Dealing with the Donald

We woke, as we will for the next four years, to news that the World’s Greatest Genius™ had solved one of mankind’s problems. In this case it was the Middle East. For decades, leading minds have struggled to find a way through this intractable mess of history and hatred. Now, Donald Trump had worked it out: America should take over Gaza. He’d looked at the two-state solution, and declared it puny. It was time to take things up a notch: a THREE-state solution! 

Why had no one thought of this before? For a fortnight, Twitter has been awash with Elon Musk acolytes discussing how amazing it is that it had simply never occurred to anyone in the history of the United States to try to get on top of government spending. Now they had a bigger, better question: why had the US never tried invading the Middle East? What could go wrong? 

As ever with Trump, the question was whether this was something that he would still think one hour later, or just a stream-of-consciousness ramble. The president might best be thought of as an aggressive version of ChatGPT, producing plausible-sounding sentences that are unrelated to any concept of the world or actual intent. 

This presented a challenge to the British policy of pretending to believe that Trump is not just of sound mind and body but also the finest man ever to walk the earth. On the morning radio,the Environment Secretary, Steve Reed, insisted the president “deserves credit for his role in securing this ceasefire in the first place”. An hour or so later, David Lammy would announce that “Donald Trump is right” before going on to set out all the ways in which the president was, in fact, wrong. You sensed they were hoping that Trump wouldn’t read past the first sentence.

At Prime Minister’s Questions, Kemi Badenoch began by attacking the government’s Chagos Islands deal — “when Labour negotiates, our country loses”, she opened, which was OK, if not a patch on “when Smokey sings, I hear violins” — before suddenly switching course to ask about the Rosebank oilfield. 

Keir Starmer ignored the actual question, but addressed what he called the “serious issue” of Chagos. “I shall pick my words carefully,” he said, a sign that we were being taken into deep waters. “Without legal certainty, the base cannot operate in practical terms as it should. Some within the Conservative party know exactly what I am talking about.” If Badenoch were properly briefed, he said, she would understand. 

He was deploying one of the most powerful weapons in a prime minister’s arsenal: the ability to hint that they have seen things we haven’t, and which they can’t discuss, but which would turn our hair white. Is this true? Unfortunately, he can’t tell us. It’s always impressive to see it, though less so if you remember Tony Blair doing it before the invasion of Iraq.

The Tory leader ignored this, and continued on a line of questioning that seemed to imply that Ed Miliband only supported cutting carbon emissions because a philanthropist had donated to his office. Well, I suppose it’s possible. 

Starmer wanted to stay on Chagos, though: he had an ace up his sleeve. He had made Badenoch a standing offer of private briefings on “any national security issue”, but “she has not asked for a briefing on the Chagos case”. There was an “aaaah” from his own side, who like the idea that the Conservative leader doesn’t do the reading on the subjects she talks about. 

“I am speaking on behalf of the people of this country,” Badenoch announced, prompting a loud wave of spontaneous laughter in the chamber. It is far from clear that she is even speaking on behalf of the 121 Tory members. One of the difficulties in her job is anticipating prime ministerial replies, and she is far from nimble. “The prime minister can waffle for as long as he likes,” she said after an answer that had been three words shorter than her question. 

For a moment, it looked like the star of the day would be Nigel Farage. A Labour MP somewhat clumsily invited Starmer to criticise the Reform leader, who looked positively ecstatic at the attention. Then he rose himself to ask a question, pausing theatrically at the rumbling from the Labour benches in a moment that Hansard has recorded for history simply as “Hon. Members: Get on with it!” 

He tried again. “I would like to ask the Prime Minister for some advice. What do I say to the 25,000 constituents in Clacton…” 

A Labour MP had a suggestion: “Sorry!” MPs fell about. Farage was forced to start again. What should he say to his constituents who were losing their winter fuel allowance? Starmerhad an answer to that: “What he should say to the people of Clacton — when he finally finds Clacton — is that they should vote Labour.”

Finally, Tory MP Gagan Mohindra asked the question that has electrified the sillier fringes of Britain’s Online Right: would Starmer confirm he hadn’t broken lockdown rules by having a meeting that included his voice coach in December 2020? 

“I was in my office,” the prime minister replied, “working on the expected Brexit deal with my team. What were the Conservatives doing? Bringing suitcases of booze into Downing Street, partying and fighting, vomiting up the walls, leaving the cleaners to remove red wine stains. That is the difference. I was working — they were partying.”

Labour MPs cheered, and the rest of us wondered how Tories had thought Starmer was going to respond to a question about lockdown breaches. It’s very hard to see how the party of illegal parties can imagine it will ever win on this issue. 

It fell to Ed Davey to ask about the Tangerine Dream of Middle East peace. Trump is a gift to the Lib Dems: most British people think he’s a loon, but Labour can’t publicly agree, the Conservatives aren’t sure they do agree, and Reform are sure that they don’t. Only Davey can say it out loud. He called on the prime minister to disagree with the president “directly and firmly”.

As if. Starmer talked about the importance of a ceasefire and the return of hostages, and then added, of the Palestinians: “They must be allowed home. They must be allowed to rebuild.” That was interpreted as a rebuke to Trump, and of course it was, but ministers will hope it was sufficiently subtle that it will pass the Orange Toddler by. Or that he’ll have forgotten his peace plan by teatime.