Far from licking his wounds after a Trump trashing, the Prime Minister’s licking his lips at the hundred-and-fifty billion pound bonanza that’s come out of The Donald’s state visit. And rejoicing at the news that for once his faltering fortunes aren’t the story’s top line. But, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, there may yet be a reckoning at Labour’s annual shindig in a few days’ time.
‘Nowadays people know the price of everything and the value of nothing.’ That line penned by Oscar Wilde well over a century ago feels like a pretty good fit for what we’ve just witnessed.
For sure the mighty slice of tech bro inward investment is fifteen times bigger than the spare pennies that the Chancellor is allowing herself as she struggles to make her November budget sums add up.
But boy have we had to suck up to get it.
As the prez remarked, with his customarily curious approach to the English language, this second state visit to Britain is both unprecedented and something that’s never happened before.
In recognition of which Fleet Street’s finest have been having a wordplay field day. ‘Getting it Don’ and ‘Trump and Circumstance’ are two of the better ones.
But the prize goes to the Daily Star, which came up with: ‘The Ego Has Landed.’
Still, all this flattery did get the wings happy-flapping. The inward investment deal did get signed (phew). And in spite of gaping UK/US policy chasms the talons did remain firmly sheathed (double phew).
Not that there weren’t the odd moments. Like The Donald suggesting that Britain use brute force to prevent asylum seekers arriving in small boats.
He didn’t say whether he meant getting the navy to nudge naughty people back towards France or actually torpedo them.
But you can’t help but wonder, given that he’s been using the US military as his own private army to stem imaginary crime waves in major American cities.
He’s also been doing his bit to, shall we say, discourage media outlets from saying horrid things about him.
First, via successful lawsuits against ABC News and CBS News, and now by suing the Wall Street Journal and New York Times. Plus he’s done his bit to biff a top chat show host or two off the airwaves.
Which probably explains why he and Keir Starmer got an easy ride over the Peter Mandelson scandal.
It was only a week or so ago that Mandie got sacked as Our Man in Washington because of his links to the paedophile Jeffrey Epstein.
And, given that Trump is also up to his neck in the same scandal it looked likely that the topic might get some real welly in the Starmer/Trump press conference.
But when it came to it there was nothing more than a quite gentle question from the Sky News Political Editor Beth Rigby.
Astonishingly, The Donald was allowed to get away with claiming he didn’t know the man. Then again, he’s also claimed to have ended lots of wars, some of which haven’t even begun.
Tellingly, Beth remarked afterwards that several members of the American press corps thanked her for daring to raise the topic.
Luckily, The MALESTROM is down there with the proles in George Orwell’s seminal novel 1984. We’re beneath suspicion.
Same doubtless applies to Private Eye, whose latest front page juxtaposes two identical pictures of Starmer cheerily waving outside Number Ten.
The thought bubble in one says: ‘Goodbye, Peter – we can’t have anything to do with a friend of a paedo.’ And in the other he’s saying: ‘Welcome President Trump.’
Food for thought there for delegates already rehearsing their lines for the Labour conference in Liverpool next weekend.
That alongside potentially raucous ruminations about what a rubbish Prime Minister Starmer’s turned out to be. And questions about whether to let him stay in post until next spring, or get it all over by Christmas.
All this as the favourite to succeed him, Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham, is looking increasingly ready to give it a go.
There’s also the deputy party leadership contest, triggered by the sacking of Angela Rayner over her tax affairs.
One of the two candidates is a Starmer loyalist and the other isn’t. Meaning their bunfight will be a litmus test of the PM’s popularity. Or otherwise.
Poor chap. Right now he might be enjoying a marginal boost as his sycophant fest has at least brought in the boodle. But it won’t last.
Seems only yesterday that a week in politics was a long time. Fifteen seconds or so does it in the social media age.
Talking of which, word’s been getting around on the web that no fewer than three million people showed up to the weirdly flag-waving self-styled ‘Unite the Kingdom’ protest in central London last weekend.
The official estimate, by the Metropolitan Police, was the, ahem, rather lower figure of just over a hundred thousand.
But the guy who organised it, who calls himself Tommy Robinson, had a pop at what he termed ‘legacy media’ for even mentioning the cops’ calculation.
Legacy media, by the way, is an increasingly derogatory term in social media fairyland for properly regulated television, radio and newspapers, that get called out if they get their facts obviously wrong.
All in total contrast to the freewheeling stuff that people scroll through all the time and all too often believe.
Mightily unfortunate, a high-powered parliamentary committee has concluded, given that anti migrant protests outside hotels are being whipped up on the web by AI generated fake footage.
No question, images showing Muslims as dirty and Muslim men holding guns or carrying bombs strapped to their chests aren’t going to do a lot for social cohesion.
Not that that seems to trouble Tommy Robinson. A great talker, yes, but also a former football hooligan and ex-member of the neo-Nazi British National Party with numerous criminal convictions, including for assault.
Not necessarily a terribly nice chap then.
But no bar to Elon Musk, ex X boss and now part owner of the AI company that bought it, from chipping in via video link to his London rally.
‘You’re in a fundamental situation where whether you choose violence or not,’ he warned, chillingly, violence is coming to you.’
Scary stuff. And while he and Trump alternate between being besties and worsties their underlying thought patterns aren’t that far apart.
Still, in cheerier news from across The Pond, the Texas-based bunch of clever-clogs Colossal Biosciences is proud to announce that it’s one big step closer to bringing the Dodo back from the dead.
Though there’s been no hide nor hair of the iconic flightless birds for a couple of centuries, the plan is to get loads of them waddling around their former home patch of Mauritius.
The deal is to inject gene-edited chickens with primordial germ cells from a type of pigeon which is apparently the Dodo’s closest living relative.
And hey presto, in just a few years from now, they’ll be up and strutting again. Or at least, so the theory goes.
Of course there is an argument that says some creatures are best confined to history. Especially if there’s any danger they’d have orange faces.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.