Trump and women

What's with this guy Donald Trump? After more than 70 years as a bloke on this planet he clearly hasn't yet learnt the difference between complimentary, creepy and offensive when dealing with the opposite sex. And has he got a thing about blood? During the presidential election he suggested Megyn Kelly, then Fox News presenter, was having a period because of the way she interviewed him on Fox News, saying she had blood coming "out of her wherever". Now he has attacked Mika Brzezinksi, MSNBC presenter, saying she was "bleeding badly from a facelift." We know Trump is a germaphobe because he told us he was. Does he also have a blood phobia and an obsession with talking about blood when referring to women? Anyway, I don't want to get diverted. The point is, Trump hasn't a clue about women. When he addressed the female Irish reporter in the Oval Office the other day, interrupting a call to the Irish prime minister, and said she had a nice smile on her face, that wasn't offensive, but it was creepy. The remarks to Megyn Kelly and Mika Brezinzksi were clearly not just offensive but disgusting and gross. Trump says women love him, but all women, ALL women, know the difference between a minor flirting remark, a real compliment and total creepiness. It's one of the things men have to learn, preferably from an early age. First, you treat with women with respect and it helps always to be courteous and chivalrous. This may sound old-fashioned but it's not. Charm is also fine. But, especially these days, charm can turn into creepiness if a bloke goes on too much or starts placing a hand on a woman's waist or higher up. But Trump was either brought up badly or thinks he's so special and beloved by the female sex that he can say and do anything. Some women, judging by the crowds of female supporters who listen to his every word, obviously think he's ok. But I bet if he stepped down from his speech platform and headed for one particular woman and said: "Hey, baby, you've got nice ...." that woman would think to herself: "Uuurgh, what a creep." What I don't understand is Trump has got a beautiful wife and a lovely daughter. How can they put up with these derogatory remarks about their sex. Why don't they tell him that women don't want a creepy 70-year-old mouthing off about women's looks?

Why are some politicians so stupid?

Sir Michael Fallon, UK Defence Secretary, has been boasting about the Royal Navy's new but not yet operational aircraft carrier, HMS Queen Elizabeth. Now there's nothing wrong with that although the splendid-looking giant ship has no aircraft on board and won't have for several years. So strictly speaking, it's not yet an aircraft carrier because it doesn't carry aircraft. Still, we'll let Sir Michael have his day, following the setting sail of HMS Queen Elizabeth from Rosyth dockyard earlier this week. But Sir Michael didn't stick with that. He had to write in a newspaper, goading the Russians for having only one "old and dilapidated" carrier and claimed the Russians would probably be envying Britain for having such a modern, advanced super carrier. Now that is so stupid!! Why give a two-fingers to Moscow, what's the point, what does he think he's doing? Russia has already responded, laughing at Fallon. Well, of course they are. Making that comment was rude, silly, pointless, shameful, unpleasant, counter-productive and childish. I have not run out of adjectives, but I don't want to go on. Why do politicians think they can make such superior, snooty remarks? I am NOT supporting Moscow, I'm just saying this sort of blatant name-calling is both undignified, publicity-seeking and further damages any chance of having reasonable relations with Mr Putin's government. I bet even Boris Johnson, our beloved Foreign Secretary who likes to make controversial remarks himself on occasions, is angry with Fallon. Theresa May, in between trying to save her political career, should give Fallon a bollocking and basically say, shut up, if you want to keep your job. It's true that the Russian Navy only has one carrier and it tends to belch black smoke and needs a tug to go alongside whenever it sails in case it breaks down. But we all know that. Why bring that up just when the Royal Navy has a brand new carrier to show off? Show it off by all means but without the ho ho ho rubbish aimed at Moscow. It's like the old school playground chant when one boy does better at something than the rest. "na na nana na!!" That's what Fallon was doing and it was seriously embarrassing.

Venezuela, the forgotten nation

So much is going on in the world: terrorism, the wars against Isis in Syria and Iraq, North Korea's madness, Trump's controversial, unpredictable presidency etc. But is anyone really taking notice of what is happening in Venezuela? This is a beautiful, once rich country that has been totally ruined by a political dynasty almost as brutal and appalling as North Korea's. Hugo Chavez, the track-suited man of the people who brought a revolution to Venezuela, started the road to disaster. He professed to love the poor and handed out money to them, but he didn't have a clue about economics and governance and trade and human rights. He died but was succeeded by Nicolas Maduro, a Chavez devotee and former bus driver, who tried to maintain the Chavez revolution. His administration has been notable for corruption, stealing, human rights abuses, destruction of the economy and brutal suppression of the political opposition and of the people. Now there are daily riots in the streets, looting and burning of cars and buildings. The people are involved in an uprising but Maduro has sent troops into the streets to arrest, wound and kill protesters. People are afraid to go to work for fear of being caught up in violence. No one can leave the country because they are forbidden to take money with them. Anyone who owns a house is unable to sell the property and seek a life in a neighbouring country because their houses are worthless. Taking US dollars out of the country is banned. There is a growing sense of hopelessness and despair. It is a country destroyed by a greedy and abusive leader. Yet no one in the international community is doing anything. The US talks about the need to return to democracy. The Organisation of American States (OAS) talks and talks and talks but does not have the courage to intervene. Venezuela is dying and its people are desperate. Why is the world sitting back and ignoring what is going on?

Nail bite government

Theresa May and Donald Trump have few things in common. But one thing they now share is unpopularity. Trump's popularity has slumped both at home and abroad, and Theresa May's popularity or unpopularity is no longer relevant to her survival. Her political survival depends on ten MPs from Northern Ireland who, for one billion pounds, have agreed to prop her up when she requires a vote in the Commons. In the outside world that would be called blackmail or bribery. But this is politics and politics is a dirty business. So in the House of Commons tomorrow (Thursday) the prime minister is likely to get enough support for her government's Queen's Speech manifesto to be voted into the statute books. If this happens, she will carry on and just might still be in power in five years' time. It probably won't happen, but with the vote tomorrow in her favour she will struggle on at Number 10 Downing Street and beat back all her opponents, many of them in the Conservative Party. It's extraordinary how circumstances change. All the newspaper columnists were of one voice, Theresa May was going to be pushed out. But politicians know, or should know, that the last thing the electorate wants right now is another election. It would be obscene, especially after Grenfell Tower and the terrorism attacks. We all want the government to get on and sort things out and make as good a deal as possible out of Brexit. Trump, on the other hand, has very little going for him at the moment, except, by some miracle, the Supreme Court decided to partially uphold his wish to ban the entry of people from six Muslim countries into the US. The Supreme Court, unlike the lower courts, always takes into account the majesty and uniqueness of the presidency. The president of the United States has constitutional rights. He has executive powers laid down. He had a mandate for banning those from Muslim countries after winning the election. So the wise men and women of the Supreme Court decided that the lower courts were wrong to go against the president. It's an interesting argument which may, in the end, be overturned once the judges have had a further look at the issue in the autumn. Trump, I suspect, will regard the polls showing his unpopularity as fake news. It won't bother him. After all, he believes he has won a famous victory in the Supreme Court. Theresa May, on the other hand, will be far more sensitive to her unpopularity. Every day, for her, will be a nail biting experience. She knows there are men and women in her party plotting behind her back. The only MPs she can truly trust are the ten members of Northern Ireland's Democratic Unionist Party, bought with a large amount of cash to do her bidding.

Blighty at crossroads

Life, politics, everything are full of bizarre contradictions. Here we are mourning the loss of 79 lives in one of the most terrible fires since the Fire of London in 1666, and discovering that at least 60 tower blocks in the country are dangerously fitted with exactly the same inflammable cladding that helped turn Grenfell Tower into a raging bonfire, partly due, it seems as a result of local authority economic cutbacks. At the same time, later today, the Royal Navy's new 65,000-tonne aircraft carrier, minus any fighter aircraft, will set sail from Rosyth dockyard for a trial run, having cost Pounds 3.1 billion to build. Now I'm a great supporter of the Royal Navy, of a strong defence for this country, always have been, but even I can see that things have got somewhat out of kilter in recent years. It's a terrific-looking ship, it will tower over Portsmouth when it goes there in due course for its permanent home base. But it won't have any operational fighter aircraft on board until 2023, and who knows where the world will be in six years' time. By then we may have had five years of Jeremy Corbin and a Labour government! Maybe they will scrap the carrier programme, although I doubt it, or sell the second one to Nicaragua. Maybe by then Corbyn, if prime minister, will have made sure the Trident nuclear deterrent is scrapped, despite support for it from the Labour Party. But when the decision was taken to build two giant aircraft carriers - in 1998 (!!!) by a Labour government - the future looked very different. Now we have Brexit which means everything is uncertain, cyber warfare, an army so small you could just about fill a scout hut with it, the likelihood of a very left wing government taking over from the Conservatives and a huge hole in the defence budget which will only be filled if the services are cut even more. Maybe, once the two carriers are operational, if they ever are, there won't be enough trained sailors to crew them, let alone pilots to fly the F35 Joint Strike Fighters. It's all topsy-turvey. A beautiful mighty ship that we can't really afford. And how vulnerable will carriers be in the next decade with the proliferation of super stealthy supersonic anti-ship ballistic missiles? But, despite all the arguments against having these two gigantic ships, Britain cannot just turn inwards and become a second-rate country with a third-rate defence. This is the conundrum. But I fear that within the next eight to ten years, some UK government of whatever political persuasion is going to cry, "enough is enough, we can't afford to do everything anymore". I heard that argument for the first time about 25 years ago, at a dinner for dozens of military types who were trying to look into the future. Everything comes round in circles. Meanwhile, the first of the supercarriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth, is off to sea for a great demonstration of Britain's power-projection capabilities. God bless her and all who sail in her.

Brexit brexit brexit

It has hardly started but already everyone is sick of Brexit. The first day of the "negotiations" the EU bureaucrats dictated the timetable and took no heed of the programme proposed by David Davis, the minister in charge of the UK exiting the EU. Actually, David Davis is a nice guy, a good bloke, probably too nice to deal with the stoney-faced EU negotiator with his floppy hair. I mean I want to stay in the EU but like everyone else in this country I have to accept that the Leave voters won - just - so I'm looking for the May government to do us proud. But Davis got told what the EU wanted on Day One and that was it. Then off goes Theresa to lay out what she has in mind for the three million EU nationals living and working in the UK and offered, or so it appeared to me, to allow them all to stay and live happily ever. Those who have been here five years or more after the Brexit date will get full rights to everything - NHS, social benefits etc - and those who have been here for a shorter period will be allowed to stay until they have reached the five-year point. Sounds reasonable to me. But no, the EU bosses said that was no good, or not sufficient. It's clear this is the way it's going to go. The EU will only say yes ok when they get precisely what THEY want. What makes me so angry is that none of this should be happening. What on earth are we doing leaving the EU? It's crazy, the UK economy, business, security, everything is going to suffer. A Japanese bank has already announced it's going to set up home in Frankfurt instead of London. We're going to become a miserable little island of no consequence. And just to underline it, the EU negotiators are going to rub our noses in it. By the time it's all over we'll be so mad and depressed and downhearted, we won't even want to go on holiday to France any more.

In power but floundering

I hate to say it but the British government is currently floundering. There is little reason to feel confident or optimistic or hopeful that out of this total mess will emerge a government of superb leadership who will forge for our children and children's children a better and happier future. Hearing ministers on the radio and on television is a bleak experience. They don't know what they're doing, they have no idea what this government stands for, and as for the EU-leaving negotiations, how can they negotiate at all when it's still not decided whether we are to leave the single market or the customs union. Some ministers, like Philip Hammond, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the richest man in the cabinet, want to stay in both it seems, while others, like Michael Gove, Boris Johnson and probably Theresa May, want to leave everything and strike out on our own in this big wide world, like ducklings in a dried-up pond. Boris was almost as bad as the Labour Party's Dianne Abbott when trying to answer questions on BBC Radio about the Government's Queen's Speech statement. Floundering hardly describes it. As for the decision to house 250 of the desperate victims of the Grenfell Tower fire into a rich-list apartment block in Kensington sounds terrific and terribly generous and charitable and deserved. But are you seriously trying to tell me that these families will be happy to live in one of the poshest pads in the poshest part of London where the only community will be made up drivers of Ferraris and Lamborghinis who will no doubt resent having "poor" people living in the same block. What sort of community will that be for them or am I being totally unfair? Instead of having nice affordable local shops to go to, they will probably only find the poshest shops where food prices are beyond them. No one has seriously thought this through. These families deserve to be happy and looked after but will they find happiness and protection in a block of flats each of which is valued at well over a million pounds? I fear possibly not. But no doubt it makes the government happy that they have been seen to do something for the victims of the appalling fire. Meanwhile, Amber Rudd, the Home Secretary, is talking of holding multiple reviews about protecting the country from terrorism. For goodness sake, more and more reviews!! Just get on with the job, you don't need to learn lessons. The lessons are obvious. Do NOT cut back on police officer strengths, rebuild community service police forces and don't let ANYONE returning from a trip to Syria arrive back in this country without being detained. Sometimes, you despair!!