When will the real financial reckoning for Covid start?

We have all got so used to vast sums being spent to prop up economies and livelihoods during this pandemic that millions, billions or trillions all sound the same. But as the vaccine programmes start to have a real and lasting impact on Covid-19, the world is going to have to take stock and decide how severe the financial reckoning will have to be to pay for it all. The US under Biden has produced yet another breathtakingly large package to stimulate the economy - $1.9 trillion, a figure beyond the average person's comprehension. That sum of money, adding to America's frighteningly high debt would be more understandable if the US vaccine programme was shooting ahead at a phenominal rate but it's slow slow slow. So far only around 14 per cent of the population have had their jab. At least in the UK the vaccine programme is going at a faster rate and all adults should be jabbed at least once by July 31. Even so, the Boris Johnson government has borrowed nearly £300 billion to cope with the disastrous economic consequences of the pandemic. If interest rates were to suddenly jump up, the payback on that borrowing mountain would be astronomical. So what is the answer? With the UK government about to announce its budget next week, every expert has come out of the woodwork to give their views about what to do or not to do. Many say it would be wrong to increase taxes because that would have a negative effect on the overall economy. Others say there should be a tax on high-earners or on pensioners with big pensions. An increase in tax for businesses would seem to me to be suicidal. Businesses who have been struggling to stay afloat throughout the last 12 months would just give up in despair if they get hammered by the Treasury. Something will have to increase to pay off this huge debt. Perhaps for those who can afford it, there should be a voluntary contribution campaign, £50-£100 gift per household. If dear old Captain Sir Tom Moore could raise £30 million for the National Health Service why can't we have the biggest crowdfund ever to raise a few billion to help towards paying off the national debt? Daft idea I suppose but it would be like helping the whole country to get back on its feet.

Biden's insuperable problem with Saudi Arabia

Unfortunately Crown Prince Mohammed bin Sultan, de facto leader of Saudi Arabia, is not going step down and go quietly into a tent in the desert for the rest of his days. He's the big chief in the royal kingdom and knows it, and Joe Biden will have to make up his mind how the US is going to play MBS as he is called. He, or the Saudi government, has denied any involvement in the brutal killing and body-sawing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi dissident journalist whose body bits have never been uncovered but were probably dumped in the sea. The CIA says different. In its redacted report the agency says MBS approved of the operation to grab Khashoggi and eliminate him because he was a constant thorn in the side of the Saudi royal family. CIA says one thing - and thus the US government - and the Saudi government says another. There is no room for compromise here, on either side. Actually there was nothing in yesterday's published report that we didn't know already so it can hardly have come as a surprise to Riyadh. What WAS new was the Biden administration's decision to make it public - to publish a declassified version which thus placed the ball firmly in the court of the Saudi government, and in particular the Crown Prince. They kicked it back and said rubbish and fake news. Now what does Biden do? Just keep quiet and hope it all goes away? The report is out for all to see and leave it at that. I really don't see how that is going to be possible. Biden has put his marker down and if he wants to be an honest and upright president he has to deal with Saudi Arabia in a way that takes on board at all times the allegation/fact that Saudi nationals, on the orders of the de facto leader of the country, caused the brutal death of a journalist in the Saudi consulate in Istanbul. Well Biden has already made one important move by stopping selling arms to Saudi Arabia for its war in Yemen where weapons with US brand names have killed and maimed hundreds if not thousands of Yemeni civilians. It's very difficult to see how Saudi Arabia and the United States can remain partners/allies under these current circumstances. But Saudi Arabia and the US share a common enemy. Iran. And for that reason the US cannot afford to cast Saudi Arabia into diplomatic quarantine. Perhaps even as I write this, there are back channels being opened to make sure contacts between Washington (including the CIA) and the office of Crown Prince bin Sultan remain intact. And if so, the angry denials from the Saudis over the Khashoggi murder are all part of an agreed game plan and that life will go on. I feel desperately sorry for Khashoggi's aggrieved fiancee.

When push comes to shove, Russian diplomats leave North Korea by trolley

When you gotta go you gotta go. Russian diplomats based in Pyongyang but due to leave to return to their Motherland were told there was no way out. No planes. No trains. The Covid barriers had come down and they couldn't get out. So they adopted what can only be described as desperate measures worthy of a top class spy novel to leave the country. They went as far as they could by bus and train to get within one kilometre of the border with Russia and then borrowed a rail trolley, put their luggage and children on it and then took it in turns to push it down the line till they got over the frontier. Good for them. What a way to exit one of the worst countries in the world. It brought back mwemories of how Britain's MI6 spirited master double agent Oleg Gordievsky out of Moscow in 1985 and safely over the border into Finland, with the KGB/MI6 agentlying uncomfortably in the boot of a diplomatic car. At least the Russian diplomats could carry out their trolley journey without fear of being unmasked or shot at but I bet there was a cheer of relief when they spotted the border and saw some Russian compatriots waiting for them on the other side. A great tale.

Trump's political reemergence and the Sunday speech

It's all boiling up nicely for the political reemergence of Donald Trump after five weeks of golf. On Sunday he is to make a speech at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference in Orlando, Florida. By all accounts he is going to attack Joe Biden and place himself firmly in the Republican party power game although without actually declaring himself as a candidate for the 2024 election. He won't need to because I'm sure the audience will be shouting "four more years" as soon as he appears. This conference is a big deal for the uber-conservative elements of the Republican party and Trump will no doubt be in fine Trumpian form, preaching to the converted. He's good at stirring up the crowd, always has been, and the fact that he was defeated - yes defeated - in the 2020 election will be cast to one side. Most of those attending the conference will be of the view that the election was a case of grand theft larceny by the Democrats. So if Trump gives a nod and a wink in his speech about his 2024 thoughts, the roof will come down. One absentee it seems will be poor Nikki Haley who is now caught between two stools: breaking with Trump (as she has) and risk losing the support of every Trump fire-breathing fan, or siding with Trump (too late) and thus effectively giving up her ambitions to be a contender in 2024. Politics is so damn tricky especially when a Super Populist is still running the show even in defeat. Whatever Trump says on Sunday his voice will come out louder than Joe Biden's on any day of the week. And unfortunately loudness and brashness and fist-waving have more political impact than the quiet approach adopted by Biden. I think it's fascinating that Biden has decided to deal with Saudi Arabia only by talking to King Salman and thus ignoring his feisty Crown Pince son Mohammad bin Salman (MBS). This is principally because MBS is going to be accused in a declassified CIA report of ordering or approving the killing of dissident Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul in October 2018. But even so, the fact is that MBS rules the roost in Saudi Arabia, and the king, 85, has not been a well man for some time. MBS is the new generation, the king is the old and departing generation. Even if the CIA report is devastating, MBS will still be the power beside the throne and Biden will have to learn to deal with him. None of the Khashoggi-MBS links seem to worry Trump who got his son-in-law Jared Kushner to woo the crown prince which he did. I doubt Trump will bring this up in his speech on Sunday but I bet he will remind his adoring fans that only he, Trump, knows how to deal with the toughest leaders of the world. Biden tiptoes, Trump tramples.

Mitt Romney admits Trump would slam-dunk 2024 Republican nomination

This says it all about the state of politics in the United States and, in particular, the state of the Republican party. Mitt Romney, former presidential nominee, grandee/maverick of the Republican party, says that if Trump were to stand as candidate for the 2024 presidential election he would win the nomination by a country mile, as we say in Blighty. Romney is a realist. He's almost definitely right because, as he says, Trump's voice is the loudest and strongest in the party and the way things are going it will remain so for the next four years. It's quite the most extraordinary situation. Here is a man who has lost an election and caused the Senate to lose its Republican majority and has been impeached twice, and yet he is still seen as the flag-bearer for this defeated party. No wonder Trump must be feeling pretty bullish down on the golf course in Florida. I feel sorry for the Republicans with dreams of being nominated for 2024, such as Marco Rubio, Florida senator and still only 49, and of course Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and ex-ambassador to the United Nations, also just 49. According to Romney who I presume will not be standing again in 2024, they have no chance if Trump has another go at the White House job. It's bleak for them and bleak for the Republican party and bleak for the United States of America, my second favourite country in the world. As I have blogged before, the resolution lies in the hands of Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. If they do really well in the next four years and there is no new war and no new pandemic and the economy flourishes and the world stays relatively quiet and stable and climate-change is dealt with properly (wow that's a lot of ifs), then even if Trump comes back he will lose against the Democrats. If things go badly and the Biden/Harris leadership fails America, then Trump Part Two just might happen. I think/hope Biden and Harris will be all right.

Faces without masks - that's what I look forward to

Apart from the appalling death toll from Covid-19, the separation of loved-ones and the desperate strain seen in the faces of doctors and nurses in intensive care units, the wearing of masks in public has been one of the defining features of this pandemic. And it's one of the things I look forward to casting aside when we all return to normal life, due, it is said, between June and September. Masks have been more than just a covering-up of mouth and nose. They have come to represent the fears and worries of this year-old pandemic. When the mask goes on, the eyes lower too, the shoulders go rounded, people look away.You feel a different class of human being. For a start if someone is smiling at you you don't realise, unless the eyes are sparkling. You talk but can't properly hear what's being said because the mask muffles the voice. You can't be jolly in a Covid mask, you just want to do what you have to do and get home. Masks have made us all hesitant, over-cautious and apologetic. I just hope that when normality returns, when the pandemic is effectively over because we are all vaccinated, the human race can go back to being energetic and optimistic and inspiring and sociable and happy. For those who have lost members of family or friends, this future life we all yearn for will never return to what it was like before March 2020. But even for these poor souls, I hope that the nationwide throwing-away of masks, however prettily designed they might have been, will give a sense of rejuvenation and liberty and hope.

Lockdown has been all about can'ts and don'ts

Hopefully after what seems like 12 months of "you can't do this and you can't do that" we are about to enter a new period, albeit cautiously, in which our life balance will change and we can begin to enjoy "you can do this and you can do that." Throughout the pandemic it has been all about government micromanaging our lives: standing at least two metres from anyone not in your household bubble, not going for a walk with friends, just one other person, not sitting down on a bench and eating a sandwich, not drinking coffee while walking, not driving more than six miles from your home, not flying anywhere, not eating out, not going to the library or concerts or theatre or cinema, not hugging anyone outside that wretched bubble etc. There was a brief relaxation in the summer when that crazy eat-out-and-help-out project was launched to encourage people to go back to restaurants and eat substantial meals and then when we all flocked to our favourite eateries it was all closed down again. How much Covid spreading happened during that brief flurry of madness? Now, with the vaccination programme going great guns - people in their 50s are being called up for the jab - and a dramatic drop in the number of hospital Covid cases, we're going to be allowed to step out into the sunshine with a little more sense of normality. But still the government will be micromanaging us. So while there will be more "you can do this" there will still be plenty of "but you can't do that". That's in the UK. There will be similar relaxations in the US but Dr Anthony Fauci, the ultra-cautious expert on viruses, is talking abou the need for masks in public until NEXT YEAR. With all these restrictions on our liberty for so long, I wonder if we have all now become hermit-like and timid and worried and cautious and undaring? In other words, will we ever really go back to pre-pandemic normal or will we hide behind our front doors, scared to go wild and enjoy life to the full? I hope not but even after we have all been double-dose jabbed, there is bound to be a lingering hesitation about the life ahead, particularly among older people.

What does "America is back" mean exactly?

I know what Joe Biden and Antony Blinken, his secretary of state, were trying to say when they coined the phrase, "America is back" which has been doing the rounds a lot recently. I guess what they were hoping to tell the world was that that awful man Trump has now gone and the good guys are back in charge who know how to be nice and diplomatic and consensual and collaborative...and predictable. After four years of a rumbustuous make-it-up-as-you-go-along president, we now have an American leader in charge whom allies around the world, and especially in Nato, can feel relaxed about. The smile is back on the face of everyone who had to put up with Trump's petulance. But there is one thing that worries me. Bold politics and world-influencing leadership don't necessarily come with niceness. Trump went over the top by thinking he knew better than anyone and told them so, and as a result, infuriated pretty well every leader in the world at some point, allies especially. But my God, he didn't half put governments on their mettle, and that's not always a bad thing. Being terribly agreeable doesn't always get the best results. This is why I raise concerns about "America is back". Let's look at it from other countries' point of view. Iran, for example. The ayatollahs and the nasties of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps hated Trump because he punished them with more and more sanctions until their economy stuttered and they must always have had in the back of their minds that Trump might wake up one morning and order the Joint Chiefs to bomb the hell out of their nuclear facilities. There is no way Biden is going to order an attack on Iran's nuclear sites. He has offered talks and is considering lifting some sanctions to encourage them to stick to the much-maligned 2015 Obama-inspired Iran nuclear deal. After four years of insults from Trump, the nasty element of Iran - I'm not talking here about the ultra-smooth foreign minister Mohammed Javad Zarif - will be thinking to themselves, "Great, let's screw Biden until we get all sanctions lifted". Will Tehran in return scrap all dreams of owning nuclear weapons and give up masterminding aggression in the Middle East and elsewhere? No, I don't think so. Tehran got what it wanted with that other nice man, Barack Obama. So in their eyes, "America is back" is probably viewed as a gift for some devious manipulation. And what thinking is going on behind closed doors in Moscow and Beijing and Damascus and Pyongyang? Relief there is a decent bloke in charge in the White House and anticipation of a new era of sweet-smelling diplomacy, or strategic plotting to exploit what they might think will be an era of nice but dull Biden.

Navalny somehow remains optimistic

Vladimir Putin's bitterest political enemy, Alexei Navalny, manages to sound optimistic and cheerful even when he is speaking from jail. He has two years in prison before him for a breach of his terms of parole connected to a 2014 embezzlement charge and who knows what the Kremlin has in mind for keeping him in prison after he has served his two years. Yet when he emerges to appear in court he looks relaxed and confident, as if he expects some miracle will happen and Putin will back down and allow him to be his main political opponent free of restraint. The reason he breached his 2014 parole terms was because he was in a hospital in Germany receiving life-and-death treatment after being poisoned with novichok nerve agent. The Kremlin says he spent too long in Germany after his medical treatment, so as soon as he returned to Moscow, the "justice" system put him behind bars. How he remains optimistic when he knows that Putin can arrange for him to be arrested whenever he wants,it is difficult to understand. The news today talked about how the big-crowd protests in support of Navalny could lead to Putin's downfall. This is of course total nonsense. Putin has the full security apparatus behind him and there is no way he is going to be forced out however loudly the crowds shout for an end to his reign. Putin is here to stay. There are so many wonderful things about Russia - the language, the people, the ballet, the music, the literature, the vast landscapes, the history - but all we get is Putin Putin Putin and the terrible corruption of power and organised crime and military aggression. Perhaps it's all the good things about Russia that keep Navalny smiling. I guess he can dream but while he remains in jail his voice will be suppressed, and his hopes for a better future for his country will never materialise.

Ted Cruz breaks golden rule

There are a number of golden rules for all politicians. Perhaps the most important of all, apart from being magnanimous in defeat, is never to be away on holiday when your constituents are dying from hurricanes, snow blizzards, tornadoes, floods, Siberian weather that kiboshes all power supplies, etc etc. Texas over the last week has had a torrid time, trying to survive without any electricity or water because every pipe froze solid in the worst snowstorm since... well since no one can quite remember. You don't really associate a state like desert-hot Texas with snow of any kind. Texans have died. But Senator Ted Cruz (Texas), not the most amicable of politicians who still believes that he might one day be president of the United States, tiptoed out of Texas and headed on a flight with his family to Cancun, the tourist resort in Mexico, for a quiet sunny sojourn. Oh dear, big mistake. And not helped by the second error on his part which was to deny that he had intended to stay there but was just safely delivering his daughters to the beach before heading straight back to snowy Texas. Then it turned out he had actually planned to stay for the weekend, presumably delivering his daughters to the beach each day. Anyway when it became public that he was in Mexico in the warmth, he high-tailed it back to the US of A and did the TV interview rounds to apologise for his bungle and to acknowledge that his place should have been with his fellow Texans while they suffered, and in some cases, perhaps as many as 100, died. Cruz is not that good at being contrite but he did his best. It's a lesson he will never forget. These days, you can't just sneak off to a resort when those you represent are buried in snow. Social media snoopers will spot you and give the game away. It's impossible to do anything in secret anymore. At least Cruz didn't go on a five-star cruise. Then he would have been stuck on a luxury ship and apologies from the deckchair would have been tough to swallow.

Clash of the Titans, Trump and McConnell

The very future of the US Republican Party now rests on who will be the victor in the clash of the Titans: Donald President, ex-president, and Mitch McConnell, ex-Majority and now Minority leader of the Senate. I doubt many people think Senator McConnell will win. He may command respect among most of his fellow Republicans in the Senate, he knows the place and how it works better than anyone. But in his desperate effort to swing both ways, as it were, he sided with Trump by acquitting him at both of his impeachment trials, and then, after the second one, he berated the former president and claimed he bore moral responsibilityy for what happened on January 6. The trouble is in politics you can't really have it both ways. McConnell's attempt to try and please everyone failed abysmally. First because he riled Trump so much that the ex-president reacted with fury and contempt, and second, every Republican senator now has to face the prospect of going for reelection in 2022 and 2024 with the row between Trump and McConnell muddying the waters and putting off potential voters. As of today, the Republicans have about as much chance of regaining a majority in the Senate as Trump has of returning to the White House. Only when the row is resolved whch will mean McConnell backing down, will the future look less bleak for the Republicans. It looks to me like the spat with McConnell has given Trump renewed energy to fight back and keep control of the Republican Party. Not that he had lost it. McConnell's future is less easy to predict. He will now struggle to retain the loyalty of his colleagues if his statement of outrage about Trump screws up their chances of being reelected or undermines new Republican candidates hoping to beat their Democratic rivals. With Trump as one of the Titans, McConnell is going to face the fight of his political life. Normally, Who Dares Wins. But not in McConnell's case.

Biden has learnt to say no

All that talk before the election about Joe Biden mulling over whether to cancel the mighty student loan debt mountain has come down to a one-word answer from the new president. No, he said. Biden was appearing at a town hall meeting, one of those folksy meet-the-people events which all politicians must either love or dread. The tricky bit is when a voter at the back of the hall asks a very pointed question and expects a truthful answer. If it's a journalist asking the question, Biden might well hedge his bets but an "ordinary" guy or gal, as it was in this case, is somehow different. So when Biden was asked by a woman if he was going to pay off the $50,000 loans taken out by tens of thousands of students, he just replied that wasn't going to happen. Wow, big shock for the progressive members of the Democratic party who have been urging the president before and after the election to do just that. Apparently Biden might be more amenable to cancelling £10,000 per student but definitely not the full $50,000. Cancelling student loan debts would mean finding billions of dollars, adding further to the skyrocketing national debt. A British politician wanting to become prime minister once boasted that he would cancel all student loan debts but when he had the actual chance to do it - admittedly not as prime minister but as a minister in a coalition government - he backtracked and it never happened. Didn't do his political career any good at all. So Biden took the sensible option and just said NO. So much better when a political leader is decisive and knows when to say yes or no and not maybe possibly. The town hall meeting in Milwaukee was as folksy as you could get. Positively mumsy wumsy. When he was asked about Donald Trump, Biden referred to him as "the former guy". Not former president but former guy. I love that. Pretty dismissive but without being rude. I expect Trump has a different description for Biden. Probably unrepeatable in a family blog.

Biden wants to close Guantanamo and ban assault rifles. Good luck with that!

After years of trying under different US presidents there appear to be certain policy dreams that can never be achieved: banning assault rifles, closing Guantanamo detention camp, bringing peace to Afghanistan and implementing a workable and affordable healthcare programme. Joe Biden wants to do all of these things but he probaby has as much chance of success as his predecessors. Trump didn't care about banning assault rifles, Obama tried but just tinkered and George W Bush never really got to grips with it. Guantanamo was opened by George W and stuffed it full of suspect terrorist detainees, around 780 at its inmate peak, Obama released a lot of them in transfer deals with other countries but it stayed open throughout his eight years, Trump wanted to send more detainees and showed no interest in closing it, and now Biden has declared he intends to close it by the end of his "first" term. The war in Afghanistan, well the American-led one, started under George W in 2001 after 9/11, Obama tried desperately to find a way of ending it with honour but all he really did was send more and more troops and then bring some back under an arbitrary timetable, Trump did more than anyone to try and bring the war to a close by talking to the Taliban and reducing troop numbers to 2,500 but totally failed to bring peace and left the mess to his successor, and Biden doesn't yet know what he's going to do but has few options. George W didn't reform healthcare, Obama put it at the top of his domestic policy issues but then produced a massively complex and unaffordable Obamacare system which actually fined people who refused to partake, Trump hated it and tried but failed to throw it out and never came up with a proper alternative, and Biden wants to reinstate Obamacare in some form or other but it sounds a muddle. So all I can say to Biden is, good luck with your dreams and let's hope you can fulfill at least one of them. I can't even begin to predict which one it might be!

Afghanistan - depressingly familiar

The Taliban were always going to "win" the war in Afghanistan. However many thousands of extra Afghan government soldiers and policemen the US-led coalition helped to train and finance and arm, they were never going to be good enough against the Taliban without massive back-up by the Americans, in particular. And here I'm talking about air power, intelligence-gathering, logistics support, encouragement, training, leadership, strategy etc etc. So if the remaining 2,500 American troops are pulled out on May 1, as per the Qatar deal with the Taliban, the consequences are so inevitable and obvious they can be summmed up in one word. Victory. For the Taliban. Without any foreign troops to rely on, the Afghan security forces will be unable to withstand the ferocity of the Taliban who are already moving up and putting maximum pressure on many of Afghanistan's cities. They will take over when the last American soldier has left. This is not a case of being pessimistic about what will happen after May 1. It is the reality. It has always been the reality. The Taliban are not interested in peace except on their terms. Not the Qatar-deal terms. But their battlefield terms. The Qatar deal was just an excuse for Trump to claim he had brought the war to an end and finished America's longest conflict. A legacy strategy on Trump's part that had nothing to do with getting a genuine peace agreement under which the Taliban would be forced to agree a ceasefire. In the Taliban mind a ceasefire is the equivalent of surrender. So despite a mass of clever-sounding phrases in the Qatar deal, the word ceasefire did not appear once. In my view that meant the Qatar deal was a meaningless piece of paper. Trump always berated those who negotiated the Obama-led 2015 Iran nuclear deal, saying it was worthess and wouldn't stop Iran from developing nuclear weapons. But then he went on to produce a worthless agreement with the Taliban. The Taliban are relentlessly killing and assassinating and destroying and will continue to do so until they get what they want, total power. Joe Biden has only one choice: he has to say that unless the Taliban agree to a ceasefire, the US will keep the 2,500 troops in Afghanistan beyond May 1 and will retain a mass of air power to obliterate Taliban fighters and strongholds until they come to their senses. Does this sound a familiar solution? Yes, of course, it has been tried for 20 years and failed. On the other hand, if Biden withdraws all 2,500 troops according to the Qatar deal, closes all bases and pulls out American air power, the victory for the Taliban will be blamed as much on him as on his predecessor. Biden must know this. I predict a fudge emerging that won't stop the Taliban from continuing with their violent mayhem against the Afghan security forces and against the long-suffering Afghan people.

Republican Party now stuck with Trump

Acquitted in short fashion after all. So the Republican Party is now stuck with Donald Trump. Only seven Republicans had the moral courage to convict him of incitement to insurrection. The rest chickened out on the basis that convicting a president out of office was not constitutional. Mitch McConnell, the so-called leader of the Republicans in the Senate, demonstrated not for the first time that he puts party and partisan politics before anything, even while acknowledging that Trump had been guilty of very bad behaviour. He probaby thought he could square the circle by criticising the former president for acting in a very unpresidential manner while at the same time using a legal technicality to justify his decision to acquit him of anything inappropriate. Political cowardice through and through, although his dilemma was shared by the other 42 Republican senators who acquitted Trump. They didn't dare join the Democrats and convict Trump for fear of losing their jobs and livelihoods by upsetting the 74 million Americans who voted for Trump in the 2020 election. They knew that if they acquitted Trump, the former president would probably eventually announce a new campaign to be reelected in 2024. If even a small number of them share the same view as McConnell, that Trump was guilty of gross misbehaviour, then how can they contemplate the idea that this man could once again represent the Republican party and stand again for the presidency? I thought at one point that once Trump had left office, the Republican party obsession with this former TV reality showman would fade and Trump would be cast aside and forgotten. But clearly this is not the case, and now he has been acquitted for the second time, his confidence and motivation for trying again in four years'time will have been boosted a hundredfold. Nikki Haley, a 2024 hopeful, has had the courage to back off from Trump, saying that the party was wrong to follow him. But I fear that her disaffection from the president she once loyally served as US ambassador to the United Nations will come to haunt her when she puts her name forward for the 2024 nomination. Who will dare to drop Trump and campaign for Nikki Haley?

Last-minute drama in impeachment trial

Just when everyone involved in the impeachment trial of Donald Trump was gearing up for a swift conclusion and vote, a last-minute intervention changed it all. Suddenly the focus switched from what Trump said BEFORE the attack on the Capitol and what he said or did AFTER the riot was in full sway. Strictly speaking the incitement to insurrection charge was all about how the former president used words in hs January 6 speech which stirred/encouraged/incited his supporters to raid Congress. But with the Senate resigned to the unavoidable verdict - conviction by all Democratic senators and acquittal by the majority of Republican senators - that interval between the speech and the first smashing of windows became a point of acute interest. The decision to call witnesses was truly a stunning moment. And it was all because a Republican senator who had voted to support the impeachment trial revealed that she had been briefed on a conversation between Trump and the Republican minority leader of the House Kevin McCarthy when the assault had started. Representative Jaime Herrera Beutley (Washington) said McCarthy had pleaded with Trump to stop the violence, but Trump just replied that it was clear his supporters felt more angry about the 2020 election result than the Republican party. Senator Tommy Tuberville, a Republican from Alaska, was also involved in phone conversations with Trump at the time. No one had known about these conversations before and the revelation opened a can of worms. Forget about a swift conclusion to the trial, suddenly there was a demand for witnesses to be called. Not just McCarthy and Tuberville and Hererra Beutley. What about Mike Pence, the vice president, who was seen being hustled away from danger as the rioters invaded Congress? Did he get a call from Trump? Was Trump even remotely worried about Pence's safety after as good as calling on his supporters to denounce the vice president for failing to reject the election result in his capacity as president of the Senate. What about the Secret Service team protecting Trump? What did they see and hear? Can they be forced to appear as witnesses? There is no way the trial can end today if all these questions are going to be answered? It could go on for weeks and get murkier and murkier.

Trump trial to be swiftly wrapped up

It sounds like Trump's lawyers have got the message. There will be no waffling and blaa blaa blaa today as the defense takes to the stand to try and argue that the former president was not guilty of inciting anyone to do anything. Word has been put about that the two men given the task, Bruce Castor and David Schoen, will be relatively short and sweet and definitely not planning to take up their allotted time of 16 hours. I don't think, this time, either of them will say anything or omit anything which might persuade a bunch of Republicans to switch sides and vote to convict Trump. In fact they will see that as their defining brief, not just to get an acquittal but to get all or nearly all Republican senators to vote against conviction. It could all be wrapped up by tomorrow. Either way, there is a risk of a violent reaction from the most avid of Trump supporters: anger if he is acquitted because they will see it as a failed Democratic conspiracy against the man they believe should still be in the White House, and huge anger if he is convicted because it should mean he will never again be allowed to stand for the presidency. It's a good thing that the Senate trial is to be completed quickly. It lessens the impact on the nation. But the trial itself won't solve America's biggest social problem, the total division that splits the country. This is unlikely to be resolved during Joe Biden's administration even though unity was set as his priority in his inauguration speech. A lot of people in the United States have no interest in unity. They are just too angry.

Biden carries on as normal as Trump trial continues

It must be so weird for Joe Biden. He is the 46th president of the United States and only into his fourth week and the 45th president is facing the biggest impeachment trial since....well since the last one in December 2019. Biden has taken the sensible decision to ignore what is going on in the Senate as best he can, and carry on cementing in his administration. It's like two separate worlds in the same capital. In fact while the impeachment trial plays to a mesmerised audience around the world, the two presidents, current and former, are playing no part at all. Biden, as I said, is doing what presidents are supposed to be doing, and Trump is trying his best to ignore it all by playing a round of golf every day down in Florida. Very weird indeed. Of course if Trump was still able to tweet he would no doubt be sounding off every few minutes but as it is he is as quiet as a mouse, apart from telling friends who told other friends who told the New York Times that he was mightily unhappy about his defense counsel - later denied by Trump's old mucker Senator Lindsey Graham I noticed. On the third day of the impeachment trial, Biden somewhat spoilt Trump's day by cancelling funding for The Wall, the Trump wall. Trump will be seething but surely not surprised. Best for everyone when the trial is over and done with, whatever the verdict.

The impeachment trial video was terrifying

Whether or not there is sufficient evidence to prove Donald Trump was guilty of inciting the January 6 riot against the Capitol, the terrifying video of the assault by thousands of Trump supporters which formed the heart and soul of the prosecution case in the Senate trial was more than enough to convince me that this man should never ever be allowed to hold public office again. The video was obviously cleverly edited to put across the prosecution case but the contrast between the violence and hatred and anger and the continuing remarks by Trump that the election had been stolen by bad and evil people, shows why the spoken word can be so devastatingly effective in inspiring supporters to rage. Trump didn't say to his supporters that they should use violence to break down the doors of Congress and cause terror, but as they did just that, they had those words - the election was stolen by bad people - in their heads and that's what drove them on. Incitement by Trump? Yes it could be argued but by insinuation rather than by direct orders. That's why I feel it will be difficult to convict him on the charge of incitement to insurrection even if Republican senators were to vote according to their conscience rather than their partisan views. But the video was truly scary. Such bloodlust displayed and such foul outbursts against the Capitol police struggling to withstand the tidal wave of hate. No wonder Trump's defence lawyer, Bruce Castor, was so useless and waffly in trying to stand up for the former president. He had nothing to say against the video. By the look of him and his incompetent and clearly unrehearsed 45-minute speech, he probably regretted accepting the role as soon as he stood up to address the Senate. There was simply nothing to defend. Castor even introduced himself as the prosecutor, swiftly changing it to defense counsel. Castor cast himself into oblivion. Hopefully Trump too.

Trump blamed Wuhan but still no proof. Apparently.

Deep down everyone in the West probably thinks the Covid-19 virus began its life after leaking from a coronavirus laboratory at the Institute of Virology in Wuhan in western China. But according to the World Health Organisation team that carried out an investigation of the origins of the pandemic, it's "extremely unlikely" that this is how the virus emerged and spread around the world. The trouble is the WHO team was chaperoned like only the Chinese and the North Koreans know how to chaperone while they carried out their investigation. So how will we ever know whether they carried out a really proper investigation or did they just accept what they were told by their Chinese host? Admittedly when the pandemic broke out, senior US military people stated it was their belief, presumably based on intelligence provided by the CIA and National Security Agency, that it was "unlikely" coronavirus had leaked from the Wuhan laboratory. They seemed to agree with what the WHO team has concluded today which is that the virus emanated from live bats. I'm not a conspiracy supporter generally. But it's very difficult to disassociate the two things that cannot be argued against: The virus started in Wuhan and in the city of Wuhan there is a laboratory which does a lot of work on coronavirus. Could just be a coincidence but it's not a coincidence one can easily dismiss. Still, the WHO team has come away reassured by what they found or didn't find. Donald Trump blamed China, Wuhan and the Institute of Virology in numerous tweets, and most people in America probably believed him. But Trump no longer tweets, his second impeachment trial begins today. So China wins.

Trump is so quiet it makes you wonder

For four years it was Trump Trump Trump. Trump in the morning, Trump in the afternoon, Trump in the evening and Trump as you tried to sleep. Now he has gone so quiet you wonder what he is plotting and planning. The American newspapers are saying that he is enjoying his downtime in the Florida sunshine and not getting involved in anything but it can't be true. The man wants to be back in the Big Time, you just know it. Once the impeachment trial is over and all the hullabaloo has died down he will reemerge to remind the Republican party that they are still chained to him and his Trumpism for ever. Well that's what he would like to think. Surely, as I have said before, there must be someone who is brave enough to make a stand and take the party to new pastures. But what about the 74 million devotees who voted for the Big Fella? How can anyone wrest these supporters from his clutches and herd them off into a different direction. Right now it can't be done but at some stage between now and 2024 there will have to be a Republican messiah who can entice Trump supporters to move away from him and admit there is life after Trump. That's if the Republican party wants to have a future. Otherwise they can kiss goodbye to returning to power for a decade. Trump is not their future, they must know that. Trump, if he stands in 2024, is not going to be reelected, and then the party will be in such dire straits that it might as well give up and turn Democrat. Meanwhile we have an oh-so-quiet Biden administration and a return to Obamaism. No rampaging, no White House sackings, no dramas. So far, all sweetness and light. Long may it last, provided Biden gets things done and fast. But watch out for that Florida Man. He ain't gone away yet.

With hindsight, was Trump guilty of incitement?

Incitement is not the same as encouragement. It has a particular legal flavour and in some circumstances it can be the right term when an individual or individuals are charged with spurring followers on to commit acts that a jury would judge to be violent, dangerous and ultimately criminal. So was Donald Trump guilty of inciting tens of thousands of people to invade the Capitol and to attemt to overthrow democracy. That's at the heart of the upcoming Senate impeachment trial. The reason why Trump will be acquitted is because none, or very few, of the Republican senators will vote to convict him for political/partisan reasons and because they believe it's unconstitutional to impeach a president who is no longer the president but a private citizen. But the question - did Trump incite the uprising against the Capitol? - still has to be answered. I've read and reread Trump's speech to his followers and with hindsight I don't believe that Trump actually incited at all, not in the legal sense. He didn't stir them to attack the Capitol, he didn't do an Agincourt address and inspire his soldiers to fight a war against the enemy, he didn't authorise them to smash windows and intimidate members of Congress. Indeed, he actually called on them to protest peacefully. OK he also said they should "fight" for what they believed in, but that word has been used by politicians down the ages. What Trump WAS guilty of was creating the headline message which drove his supporters to fury and ultimately inspired them to break into the Capitol. The message being that the election was a fraud and that his reelection chances were stolen from him. That message had been thrown at his fans for two solid months. So you could argue that the fatal speech on January 6 prior to the attack on the Capitol was the final call to arms. It's an argument that can and will be used in the Senate impeachment trial. But taken on its own, I don't believe that the words Trump used in the speech could be defined as prima facia evidence of incitement. The people responsible for the violence and aggression were the scary loonies who carry assault rifles when they go shopping and believe anyone who doesn't share their warped view of life are communists. Trump knew that these extremist nutters were among his supporters and failed to disassociate himself from them. For this he was guilty. But I still think it is hard to prove that his speech was actual incitement to commit a crime against democracy.

No more intelligence secrets for Trump

I don't suppose it will ruin Donald Trump's day to be told by Joe Biden that he will not join the list of former presidents entitled to receive intelligence briefings to keep them up to date with what is going on in the undercover world. In fact he is the only former president to be barred from getting intelligence briefings because Biden doesn't trust him. But Trump never really believed in the intelligence titbits he was shown, he always claimed he knew more about intelligence than anyone in the spying business. So it's no big deal for him down in Florida to be kept out of the intelligence loop. But it's still an extraordinary step by Biden, a break with tradition and the clearest sign that the new administration wants to bury the Trump name. There is no mutual respect. Meanwhile Biden is shifting the intelligence leadership around, making it look more like the Obama era. He has brought back into the CIA David Cohen who was deputy director of the CIA from 2015 under Obama. Prior to that Cohen ran this brilliant department in the Treasury which tracks terrorist groups' financial networks and it's very good at it. Cohen was particularly sharp and brought this expertise to the CIA. Biden recognised that and wanted him back at the CIA in the same job, deputy director. He will be particularly influential because the Biden selection for CIA director is William Burns who although a customer of intelligence for years in his capacity as senior diplomat, has never actually worked in the intelligence community. The two should mix and match pretty well. Avril Haines, who also served as deputy director of the CIA is now the director of national intelligence, in overall charge (sort of) of 18 US intelligence agencies. It used to be 17 agencies, including the office of the director of national intelligence, but now it's 18 because the Trump-created Space Force has its own intelligence branch. All the military services have their own intelligence branches, including the Coast Guard, and they all come under Avril Haines' area of responsibility. She will be the one who gives Biden and Kamala Harris, the vice president, the daily Presidential Brief which includes the very tastiest of intelligence morsels. This is the stuff which Trump will not be allowed to see. Ever. He wouldn't believe it anyway, so it's no great shakes. But it's still one in the eye for Trump who was president of the United States SEVENTEEN days ago.

The elegant art of cricket

For those unfortunate not to appreciate cricket you will have missed the most perfect exhibition of graceful batting I think I have ever seen. Joe Root, captain of the England Test cricket team and coming in at Number 4 in the first Test Match against India at the Madras cricket club in dry hot hot heat. By the end of the day he was still there, scoring a century - that's 100 runs for the uninitiated - in his 100th Test Match innings. Such perfection. He never looked in trouble. I have always been a fan of David Gower, a former England captain but now well retired from cricket, whose grace and elegance as a batsman was awesome to watch. But sometimes he was so laid back you were always slightly on edge, fearing he would snick a ball to the slip fielders just behind him. With Root today in Madras there were no such fears at all. He just played every ball with confidence and style and grace whether it was a fast bowler the other end or a spin bowler. The only time his elegance failed him was when he reached forward to sweep away a ball over the boundary for six and then fell down with cramp agony. Well he had been batting in the heat for hours. The nicest touch was when the India captain. Virat Kohli, himself a master batsman, came forward and grabbed Root's foot to help ease the cramp. What a gentleman. Root will continue batting tomorrow on Day Two and I have every confidence he will go on to score a double century, just like he did in Sri Lanka three weeks ago. What a star.

Purge at the Pentagon

FULL VERSION OF MY TIMES STORY TODAY: A purge of advisers in the Pentagon known or suspected of being loyalists of former president Donald Trump has been ordered by Lloyd Austin, the new US defence secretary. Hundreds of people appointed to special advisory boards acting as independent policy experts have been told to step down no later than February 16 while a review to cleanse the department of dedicated followers of Mr Trump is carried out. The decision by Mr Austin, a retired four-star army general, to hunt down advisers likely to promote policies advocated by the former president followed a flurry of appointments at the Pentagon in the last few weeks of the Trump administration. When the review is completed, up to three dozen of the most controversial appointees are expected to be removed. They are likely to include retired Brigadier General Anthony Tata who once referred to President Obama as a terrorist leader , although he said he regretted the remark, and claimed the CIA sought to assassinate Mr Trump. Also on the list facing replacement will be Corey Lewandowski, Mr Trump’s former campaign manager, David Bossie, ex-deputy campaign manager and leader of an action group which challenged the 2020 election result, Newt Gingrich, former Republican Speaker of the House, and Scott O’Grady, a former fighter pilot who tweeted that Mr Biden’s victory amounted to a coup. Mr Austin, the first African American to be appointed defence secretary, said the review would assess whether each board was focusing on “our most pressing strategic priorities and the national defence strategy”. There are 42 advisory boards with more than 600 appointees who provide specialist advice on a whole range of Pentagon issues, including defence policy, science, innovation and women in the military. The two prominent ones are the defence policy board and the defence business board. Mr Tata was appointed to the defence policy board on the day before Joe Biden was inaugurated as the 46th president on January 20. He and others loyal to Mr Trump were parachuted into key posts by Christopher Miller who was appointed acting defence secretary in November after the sacking of Mark Esper as Pentagon chief. John Kirby, the new Pentagon press secretary, said the decision to launch a review was driven by the last-minute “frenetic” activity by Mr Miller to remove dozens of advisory board members and replace them in the transition period between Mr Trump’s election defeat on November 3 and the inauguration of the new president. Mr Tata was already viewed as a controversial figure. Mr Trump had nominated him to be undersecretary for defence policy at the Pentagon but the Senate refused to confirm the appointment. He was then given the acting defence policy role, bypassing the Senate, when James Anderson, the incumbent, resigned after claiming the White House was trying to install Trump loyalists in the top Pentagon posts. Under Mr Trump, some of the most experienced and long-serving members of the defence advisory boards, notably former secretaries of state Henry Kissinger and Madeleine Albright, had been removed. The review which is to be concluded by June 1 will be led by the Pentagon’s general counsel and the director of administration and management. In a memo last month, Mr Austin wrote to all the advisory boards acknowledging they played an important role in shaping policy. He said he would rely on their expertise while he was defence secretary.

A world roll-out of Covid vaccine? It's not happening.

We in the UK are lucky. The Boris Johnson government took swift action, thanks to a brilliant vaccine task force, to order millions and millions of different vaccines, well before they were even authorised and found to be effective. So now, with three vaccines approved and more on the way, the UK is sitting pretty for a large-scale vaccination programme. But programmes around the world are sketchy and in some areas, non-existent. The US started slowly and even now has only managed to vaccinate about eight per cent of the population. The 27 countries of the European Union are in all sorts of trouble as I have documented before. But there seem to be huge variations across the globe. Take Peru for example. Peru has had three different presidents in a comparatively short period and as a result none of them managed to be around long enough to get orders in for vaccines. So as of now there is no vaccine programmme underway in Peru. Argentina of course has gone for the Russian Sputnik V vaccine which has now been given the green light by the Lancet magazine, the bible of the medical world. They say it's 92 per cent effective. So after all the initial doubts about the rushed Russian programme, it seems it's ok after all. I expect a lot more countries, perhaps Peru, with no or limited programmes will turn to Russia. I know why the world was sceptical about the Russian Sputnik V vaccine which was developed and tested with breakneck speed, the first one on the planet. It was all about Vladimir Putin. No one believes what he says and when he said Russia had developed a vaccine no one trusted him and certainly didn't put in any orders. But the fact is Russia has brilliant scientists and engineers and doctors, like so many other advanced countries, and so Sputnik V had as good a chance of being effective as any of the vaccines being developed. Now Lancet says it is. This is good news. The more vaccines the better and the more they can be distributed to every corner of the globe, the more likely we will come out of this pandemic nightmare sooner rather than very much later.

Does congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene think the Martians have landed?

Without wishing to cast any aspersions on the recently-elected Georgia Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene but one does have to wonder whether she believes the Martians have or are about to land, that there are aliens living in every US city and that Trump should still be president. Well at least the last one has some merit if you happen to think, like she and Donald do, that the election was stolen from Trump and landed in the lap of Joe Biden by a series of nationwide fraudulent votes. She is a fanatical Trumpite and goes around wearing a face mask that says "Trump won". So that bit is cleared up. As for the other two scary items, who knows what she might believe. She does believe in a lot of weird and whacky things. Such as space lasers started the huge fires in California and the terrible fatal school shootings that scar the United States on so many occasions are hoaxes. What?!! You do wonder how people like this ever get elected to office but she did and she is now causing a nightmare headache for the Republican party. The trouble is Trump thinks she is the best thing since the invention of hairspray and the two have had a good long chat over the phone. Republicans are already in a tizzy about Trump, whether to dump him or cling to him, so with dear Marjorie being his standard bearer they haven't a clue what to do about her. They're hoping Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House will expel her from Congress for being totally batty, and dangerously so. You can see the problem the Republican grandees have in the wording of the statement put out by Mitch McConnell, now Minority leader of the Senate. He denounced everything she stood for but didn't have the courage to actually name her. I suspect Marjorie Taylor Greene who is 46 and comes from Milledgeville, Georgia, is not going to go away. She obviously loves the limelight and the crazy things she believes in are also believed presumably by the crazy people who voted her into Congress. So watch out for more space lasers!

Burma coup deja vue

Joe Biden has only been in office for 12 days and already he has his first foreign policy challenge, with the military coup in Burma. Ok, the Biden administration has condemned the take-over but in diplomatic language that doesn't mean a lot. Sanctions? Well they'll be discussed by the United Nations no doubt. Britain holds the presidency of the Security Council at the moment and will be pushing for strong measures. The trouble is that the world's FORMER darling, Aung San Suu Kyi, the civilian leader of the Burmese government, now detained, whose gentle, longstanding rebellion against the former military junta won her friends around the globe, took a step backwards when she was allowed to lead the civilian government. Instead of condemning the Burmese army for rapes and murderous atrocities against the minority Muslim Rohingya people, living in the border area with Bangladesh, she denied the atrocities and said militants among the Rohingya had been responsible for attacking the Burmese army. It was a statement that so shocked us all that her position on the pedestal of goodness and courage suddenly looked somewhat shaky. Now she is back under house arrest, something she endured for 15 years during her long campaign against the military junta. I fear there won't be the same outpouring of outrage on her behalf as there was during those 15 years when her name was synonymous with personal integrity and bravery. She won the Nobel Peace Prize as a consequence. The coup is of course outrageous although not surprising in a country like Burma, beautiful though it is. The general now in charge of the coup regime looks nothing like the sort of monster dictator we have seen emerge in other parts of the world in the past. General Min Aung Hlaing, Burma's commander-in-chief, led the bloodless coup claiming it was justified because the runaway election victory for Aung San Suu Kyi in November was fraudulent. Had Donald Trump still been in power, dealing with that justification would have been tricky for obvious reasons. Biden will have to show that he is prepared to do more than just denounce the Burmese commander-in-chief. Quite what other than agreeing to international sanctions against the general and his cohorts, is difficult to predict. Whatever Biden does or tries to do will be blocked by China, Burma's closest supporter. In that sense, it's the same old dilemma. A military coup removes democracy from a country a long way away and there's not a helluva lot anyone can do because the big powers will not be in agreement.