Trump wants to cut defence spending!! Surely some mistake.

With all the Trumpery goings-on one bizarre decision by the president has slipped through without major fanfare. He actually wants to CUT the Pentagon's future budget. Having blasted from his soap box that he planned to rebuild America's armed forces and make them better and bigger, he has told the Pentagon chief Jim Mattis that he wants a cut of $33 billion in his planned spending for fiscal year 2020 - the year of the presidential election!! He is suddenly worried about the steeply rising national deficit and wants all government departments, including the Pentagon, to cut expenditure by five per cent. For the Defence Department that means reducing planned expenditure in 2020 from $733 billion to $700 billion. That's a lot of jobs and equipment and training and maintenance and readiness that's going to be negatively affected. It's back to the bad old ways, salami-slicing cuts to the defence budget to meet deficit problems. Obama was a nightmare with his constant cutting, forcing the Pentagon to reduce the size of the individual forces by thousands of troops. When Trump became president he vowed to change all that and gave the Pentagon a big boost in spending last year, with substantial pay rises for service personnel. But reality has set in. I can see big battles ahead in Congress and trouble for Trump as he gets closer to 2020, as if he hasn't got enough problems on his plate over the next two years. Slashing defence spending in the very year he is trying to be reelected for a second term will be a gift for the Democrat rivals, even though they would probably approve cuts in the military. But the fact is in this dangerous world where technology is moving at such a fast speed, it is perilous to start cutting back on key programmes such as hypersonic weapons, cyber warfare, and training, training, training. China will be very happy to see the Pentagon cutting back. So will Putin.

In this era of lying who ever knows who is telling the truth?

Michael Cohen, erstwhile personal lawyer for Trump, is the latest prominent figure in Washington to admit he had lied to Congress about Trump's business dealings but is now telling the truth to Robert Mueller, special counsel investigating allegations of collusion between the president's campaign team and Moscow. Reacting to the latest development, Trump says Cohen is lying about lying which presumably means that in Trump's view, Cohen was telling the truth when he appeared before Congress about his business dealings - notably the plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow when he dismissed any idea that Trump was still talking to the Russians about the monster tower block plan when he was campaigning to enter the White House. Which obviously he shouldn't have been doing. Now Cohen is saying that actually Trump WAS still cosying up to the Russian authorities to build a tower in between campaigning to become president. Cohen says he was lying then but telling the truth now. Trump says Cohen is lying now and telling the truth then!! This is true Alice in Wonderland fantasy stuff. It's impossible to know whether Cohen has ever told the truth about Trump but the fact is he is in trouble with the law and as a result is telling that nice Mr Mueller all kinds of things which I'm sure the former FBI director is lapping up and putting into his huge book of scandals which at some point between now and 2020 he will publish as a best seller and then we can all make up our minds whether it's full of lies or truths, fact or fiction. Trump has already written the speech he will make when the Mueller report is completed. Something on the lines of, "This is all made up, a conspiracy by the Democrat-loving special counsel and his Democrat-loving team of lawyers. The witch hunt is over and I was right all along. The truth is there was no collusion. " But when people say "the truth is" these days, we can't ever again be sure that there is a truth. Cohen said he was speaking the truth to Congress. Now he says he was lying. Why should we believe anything he says?

Crown Prince bin Salman better watch out in Argentina

Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has arrived in Buenos Aires and so far hasn't been arrested. Buenos Aires is hosting the G20 summit and Saudi Arabia is represented. But is MBS taking a calculated risk that the Argentinians wouldn't dare to arrest the most senior Saudi delegate and hold him in detention on the grounds that he is suspected of having a journalist murdered? The Khashoggi case will be like a Damocles sword above his head when the G20 summit starts on Friday. But he's probably safe from being manacled by the Argentine police. By no coincidence whatsoever, Mike Pompeo, US Secretary of State, has declared today that there is no direct (intelligence) reporting that shows MBS ordered the killing of Jamal Khashoggi. In other words, of all the intelligence that has landed on Pompeo's desk - and he sees everything - there is no transcript of a telephone conversation or an email or text which says: "Hello, this is MBS here, I order you to kill that ....Khashoggi." Well, of course, even if he did order it he wouldn't have been so careless as to put it in writing let alone in a telephone call. So I'm sure Pompeo is being truthful. But he also knows that his former colleagues in the CIA made the broad assessment that in Saudi Arabia, a decision to send a team of assassins to grab Khashoggi at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul and strangle him and dispose of his body could not have been made without the say-so of MBS. Ergo, MBS must have authorised the killing. But that's not the same as having a piece of damning intelligence in your hand - or Pompeo's hand - that points the finger directly and unequivocally at the crown prince. So, he's probably safe in Buenos Aires. But that doesn't mean everyone is going to go rushing up to shake his hand. Those who do will be noted!

Trump pulls rug from under Theresa May, but is he right?

Every day gets worse and worse for Theresa May and her government. The latest blow comes from Washington where President Trump kindly informed the world that the great Brexit deal was good for the EU - ie bad for the UK - and that the US will not be able to forge new trade deals with Britain as a result. One of the principle reasons for leaving the EU was for Britain to be able to negotiate trade deals independently around the world, including and especially with the US, without being encumbered by EU trade regulations. Theresa May insists this is still the situation if Parliament votes in favour of her Brexit deal. But from my reading of the small print, it may be true EVENTUALLY but definitely not for about two years after we leave the EU on March 29 next year and probably for several more years after that. So I'm afraid to say that Trump is right, and however 10 Downing Street tries to explain it away, what he said ties in with this small print. The UK will NOT be able to forge a special UK/US trade agreement until AFTER the UK government agrees a trade relationship with the EU, and in the meantime - two years, three years, four years, five years, who knows - we Brits will be subject to EU regulations without having any say in how they might be improved, changed or strengthened. We in the UK will not have a voice in decision-making in Brussels and Strasbourg from May 29 2019. Downing Street says Trump is wrong and as proof has revealed that British and American trade negotiators have already met five times to begin putting an agreement together. But that's disingenuous. Whatever decisions they come to cannot be implemented until after the UK has finally extricated itself from the rules and regulations and restrictions of the EU. 2023-2025 maybe?! Obviously what Trump said doesn't help Theresa May in her almost impossible task of selling her Brexit deal. But it's better to be truthful than claim we're about to sign a wonderful lucrative trade deal with the US. Trump is also following a precedent set by his predecessor, Barack Obama who informed reporters at a press conference in London in April 2016 that the UK would be "at the back of the queue" for trade deals with the US if it left the EU. He probably thought he was being helpful to David Cameron, then prime minister. His remark was made two months before the UK referendum was held on whether to remain in or leave the EU. So, basically, Trump said the same thing: the UK will now be at the back of the queue for trade deals with the US. The answer? Stay in the EU and benefit from the US/EU trade agreement which will one day be signed. But that means throwing Brexit down the drain and pleading with the EU for the UK to come back into the fold. I fear that option is disappearing fast.

What are the odds of Theresa May's Brexit deal being passed by Parliament?

Every newspaper every day tells us that Theresa May's Brexit deal, now approved by the rest of the EU governments, is never going to get through Parliament next month. Based on the available figures - which MP is going to vote which way - these articles seem to be right. If the whole of the Labour contingent in the Commons votes No, 20-30 Conservatives vote No, the Democratic Unionist Party votes No, and the Scottish Nationalists vote No, the Brexit deal will fall onto the scrapheap. But with two weeks to go before the vote,that gives a lot of time for genuinely worried MPs of whatever persuasion, to listen to their constituencies and perhaps come to a different decision than the one they hold right now. But will it be enough to change the voting numbers? Realists will say the answer to that is, surely not. Theresa May and 10 Downing Street will have come to the same conclusion. So does that mean we are doomed to a no-deal scenario? Not necessarily. The British are brilliant at fudges. Some people call it compromise. But actually we could end up with a fudge which means an under-the-counter deal with her opponents. Perhaps Theresa May could say to her critics, "Look, let's sign this deal to get the EU off our backs and cheer up the voters before Christmas, but I promise, when we get down to the nitty-gritty negotiations about trading with the EU - (the really hard part of exiting the EU) - and discuss timetables for transition and scrapping the customs union, if I haven't got a deal within, say, nine months, which everyone is happy about, then I will resign and call a general election, but let's first at least have a withdrawal arrangement, so we have a foundation upon which to build the future relationship with the EU." Now I have no idea whether Mrs May is considering such a fudge or whether, even if she is, Jeremy Corbyn, Labour, and Nicola Sturgeon, Scots Nats, and Arlene Foster, DUP, would go along with it. They probably wouldn't. But if an election is promised in nine months to a year, perhaps Corbyn might be tempted? In any event, Mrs May is about to embark on a nationwide tour to win support for her Brexit deal from the voters, presumably in the hope that they will persuade their MPs to back it. I think there is no question that most voters are by now so tired of the Brexit debate that they will do anything to get the politicians to shut up and get it done. This is what the prime minister is hoping anyway. It's a gamble but she might as well go for it, because it could work.

Trump doesn't want to go to see American troops in war zones

In a startling break with tradition, Donald Trump is showing no interest or enthusiasm about going to visit American troops in war zones, specifically Iraq and Afghanistan. Round about this time of year previous US presidents have started to feel they should go and speak to the troops before Christmas to tell them how wonderful they are and how everyone back home is thinking of them and praying for them. Now obviously for security reasons there is not going to be any announcement about a future visit. But Trump has been in office for nearly two years and he hasn't once flown into a war zone. Such trips are a nightmare for the military and for the Secret Service. But Trump's predecessors have all done it, and the troops have always appreciated such visits because it makes them feel they are not alone and forgotten. If the commander-in-chief bothers to take the time to visit, whoever it is, Obama, Bush, Clinton, Trump, the troops appreciate it. However, it's possible that being such a controversial outspoken president his Secret Service detail just won't recommend it. After all, they apparently prevented Trump from visiting an American war cemetery in France at the 100th anniversary of the end of the First World War because the weather was too awful for his helicopter and they didn't want him going by limousine. That was weather, not terrorism. Now there is talk of Mike Pence, the vice president going to Iraq and/or Afghanistan in his place. But I'm sorry, that is not the same as the commander-in-chief getting his hands dirty. Whatever the security concerns, Trump should go. I suspect he will, although word will get about in Washington that he is not going. Probably the Mike Pence rumour is just a cover.

Who is leading the glamour stakes to take on Trump in 2020?

Predicting who might be chosen to be the Democratic candidate to challenge Trump for the presidency in 2020 is a mug's game, with two years to go. However, with a whole bunch of potential names now moving into the speculation phase of the presidential race, I think it's time to look at who are on the short list in the glamour stakes. Who has the Hollywood potential for throwing Trump out of office. A few months ago I would have said that Trump was almost a dead cert for winning a second term of office. But his popularity ratings are very poor, he has angered a lot of people by refusing to accept the CIA's belief that the murder of Jamal Khashoggi was authorised by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (who has denied all prior knowledge of the assassination plot), he is threatening to shut down the government if he doesn't get money from Congress to build his border wall and he is having a very public spat with the chief justice of the US Supreme Court over lower courts' judgments against the president's asylum policies. All in all, the Trump brand is beginning to look like his famous golf courses, full of holes, bunkers and heavy rough. So it's timely I think to peek at the Democrats who might have gold dust on their shoulders. This is not an intellectual exercise, it's based on good looks, nice hair, shiney teeth and that indefinable star quality. Here are my choices: Kamala Harris, 54, California senator, lawyer, Julia Roberts-like smile, big teeth; Tulsi Gabbard, 37, Hawaii Representative, gorgeous looks, a major in the army national guard and a fantastic name; Beto O'Rourke, 46, Texas Representative, celebrities love him, and with a name like Beto he has to be given a chance; Steve Bullock, 52, governor of Montana, very nice hairdresser's hair; Andrew Cuomo, 60, Big Cheese governor of New York with Mafioso looks; Jay Inslee, 67, governor of Washington state who has that hard slightly scary stare which could be seen as tough-cool; Martin O'Malley, 55, governor of Maryland, who looks healthy and fit, obviously eats his five fruit and veg pieces every day; and Julian Castro, former secretary of housing and urban development under Obama, super cool and articulate dude and an American President Castro would be to die for. All the rest have marks against them. For example: Hillary Clinton, oh please not again, Joe Biden, nice guy but Trump would eat him for breakfast, Bernie Sanders, looks too old and tired and dishevelled, John Kerry, great height and hair but, like Biden, would be eaten alive by the Trump machine, Elizabeth Warren, too worthy and too boring, and Michael Bloomberg, far too rich. So after that comprehensive study of the most likely candidates from the Democratic Party to challenge Trump, my choice on glamour stakes alone would be Julian Castro. You read it here first!