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Change of Tone

Change of Tone

Palace of Westminster at dusk

It’s arrived, big time, on both sides of the Atlantic. While the British government’s switched from the Eeyore ethos to a smiley emoji, Donald Trump’s abandoned the US presidency’s traditional Mr Nice Guy front – to something altogether more surly. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, the contrast could hardly be more stark.

It’s to be expected that controversy will swirl around the real cause or causes of last week’s hideous mid-air crash at Washington’s Reagan airport that killed everyone involved.

It’d also to be expected that, first off, the nation’s leader would act as mourner-in-chief. Soothing sensations of shock, disbelief and collective grief at what’d happened.

But not a bit of it.

After a brief, ritual, display of sadness he made it into something political, Something, on his terms, to his advantage. Lashing out at his predecessors for being, basically, too kind.

No evidence needed for his claim that bygone diversity policies were at fault here. Just a matter, he claimed, of ‘common sense’.

This is of a piece with his setting up a detention camp for undocumented immigrants at, of all places, Guantanamo Bay.

The facility was set up to hold terror suspects after the 9/11 destruction of the Twin Towers. And its critics say it is in effect a concentration camp.

But, for the moment at least, the voice of dissent Stateside is strangely muted. Possibly a bit shell-shocked, who knows.

Certainly there’s been little effort at holding back appointments to Trump’s cabinet of people who’re widely regarded as dangerously unqualified or unsuited to the jobs they’ve been given.

Media outliers have, however, compared The Donald’s approach to that of Putin, Mussolini, even Hitler.

The thinking being that so long as they can be relied upon to do the boss’s bidding they’re in. Better still if they’re out of their depth. Means they won’t question dubious orders.

What’s unfortunate about all this for us in dear old Blighty is that the not very merry merry-go-round over there might be the deciding factor in Keir Starmer’s dash for the winning post.

He has of late ceded the saddle to his Chancellor Rachel Reeves, who’s been relentlessly positive about her new Make Britain Great Again message.

She’s hammered home in every tv, radio or print media outlet that’ll have her that her plans to get things moving really are going to work.

It’s a long, and on the face of it impressive, to-do list, ranging from actually getting on with building Labour’s promised one-and-a-half million new homes to sorting a third runway at Heathrow.

Plus there’s the pledge to transform Cambridge into UK’s Silicon Valley, and to construct a railway line joining it to Oxford. And to give Man U’s Old Trafford site a serious makeover.

One thing that nearly all these projects have in common is that they’re not new. The other is they’ve all foundered in the face of resistance from green groups, Nimbys, and pen-pushers.

But now, Ms Reeves cheerfully insists, you wanna fight? Then bring it on.

Already the Energy and Climate Change Secretary Ed Miliband, who has in the past bitterly opposed increased air traffic, seems to have more or less thrown in the towel.

London’s Labour Mayor Sadiq Khan, who hates the extra pollution and noise Heathrow expansion will mean, is likely to punch back harder.

But he has another grouse, which he shares with one-time Tory Deputy Prime Minister Michael Heseltine, that Starmer’s being so weedy about resetting relations with the European Union.

Khan claims that Brexit has cost the London economy alone more than thirty billion pounds. So just getting on better with our neighbours really doesn’t cut it.

All this is highly topical, as we’re now at the fifth anniversary of Brexit, and Starmer’s off to Brussels this week to talk about inching towards closer trading ties.

But inching’s the word, as the one thing conspicuously missing from Ms Reeve’s gloves off speech was any mention of better lubricated links with Europe.

Astute commentators have suggested that this is because the one barney she doesn’t want to have is with those who see any easing of barriers as abject betrayal.

As for how all this would play with the punters, the message is, to say the least, mixed.

Nine separate polls this month have shown Mr Brexit Nigel Farage’s Reform party rapidly closing the gap on Labour, with one even putting his lot in front.

But at the same time a YouGov survey has indicated that the proportion of Brits who think it was right to leave the EU is at its lowest-ever point since the referendum.

Now, it seems, only three in ten of us think it was a good idea, compared to comfortably over half who say it wasn’t.

Something for Downing Street to mull over in the coming months, along with a couple of deeply ironical truths.

One is that the European Single Market, that Starmer has vowed not to rejoin, was in large measure the brainchild of none other than his Conservative predecessor of yesteryear, Margaret Thatcher.

The other is that to avoid any repeat of the continent-wide destruction wrought by World War Two, our very own leader Winston Churchill touted the idea of the United States of Europe.

Particularly pertinent now, given that the other United States is under new, and potentially menacing management.

Rachel Reeves’ new battle cry is all about getting our economy to at least make a start on growing.

But if Donald Trump carries out his threat to make it more expensive for British companies to export things to his country then that elusive uptick just won’t happen. Period.

Meaning all that lovely money Reeves is promising to put in our pockets will simply float away, taking with it, probably, Labour’s hopes of re-election in four-and-a-half years’ time.

Much hinges on whether we Brits can cosy up to the White House enough to sweet talk the top man into giving us a break. Here, personal ties will play a vital role.

Cue Tony Blair’s old spin doctor Peter Mandelson, now Our Man in Washington, in spite of his once having called Trump ‘a danger to the world’ and being labelled in return an ‘absolute moron’.

Never mind, everyone’s being nicey-nicey, for the moment. Which is all a bit back and forth, though Mandy won’t be the first.

Take poor little moggy Mittens, whose owners’ move from New Zealand to Australia didn’t quite go to plan.

They landed in Melbourne expecting to pick up their pet from the cargo hold, only to discover to their horror that the unhappy pussy was en route back to Christchurch.

Because something had been stored in front of her cage, the baggage handler failed to spot it.

But at least, when the crew were told mid-air what had happened they turned on the heating. Which was lucky, as it can get jolly parky down below.

Anyway, they put her on a flight back, and everybody was happy, not least Mittens, according to her human mummy, Margo Neas.

“She basically just ran into my arms and just snuggled up in here and just did the biggest cuddles of all time,” she said.

Lovely to learn there are still some happy ending out there. Somewhere.

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.

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