climbing power, agility and sheer novelty.Sadly for such a unique design, the aircraft’s combat days were short-lived. After the first jet-engined fighter arrived on the scene in the last two years of the Second World War, it was the beginning of the end of the propeller-driven Twin Mustang. It was assigned to the scrapheap. A prototype, the XP-82, ended up in a huge junkyard in Ohio surrounded by other obsolete aircraft of every variety and size. The junkyard was owned by the late Walter Soplata who spent his time rescuing some of the most famous planes in aviation history from the scrapheap, providing a safe haven in the hope that some enthusiast might be persuaded to buy one to restore it to its former glory. The heavily damaged XP-82 Twin Mustang at Mr Soplata’s junkyard caught the eye of Tom Reilly. To describe Mr Reilly as an aircraft enthusiast would be an understatement. It would be the equivalent of saying Lewis Hamilton quite likes driving fast cars. Mr Reilly’s backyard has aircraft in it like other people have lawn mowers and bicycles. Thirteen years ago he bought the sorry-looking Twin Mustang and took it to his metal workshop in Douglas, Georgia where he spent the following 12 years restoring it. He is now 78 years old. “It took me 214,000 man and woman hours [there’s a woman in the team],” he told The Times. All the parts had to be hand-made. The restored Twin Mustang is now in perfect flying order and fully certificated and is up for sale for $12 million. “I’m open to offers, I’ve had some interest but I don’t have to sell it,” he said. “I’ve flown it. It climbs and accelerates like crazy.” He flew in the right-hand cockpit where the radio operator sat. “But you can fly it from both cockpits. They have duplicate instruments, throttle control, fuel pumps and joystick. The only thing you can’t do from the right side is start the engines and get the landing gear up,” he said. The double-fuselage aircraft, designed by North American Aviation, followed the famous Second World War single-fuselage P-51 Mustang. The idea was to have two pilots available in their separate cockpits, so one could take over from the other on long flights. The XP-82 with two Merlin V12 engines has only flown a total of 28 hours in its life. Its first flight since being restored was at an airshow in July last year organised by the Experimental Aircraft Association in Oshkosh, Wisconsin. It was the first Twin Mustang to be flown for 30 years. Chris Henry, the association’s museum programme coordinator who ran the show, said: “It’s the strangest-looking plane. There are only five surviving airframes.” He said it was designed as a long-range aircraft to escort bombers but came too late to serve in the Second World War. “But it saw combat in the Korean war and the archives record numerous dogfight victories,” he said.

We're living in the "whatever" world

According to witnesses the suspect who was allegedly responsible for the death of one man and serious injury to seven others in knife attacks in Birmingham in the early hours on Sunday was overheard making a remark as he wandered down the street while people shouted that someone had been stabbed. It was only one word. "Whatever". Well this suspect has now been arrested, so the less I say about that remark the better for legal reasons. But as a word it seems to sum up a helluva lot of what is going bad these days. The thousands of younger people who have flown off to Greek islands and frollicked in huge crowded numbers on the beach at night drinking and carousing didn't seem to care less about the possibility of catching coronavirus as they enjoyed themselves all night. Weren't they worried about the virus spreading among them? Whatever, seems to have been their general reply. Now the whatever brigade is going to be returning to the UK and will be obliged to spend two weeks in quarantine because the UK government has named five Greek islands where Covid-19 is rampant. Quarantine? Whatever. As for the government's appeal for everyone to go back to work in order to save the shops, restaurants and cafes in our towns and cities that rely on commuter trade, the response so far seems to be the same. Whatever. Working from home is fine thank you, it means you can watch the cricket/football/golf/East Enders at your leisure while doing the odd bit on the computer. But people's livelihoods are at stake!! Whatever. Taking it to a higher political scale. Trump and Putin are both whatever men. Boris too in some respects, especially when it's about Brexit and the likelihood of no trade deal with the EU. The virus is rampant in the US but Trump wants everyone to ignore it and get on with earning money for the country. Virus? Whatever. Putin is told the world is outraged at the Novichok poisoning of Alexei Navalny, his hated opponent. "Korochi", Putin may have replied. Whatever. It was nothing to do with him after all.

Michael Cohen the disloyal servant of Donald Trump

Fortunately I know I'm not being libellous by calling Trump's former friend, lawyer and fixer "disloyal" because that is what he has called his memoir of his days working closely with the president. Entitled Disloyalty, the book by Trump's former confidante, perhaps most notorious for the keep-quiet payments he made to adult film star Stormy Daniels on behalf of the president, includes a plethora of name-calling. According to his memoir, this is what Cohen really feels about his former employer in the White House: he's "a cheat, a liar, a fraud, a bully, a racist, a predator, a con man." Wow, that's some list of insults. And I thought they got on so well! I've lost count of the number of memoirs that have emerged in Trump's three and half years but the only ones that I recall had anything nice to say about Trump were by Nikki Haley who served as US ambassador to the United Nations before she resigned, Sean Spicer, Trump's first and highly combative press secretary, and Sarah Huckabee Sanders, another press secretary who survived longer than most. The rest have been merciless. Cohen has produced every abusive word he can think of to fill his memoir. And he claims Trump was involved in covert and overt attempts to get the Russians to interfere in the 2016 election. If all the other books attacking Trump are anything to go by, the president will just dismiss his former lawyer as a liar and accuse him of writing page after page of fake news. On the face of it Cohen's memoir is devastating but I suspect a lot of Americans are probably bored with all these books and won't read them anyway. But has any president in the past had to confront so many former aides and officials so determined to rubbish the man in the White House during his first three or so years in office?

Trump won't go, Bernie Sanders warns

Now Bernie Sanders, the old political warrior, has joined the cries of warning that Donald Trump, facing defeat in November, will refuse to leave the White House. It's an extraordinary possibility, almost unbelieveable except that we're talking here about a president who has on several occasions suggested that the only way he can lose the election is if it's rigged or there's fraud in the mail-in ballot system. So whatever happens on November 3, Trump is almost bound to say that the result, if he loses, is not safe or accurate or lawful. The chances are that if a large proportion of voters makes use of the postal ballot then there is going to be a delay in announcing the winner. So during the hiatus of days, maybe weeks, Trump will of course still be president and he could use that time to emphasis to the nation that whatever emerges he should stay in the White House. Bernie Sanders is calling on the media and Congress to keep a watch out and constantly to sound the alert that Trump is plotting to evade or ignore the election result if Joe Biden slips in front. But what if there's a landslide victory for Biden? I doubt that would stop Trump. He will still say the voting system is faulty. This is an unprecedented situation. I'm not aware of any former American president announcing that he will not stand down. Is Bernie Sanders right to give his warning or is he just playing politics? We don't know yet but everyone in the US should start getting very nervous.

Did Trump really call dead soldiers losers?

Everything that the president of the United States says eventually hits the headlines, whether it be in private or public. Donald Trump gets the full treatment largely because he says some pretty extraordinary things on ocasions. In fact very regularly. I need hardly mention the advice to drink cleaning fluid to get rid of coronavirus. But now the Atlantic magazine has come up with a long article that includes the allegation, sourced to several unnamed officials, that he called soldiers killed in war and buried in cemeteries as "losers". Trump has angrily denied saying any such thing, insisting that everyone knows he is devoted to the military and thinks of them all as heroes.The article claims that in 2018 Trump refused to go and honour American servicemen killed in the First World War at a cemetery near Paris because the pouring rain would ruin his hair and he had no interest in going to a place where losers were buried. To be honest I cannot imagine anyone, let alone the US president, saying such a ghastly thing. Maybe he did use the word losers but in a different context. I'm trying to be impartial. I remember the row at the time about his hair. It had been bucketing in France all door - chats et chiens - and there were a lot of stories claiming that Trump was worried about his hair. But I also remember at the time that this was totally denied and that it was the Secret Service who refused to let him go to the cemetery because they were worried about road conditions for the convoy of heavy cars. Which explanation is true I don't know. But I do know the Secret Service is always excessively cautious about the president of the United States going anywhere, and the pouring rain might have been a reason to call off the cemetery visit. But did Trump really add that he didn't want to go anyway because the cemetery was filled with losers? Could he have said that? If he did then he deserves all the opprobrium coming his way. If he didn't or he was referring to something or someone else, like perhaps the Secret Service for stopping him going, then he has been outrageously libelled. Either way, it's the sort of allegation which will linger in the air for the next two months leading up to the November 3 election. Joe Biden is bound to bring it up. Who are these officials who overheard Trump saying it, or thought they did? Perhaps it's the Chinese putting it about! Trump has said so many weird things in the past that a lot of people will believe he described war-dead soldiers as losers, however hard he denies it.

Novichok, Russia's alleged assassination weapon of choice

It's the most breathtakingly blatant assassination attempt since two Russian GRU military intelligence officers casually sprayed deadly Novichok nerve agent onto the handle of the front door of Sergei Skripal, Russian double agent, in Salisbury in 2018. Alexei Navalny, Russian opposition leader and a vociferous critic of Vladimir Putin, is lying in a coma in a hospital intensive care unit in Berlin, suffering from Novichok poisoning, according to the German authorities. The nerve agent was by all accounts slipped into his tea while he was at an airport in Siberia or during the flight he took back to Moscow on August 20. If it happened while he was flying, surely an investigation of all the other passengers should uncover the suspect or suspects. If it was administered before he got on the flight, then something must have gone wrong because this military-grade nerve agent developed by the Russians in a secretive laboratory normally takes no more than two minutes to get a reaction. But Navalny was presumably feeling all right when he sat down in his seat on the aircraft. It was only mid-flight that he suddenly became ill, and the captain had to divert the plane. So the Novichok deliverer/assassin must have been on board. The Kremlin has denied any involvement or knowledge of this attempt to kill Putin's main political opponent. So that's ok then. Now we have to look for other suspects! Whatever the international community discovers in the promised full investigation,the Kremlin will continue to deny any part in the attempt to murder Navalny. If the Skripal incident is anything to go by, no Russian will ever be arrested, let alone found guilty in a court and sent to prison. Many Putin critics in Russia, including investigative journalists inquiring into government corruption, have been found dead in mysterious circumstances over recent years. But the Navalny case is no mystery. He died from ingesting Novichok nerve agent, fed to him by someone who had access to this killer agent from government stocks and who intended to kill him.

Does China want Joe Biden to win?

China, according to anyone of influence and knowledge in Washington, poses the greatest threat to America's national security interests now and in the future. For ever. Russia is pretty bad but China is the one with all the money and the long-term planning and a total addiction to greatness and military power. President Xi Zinping said he wanted China to be a world class military by 2049 and by golly, or whatever the Chinese say, he intends to be around when this edict is achieved. But right now, does it matter whether Beijing wants Trump or Biden to win the November 3 election - or reelection in Trump's case. Trump has said that he has seeen all the intelligence and the intelligence community believes that Beijing is supporting Biden for the presidency. In other words, they don't want Trump back in the saddle for the next four years. Well no one in the intelligence world in the US has said publicly that China is engaged in a subversive operation to do down Trump and back Biden. In fact Bill Evanina, the extremely smart head of the US National Counterintelligence and Security Centre, part of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, made no suggestion that China was pushing for Biden to be president when he appeared before a Senate committee recently. Trump believes otherwise based on something or other! I don't believe China would be so obvious in showing their preference. That's not the way the Chinese Communist Party works. In fact I doubt they have a preference at all. They can't like Trump after all the grievance he has given them. But I can't imagine Beijing is a devoted fan of Biden either. Russia is different. They are blatantly supporting Trump to be reelected and doing it in all kinds of underhand ways. But China? No I don't think so. Beijing will be watching with the usual inscrutability and will just carry on building a military power to rival the US in as quick a time as possible. Whether Trump or Biden win on November 3, that will not change. Beijing probably doesn't even care that much.

The military are going off Trump

According to a new poll among active-duty troops carried out by Military Times in association with Syracuse University Trump's popularity among servicemen and women is dropping significantly. This could be a big deal for Trump as he has always boasted, accurately, that the military love him because he has spent so much new money on defence and has boosted the pay of everyone in military uniform. But now for the first time the numbers are not looking so good for the president. Just under 50 per cent of troops questioned said they had a poor view of Trump, compared with 38 per cent who approved of him. Not that long ago surveys showed a general satisfaction with Trump, a majority at least. Now more troops than before have said they would be voting for Joe Biden instead. The poll was taken before the Democratic and Republican conventions, so that might have made a difference. But the military reflect the more conservative political views of the nation, so any downward support among the military could be a significant signal. Trump doesn't believe in polls, so it probably won't ruin his day. But the military poll and all the other surveys which show Biden still well ahead on points are definitely sending a warning to the Republicans. They must be feeling a little uneasy. Could Trump actually fail to win reelection? Two months to go and Biden still in the lead! But increasingly I feel Biden is ahead not because he is such a star and visionary but because he isn't Trump. The two men are direct opposites in every possible way. Can you win an election because you aren't anything like your opponent? Somehow that doesn't seem enough. Biden is going to have to do a helluva lot more than complain about Trump if he is going to win this election on November 3.