Donald trump

Monday

Tanya Gold

Howard Jacobson on Trump: He has the emptiest mind of all

From our UK edition

Howard Jacobson awoke to the news of Trump’s victory in November. He had no newspaper column so, what could he do? Write a novel, said his wife, and he did, in six weeks. It is called Pussy, and it is a short and horrifying hypothetical biography of Donald Trump, now an infant prince called Fracassus, born into a noble family of property developers. Fracassus hates words. He hates women. He tweets. Jacobson throws every weapon — every word — he has into Pussy. He is the voice of the metropolitan liberal elite emitting a death rattle, and that is a grave calling.

Friday

Steerpike

Former Bush aide: Corbyn is Trump’s secret weapon

From our UK edition

As if Jeremy Corbyn wasn't already getting it from all sides on the home front, the beleaguered Labour leader has come under a fresh line of an attack from a former Bush aide: propping up Donald Trump. Yes, speaking on The Spectator Podcast, David Frum – senior editor at The Atlantic and former Bush administration staffer – accused the 21st century socialist of aiding Trump's influence on the UK government... by failing to provide an adequate opposition. He said that 'if Britain had a functioning opposition party...

Wednesday

Jeremy Clarke

Low life | 12 April 2017

From our UK edition

I ran for the airport terminal shuttle bus; the doors shut behind me as I skipped on. I sank into a seat beside a young chap who was turned sideways and chatting with the fellow behind him, who was leaning forward. They were speaking in English, quietly, about Melania Trump. The chap beside me was French; the one behind us, Turkish. They were agreeing on how good for her age she looked. She hadn’t had any ‘aesthetic’ surgery either, as far as he could tell, which was a brave choice, thought the Turk. She was Czech, wasn’t she? ‘Slovenian,’ said the French guy authoritatively. ‘Yes, they look after themselves those eastern European women,’ said the Turk. ‘I was in Budapest one time and even the middle-aged women were thin.

The Spectator

Portrait of the Week – 12 April 2017

From our UK edition

Home Boris Johnson, the Foreign Secretary, having cancelled a trip to Moscow over the Syrian poison gas incident, consulted other foreign ministers at the G7 summit at Lucca in Italy about how to get President Vladimir Putin of Russia to abandon his support for President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. The Scottish Medicines Consortium accepted for routine use by NHS Scotland a drug called Prep which, at a cost of more than £400 a month, can protect people at risk of contracting the HIV virus through unprotected sexual activity. In England, 57 general practitioners’ surgeries closed in 2016, Pulse magazine found, with another 34 shutting because of mergers, forcing 265,000 patients to move.

Owen Matthews

Putin’s Syria problem

From our UK edition

For Vladimir Putin, Syria has been the gift that kept on giving. His 2015 military intervention propelled Russia back to the top diplomatic tables of the world — a startling comeback for a country that had spent two decades languishing in poverty and contempt on the margins of the world’s councils. At home, the war took over as a booster of Putin’s prestige just as the euphoria over the annexation of Crimea was being eroded by economic bad news caused by low oil prices and sanctions. In the Middle East, Russia was able to show both friends and enemies that it was once again able to project power every bit as effectively as the Soviet Union had once done.

James Forsyth

If Trump’s listening to his generals, that’s great news for Britain

From our UK edition

‘Great Britain has lost an Empire and not yet found a role’. Fifty-five years on, Dean Acheson’s remark has not lost its sting. British statecraft is, even now, an attempt to lay claim to a place in the post-imperial world. The events of the past few months — Brexit, the election of the most unlikely US president in history and the debate over the Union — all raise the issue of what kind of country Britain hopes to be. The chemical weapons attack in the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in Syria last week has prompted the first foreign policy crisis of this new era. Britain’s role in the response has become a proxy for the wider debate about our global standing.

Rod Liddle

What message do Trump’s missiles really send?

From our UK edition

Let me take this opportunity to join with our Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary in commending President Trump’s swift and decisive military action against the Syrian government as being ‘appropriate’ — one of my favourite words and one which I like to use every day, regardless of whether it is appropriate to do so. The important thing was not of course the destruction of a few Syrian planes and, collaterally, a few Syrian children. The crucial point is that this moderate and judicious use of expensive missiles ‘sends out a message’ to President Assad. And the message is very simple. We will no longer tolerate Syrian children being killed by hugely unpleasant chemical weapons such as sarin or chlorine gas.

Tanya Gold

Trump, the emptiest mind

From our UK edition

Howard Jacobson awoke to the news of Trump’s victory in November. He had no newspaper column so, what could he do? Write a novel, said his wife, and he did, in six weeks. It is called Pussy, and it is a short and horrifying hypothetical biography of Donald Trump, now an infant prince called Fracassus, born into a noble family of property developers. Fracassus hates words. He hates women. He tweets. Jacobson throws every weapon — every word — he has into Pussy. He is the voice of the metropolitan liberal elite emitting a death rattle, and that is a grave calling.

Sunday

Melanie McDonagh

America’s foreign policy on Syria is more sensible than the UK’s

From our UK edition

Well, Islamists certainly have a useful working knowledge of the Christian calendar -- probably more than most secular Brits -- which accounts for the timing of today’s bloody attacks on Coptic churches in Tanta and Alexandria -- the death toll is 45, and counting. The unfortunate Copts starting their Holy Week services today were intending to commemorate the Passion of Christ, not to join it themselves. As the British Coptic Bishop Angaelos observed, 'As we celebrate Palm Sunday today and Christ’s entry into Jerusalem, we now also mark the entry of those who have passed today into the heavenly Jerusalem.' Well quite so, and the toll in Alexandria might have included the Coptic pope Towadros II, who was at the mass, if the attackers had been even luckier.

Saturday

Andrew J. Bacevich

Donald Trump isn’t Hitler. Actually, he’s the new Kaiser Wilhelm II

From our UK edition

 Massachusetts All politicians wear masks. Donald Trump’s favourite is that of Maximum Leader. It was on display during this past week. ‘If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will,’ he said at the weekend, ahead of his meeting with Xi Jinping — a throwaway comment that could end up causing mayhem in the Far East. Next, his reaction to news of a chemical bombing in Syria. Trump blamed the atrocity on his predecessor’s ‘weakness and irresolution’, suggesting that he is keen to show the world what strength and resolve look like. The President, it seems, is not too dissimilar to the nightmare his political enemies warned us about: a nuclear-armed hothead itching to show the world how tough he is.

Paul Wood

One missile strike alone will not change Syria. So what’s the American plan?

From our UK edition

President Trump’s missile strike on Syria seemed as determined to stick it to President Obama as to the Assad regime. The initial statement from the White House on the Sarin gas attack that prompted the strike had more words of condemnation for Obama than for the Syrian ruler. In the matter of airstrikes, as in other things, it is important to Trump to be the un-Obama. But one night of missiles is not a decisive blow. Beyond the ruined aircraft hangars, the Syrian battlefield is little changed. What is the American plan? What’s next? Perhaps President Trump has not thought about this. His decision to bomb seemed emotional, justifiably so you might think, faced with images of the doll-like corpses of children poisoned by nerve gas.

Friday

James Forsyth

Donald Trump enforces Obama’s ‘red line’ in Syria

From our UK edition

On Donald Trump’s orders, US forces have struck the airfield from which the Syrian military launched Tuesday’s chemical weapons attack. The strikes were limited, only 59 Tomahawk missiles were involved, and the US says that ‘every precaution was taken to execute this strike with minimal risk to personnel at the airfield’. So, what was Trump up to? Well, it was clear that he wanted to send a message that the use of chemical weapons is unacceptable and will have consequences. He was, ironically, enforcing the red line that the Obama administration drew and then refused to enforce.

Thursday

The Spectator

Barometer | 6 April 2017

From our UK edition

Nice littler earners Cressida Dick, the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, will take a voluntary pay cut from £270,000 to £230,000 compared with her predecessor. Some others voluntarily taking less: — Richard Pennycook, CEO of the Co-op Group, last year took a cut in his base salary from £1.25 million to £750,000. His incentive plan also became less generous. — Keith Skeoch, CEO of Standard Life, last year took a cut in his bonus, which will now pay a maximum 400 per cent of his £700,000 base pay instead of 500 per cent. — In 2015, the board of Credit Suisse took a 25 per cent cut after America fined the bank for helping citizens avoid taxes.

David Frum

Diary – 6 April 2017

From our UK edition

Donald Trump’s Washington is a city of many secrets, but no mysteries. So much about the Trump-Putin story remains unknown, and possibly will never be known. But the fundamentals have never been concealed. In order to help elect Trump as US president, Russian operatives engaged in a huge and risky espionage and dirty tricks operation. Trump and his team publicly welcomed and gratefully accepted help from WikiLeaks, widely regarded as a front for Russian intelligence. Trump surrounded himself with associates and aides, including a campaign chairman and a national security adviser, who had in the past received pay from Russian state TV and pro-Putin oligarchs.

Ahmed Rashid

War-war, not jaw-jaw

From our UK edition

It’s often said that the Trump administration is ‘isolationist’. This is not true. In fact, we are now witnessing a dramatic escalation in the militarisation of US foreign policy in the Middle East, Africa and Afghanistan. This has not been announced but it is happening, and much of it without consultation with Nato or other key allies, or any debate in Congress or the media. A few weeks ago, US aircraft carried out over 30 air strikes against Islamic militants in Yemen — almost the same as the number carried out there all last year. In Iraq and Syria there have been many reports of civilian casualties in US raids. As many as 200 are thought to have been killed in air strikes on Mosul, although Iraqi authorities dispute that. Andrew J.

Andrew J.

Kaiser Donald

From our UK edition

 Massachusetts All politicians wear masks. Donald Trump’s favourite is that of Maximum Leader. It was on display during this past week. ‘If China is not going to solve North Korea, we will,’ he said at the weekend, ahead of his meeting with Xi Jinping — a throwaway comment that could end up causing mayhem in the Far East. Next, his reaction to news of a chemical bombing in Syria. Trump blamed the atrocity on his predecessor’s ‘weakness and irresolution’, suggesting that he is keen to show the world what strength and resolve look like. The President, it seems, is not too dissimilar to the nightmare his political enemies warned us about: a nuclear-armed hothead itching to show the world how tough he is.

James Forsyth

Trump’s plan for Pyongyang

From our UK edition

On several foreign policy issues, Donald Trump has toned down the campaign rhetoric now that he is in office. His administration still has concerns about the Iran nuclear deal, but it is backing away from the idea of simply ripping it up or unilaterally rewriting it. On the European Union, he is calming down too; his White House no longer says Brexit marks the beginning of the end of the European project. But on North Korea his positioning is hardening. Hence his warning that ‘if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will’. Not only does Trump want this problem fixed, but his National Security Council is already working on plans to do so. Washington has been trying to work out what to do about North Korea for 20-odd years.

Monday

Tom Goodenough

Trump talks tough on North Korea. Does he mean it?

From our UK edition

Donald Trump once said that he wanted to share a hamburger with North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un. Now that he’s President, fast food diplomacy looks to be off the menu. Instead, the tough talk has started and Trump has used an interview with the FT today to warn that America will act against North Korea unless China clamps down on the regime in Pyongyang. He said: ‘Well, if China is not going to solve North Korea, we will. That is all I am telling you’ That Trump has singled out North Korea is no accident, nor is it much of a surprise. In the weeks after the election, the outgoing Obama administration warned Trump's team that it considered the threat posed by Kim Jong Un to be America’s top national security priority.

Sunday

Max Hastings

Is Trump leading America to war?

From our UK edition

Michael Howard (the good one, OM, CH, MC) is 94 and still razor-sharp, but depressed by echoes of the 1930s on both sides of the Atlantic — ‘and I am one of the few people still alive who watched it all happen’. At Wellington he learned, and recites to me from memory, lines from Auden’s 1937 ‘Danse Macabre’: It’s farewell to the drawing-room’s civilised cry, The professor’s sensible whereto and why For the Devil has broken parole and arisen, He has dynamited his way out of prison. Michael believes that President Trump will get his country into a war, and I hear that some of America’s top soldiers share this expectation.

Martin Vander Weyer

How good a businessman is Donald Trump?

From our UK edition

How good a businessman is Donald Trump? Maybe the answer doesn’t matter, since barring death or impeachment he’ll be the most powerful man in the world until January 2021, or even 2025, come what may. Or maybe it does matter, in the sense that the only positive spin to be put on his otherwise ridiculous presidency is that the irrepressible cunning of the real-estate tycoon will eventually win through for the good of America — and thereby, we must hope, the good of the free world — against opponents who have smaller cojones and less dealmaking prowess than the Donald does. ‘He’s the closer,’ declared White House spokesman Sean Spicer, shortly before his boss failed to close his biggest political deal so far, the American Health Care Act.