Donald Trump said in his White House meeting with Joe Biden “it’s a nice world today” but the incoming 47th US President will preside over a dark world he blackens daily
Trump
The EU and UK under Trump 2.0
A week after Trump’s election victory, the EU – and wider Europe including the UK – look weak and uncertain. Muddling through is not going to be enough in an increasingly unstable, conflict-ridden and climate-damaged world.
Blowing up the transatlantic bridge
The imminent advent of a Trump 2.0 presidency is concentrating the mind of Europeans as they confront more tumultuous instability at home and abroad. More Europe is, with all its attendant risks, the only preferred option
Biden, Brexit, EU and Scotland
‘…Scotland’s relatively normal politics and pro-European aspirations may look in many ways more in the contemporary political mainstream than Johnson’s past-its-sell-by-date Trumpism. And a more open attitude from the EU to an independent Scotland may impact to some degree on US views too. But hard realpolitik interests – whether in the US or EU – will always be there.’
Floating on airbeds
‘It wasn’t only the US investment houses which were scenting opportunity. Indeed, it was a subsidiary of veteran (1908) Edinburgh-based asset management specialist Baillie Gifford, which became really excited.’ Pt 2 of David Black’s examination looks at Airbnb’s history and upcoming IPO…
Sanders: the red scare
‘Both Democrats and Republicans are now engaged in a campaign against Bernie Sanders aimed at frightening voters and preventing change. Ironically, the fear-mongering of the Democratic establishment is even more dangerous than that of Trump and the Republican Party.’
Nato’s irrelevance?
Turkey’s incursion into Syria has exposed deep rifts between Americans and Europeans over Nato’s future just as many are questioning the alliance’s future…
Will Salmond’s RT show make him a Kremlin tool?
‘Salmond has in the past proved an astute reader of the political runes. RT represents for him a platform for indulging his career and promoting the causes he believes in. It is therefore premature to conclude that Salmond’s latest venture marks his decline into irrelevance and disrepute’…
US health care is sick – a bitter foretaste for us?
‘The wasteful and inefficient system pushes unnecessary treatment at the worried well and has no cap on cost. One aspirin cost my insurance firm $400’. From Boston Jackie Kemp reports on what lie in store for the UK if the NHS p[rivatisers get their way…
Hitting out at the world: Trump’s narcissism
“The problem for us ordinary folk is that a leader who feels constantly threatened becomes even more erratic, more authoritarian, more dependent on intimidation and tantrums as a stress management strategy. That is a serious problem for the globe.”