Should the Gitmo detainees be priority-vaccinated?

Nearly 25 million Americans have now been vaccinated which is more than seven per cent of the population, still a low level but the programme is moving pretty fast, particularly with those perceived to be in the most vunerable part of the community - the elderly and sick. So why did the Pentagon suddenly announce that it was planning to go ahead with offering vaccination to the 40 terrorist-suspect detainees who are still incarcerated in the Guantanamo detention camp in Cuba? You could argue on humanitarian grounds that if Covid were to get into the three main camps, Camp 5, Camp 6 and Camp 7, then the virus could run rampant very quickly and there could be serious-illness cases or fatalities. Should the US care about that? Well of course it's not just about the 40 detainees. There are still around 1,500 US troops guarding them and they need to be protected. It doesn't make a lot of sense to vaccinate the guards but not those they are guarding, even though they are doing so behind a glass-barrier screen. There's minimal contact between detainees and guards. I aassume the education pogramme they have at Gitmo, such as art classes where civilian teachers go inside the cell block area, were stopped a long time ago because of Covid. But vaccinating terrorist suspects regarded by successive US administrations, and I'm sure by Joe Biden as well, as the most dangerous "enemy combatants", five of them charged with mastminding the 9/11 deaths of nearly 3,000 people, is terrible PR. Sure enough, when the Pentagon made the announcement there was furious reaction from Republican congressmen who said it was despicable that while vulnerable American citizens were still waiting for their jabs because of a shortage of supplies, the Pentagon was going to give jabs to the 40 detainees in Guantanamo. The Pentagon, under fire, quickly announced a "pause". A smart move under the circumstances. But some of the detainees are not well and were they to catch Covid and die, there will be a lot of human rights lawyers who will denounce the Pentagon for failing to protect the terrorist suspects. Let's see how long the "pause" lasts.

Afghanistan: war by troop numbers

The analysis that went with my Times story on Afghanistan today: Ending the war in Afghanistan has been all about numbers. US troop numbers. Barack Obama sent thousands more but set a deadline for their deployment and Donald Trump wanted to pull them all out by Christmas. Joe Biden, president for ten days, now has a dilemma: does he stick with the Qatar deal signed by the US and the Taliban on February 29 and withdraw the remaining 2,500 American troops by May, the timetable set by last year’s agreement, or should he impose new conditions? The background into the numbers game provides an insight into how the politicians and the military often argue at different ends of the spectrum. When Mr Trump declared during the presidential election campaign that all US troops would be home for Christmas, he did so without any consultation with General Mark Milley, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, his principle military adviser. According to senior US defence sources, General Milley was the only one who stood up to Mr Trump and argued against not just the Christmas pull-out but also the eventual compromise of reducing the force level to 2,500 by January. None of the big cabinet players took the general’s side. That included Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, Robert O’Brien, national security adviser, and Mark Esper, then defence secretary. “Esper just rolled over and supported the president,” one source said. General Scott Miller, US commander in Afghanistan, had made it clear he needed a minimum of 4,500 American troops to fulfil his top priorities: counter-terrorism operations against al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups, maintaining coordination with senior-level Afghan commanders, providing intelligence capabilities and ensuring availability to the Afghan government of US air power. Sources said he felt this troop number was crucial until there was an enforceable ceasefire. General Milley went to Qatar on at least two occasions to confront the Taliban negotiators about the spiralling violence against Afghan security forces. Sources said he told them that the Afghan people were overwhelmingly against them regaining power and that if they continued to kill and maim they would never get voted into government. However, Washington politics was against the chairman of the joint chiefs. Mr Trump had ordered his negotiator, Afghan-born Zalmay Khalilzad, to get a deal come what may. There was no clause committing the Taliban to a ceasefire, just an agreement not to attack US troops. Mr Biden also wants to end the war in Afghanistan. But if he goes ahead with withdrawing all 2,500 troops in May and there’s no ceasefire, it will be seen as his first foreign policy failure, and a terrible omen for the Afghan people.

What Biden says according to his sign language interpreter

It just made me laugh even though it's a serious matter. Joe Biden's sign language interpreter turns out to be a big Trump supporter and when he was saying things like "we must stop building the wall on the border", she was signing the opposite! Hysterical. The people I feel really sorry for you are those suffering from hard of hearing who relied on her to tell them what the president was saying and got showered with Trumpisms. Anyway she has been found out, according to the Washington Post. Her appeal to be allowed to stay in the job has fallen on deaf ears haha! I used to wonder in the Cold War superpower summit days how accurately the interpreters interpreted when the American and Soviet presidents were chatting together. Were they tempted to do a bit of propaganda stuff to stir things up. Such power they had to over-interpret or sum up too concisely or just plain get it wrong, deliberately or otherwise. The problem for Biden is that he will want absolute assurance that when he says what he says the sign language expert is not playing games. The best solution is that he sends off all his aides to sign language school. Then they can watch every time Biden stands up to speak and interrupt if the president is misquoted by the sign language interpreter. It would make terrific theatre, especially for those with unfortunate deafness problems because they could watch and enjoy the spectacle and understand what the hell is going on.

Covid vaccination is becoming increasingly political

If only it were simple. You develop vaccines, make sure they are safe and super-efficient and then distribute them evenly throughout the world, so everyone benefits and the global pandemic dies. Unfortunately that is not the case and each day we hear more rows going on about who is getting what and whether some countries are being shunted to the bottom of the pile. The row between the EU and the UK is a classic example. The EU took a long time to get its act together and didn't put in orders for the whole bloc until everyone had agreed what they wanted. By the time they made up their bureaucratic minds, the UK government had beaten them to it by three months, ordering millions of doses of Pfizer and Oxford AstraZeneca vaccines and got on with a jabbing programme as soon as the vaccines arrived. But the EU has cried foul because AstraZeneca is now faced with production problems and has told the EU it will only get 60 per cent of what they ordered in a first phase, meaning several months of delay. The EU hierarchy has gone ballistic, crying unfair unfair, and they want the UK to give up some of their share. BorisJohnson says no way. Now Germany has tried to downgrade the Oxford vaccine by saying it's not good enough for over 65s, claiming the trials didn't include sufficient numbers of over 65s to give any confidence it will work for this age group. Boris says it's rubbish. It's all nasty political stuff. The worst thing is that it will make people aged over 65 concerned about the Oxford vaccine. I can forseee people turning up for their jab and refusing to have the Oxford model and insist on the Pfizer one. Then what will happen? Oxford AstraZeneca need to publish more data to reassure everyone, especially the Germans. Meanwhile, the EU and UK and AsraZeneca are at loggerheads with no sign of anyone being happy. What a disaster at a time when we are all living in hope, thanks to the vaccines, that life could get back to normal.

Trump will never be impeached

I think it's pretty safe to predict that Donald Trump, former president of the United States, will never be convicted on impeachment charges. He may be well away from the Washington swamp, playing golf at his resort in Florida, but his towering influence on the Republican party remains as strong as ever. No Republican senator - well may be a handful - is going to risk his/her career by voting in favour of impeachment. It just ain't going to happen. A few days ago it looked different. There was talk of Republicans wrestling with their conscience and thinking seriously about joining the Democrats in the Senate and finally getting rid of Trump, convicting him and preventing him ever again from standing for public office. It was going to be a mighty swipe at Trumpism, cleaning out the stables to allow a new lot of hopeful presidents to have their turn. But there was so much vitriol aimed at senators considering such a bold move that that scenario has all but vanished. The Democrats need 17 Republicans in the Senate to side with them to get Trump convicted to ensure the two-thirds majority required. Absolutely not going to happen. The Republicans, probably all of them, will vote against impeachment claiming that it's unconstitutional to impeach someone who is no longer the president. Many lawyers disagree but that's the stance the Republicans are taking and they will stick with it. Will any Republicans dare to go against their colleagues? I doubt it. A few might but their careers will be over if they do. Trump in Florida has cast his huge shadow over the party and they are frightened, yes frightened, to go against him.

The UK's grim milestone

Not only has the UK now confirmed the death of 100,000 people from Covid-19, but it is apparently the smallest country in the world to register 100,000 deaths. Somehow that makes it even worse. Other countries such as the US, Brazil and India have suffered more deaths but they have much bigger populations. Ergo, the UK is the worst country on the whole planet as far as the pandemic is concerned. Why the hell is this? What's gone wrong apart from the constant changes of mind by the government and the failure to stop people flying into the UK from around the world from the very beginning including those coming from China where the virus began, closing and opening and then closing schools at the drop of a hat, encouraging people to book holidays abroad and then advising everyone to stay at home, announcing a five-day respite so all families could snuggle and hug and kiss and envelope each other around Christmas and then expect everyone to obey when Christmas was cancelled at the last moment, and reopening all restaurants and then closing them and allowing drinks to be taken away from pubs and then forbidding it, and then insisting on masks being worn on public transport and in shops but failing to enforce it and promising that lockdown will all be over by February, then March, then April, then the summer, then by the end of 2021 then into 2022 until everyone is driven mad, mentally depressed, angry, desperate and cast into blackness. Apart from all of that, it has all being going swimmingly well.

Future of Guantanamo in Biden's hands

A FULLER VERSION OF MY STORY IN THE TIMES TODAY: The Pentagon is to review options for closing Guantanamo after President Biden indicated he wanted the detention camp for suspected terrorists in Cuba to be shut. Retired General Lloyd Austin, the new US defence secretary, has also said he plans to end the Guantanamo era after 20 years of incarcerating hundreds of suspects defined by the US as enemy combatants, the majority of whom were never charged. “A review of the closing of Gitmo [Guantanamo] will proceed once guidance is provided by the Biden administration,” a Pentagon spokesman told The Times. There are only 40 detainees out of the peak figure of 780 inmates left in the camp. But they include 14 “high-value” al-Qaeda suspects such as the five held for allegedly organising the 9/11 terrorist atrocity in the US in 2001. Pentagon prosecutors have said that these high-value detainees should never be released. All of them were interrogated by the CIA in secret “black” prisons in Europe, the Far East and North Africa, using methods that included the simulated drowning technique known as waterboarding. Previous attempts to close Guantanamo and transfer the remaining detainees to maximum-security jails in the US for trial in the federal justice system have failed because Congress prohibited it. President Obama signed an executive order to shut the camp on his first day in office in January 2009. Although 197 detainees were transferred to other countries under his eight-year administration, the camp stayed in business. Under President Trump only one detainee was repatriated. More than 500 were sent home or to third countries under President George W Bush. Nine have died. Only eight have been convicted at Guantanamo military tribunals. As the Pentagon waits for a decision from the White House, the military legal supervisor for the 40 detainees remaining at the camp has authorised the trial of three suspects charged with the Bali bombing which killed 202 people more than 18 years ago. The timing of the trial announcement by Colonel Jeffrey Wood who is responsible as “convening authority” for fixing dates for military tribunals at the Guantanamo courthouse took detainee defence counsel by surprise. Colonel Wood announced the day after Mr Biden had been inaugurated that he had approved charges of conspiracy, murder and terrorism against three Guantanamo detainees who have been held for 17 years. “Generally the decision to refer a case to trial is exclusively within the discretion of the convening authority by military justice rules of procedure,” the Pentagon spokesman said. “The timing sure looks like someone is trying to make it hard on the incoming secretary of defence to close Guantanamo,” Denny LeBoeuf, a Guantanamo specialist lawyer at the American Civil Liberties Union, said.

Why is there a shortage of vaccines?

Having spent a year on developing the vaccines now on the market, it seems extraordinary that the companies involved appear to have uderestimated the surge in demand that would follow once their products had been authorised and regulated. In other words, the world's population of 7.6 billion. Ok that's daunting, but it's not quite as challenging as it sounds because at least three major countries have developed their own vaccines: India has two indigenously-developed vaccines called Covishield and Covaxin, then there's Russia's Sputnik V and China's Sinopharm. That takes care of more than 2.8 billion people. So 5 billion left. Take away the 2.2 billion children in the world's population who probably won't need to be vaccinated and you're down to 2.8 billion. Then there are countries, such as Hungary, Argentina, Brazil, Bolivia and Nepal which, fed up with waiting for the Western-developed vaccines, have opted to buy Sputnik V. Other countries will no doubt follow suit. Serbia has bought a million doses of Sinopharm and, again, China's vaccine will probably be sold to other countries. So perhaps we can say that around two billion people will be relying on Pfizer, Oxford AstraZeneca and Moderna. Although there are numerous other vaccines on the way. So the challenge is still huge but with sufficient preplanning why is it that there are not dozens of factories churning out the vaccines to meet the demand? The only reports we are now getting are how supplies are running out, some areas are not getting any at all, some countries have received such pathetic amounts they have hardly started the jabs and predictions of future supplies are being significantly lowered. Producing little bottles of vaccine is surely nothing like delivering cars off the production line. Is this not a 24-hour seven-day-week effort? As the virus itself scampers off in all different directions, varying in deadliness, the production of effective vaccines has become a race for survival. Joe Biden has called for a war effort to tackle Covid-19. The companies producing the vaccines need to adopt the same warlike approach to bring the pandemic to an end.

Five thousand national guardsmen and one toilet

Before the 25,000 national guardsmen troop back to their home states this weekend it cannot be left unsaid what a scandal it was how they were treated when they were brought in from all over the country to protect the new president. They had very little to do in the end because, fortunately, there was no riot, no mass descent on the Capitol, no attempt to overthrow the government, no deaths, no violence. All good news and they can go home feeling proud of how they kept democracy safe, albeit with the help of combat fatigues, weapons and riot gear. But most of them will be going back home with resentment and anger in their hearts because of the way the Capitol police treated them. It was bad enough having to kip down on the floor in the Capitol building in rest periods. But when they were shunted off to a garage where there was just one toilet with two cubicles in it for 5,000 guardsmen - and what about the guardswomen? - it turned into a national disgrace. The acting chief of the Capitol Police needs to be fired. What on earth was the thinking behind the decision? So the police wanted to clear the Capitol to allow the politicians back into their offices without having to trip over sleeping guardsmen. But the people who initially complained on behalf of the ousted guardsmen were senators and representatives who totally opposed sending them off to the garage "accommodation". A successful inauguration besmirched by the Capitol police who showed no respect for the part-time soldiers and airmen who had given up their time to ensure everyone's safety in Washington. Shame on them.

Can and should Trump be impeached by Senate trial?

The lawyers are going to have a field day. It's the last thing Joe Biden wants to get messed up with as he tries to resolve a myriad problems but the fact is the impeachment of Donald Trump is going to remain a huge issue for weeks ahead. It's already causing a mini civil war inside the Republican party and this is bound to overlap with Biden's determination to get big-idea legislation through Congress. The ten Republican House representatives who dared to vote in favour of impeachment are being given a helluva time. Revenge rhetoric is everywhere. Poor Liz Cheney, one of the most senior Republicans in the House and the elder daughter of Republican icon, former Vice President Dick Cheney, is being targeted for the chop. They want her ousted from any leadership role. It's extraordinary, isn't it, that there are still so many dedicated Trumpists in the Republican party despite all the damage he did as president. They just can't let go. It's as if they are nothing without Trump at their side. Instead of being grown-up and forward-looking, these Republicans can't bear the thought of life without the Big Man. It's really rather pathetic. Of course impeachment of a Republican president won't go down well in history,and the Republicans in the House who voted against it will do their damndest to stop the trial in the Senate which Nancy Pelosi is determined to persist with even though Trump is no longer president. In some ways it doesn't make constitutional sense. How can you vote to remove the president from office when he no longer holds office? Trump is now a former president and a private citizen. Lawyers for Trump will obviously argue this one, claiming that a Senate trial is unconstitutional and unlawful. They may well have a case. But having passed the impeachment vote in the House there is a tremendous momentum for completing the process and putting Trump on trial in the Senate, probably in February. But such is the venom being directed against the ten Republicans who voted for impeachment in the House, it will take a brave Republican senator to do likewise when the trial is held. In which case, as was the case with the first impeachment trial over Ukrainegate, the conviction will fail because the required number of Republicans to vote alongside the Democrats will never be reached. Thus Trump will be acquitted for a second time, giving his supporters more ammunition to keep the name Trump alive and Trumpism rolling on towards 2024. A grim thought.

Biden on the gallop

Day One is always so important for a new president. It sets the mood and the urgency for the new administration. So we get 17 executive orders, none of them a great surprise but it shows that Joe Biden was desperate to put a stamp on his presidency as quickly as possible. Reentering the Paris climate change family, offering Russia a five-year extension to the New Strategic Arms Treaty, stopping construction of The Wall, taking charge of the Covid-19 pandemic battle, rejoining the World Health Organisation. These were the headliners. But a whole lot of other things, including renewing the White House's subscription to The New York Times and Washington Post, following Trump's cancellation out of pique. Biden was even more industrious with his executive orders than his predecessors. The first thing Barack Obama signed in 2009 was an order to close Guantanamo. But that never happened and it's still functioning today 12 years later with 40 detainees. No mention of Guantanamo on Biden's list. I guess he sensibly kicked that one down the road. There are no votes in this issue. Most people just want to forget about it. But it's bound to come up now that the US is returning as moral leader of the western world. So well done Biden on your first day. Trump must be spitting blood, especially with Biden's decision to stop building the wall. Trump managed 400 miles of wall but that was largely replacement wall rather than new wall. The Pentagon will be relieved because the cost had to be found from its budget. Meanwhile Lloyd Austin, Biden's nominee for defence secretary, looks set to get Senate confirmation. Despite all the hullabaloo about him being a general not that long ago and therefore requiring a special waiver to take on a civilian appointment, there's enough good will for Biden right now for this nomination to go ahead. Phew, what a day? Biden is off and galloping.

No crowds, no inaugural ball, welcome President Biden

Today is going to be a weird day in Washington. It will be a day of celebration but without much celebratioon. The inauguration ceremony will be sparsely attended, apart from the thousands of national guardsmen and police, the ordinary folk who troop up to honour their new president will be absent, and the inaugural ball in the White House, a grand event for all the great and good, will not take place becasue of Covid. In fact the day will end in anti-climax, especially for Joe and Jill Biden. What I love about inauguration day is the frantic removals ritual, with Trump baggage being taken away and Biden baggage being brought in. That includes furniture and curtains - and light bulbs if the Trump oots have done what repoortedy the Bill Clinton departees did which was to remove all light bulbs for the incoming president. Petty? Just a touch. It all has to be completed before the Bidens arrive at the White House after the inauguration ceremony. Trump is due to leave the White House in the next hour with at least one piece of luggage which he will have to give back, the briefcase with the nuclear codes. Quite a scary thought really, Trump arriving in Florida on Air Force One for the last time before Biden is inaugurated as 46th president at noon eastern standard time, so he keeps the so-called nuclear "football". Which means the military officer in charge of the briefcase will have to hightail it back to Washington by noon or soon after to make sure President Biden has the nuclear codes at his fingertips. Will there be a gap of an hour or two when neither Trump nor Biden will have access to the codes? OK, this is Dr Strangelove territory but the question has to be asked and answered. As I write this blog at 12.24 UK time - 7.24am Washington time - Donald Trump is still president for another four hours and 36 minutes.

So goodbye Donald Trump!

It's the last 24 hours. By all accounts Trump is stil angry and frustrated and isolated. Melania on the other hand has issued an affectionate farewell and an appeal for non-violence and is clearly looking forward to a more relaxed lifestyle down in Florida. Good luck to her because I doubt her husband will get any happier especially when he sees show business stars gathering to herald Joe Biden as the new president. I don't know whether to feel sorrier for Melania or for Trump's Secret Service team who will have to continue guarding an increassingly grumpy ex-president. The person who needs all the luck in the the world is of course Biden who has the job of clearing up the mess after the Trump era. I fear his expected call for unity in the country will be met by gritted teeth by half the nation. Twas ever thus. A nation divided pretty well down the middle. However, there is one possible reason for optimism. The intelligent, sensible, patriotic members of the Republican party, especially those in the House of Representatives and Senate, will come round to the view that for the sake of the country and its standing in the world Trump must be put to one side, indeed forgotten, giving time and energy for rebuilding America's reputation. Of course Republicans will be thinking of 2024 but at least for the next few months they should play their part in ridding the country of the appalling and potentially dangerous divisions. The extremist armed militias are a lost cause but they can be isolated provided they receive no sympathy or support from the wider community. Let Biden have his chance to do something good and leave the anger and rhetoric behind. As for 2024, I don't think America deserves to have anyone pushing to be president who has been a devoted Trump ally over the last four years. So that discounts Mike Pompeo, Ted Cruz and others. I foresee a potentially gripping 2024 election: Kamala Harris for the Democrats (because Biden will step down after four years) and Nikki Haley, former US ambassador to the UN, for the Republicans. The first female president of the United States whatever the result.

What will Trump be remembered for?

I'm not sure one should use the word "legacy" when summing up Trump's impact on the US and the world over the last four years. Legacy has a certan affectionate ring to it. It's an accumulation of good things representing what someone has achieved in high office. Whatever Trump did achieve has been undermined/ruined/destroyed by his refusal to accept he lost the 2020 election and his rabble-rousing speech culminating in the brutal attack on the Capitol and the desecration of America's democratic foundations. That's not a legacy. That's a condemnation. His real legacy - but without any affectionate ring to it - is his brand of populist politics which I fear is here to stay. Whoever takes up the Republican baton is going to have to apply the Trump populism rule or fail to win support among the millions of Americans who seemed to have been waiting all their lives for someone like Trump to cheer them on. Whatever Trump may have achieved or at least tried to achieve in terms of foreign and domestic policy, it will all be washed away when Joe Biden gets his feet under the table and sets course in an opposite direction. I'm thinking North Korea, Iran, China, Russia, immigration, education, welfare benefits etc. One mark of Trump's four years worth mentioning. He approved the execution of 13 people. There hadn't been any executions for nearly two decades before he entered the White House. Let us hope that all 13 committed the appalling crimes for which they were convicted. But I am totally against capital punishment, always have been. And killing 13 people in the name of the State is not a legacy that any American president should want to shout about.

Washington under armed siege

Armed US national guardsmen, plucked from their civilian jobs for emergency duty in the nation’s capital, are now forming one of the largest-ever military deployments in Washington’s history. The requirement for the part-time soldiers and airmen has risen from 15,000 to 25,000 which is 8,000 more than President Obama sent as regular-troop reinforcements to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban in 2009. They are coming from states all over the country. President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration next Wednesday has been designated a “national special security event”. Those guards personnel who have had prior experience of backing the police in urban crises will be armed, but all 25,000 will have access to weapons if needed. There are heavy-truck checkpoints in the area around the Capitol. The national guardsmen and women, many of whom will have had combat experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, are the acceptable face of the military as far as law enforcement support on the streets of the capital are concerned. In June 4, 1,600 active-duty troops, including from 82nd Airborne Division, were sent to the Washington area after violence erupted during protests about alleged police brutality following the fatal shooting of a black man, George Floyd. It was a controversial decision but the troops were never deployed to the capital. The national guards personnel, a mixture of army and air force, now in Washington, are part of the reserve components of the US military and have full-time civilian jobs. Their total strength is around 450,000. They were originally authorised as state militia by the US constitution. The name, national guard, was used for the first time in 1824. They are protected by employment legislation to keep their jobs when deployed on military service. Under the national guard motto, “always ready, always there”, the part-timers have born a large share of the deployment burden in wars. About 45 per cent of the forces sent to Iraq and Afghanistan were from the national guard and full-time reserve units and suffered more than 18 per cent of the casualties. In September 2003, 10,000 national guard troops were sent to Iraq, the largest mobilisation of guard personnel since Vietnam.

Trump's last four days!!

The even better thought than the headline above is that tomorrow I will be able to write "Trump's last three days". Apart from the last weeks of Richard Nixon's administration I can think of no other moment in modern US presidential history when the whole country (minus 75 million Trump supporters!!!) will be able to sigh with relief that the nightmare is over. Well, perhaps never truly over, but at least the start of a fresh era under a new and acceptable president with a potential star-quality vice president. It has been an extraordinary last four years which never actually achieved anything except division, bitterness, alarm, failure and, of course, anger. The US, and the rest of the world, deserve a bit of peace and quiet. Not that the end of Trump's reign will bring peace to the world. Unfortunately it doesn't work like that because all countries with adversarial intentions towards the US and the West will seek to exploit whatever weaknesses they discover as Biden settles into the White House. But it will be quieter, less dramatic, more conciliatory and no tub-thumping rhetoric. Trump's bizarre, risky but potentially admirable attempts at charm offensives with the big bad guys, Kim Jong-un, Vladimir Putin and Xi Zinping, failed to produce any positive results. The North Korea leader is now so confused by his love-in with Trump that gave him nothing he is pouring more and more money into making bigger and better nuclear weapons and wearing an emperor's military uniform that makes him look like a stuffed dummy. But a dangerous one. President Xi looks so pleased with himself whenever he appears in public that you just know he believes he has the United States under his thumb, and Putin is still very much boss in his own world and probably couldn't care less who runs America any longer. So no successes there. At all. In fact it has all gone backwards. How Biden is going to unravel it all I have no idea. So four more days of Trump. He can't do anything else to screw up Biden's hopes of improving things. Can he?

Time for Trump to welcome Biden

The United States is right now in a dangerous and volatile situation. With the FBI warning of armed groups "chatting" on social media about more violent uprisings it has become more important than ever for Donald Trump to speak to the nation from the White House and say the following things: "I was wrong about the fraud and fake votes. I wasn't robbed of the election. Joe Biden won it fair and square. I concede, somewhat belatedly, but I concede to Joe. I accept that he is to be the 46th president and for the sake of the country I love I will support him and I wish him good luck during the next four years. I want all my millions of supporters to listen to my words and take note and please, although I am grateful for your loyalty, my time is over, I lost the election, and it is time now for the country to unite behind the new leader. I abhore violence of all kinds and if there are any groups out there who are planning to disrupt the inauguration or carry out violent protests in state capitals around the country, I ask you please to put away your guns, go home and be peaceful and look after your families and protect yourselves from the virus and be good citizens. We had our chance and now it's time for another man to take charge. He deserves our support at a time when the nation is in dire straits. We will come out of this and we will always be a great nation but if anyone resorts to violence to pursue what they believe is a just cause, they will be undermining that cause and damaging the reputation of this great country. So, go home, stay at home, keep safe and God Bless America." That's it. That's all Trump needs to say. It WOULD make a difference.

The new three-word slogan: vaccination, vaccination, vaccination

Since the Brexit campaign began and the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic the use of the English language and the way it is put across by politicians, by advertisers and by the media has been boiled down to what one could call the three-word burst. Boris Johnson started it all with his Leave campaign and then Brexit campaign once he took over as prime minister. His first three-word slogan was Take Back Control. Later his choice of three words, endlessly repeated, was Get Brexit Done. All his ministers used the same catchprase. Boris probably said them in his sleep. He certainy woke up saying them. Get Brexit Done was all we heard on TV news. It went on and on until he Got Brexit Done. But just when we thought the terrible but effective catchphrase and the three-word burst could be dropped for ever, Covid-19 turned up. Boris knew that he had to deploy the same type of three-word campaign if he was to make an impression on the population. So we got Hands, Face, Space to remind us that we had to wash our hands at every available opportunity, wear a mask in shops and public transport and keep two metres apart from everyone outside the family bubble. Boris drummed it into us every time he gave a press conference. Hands, Face, Space.Then it was Build Back Better which could have applied to either the post-Brexit or post-pandemic era. His advisers slipped up when they went for a new slogan/catch phrase which was neither a three-word burst nor alliterative. But it was out of the same language mould, a combination of plea and edict. Stay Home, Protect the NHS, Save Lives. The trouble is that everyone is doing it now. Advertising on the radio is full of three-word rubbish slogans. Total turn-off. But I'm going to introduce my own now. It's three words AND it's alliterative. Vaccination, Vaccination, Vaccination. Surely that is what must now be the absolute priority to give everyone a sense of moving in the right direction. Thanks to the BBC every night we get the latest appalling statistics rolled out on a graph to prove that everything is going in the wrong direction. More deaths, more infections, more overwhelmed intensive care units. Every night it's the same message. Worse, Worse, Worse. So please: round-the-clock jabs, young and old all vaccinated together. No let-up, no delays, no screw-ups, no whingeing, no shortages. Just Jab, Jab, Jab (sorry!).

Covid deaths proliferate. Why?

Why is is that despite the roll-out of vaccines to millions of people and tough lockdown measures the number of people dying each day from the virus is just going up and up? In the UK the latest death toll over the last 24 hours was 1,564 and in the United States it was 4,300. In each case that is the largest daily death toll since the pandemic began in March last year. Why is this? There are numerous new and successful drugs given to the worst-affected patients in hospitals, so the death rate should be coming down. But it's doing the opposite. Can it seriously be because the populations of the UK and the US have just given up and have become so complacent or so devil-may-care that they are ignoring all the advice and meeting up with all their friends and families, never mind the Covid watch marshals in yellow jackets who are waiting to pounce on rulebreakers. Most people I come across on a daily basis appear to be doing the right thing. They wear masks in shops and supermarkets and buses, and I haven't heard any raves going on next door. But when you do spot someone infringing the rules it does make you wonder how big a problem this is. I saw a perfectly nicely dressed man in his 40s walking into the local butcher shop a few days ago without a mask. You could see the butcher with hand signals miming the putting on of a mask but the customer ignored him and carried on ordering his meat for another five minutes, then walked out past the queue of people outside not looking remotely embarrassed or sorry. Do you confront him and risk a slap in the face or keep quiet? You only have to read the newspapers to know that too often people who dare to speak out get a punch or kick or slap or verbal abuse. So you keep quiet. Did this man have Covid-19, unknowingly, and did he therefore leave a virus trail in the butcher's shop for other customers to pick up? Multiply this a million times and you begin to understand why it is that the virus is still spreading uncontrollably and why so many are dying each day. It is the ultimate act of selfishness. Not caring to obey the rules and causing deaths as a result.

The new question on everyone's lips: have you been jabbed?

When the Boris government announced the start of the coronavirus vaccine programme, the impression give was that it would be a super orderly affair, with care homes (staff and residents), NHS frontline workers and people aged over 90 getting the jabs first. Then in strict order of age, working downwards through the 80s to the 75-80s, 70s, 60s, 50s etc until everyone down to 50 has been done by April, and then head off down through the 40s, 30s and 20s. All beautifully planned, every jab given in order of age and/or health vulnerability. But it seems not. Judging by the questioning of many people on a very unscientific basis, the conclusion is: it's totally random. There IS no perfect age list. You get a phone call and are invited to turn up at a centre somewhere and that's what you do. Never mind whether you are 70, 75, 80 or 88. Never mind whether you have a partner of roughly the same age who could have been offered the jab at the same time. I know of 80-year-olds who haven't heard a thing from anyone, yet people in their early 70s who have been done and dusted and are looking forward to their booster jab in 12 weeks' time. As a result of this random process, the main item of conversation now hitting the country is: "Have you been done?" The other question is: "Why isn't the government giving jabs first to those who have to work in the office or wherever, so that they can carry on earning money for their families without the fear of catching the infection and bringing it home to the rest of the family. In other words, why are the elderly being done before the young and job-dependent men and women? The answer I guess is that in order to bring down the terrible death toll the best way for the government to see instant results from the vaccines is to focus on those most likely to die from Covid. The statistics still show that the vast majority of those who have died have been elderly or people with underlying health problems. But the young have died too. It should be government policy to get the vaccines to the younger generations as quickly as possible. Ideally, vaccinating the 20-40-year-olds at the same time, ie, coming up from the younger end as they come down from the older end and meeting in the middle. That would be fairer and if it means doubling the orders for the vaccines, so be it. But if this were to happen, it would need to be less random than the current vaccination programme. There has to be a degree of certainty about it. If your neighbour aged, say 66, gets his or her vaccine but the guy up the road aged 77 has not, something must be wrong.

Trump's supporters are never going to go away

The violence and deaths and vandalism inside the Capitol appear not to have had any affect whatsoever on the views and wishes and aims of Donald Trump's mighty band of supporters. In fact the opposite. There is no guarantee that they won't do the same thing all over again, not necessarily in the Capitol but anywhere where they can raise temperatures on behalf of their president. Never mind that he will be leaving the White House in nine days. They will clearly continue with their fanatical support for Trump once Joe Biden takes over to keep Trumpism alive until he makes up his mind about whether to stand again in 2024. And if he decides against it, his fans will cry and shout and demonstrate until he changes his mind and announces that he WILL stand. What is it about Trump that makes politics today so different from previous eras? Ronald Reagan was loved too but of course he served two terms in office and was able to retire and ride off into the sunset, his legendary status confirmed for ever. In the mind of his fans, Trump was unjustly/unlawfully removed from office after one term and should have been allowed to have a second term, whatever the Electoral College says. It's as simple as that. These are men and women of all ages who get up in the morning and put their red Trump caps on to demonstrate their unfailing devotion to the man with the candy-floss hair. This is not going to change. It's like a cult following and one that is so huge that Biden is going to have to deal with it somehow. Trump will be out of the White House but Trumpism and all that it stands for is here to stay for the foreseeable future. That is seriously worrying both for the United States as a country in general and for the Biden administration post-January 20 in particular. Because he knows that, Trump will continue to harbour dreams of standing again in 2024. However many close allies advise against it, Trump is going to wake up every morning in Florida and play president in front of the mirror. "I WILL be president again," he will say to himself. Right now I can't see his millions of fans ever transferring their devotion to someone else in the Republican Party, however Trumpian they might try to be. Which is why the Republican Party and those members who want to stand for president in 2024 are doomed.

Is Trump not talking to Pence or Pence not talking to Trump?

Donald Trump, president of the United States, and Mike Pence, vice president of the United States, are not talking to each other and haven't done so apparently since Wednesday. Yes THAT Wednesday. Is this unprecedented? Neither wants to talk to each for slightly different reasons. Trump doesn't want a conversation with Pence because he now regards his deputy as the ultimate traitor for failing to overrule the election result as he was requested to do prior to the January 6th confirmation by Congress. And Pence I guess is fearful of ringing Trump because he knows, if he does, either he will have the phone slammed down or he will be sworn at and shouted at. The trouble is if these two never talk to each other again what the hell happens to the process of government over the next ten days? Who will Cabinet members trust to ring if they need a decision? So far none of the top officials from the National Security Council have resigned. Mike Pompeo is still secretary of state. Christopher Miller is still acting defence secretary. Gina Haspell is still CIA director. But what if something big pops up unexpectedly? Like something outrageous by Iran or North Korea? Or Russia? Or China? Trump won't be trusted to make a rational decision, Pence has been put into cold storage, so do we all wait until January 20th for Joe Biden to make the decision? That could be seen as a fatal sign of weakness on America's part. Superpower politics is supposed to be for grown-ups. But if Trump and Pence don't start talking to each other who the hell is in charge? My advice? Pick up the phone. Trump or Penc. And get on with smooth-running government to reassure the world that the White House has not become a disfunctioning Mad House.

What are Trump's options?

It's countdown to decision time for Donald Trump. Eleven days to go before Joe Biden is inaugurated as 46th president. He could resign and let Mike Pence finish off the job until then. I can't see him doing that. Unless it's pointed out to him that if he did resign the Democrats might consider dropping the impeachment action which they hope to lay before Congress on Monday, charging him with incitement to cause violence. BUt like the first time he faced impeachment over the Trump campaign/Russsiagate affair and obstruction of justice, he just claimed it was a political witchhunt and the Republicans backed him. Would every Republican back him this time? No, there would be proud Republicans who would stand up for democracy and denounce Trump's actions. But not enough to make impeachment stick. So Trump won't resign and if he does face impeachment he would not be found guilty as charged. So if he stays till midnight January 19 and doesn't do anything distardly in the meantime, what then? He must be afraid of facing subsequent FBI investigations involving a multitude of alleged sins. Could he pardon himself and all his family? He is defnitely considering it according to a lot of reports in Washington. Theoretically he could do this, or Joe Biden could pardon him just for the sake of keeping Trump quiet provided he agreed a quid pro quo which would be to promise never to stand for the presidency again. Could Biden offer that? A large number of Democrats would oppose any suggestion of pardoning Trump. But it might be prudent for Biden if he wants a relatively peaceful first 100 days. I don't know the legal ins and outs for a deal of this kind. It would in many ways be a scandal to let Trump off the hook but in the real politik world, whatever happens to Trump, there will still be 74 million supporters who voted for him and they are not going to go away. They are going to remain a mighty political force for the foreseeable future. It's, if you like, Trump's main bargaining chip. If he resigns, he will massively disappoint his fans. So he won't. Full stop. Let the now hated Pence take over in his last week or so of office? No way. The one thing which everyone must be fearing is that thousands of his supporters will turn up in Washington on January 20 and try to disrupt the Biden inauguration ceremony although on this occasion the capital and Capitol will be awash with National Guardsmen as well as police. If Trump lifts so much as a fingernail to encourage/incite thousands of his fans to come to Washington to protest on January 20, he is going to have the Justice Department knocking on his door. His best option? Keep as quiet as a mouse for 11 days - not having his Twitter account will help - and creep away on January 19 with his fingers crossed that FBI agents are not tailing him.

Trump snubs inauguration ceremony

Trump is determined to do everything different. I am not aware of any past American president refusing to turn up at the inauguration ceremony of the man (one day it will be a woman!) succeeding him. But Trump has declared that he will snub Joe Biden's ceremony. I assume Mike Pence will go. It's the final tantrum - please God the final tantrum - of a president who just cannot accept the fact that he was defeated. By a man even older than him. It's bad manners of course and unconstitutional and silly. But his supporters will back him. Perhaps he will hold a rally elsewhere while Biden is placing his hand on the Bible. It has always been said about American politics that it's the presidency not the president that's important. In other words, presidents come and go but the state of presidency remains for ever. Well it sounds good but Trump has screwed that idea up. The presidency has been kicked around so much under his leadership that all sense of dignity has been cast aside. Even while Biden is standing before the world promising to be a good president, we will all be thinking, "I wonder what Trump is doing, has he really gone, is that him peeping round the corner?" When Obama, George W, Clinton, Reagan etc left to retire into the sunset, it was all done according to gentlemanly rules. The final farewell from Marine One, the smiles, the wave of the hand. All very dignified. But that's not for Trump. It's all very very sad for a country I love.

Trump totally misjudged impact of his Capitol speech

Donald Trump throughout his presidency has used inflammatory language to stir his supporters. Until yesterday he had got away with it because everyone got used to his type of rhetoric. It became the norm. But with less than two weeks to go before he ends his first - and only - term of office, he went one step too far and the result was staggeringly shocking. Hundreds of Trump supporters, most of them without masks, descending on the Capitol like some sort of Medieval invading force, battering their way into the seat of American democracy as if they had the right to do so. They thought they had. Trump had ordered them to go wild. It was probaby one of the most disgraceful and irresponsible political speeches ever made on US soil. Four people died, elected politicians took cover, windows were smashed and American democracy was thrown into the bin. As president Trump has to take full responsibility and should step down immediately. It's too dangerous to wait another 13 days. Mike Pence who had refused to overturn the election result in a dignified presence in Congress can take the reins while Trump is marched off. Trump deserves nothing less. Many think he should be impeached and/or imprisoned. But impeachment would take too long. Most important, he must be banned from ever running for president again. Whatever his wild supporters say or want. Trump is finished. For good.

Senate set for a Democrat majority thanks to Trump

The Trump brand is truly coming to an end. Not only did Donald Trump lose the presidential election but his antics since pretty well scuppered whatever hope the Republican Party had of retaining their majority in the Senate. It looks like the two contested seats in Georgia will both go to Democrats. Thus Senator Mitch McConnell will no longer be the Majority Leader. He has Trump to thank for this extraordinary turn of events. Trump's constant ranting about how the election was fraudulent must surely have put a lot of voters off him, even those who might have considered voting Republican. For Joe Biden it's nothing but good news, to be in charge of the White House and to have political control of both the House of Representatives and the Senate is like having strawberry jam on bread with clotted cream on top. Dollops of it. It will make his life so much easier, at least for his first 100 days. With Nancy Pelosi in the House and Chuck Schumer in the Senate - povided the Georgia wins are confirmed - legislation will get through whatever the Republicans say. The numbers are so close it probably won't last long but Biden will start his presidency in the best possible circumstances. And yet, with Trump around, even down in Florida on the golf course, he will still face challenges because the 45th president has such a hold over the Republican Party. It's like Republicans dare not speak up to criticise him, even though it looks like he was responsible for losing the two crucial seats in Georgia. On January 20 the Republican Party as a whole has to move away from Trump and look to a future without him. Otherwise they will be out of power for a long time.

The Boy With Zoom-Lens Eyes

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Will Trump be playing golf in Scotland on January 20?

Breaking news. Nicola Sturgeon, mighty though miniscule leader of Scotland, is taking on mighty but not miniscule Donald Trump. The President of the United States for another 24 days is rumoured to have put in a flight plan to fly to Prestwick airport near Glasgow in Scotland for January 19 in order to be on his Turnberry golf course while Joe Biden is proclaimed as the 46th POTUS by adoring Democrats at the Capitol inauguration ceremony. Nicola, a no-nonsense lady at the best of times, has made to clear that the arrival of Trump and golf bags in Scotland when the nation is in full lockdown will not be acceptable, welcome or legal. In other words, keep out, Trump, and be where you should be on January 20 which is at the Biden inauguration ceremony. Trump will be as welcome at the ceremony as he would be if he turned up at Prestwick but his duty as departing POTUS is to sit humbly and quietly behind Joe Biden while his successor gets all the glory. I realise it's a tricky decision to make. But if Trump is seriously contemplating turning up at Turnberry, he could find an even frostier reception awaits him. Could immigration reject his entry into Scotland? Would they dare? On January 19th he will still technically be president and I doubt his Secret Service detail will allow Scottish immigration officers to send Trump back to Washington. But they would be in their rights. Perhaps Nicola will stand in his way at the airport and in her clipped Scottish tones mastermind the unwelcome ceremony. It would be a memorable moment.

Keep schools open, vaccinate all teachers!

Running a country must be overwhelmingly challenging these days but sometimes you get the impression with this wretched covid-19 pandemic that the virus is always one step ahead and just when you catch it up it changes direction. So Boris Johnson for example comes on television to make a nationwide announcement and informs us what he plans to do to grab the virus in his hands before it leaps beyond reach. But the virus is always too far ahead. That's the situation now. Boris is expected to announce another lockdown tonight which means schools closing, businesses closing, everything closing and all of us sent into hibernation. That's all negative negative negative. But sometimes the hardest decisions need to be looked at in the simplest terms. Yesterday Boris desperately wanted kids to go back to school today becauae he said that was best for them and that the risk of getting the infection in schools was very small. A few hours later it's all woe woe woe because the new variant of the virus is racing away beyond anyone's grasp. Surely it doesn't require a lot of brain cells to see the solution in front of your eyes. The one great development is that there are now two vaccines authorised for use in the UK. So for heaven's sake vaccinate all teachers to keep schools open and vaccinate all doctors to keep hospitals running with full staffing levels. All the media focus is on this 90-year-old or that 90-year-old rolling up his his/her sleeve to get the first vaccine. But teachers and doctors are trying to carry on and get no vaccine jabs. It seriously makes no sense. Don't close all schools, Boris. Just line up the teachers now and give them the vaccine. It's that simple.

Why is it known as the UK variant of coronavirus?

Now I know what it must have been like for the residents of Wuhan when Donald Trump first described Covid-19 as the Wuhan or China virus. This new fast-spreading version of Covid-19 that has got everyone around the world so worried is officially defined as the UK variant. I guess it's easy shorthand for blaming the Brits but can it really be possible, let alone plausible, that this particular strain turned up in the UK and nowhere else on the planet and that anyone who gets it in another country only does so because he or she was in the UK or has a relative or friend who has just returned from the UK? Why on earth should a variant start here in the UK? Does the UK have certain environmental ingredients which makes it more likely that a different version of Covid-19 will develop and move about? With all due respect to the Wuhanese, we don't have wild animal food markets in the UK. There is no reason that I have seen which might suggest that the UK is the only place where a variant of this nature will breed. The only thing which justified the term, the UK variant, is that it was first discovered in this country by very clever scientists who were on the look-out for any breakaway versions of Covid-19. I have absolutely no doubt that this variant has been sitting around ready to burst forth in every country in the world which has the original virus. That's what viruses do. They're clever. Once the first strain has erupted, the devilish virus starts to develop ways of outsmarting those humans who think they know how to combat the disease. Nature can be evil when it wants to. Anyway, wasn't this newish variant found in South Africa as well or was that another version of its own? But you don't hear about the South African variant. It's all about the UK variant. I guess we have to put up with it. But the Wuhanese, and Chinese in general are probably thankful that the focus has now switched away from their part of the world to little old England, now separated politically as well as geographically from the rest of Europe.

What is Trump going to do after January 20?

I don't remember such a fuss about previous US presidents and what they would do after leaving office. Ok there was a bit of gossip about where the Obamas would set up home and then there were those photos of Barack windsurfing or was it sailing looking like he was having a wonderful post-presidential time. I can't see Trump surfing off the Florida coast. But there's a huge amount of interest in where he is going to set up home and whether he is allowed to live in his Florida resort all year round. Something about the local bye-laws? The bigggest question is who will he get to ghost-write his memoirs. Can't see him putting pen to paper himself. The more interesting memoir anyway would be one by Melania. She would have tons to say but I doubt she will dare. Some astute publisher should start working on her. Where Trump lives and how he spends his time will surely become less and less interesting. George W, Bill Clinton, Jimmy Carter, they get on with their lives and few people pay much attention. So Trump should be left alone. His name should disappear from the front or even inside pages. The Joe Biden era begins in 18 days and we don't want the man with the flossy hair to muscle in.

Boris is right to sound optimistic

Good old Boris, young Boris actually. He loves to be eternally optimistic. Well that may be all about politics but it's a helluva lot better than being pessimistic and down-mouthed and fatalistic. And anyway he is right to shower us with bonhomie in his New Year message. Very Queen-like. There are good reasons to be excited about the future. I just hope it starts soon. If Boris can get his organisers to sort out the vaccine programme there is no reason why most of the population can't be done by the spring. Perhaps Michael Gove should be put in charge. By all accounts he had things pretty well wrapped up in the event of a no-deal Brexit. So he could use his calm - almost too calm - leadership style to accelerate the distribution of the vaccines. We are a relatively small, albeit population-packed, nation. It shouldn't be beyond the skills, logistical and medical, of those involved to get this mighty challenge moving fast. The faster the vaccinations, the quicker we will get back to a life of normality. No time for excuses or apologies. As Boris said endlessly throughout the Brexit campaign, "let's get it done". Vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate. Don't procrastinate, procrastinate, procrastinate.