As people retreat into intense Christmas preparations, I get the feeling that Donald Trump’s latest attack on Europe isn’t being taken half seriously enough. The sentiments expressed in the US new National Security Strategy are truly disturbing and will certainly be affecting our mental wellbeing at a conscious or less conscious level. Whereas some of us have been saying for years that the ‘special relationship’ is a myth and died some time ago, this didn’t stop politicians trotting this out whenever UK/US relations were discussed. But now we can be in no doubt about Trump’s contempt for Europe and determination not to ‘carry’ it, effectively driving a coach and horses through NATO. Trump’s cowardice with Putin, his preparedness to end the war in Ukraine totally on Russian’s terms and his condemnation of European leaders as ‘weak’, their countries ‘decaying’ are extremely unsettling because for years post-war there was a consensus that stability was underpinned by US power.
But it gets worse: remember J D Vance’s outrageous speech at the February Munich Security Conference, which ‘shook the transatlantic alliance’? It resembled an abuse of hospitality, in my view, that Vance suggested that Europe’s main danger was from within – erosion of democratic norms, censorship, suppression of dissent and exclusion of populist voices – rather than from external threats like Russia and China. The writing on the wall was his declaration that US support would be conditional on governments sustaining ‘free speech’ – the Trump administration’s fig leaf for hate speech. Effectively this new Strategy doubles down on this by not only laying into European leaders but going further down the culture war route, citing ‘civilisational erasure’, long exposed as a racist conspiracy theory (replacement by global elites of white populations by non-white immigrants etc). Although it will obviously take quite some time to get our defence budget up to 5% of GDP, as demanded by the Americans, and our defence capability up to scratch, the US is effectively telling the UK and Europe that we’re on our own. With Russia ramping up its incursions into European waters and airspace and simultaneously practising cyber warfare, it’s no casual threat.
Trump is nothing if not an erratic turncoat and all this makes the extremely expensive State Visit look rather a foolish and complacent exercise. Trump was reportedly disrespecting the UK and Europe even on his way home from it. US support for ultra-right wing European parties borders on political interference in their democracies -indeed, the new strategy arrogantly assumes dominance of the western hemisphere and the right to influence European affairs. One commentator said ‘Trump has essentially declared civilisational war against Europe’s liberal democracies’ but veteran journalist Andrew Neil said the Strategy gets ‘a lot right’. Who needs enemies when there are friends like this? He cites weak minority governments which have ‘gorged themselves on welfare spending for far too long’ and calls the Strategy ‘a wake-up call for a slumbering continent’. Perhaps Europe has been complacent for too long but when Trump and others criticise ‘weak’ regimes it’s clear they see simplistic bull-in=-a-china-shop politics as the only effective approach, without appreciating the need for nuance and negotiation. A supreme irony is thatover the coming months, the US Supreme Court will confront more cases in which the government invokes national security to justify the suppression of speech. There’s also Trump’s plan to make tourists reveal 5 years of social media history – people are already saying they daren’t visit the US because of what they’ve said about him on Facebook and X etc.
But we also have to wonder about the timing of this macho gesture, coinciding as it does with Trump’s declining performance in the polls, continuing speculation about his relationship with Jeffrey Epstein, legislators’ criticism of the Justice Department for withholding Epstein files and overly redacting others, and his absurd law suit against the BBC. And this isn’t all: the two latest criticisms are his takeover of the country’s national art centre (Kennedy Centre) using political skulduggery to remove ‘woke’ senior staff and programming, and threats of military action to sovereign governments like Venezuela and Colombia, citing specious reasons.
Regarding the BBC, veteran journalist Alan Rusbridger asserts in Prospect magazine that the BBC has no choice but to teach Trump a lesson. The overtanned egoist has no genuine grounds for his legal action – it’s political theatre, as several commentators have observed. Yet another macho battle to take a heavy toll on all involved but hey,that’s ok as long as the perpetrator believes it will appeal to his MAGA base. What he exploits ‘is a profound sense of the weakness of media and other organisations. Trump knows how to use litigation to exploit weaknesses and to obtain favourable outcomes…’. Although the BBC should never have committed its error of judgement involving the spliced footage, such errors are apparently not seen as a legal cause of action. Attributing exaggeratedly bad motives to the BBC has been seen as a way Trump’s lawyers can keep the case going, designed to get the Corporation to capitulate and settle – just as timid US broadcasters have done.
‘The BBC should, however, stand firm and prepare for trial. This does not necessarily mean that the case will go to trial: almost all civil lawsuits settle before a full hearing. But it is only by showing that it is genuinely ready to go all the way that the BBC can seek to bring this to an end on favourable terms. And faced with such fortitude, Trump may himself make a favourable offer or even pull the case completely… Trump’s perspective is that here is yet another vulnerable media organisation with unimpressive leadership and another opportunity for him to gain leverage’. Rather than a very expensive settlement the BBC must fight this claim, which comes at a very unfortunate time given the Charter renewal process in 2027. There’s plenty to criticise the BBC for, particularly its biased news and current affairs coverage, which Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy is either oblivious to or pretends to be, but I would defend it to the hilt in the face of Trump’s absurd aggression. As Trump himself so often says…. ‘we’ll see what happens’!
Of course Trump isn’t alone in coming across as increasingly unbalanced. Perhaps the most prominent home grown public figure is Liz Truss, who, rather than exhibiting some humility and contrition for her extremely damaging administration, has doubled down on her eccentric economic theories, takes every opportunity to disloyally cosy up to Trump (US trips funded how?) and now has her own tv show on YouTube. The Guardian called ‘her latest plea for Maga attention’ hamfisted and ‘hapless ravings from a cupboard’. She apparently made her debut with a long ‘barking mad’ monologue lambasting everything from the ‘deep State’ to ‘eco zealots ruining British towns’. As she’s been ostracised by the UK she’s apparently aiming to be embraced by the American right. ‘Her opening monologue was nothing more than a laundry list of Maga stereotypes about the British. The woman longs to become Donald Trump’s Lord Haw-Haw, or at least a version of Lord Haw-Haw who looked and sounded like a bucket of spanners had just dropped on his head’. Her coup de grace was to declare the BBC ‘fake news’ (remind you of anyone?) for covering up that ‘Britain is going to hell in a handcart’. She seriously needs help but it’s unlikely she will seek it – the inability and hubristic unwillingness of those who refuse to reflect on the consequences of their actions causes so much damage in both public and private life.
Another public figure who fits the latter description (but who’s at least sane) is former Tory Chancellor George Osborne, the man of many jobs. He went on X with ‘personal news’ that he’d got himself a job in AI because this was the most exciting field to be in right now, etc etc, prompting questions as to how the privileged manage to just jump into jobs and plum positions (like chairing the British Museum, though the major theft of museum artefacts took place on his watch) with apparently little effort. ‘George Osborne getting a new job isn’t exactly news. Since leaving frontline politics, the former chancellor has served as the chair of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership, edited (not entirely successfully) the Evening Standard, advised asset manager BlackRock, joined boutique advisory firm Robey Warshaw, been appointed as the chair of the British Museum and taken on roles including advising crypto firm Coinbase. Oh, and like any white man of a particular age, he co-hosts a political podcast’. But this latest job he’s landed, with Open AI, the purveyor of ChatGPT, is seen in some quarters as a bit of a sinister risk we need to see off, because AI is now emulating the path taken by other industries before it (eg defence, oil and pharma). It’s suggested they’re acting more like ‘quasi governments’ than companies, getting themselves embedded in countries’ very infrastructures and recruiting political figures to act as their acceptable public face.
‘Osborne is not the first to don the branded hoodie and Silicon Valley lifestyle. His fellow coalition government bod Nick Clegg blazed the trail as head of global affairs for Meta. At the time of his initial hiring as a vice-president at Facebook in 2018, his appointment was treated as a PR move – a big name to help the company navigate scandal and scrutiny. But it hinted that platforms had become political actors, whether they liked it or not. The industry’s outsized spending on lobbyists (€151m in Europe alone at the last count) to support the political beasts is an indication of what is at stake’. These tech companies are trying to anticipate regulation so they can get around it and have it not interfere with their income streams: they’re not hiring these public figures (Rishi Sunak is another example) for their technical expertise but for their knowledge of institutions and their valuable networks. It’s a kind of Trojan Horse which needs recognising as such. The threat was evident when Trump had the temerity to ‘warn’ the Australian government regarding their under 16s social media ban, a ban which of course will impact the American tech giants. ‘The more tech companies start to act like politicians and global leaders, the more we need to treat them like it. That doesn’t mean deference; it means more scepticism and journalistic interrogation’. The world is watching the Australia experiment with great interest and the UK already has a panel focusing on it – let’s hope they also factor in the danger of these companies’ tactics.
As sure as eggs is eggs, whenever some more unsavoury news about Andrew Mountbatten Windsor is likely to emerge, Kensington Palace, supported by zillions of royal industry dependents and social media bots release a deluge of monarchist propaganda. The current example is the latest Epstein Files revelations, which showed the former prince in various compromising situations, quickly accompanied by multiple mainstream and social media posts about Kate and William’s Christmas card (pointed out by many that this was an old photo dating from April, allegedly photo shopped), Prince William’s ‘major’ new role with the SAS (which isn’t major but just another patronage) and William taking George to a centre for the homeless to serve them Christmas dinner. Pure PR exercises but cynically designed to gaslight us into thinking they have any valuable role when costing so much. But it didn’t even end there – it’s constant and last night the final of Strictly Come Dancing was interrupted for a tribute to the departing presenters from ‘Camilla R’ to be read out. Meanwhile, Mountbatten Windsor remains above the fray, moving to a small and ‘temporary’ home on the Sandringham Estate in the New Year while a larger home is being refurbished. Surely the smaller home would suffice, but despite the appearance of harsh treatment of his brother, the King constantly gives into his demands, including one for various servants such as butler, cook and housekeeper. The arrogance and entitlement know no bounds.
It’s been cathartic watching David Dimbleby’s three part series for BBC tv, What’s the Monarchy For? The former BBC veteran, no longer tied to the Corporation’s monarchist shackles, has been refreshingly straightforward, even combative, asked key questions of his interviewees, skewering this institution in the process. Way overdue. Two striking examples come to mind, illustrating the longstanding cowardly and passive approach taken by politicians and others, causing these interviewees to squirm. One was discussing the King’s prolific letter writing to governments over the years, clearly intended to shape policy under the radar, letters routinely placed at the top of the relevant minister’s pile. ‘When Dimbleby points out that this is pure hypocrisy – Charles has the right not to be neutral, but also has the right to maintain the appearance of neutrality? – a floundering Grieve (Dominic Grieve, former Conservative minister and Attorney General for England and Wales) weakly denies it’. Another was when Dimbleby challenged former Chancellor George Osborne about the huge cost of the monarchy: Osborne complacently said it was better to spend money this way ‘than on the NHS and benefits’. Shameful.
Lest we get the impression that because of their warmongering the Russians have got all the answers here’s an amusing story published in The Week. The launch of its first robot to be powered by AI proved embarrassing because spectacular malfunction caused it to fall flat on its face. The manufacturers promised that it could walk, handle equipment and communicate fluently with people. But when it walked onto the stage in Moscow ‘to the theme song of Rocky, it began to stagger, before collapsing in a heap’. The funniest thing was surely that when assistants tried to hide it under a curtain, it continued to flail ineffectually. A commentator at the launch called it the ‘first robot with alcoholism’.
Finally, we can wonder whether this could be one of the worst things for Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. The former Prince is humiliatingly the butt of the best Christmas cracker joke of the year. ‘The annual competition is commissioned by the comedy channel U&Gold (formerly Comedy Gold) and decided by the British public. It usually produces a topical winner that sends up one of the biggest stories of the year.This year’s winner was written by Ben Smith from Chelmsford, who pithily summed up Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor’s fall from royal status: “Why is Prince Andrew not writing any Christmas books? He hasn’t got any titles!” Smith receives a top prize that includes £1,500 towards a holiday’.
Happy Solstice and festive greetings to all.
Politics and mental health - the missing link? 