Stumbling Starmer is Trumped!

FOR most of my life, incoming Republican US Presidents replacing outgoing Democrat ones have been depicted as dangerous right-wing demagogues.

- Patrick O'Flynn Political commentator

It could be argued that George W Bush lived down to the billing after his clueless "neo-con" foreign policy led to disastrous wars which ultimately strengthened Islamist factions and helped Iran to become a regional superpower in the Middle East.

But for a more compelling parallel with the incoming Donald Trump, you have to go back to January 1981 and the inauguration of Ronald Reagan.

The former film star Reagan was ridiculed as a "cowboy" by liberal US media outlets. Eerily, his inauguration coincided with the release of hostages, just as Trump's has this week.

In Reagan's case it was US diplomatic staff being held captive at its embassy in Tehran. In Trump's, it has been the first of the Israeli hostages in Gaza. But clearly in both cases, the new leader of the free world being seen as a trigger-happy hardman had its uses.

Back at the start of 1981, Britain had already got its own historic right-wing era well under way.

Margaret Thatcher was approaching her second anniversary in Downing Street and Reagan's arrival on the scene bolstered her immensely. The two of them forged a partnership which ultimately won the Cold War for the forces of freedom and turbo-charged free enterprise economics.

This time around, things could hardly be more different. Trump started his second spell as US President shortly after Britain installed a textbook liberal-left "globalist" leader in Keir Starmer. Many other nations have leaders far more in tune with the new President and his program. Giorgia Meloni in Italy and Javier Milei in Argentina spring most readily to mind.

The man tasked with selling Starmer and Britain as key allies to Team Trump is, of course, the silver-tongued Peter Mandelson.

First, he needs to sell himself, as there is reportedly a move within the new President's inner circle to reject his nomination by Starmer to be the UK's new ambassador to Washington.