Tag: Trump

We have to be lucky once – you have to be lucky always…

~ Julian Samways ~ 1 Comment

This chilling phrase came from the IRA in attempting to assassinate Margaret Thatcher in the 1984 Brighton hotel bombing.

It also applies to Iran and America today. The brutal regime in Iran seems to be able to absorb endless devastating attacks. Can America really withstand the one time lucky strike which results in a large number of American casualties?

It has been a tough time for the US president…

Trump has the potential to double down on his foray into the Middle East. The war will be over in weeks he says yet adds confusion to his war aims by planning further mass bombing raids with thousands of soldiers deployed for potential on the ground fighting. Whatever the cruelty of the Iranian regime and its ability to in flict harm on its own people, you can hardly blame it for being reluctant to negotiate with a president who walked away in the middle of talks on nuclear arms and now only proceeds through sticks and no carrots.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu is prepared for a long war believing Iran continues to pose an existential threat to Israel. Iran poses no such threat to America as Trump’s own military leadership confirmed to him. His approval ratings amongst voters for this self-inflicted war has dropped to 36%. The mid-terms are looking grim for Republicans. One lucky attack by Iran on American soldiers with multiple casualties will probably make Trump buckle. It would be game over for his presidency.

You can see why the Iranian regime, crushed militarily except for mysteriously hidden drones and missiles, currently seems confident in holding on…

So what are the consequences of all this for the UK? The only silver lining to this terrible conflict is Starmer standing up to Trump and proving the inevitable logic of the UK in some form embracing the European Union driven by Trump’s threat to leave NATO and the war in Ukraine. For Putin, Trump is a gift that keeps giving.

The long term consequences of this global mayhem is that the UK and continental Europe will never be fully able to rely on America again for its defence whoever is president. This war may be over in a few weeks but its fall-out will be long lasting whether it be in terms of the economy, military alliances or the balance of global power.

Against this backdrop, the UK has local and regional elections in May where the Labour Party is forecast to fare incredibly badly with some colleagues and the media whipping up a scenario of Starmer being replaced as leader. This is no time to change prime minister. It would seem parochial and self-indulgent at best with no electoral advantage for Labour. There should be more unity in British politics in these times of peril.

Finally, to finish on a positive note since it is Easter, how exhilarating to watch the launch of Nasa’s Artemis II mission towards the moon. It is this sort of event which makes America Great…

Populism is alive but not so well…

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

No views on the terrible Middle East events this week. Would anybody predict what is going to happen even one hour hence? Except Trump says negotiations are happening and Tehran says that is fake news. Someone is not telling the truth…

So, over to the immediate future of populism. It is a common view that it is thriving across most Western democracies with moderates endlessly on the back foot. Well, to quote another populist who is no longer with us politically, the ‘gloomsters’ are not correct. Let me try and explain why.

Has populism peaked? Probably…

In the UK, this blog has consistently argued Reform UK has peaked. They are down 2-4% to mid to late 20s in recent polls and their whole enterprise hangs purely on Nigel Farage. The recruitment of deeply unpopular right-wing ex-Conservatives has not helped in the red wall seats and then there is tactical voting to consider. By-elections have been disappointing for them both in Wales and Manchester. Add to this their past/current support for the deeply, deeply unpopular Donald Trump (things can only get worse on that front…) and their fate is sealed. Don’t get me wrong, Reform will do well in the May elections and remain a major threat to the usual political order but when it matters, enough voters will unite against them to block a path to power.

Then some good news in France (I am assuming those who read this blog are anti-populist otherwise you are in the wrong place…). The far-right did not make the breakthroughs expected in local elections at the weekend. Moderates on both left and right polled better than predicted. Centre-left socialists held on to Paris, Lyon and Marseilles where in the latter National Rally had particularly high hopes of victory. In Le Havre, Edouard Philippe, a strong centre-right contender for the presidency, easily won re-election. Of course, the closeness of National Rally to the US president did not help their cause. Oh how the populist far-right must now resent being chained to Trump…

In Germany, Chancellor Merz’s conservative party has just seen off a surge in support for the extremist far-right AfD party to win in the western state of Rhineland-Palatinate. Albeit at the expense of a sharp fall in support for the SPD, it is another example that moderates in one form or another are still the force to beat.

In Hungary, despite Putin’s best endeavours, the vile Russia supporting nationalist Prime Minister, Victor Orban, is on course to be defeated in elections by the centre-right on 12th April. He is a wily operator so we shall see but is currently 10-12% behind in the polls.

Last but not least, Donald Trump… Iran has been a disaster for him so far, he is deeply unpopular on the economy and now even falling behind in polls on immigration. His most recent satisfaction rating is minus 18% although why 39% of the electorate still supports him is a mystery. The mid-terms look dire for the GOP and the Democrats, still sadly by default, may even take the Senate in addition to the House of Representatives. Then it is game-over for Trump at least in terms of radicalism. But, please don’t try to impeach him. He won the popular vote…

Populism is a powerful force. It may just be reaching its peak. But, of course, to bury it is to be reliant on moderates to prove their case. We are still waiting…

Starmer captures the public mood on Iran…

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The war with Iran is starting to feel like a quagmire. Iran’s defence capability has largely been eradicated by the US and Israel and yet, and yet… Some Iranian missiles and quite a few drones are still threatening the region. Oil and gas prices have surged. Ayatollah Khamenei’s son is the new Supreme Leader. Mojtaba Khamenei is a hardliner and one doubts he will soften the regime, particularly having lost his father, mother, wife and a son in air strikes.

The destruction spreads as war on Iran and its supporters continues…

So what is left? An extremist Iranian regime in place, playing with oil and gas prices with drones (how war has changed), waiting for Trump to lose interest. The longer this conflict goes on, the more you feel Trump has been played by Netanyahu. Israel will feel safer than it did particularly with additional excursions into Lebanon but Trump will have got very little from this war and markets will decide Trump’s next actions not international law or morality.

And globally? Where has the UN been? To think of the efforts Blair and Bush made trying to get UN approval for the invasion of Iraq even if it didn’t matter in the end. Putin and Xi must be rubbing their hands with glee at the tearing up of the international order. Putin will use every opportunity to double down on his invasion of Ukraine whilst the Taiwanese will be sleeping less easily in their beds.

Against this chaotic, immoral background, Starmer has done a good job in holding the middle ground and is broadly where the British public are on this war, although they give him little credit. He applied international law at the start of the campaign against Iran by denying the US UK bases, only to loosen this when international law allowed. In appearing as lapdogs to Trump, the Tories and Reform have been hopeless and quite frankly stupid. In particular, it has not been Kemi Badenoch’s finest hour who’s military analysis has been amateur at best. What happened to UK unity at least at the start of a threatening international conflict? Meanwhile, anarchistic Greens and the LibDems from the other extreme eschew all common sense in goading Trump and should be rightly ignored.

I am not usually a fan but Yvette Cooper, Foreign Secretary, put it perfectly in an interview. ‘The UK does not agree with Trump on every issue and cannot outsource foreign policy to others’. Good for her.

Except for the far too slow pace of moving warships to the region, we should be sticking with Starmer on this issue and actually longer term too until the Opposition make any sense at all.

NATO teeters on the brink…

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Just a week after calling Trump a rogue President, he goes rogue on Greenland, Europe and NATO.

Hands off, Trump!

It can’t be emphasised strongly enough. The US has no rights to Greenland and if Trump seizes it by force it would be the end of NATO. Europe would essentially be at war with the US. Incredible. Putin and Xi must be loving it and, consequently, the future of Ukraine and Taiwan now looks grim.

It is probably all negotiation tactics, but Trump cannot be allowed to treat allies like this. The US had 10,000 troops in Greenland which today is down to c150. It is partly America’s fault that currently Greenland is under defended. They could simply go back to having a larger military base.

Except… it is really Europe’s fault we are in this situation. Why leave it just to America to have a base there? There were apparently no NATO troops ex the US in Greenland. Last week in the face of Trump’s aggression, Britain has sent just one officer, France has sent 15 troops, Germany 13 and Norway two. 50 in all from Europe. Pathetic.

The only worthwhile legacy from Trump will be Europe getting its act together militarily.

In the meantime, I have just listened to Starmer’s statement on the crisis. Mealy mouthed triangulation. You can see why he fails to grasp the public’s imagination. His approach is no longer working. The US has just reneged on a tech agreement with the UK, negotiated in good faith, which we thought was in the bag. It is clear there is no longer any point in bending the knee to the US. Trump’s administration has provided much evidence that it just encourages greater contempt for ‘wishy, washy socialist’ Europe.

Europe needs to stand up to Trump once and for all. Any one party in the UK who doesn’t will not get my vote!

At what point do Americans turn on Trump?

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

We await news on Iran. US involvement in the Middle East has gone so well in the past… but in terms of what we do know, Trump’s presidency had hit a new low at the start of 2026. Let’s look at four actions that truly appal:

A rogue President in action…

  1. The invasion of Venezuela. No moral purpose to removing the illegitimate, thoroughly corrupt Maduro. Simply a blatant oil grab setting a precedent for dictators and wannabe dictators to invade at will. Only belatedly has Trump even acknowledged his ‘competitor’ for the Nobel peace prize, María Corina Machado, by far a more legitimate successor to Maduro than the his corrupt underlings who Trump is happy to support if they let American oil companies drill. What could possibly go wrong…
  2. The shooting of an innocent, yes innocent woman driving away or at least having no intention of hitting an ICE agent, in Minnesota. Three shots were fired at her, two directly into the car through an open side window. If shots had to be fired, why weren’t they fired at the tyres? It might have something to do with the fact increasingly out of control ICE agents with the task of rounding up illegal immigrants now only have six weeks training, cut in the first place from a very short three months. She had just dropped her six year old child at school FFS. The blatant re-writing of the history of the event by Trump and JD Vance was pure extremism. Ok to kill a left-wing lesbian apparently… Interestingly, the FBI won’t allow local officials to investigate the incident.
  3. Threats to Greenland and therefore the NATO Alliance. Trump is happy to take the country ‘the hard way’ as part of his Arctic strategy if Greenland/Denmark don’t capitulate. I don’t actually think he will invade but is doing his usual job of sowing chaos to move the agenda in his own favour. What a way to treat an ally whilst at the same time putting the whole western alliance at risk of disintegration.
  4. And then this week attacking the independence of the Federal Reserve by steering US prosecutors to investigate its Chairman, Jay Powell, over the renovation of its headquarters, because he won’t cut interest rates when Trump wants him to. You really hope markets punish the US if Trump gets his way and makes the Fed a pawn to his whims.

To add to a growing list, there is the constant undermining of independent judicial processes, the bullying of institutions such as the takeover of the ‘Trump’- Kennedy arts center, the enrichment of the Trump family, the blatant lies when any of Trump’s cabinet open their mouths, the insults to European allies, the cosying up to Putin and downgrading of China, allowing it to catch up with the US all that more quickly.

Trump has a net approval rating of -17%, similar to his first term. This is very weak driven mainly by unhappiness over the cost of living, but incredibly 39% of voters still approve of Trump’s presidency. It is surely time for a dose of morality to be injected into US political debate. When you are the world’s only superpower voters cannot just focus on domestic affairs. The problem is the whole US political system is deeply flawed which sometimes makes stark comparisons of Trump versus others harder to make. But it is time for a reset.

Trump is a rogue president and can only be shamed, not by impotent, increasingly unhappy Republican members of Congress, but by dynamic leadership from the Democrats and the emergence of a clear presidential contender. Umm… good luck on that one.

Trump appalls at almost every level

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A wise Sky News commentator said about Trump before his election that his world view was just to carve up the globe between three admirable (in his eyes) strongmen; Xi, Putin and himself. This amoral/immoral approach with little role for democracy appears to be the driving force behind the Trump administration’s new national security strategy published last Friday.

It trashes Europe, warning the continent is ‘subverting democracy’ and faces ‘civilisational erasure’ from high migration. What a load of nonsense and all this coming from a government that is domestically subverting the rule of law, issuing pardons to murderers (January 6th) and drug traffickers. And that is before wide scale state capture as Trump and his cronies enrich themselves at home and abroad, mixing foreign affairs with private business interests.

This sorry national security strategy goes on to attack the EU generally but depicts Russia as no longer a security threat. Selling out Ukraine seems to be a priority, reinforced by a disgraceful interview with Trump yesterday. Meanwhile, China is pushed down America’s list of priorities and consequently, its power grows ever stronger. Lastly, not covered by this document is the mismanagement of India, a future superpower in its own right which is being driven into the arms of Putin via sanctions. And what is the obsession with Venezuela?

The US under Trump and JD Vance can no longer be seen as a friend of democracy or a remotely reliable ally of the UK or Europe. Perhaps the Sky News commentator was too cautious in his assessment of Trump…

It all makes grim reading and grimmer listening. I am a news junky but during my recent trip to the US felt the need to avoid any television, being sick of the sight and sound of Trump.

Sick of the sight and sound of him…

Then back at home, culturally, as the Trump administration seeks to row back from any form of political correctness on the grounds of ‘freedom’, Trump not only threatens universities, museums and media outlets, but has starkly seized control of the Kennedy Center now referring to it as the Trump Kennedy Center. At the weekend, Trump personally hosted the Center’s annual honors gala, politicising the whole event, rewarding his cronies in front of a MAGA friendly crowd. No wonder ticket sales generally at this venerable institution have plummeted.

The damage Trump is now doing to the fabric of this nation is incalculable. Collapsing approval ratings for Trump’s actions are no protection and focus turns increasingly to the mid-term elections next year to curtail his power. Democrats, responsible for Trump’s victory in the first place and currently in disarray, are not guaranteed to win. Incalculable damage may turn into irreversible damage and that is very bad news for all of us.

The lesson from Trump for moderates: Be Muscular!

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

You don’t have to be corrupt. You don’t have to be a narcissist. You don’t have to hire sycophants. You don’t have to govern with a fictional narrative. You don’t need to rename the Department of Defense the Department of War and put a frat boy in charge. But you DO need to be ruthless. Muscular if you like.

Many moderates hand-wring. They triangulate. They often dine rather than campaign. They fear offending people and often back off. They surrender the political agenda to those that don’t do this; mainly the ideological hard right.

Trump versus most Democrats is a classic example.

Trump is setting a ruthless agenda of shrinking the federal state, rowing back on political correctness, diversity initiatives, regulation generally. Raw negotiating power is everything. You name it and he is trying to do it with a highly effective team behind him. The Democrats? Their leaders prevaricate. Trapped between left and right activists within, they are overwhelmed at the speed of Trump’s initiatives.

You might not like him, but he gets things done…

In policy terms how does this play out? Let’s start with foreign affairs. In the Middle East, whilst Biden largely sat on the fence, Trump twisted the private parts of Netanyahu to bring an end to the war in Gaza – the only (obvious) solution whilst threatening total war on Hamas. The same may happen in Ukraine where Biden supported the Ukrainian war just enough for survival but not enough to strike a real blow at Russia and force a peace deal. Trump is threatening to send Tomahawk missiles to Ukraine as he runs run out of patience and ups the tempo since Putin is not succumbing to his charms. Surprise, surprise, a second Putin/Trump summit is now scheduled. Trump may sell out Ukraine as he (wrongly) doesn’t see this war as involving American interests. What we do know is that he will pursue a deal ruthlessly and I would be nervous if I were Zelenskyy.

President Carter couldn’t rescue Iranian hostages, Clinton had to be forced by Blair to enter the Balkan wars, Obama failed to act when Russia took over Crimea and, despite red lines, failed to take action on Syria’s use of chemical weapons, with grim results. On NATO, endless presidents, to be fair not just Democrat ones, urged allies to spend more on defence and failed. Trump whilst chaotic, moved the dial and NATO members have upped their contribution. One of his many weaknesses is his attention span but at least you understand Trump is not to be messed with.

But it is domestic politics where Trump currently rules supreme whilst divided Democrats ineffectually flap around. Endless rather scary initiatives pour out from Trump’s administration to stop immigration dead, reshape the federal government and gerrymander the legal system. The list is endless. It is awful to watch but you cannot deny Trump’s muscular approach works if getting things done matters.

Democrats need to get real. Head to the centre, pursue voters’ concerns ruthlessly on immigration, law and order, tackle inflation and be tough but supportive of allies and ruthless with enemies.

US voters embraced Nurse Trump for fear of something worse. When will Democrats get it and become muscular in their moderatism?

Oh dear: Moderates seem to be failing everywhere…

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

How bad can it get? The centre-right has collapsed or is collapsing in the USA, UK, France, Italy to name just a few countries. To be fair, centre-right, centre-left moderates are hanging on in Sweden, Norway, Poland, Germany, Australia, and Canada, but the populist threat is rising across the board. Picking a row with Donald Trump seems to be the short-term route to salvation.

As for the UK, bloody hell! This blog welcomed Starmer’s pragmatism, but if that is a substitute for absolutely no core beliefs, we have a problem.

Starmer, like Sunak, seems to be deaf politically and cuts an unsympathetic figure. I have repeated this before, but he needs to be brutally honest on taxes, cut through on housing, the NHS, and small boats. Actually, just get things done. Otherwise, this government is toast and currently it is our last hope. After Rayner’s departure, I think he might have the cabinet he wanted even if by accident. Let’s see. Umm… as I write this Starmer has just lost his US Ambassador, Peter Mandelson, over his friendship with Jeffrey Epstein. Did nobody check these links, particularly when we had a good Ambassador already in situ who had built close ties with Trump’s administration? It smacks of general incompetence laced with hypocrisy guaranteed to infuriate voters.

One law for moderates, another law for voters…

Despite day to day errors, the unpopularity of moderates generally has come about because of their fundamental incompetence in relating, managing expectations and delivering for voters. You can combine this with a fair amount of dishonesty, as mainstream politicians treat politics purely as a career rarely built on a set of consistent beliefs which chime with the electorate. Often self-serving and easily judged as hypocritical (see above), why shouldn’t voters go for populists? They feel there is nothing left to lose (until they have lost big time as they would be worse off on every front), as little seems to change, living standards have plateaued or gone backwards, and nobody is levelling with them. Respect for state institutions and indeed democracy itself is disappearing. Just look at how it is playing out in America. The self-serving, grotesquely incompetent Trump destroys government but incredibly moderates having nothing to offer except to self-flagellate over whether they should stay moderate or not.

We need clever, politically astute (not the same thing), brutally honest, perhaps even charismatic politicians (a change of view here) with gravitas to cut through and deflate the populist balloon before it is too late.

Where are they?

P.S. An uncomfortable UK state visit for Trump. If Mandelson has to resign because of his ties to Epstein, what does it say about the US President’s past and the company he kept…

Voters barely deserve democracy…

~ Julian Samways ~ Leave a comment

Here we go again. Another contradictory poll this week in The Times shows voters not wanting any tax rises, but demanding improved public services, oh, and the resignation of Rachel Reeves.

Infuriating. Cake and eat it comes to mind…

Then the public also wants to reduce immigration whilst nine million people of working age can’t/won’t work for various reasons, many, of course, quite legitimate. We have shortages of workers across a host of sectors from hospitality to care homes. Who today fills the gap, works hard and pays taxes? Oh, that will be immigrants then.

Add to this Reform UK topping opinion polls despite barely concealed, rabble rising racism being part of its raison d’etre. I love mixing a French colloquialism when it comes to Farage… The public thinks Reform is a one man band yet still it is ahead of Labour by eight percent regardless of any tested policies. Just unpleasant insinuations appear to be enough.

As the Financial Times says, ‘democracy can fail anywhere’…

Of course, much of the blame lies with mainstream politicians promising the earth but not the means to pay for it. This Labour government has tied itself in knots by refusing to raise core taxes against impossible earlier promises not to. Its solution is to leak a range of confidence busting peripheral taxes, thinking they can dishonestly trouser up to £40 billion in revenue without most people noticing. Good luck on that one.

Government is messy, complicated, balancing a range of competing interests. Institutions are moving too slowly to enact change and yet change is needed, not promises, quangos and endless reviews and enquiries. The public is in no mood for delay as the sense of drift that nothing gets done continues to gain ground, fuelled by polarised debates on social media.

A solution. The government gets competent, reviews its core tax policy, however painful, and introduces policies to cure sclerotic growth apace whilst Labour backbenchers wake up and support targeted cuts to benefits expenditure. The ‘small boats’ crisis also needs sorting. It might seem a distraction, but the public have had enough, and it is currently their top priority. Labour simply won’t get re-elected if they don’t.

In return? Voters need to accept those trade-offs on tax, cuts in public expenditure and immigration more generally. They also need to find within themselves more respect for the considerable challenges politicians face otherwise we simply get the politicians we deserve. Public life should be a two way street.

As the country slides unnecessarily into gloom, Churchill’s maxim that “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.” has never seemed more apt…

Trump’s balance sheet: the good, the bad and the very ugly…

~ Julian Samways ~ 1 Comment

So, lucky us. We get Donald Trump twice this year. First, playing golf in Turnberry with Ursula von der Leyen and Keir Starmer rushing up to Scotland to pay homage and then the State visit in September. Umm…

Trump has dominated the headlines since day one of his presidency, hitting the ground running with a highly competent far-right team behind him, introducing some ground-breaking and irreversible domestic and international policies. You might not like him, but as with Farage, he is a transformative politician.

Trump swings into Scotland…

So, how does the balance sheet of Trump’s actions look as we head off for the summer holidays? Well, first the good, as it is the shortest part.

Trump was right to goad and threaten Europe into paying more for its own defence. Previous US presidents have urged this but have then done nothing to force Europe’s hand. There has always been a strong isolationist streak in America, and Trump has played this beautifully to get a 3.5 per cent of GDP defence spending commitment from European countries (ex-Spain). Second, immigration. Illegal immigration across the Mexican border has now fallen by 90 per cent on a month on month basis. Whatever you think of the merits of migration or the way Trump has treated this issue, the scale of illegal border crossings was storing up huge tensions in the US, even amongst many Democrat voters as southern states sent immigrants north to be housed. Obama was actually the toughest US president to curb numbers before Trump. Biden was hopeless. In thrall to his left-wing, he totally failed (as did Harris) to understand the strength of feeling on this issue across a majority of voters. Take note, Starmer.

OK, that’s enough ‘praise’. Now the bad. Tariffs do not work. They will potentially cause huge market inefficiencies and drive up prices. The consequences have yet to be felt. The rates are illogical across countries, although the overall impact might not be as great as earlier predictions indicated. Second, the recent tax bill. It strips Medicaid from 16m Americans whilst shovelling cash to the rich. Shame on the Republican Party who pushed it through, ballooning the deficit in the process. What happened to fiscal conservatism? One senses the next global economic crisis might be driven by a fear of America defaulting on its debt, evidence demonstrated by the current weakness of the US Dollar.

Then the very ugly. There could be an entire book on this. Regardless of policy, it is the morality of leaders and their probity, which provides the bedrock to democracy. Trump simply lies, lies, lies. Perhaps an unsurprising trait in a convicted felon. Americans either don’t notice or don’t care about the State capture blatantly on view, whether it is Trump’s crypto-currency deals, the acceptance of a jet from Qatar or the fact that he, his family and ‘friends’ constantly trade on the broader influence of the presidency to enrich themselves. Next is the undermining of state institutions, the bullying of universities and arts generally in a drive to eradicate ‘political correctness’, the attempt to compromise an independent judicial process. The list goes on, but the ugly is also a fair description of fawning Western leaders who have swallowed their pride to accommodate Trump.

Finally, the lowest of the lows was how President Zelenskyy was treated in the White House in February. This was an iconic moment. Surrounded by individuals who had never fought, been under any military threat, and, in some cases, had dodged the Vietnam draft, it was a shameful episode. JD Vance’s behaviour was on this occasion, even worse than Trump’s. How dare they speak to a fellow president like that, representing a country under existential threat. This spectacle alone should be enough to justify a damning analysis of Trump’s presidency. The one silver lining is that Trump hasn’t had the opportunity to hand Ukraine to Putin and now understands the Russian leader isn’t quite the pal he thought he was.

The future? Who knows, as the Democrats sink to record levels of unpopularity and irrelevance. Will the presidency and federal institutions recover from four years of Trump? Will anyone realise the damage done by ineffectual checks and balances on centralised power? One doubts it. In a few years, which can’t come too soon, Trump’s emperor-like reign will end. But the hangover will be enormous.