The last stand of the Republican establishment behind Ted Cruz turned out to be futile. Ted Cruz’s small c conservative platform has not normally recommended itself to many in the Republican establishment. Their belated endorsement of Mr Cruz looked like a reluctant wish to salvage the pride of established politicians against the insurgent outsider. The rank and file Republicans turned out in numbers in Indiana to tell Mr Cruz not to bother.
If you compare the policy platform offered by Mr Cruz with Mr Trump’s it makes an interesting contrast. Mr Cruz highlighted the need to keep “under God” in the oath of allegiance, and made “restoring the constitution” his number one issue. Second choice was defending the right to carry arms and third was a Trump lite policy of building a “wall that works” to improve border security. Jobs, opportunity and tax were all lumped together as his eighth area of interest, after religion, defence, standing up for Israel, and abortion. Mr Cruz was trying to put together a Republican coalition of the gun lobby and  the Christian lobby. There were simply not enough of these conservative Republicans interested in these rather narrow issues to give their “unity” candidate  enough votes to win.
Mr Trump’s slogans of “Make America great again” and we’ll be winning again were designed to lift spirits, to appeal to the many, and allow people to place their own ambitions and expectations on them. The policy platform behind the slogans concentrates on major tax cuts for all income levels, uniting rich and poor in wanting a Trump Presidency to leave them more of their own money to spend.
Now Hillary tries to take the full mantle of the establishment, and tries to win over Republicans who do not like Mr Trump. Fashion and the commentariat will assume she will win. She has to watch out in case Mr Trump’s  positive messages and tax cutting promises  start to take her working voters away. They  too might find the Trump enthusiasm and optimism infectious, and may buy the idea that a non politician could be a breath of fresh air.
I do not of course have a view on who I want to win, as that is a mater entirely for US voters to decide.
May 6, 2016
Trump prevailed over Cruz and the rest because he wasn’t establishment. Cruz was also an anti establishment candidate until the end when he tried anything to stay in the race for the convention.
Trump spent no lobbyist money and got $2bn of free air time due to his media cache. The popularity of Trump and Sanders mirrors UKIP in that they are all anti establishment and are popular with predomantly white males who feel left behind. Sanders with millennials who lap up his communist crap that everything should be free.. reminds one of Corbyn no?
Trumps main policy platform is an isolationist foreign policy where he has refused to pay for the gap in defence spending in Europe caused by an addiction to welfare and a protectionist home policy. Trump will destroy ISIS in a fortnight; as a businesman he understands that if he immediately restores American military credibility he will be in a stronger position to demand and or negotiate. Hillary is backed by wall st and the democratic establishment but respected commentators suggest that the only way she will win is by playing the woman’s card. She (runs the risk? Ed) of being indicted before November anyway.
The effect of Sanders is more important long term as he is changing the democratic party at the roots through his galvinsation of the millennials. It’s great that Trump backs brexit. Cast iron Dave is a fool for chasing the left wing media and deriding Trump. Hopefully he’ll be out of power by November anyway.
May 6, 2016
Regardless of who wins the US Presidential election in November, maybe there are lessons which Vote Leave could draw from Mr Trump’s campaign? Here are just a few possibilities:-
1. ‘People power’ versus the establishment is perhaps now a stronger force than the political classes believe. If the official Leave campaign sounded less like a thinktank it might help.
2. Mr Trump has focused on very simple messages which appeal to the electorate at a deep-seated level. ‘Make Britain Great Again’ might sound trite to the political classes in the UK, but who knows? After all, Mr Cameron keeps trotting out ‘Safer, Stronger, Better Off’ and what have VL come up with?
3. Mr Trump hammers home his simple messages day after day on American TV. The media are hardly pro-Trump but it doesn’t stop Trump from reaching Americans through their TV screens on a daily basis. Vote Leave still don’t even seem to have a strategy for TV daily briefings as well as a key team of the most proficient speakers available each day (such as our esteemed host).
Before anyone points out that US politics is different, I’m aware of the differences – I used to live in the States. My points above still stand and with less than 50 days to go, changes are now urgent.
May 6, 2016
“that is a mater entirely for US voters to decide.” – Why? – didn’t Dave nip over and tell the American voters what to do? – or does it only work one way?
May 6, 2016
Surely it would be in the EU’s interest for the US to opt back into British rule?
May 6, 2016
Having slagged off Cruz because of his wife’s connections to Goldman Sachs, what does Trump do? Appoint someone to his team who worked for GS and George Soros. Listen closely to Don’s interviews and he cannot give a straight yes/no answer as to whether he would scrap the HB1 visa program. As you know that allows the importation of IT workers from India. Trump appears not to be the real deal. My advice to Americans is that you again have the option of choosing between either a stroke or a heart attack.
May 6, 2016
Some truth in that but Trump is at least learning on the job, whereas Hillary is stuck in the wrong rut. Rather like Cameron, Osborne and the rest of the EUphile, PC, LibDims here.
May 6, 2016
In the U.K. , the ICT Visa has been designed principally to support mass influx of (word left out ed) skilled cheap I.T. labour from (overseas ed) outsourcers .
The careers of British I.T. workers have been sacrificed for what is likely to prove a vane attempt to gain british banks access to the Indian domestic market .
It allows their sponsors to claim ÂŁ21k of expenses p.a. before having to produce receipts . The ICT visa worker does not have to pay UK income tax or national insurance yet receives free healthcare for their families and education for their children .
It’s a blatant subsidy of sponsor companies at the expense of society and the livelihood of British I.T. workers and their families .
My understanding was that the U.S. H1B visa scheme was NOT intended primarily to undercut American I.T. workers and that the bar is set much higher than our own ICT visa .
May 6, 2016
For God’s sake let America dump the establishment.
May 6, 2016
@bigneil
In his constant pursuit for bandwagons to ride, Mr Cameron publicly insulted Mr Trump, and is now frantically backpedaling and trying to hedge his bet by insisting that Mr Trump “deserves respect”.
How embarrassing.
May 6, 2016
It may be ‘entirely for American voters to decide’ and Trump may be the most self-contradictory and ignorant candidate ever (even Ronald Regan was elected as Governor of California for eight years before standing for President) but he has galvanised the ill-informed guileless members of the Republican party with his overblown rhetoric and appeals to their emotions rather than their brains.
There is a lesson here for the Leave campaign not to get bogged down in the minutiae of George’s misuse of statistics but to appeal to the general public about the consequences and costs of uncontrolled immigration; e.g. the pressure on housing, schools, GPs and hospitals let alone social and welfare services. These are the effects of the EU that ordinary voters can see all around them, not abstract statistics (unless they really stand out like that nice round ÂŁ10bn that Mr Redwood likes to quote).
May 6, 2016
@Mockbeggar; “There is a lesson here for the Leave campaign”
Not so fast, he hasn’t won yet, Mr Trump is in effect at the same stage as the Brexit campaigners are, we need to see what the result of the ballot(s) that actually matter!
Nothing can be leant from Mr Trump, quite the opposite, I suspect that Mr Trump leant a thing or two from the UK’s UKIP – use overblown rhetoric that appeals to peoples emotions rather than their brains…
May 7, 2016
Jerry
“use overblown rhetoric that appeals to peoples emotions rather than their brains”
What you mean things like “The peoples NHS” “We’ll lose 3 million jobs and no one will trade with us if we leave the EU” “Tax cuts for the 1%” and my favourite ” The NHS is underfunded, if only we returned to the principles of 1948″
You mean that kind of overblown rhetoric ? or are you saying its only UKIP & Trump that come out with this kind of stuff?
May 8, 2016
@libertarian; No, I mean like finding scapegoats to blame all the ills of society on. The difference is one of a principled and firmly held stance compared to those who take on the appearance of a political weathervane, pointing what ever way peoples emotions are blowing.
One might not have liked what politicians such as Powell, Benn, Foot or Thatcher said and did but their opinions were based on principles…
May 6, 2016
Indeed people surely want lower taxes, far less government, far lower, simpler taxes, efficient small government and the jobs and growth that will follow from this. Just as night follows day.
As Trump put it ‘making America whole.’ Whole. No, I want to make America great again. I want to make America great again.”
I am no fan of Trump, even less of Hillary (make America whole) Clinton, but Trump will re-invent himself now for the public and could well win against the dire, weak and bossy Hillary. It is sadly very difficult to come out as an atheist in US politics. I tend to avoid voting for people who profess any religion. This on the grounds that if they fall for one belief systems they might easily fall other unscientific belief systems or other lunacies such as climate alarmist, magic money tree economics and centrally dictated wage controls.
Can someone make Great Britain Great again please? GB is even more locked into the straight jacket of bloated & incompetent governments. We even have a chancellor who thinks he should fix wages by central decree. Clearly an economic ignoramous. We have energy that cost double what it should, we have a lack of roads, a lack of airports and much other needed infrastructure. But we do have lots of traffic lights, bus/bike lanes and other road blocking systems. Also lots of ways of mugging and inconveniencing motorists and tax payers in general.
Get governments (at all levels) off the backs of the people and businesses. A bonfire of regulations, simple lower taxes and some services that actually provide the odd thing people actual want or need occasionally.
A Brexit vote will hopefully rid us of the very foolish Osborne and the Libdim wing of the Tories and we can then get started on making GB Great and democratic again.
May 6, 2016
I assume that post the dire fake eco nut Zak, we can at least get on with a five runway Heathwick Hub airport at long last? After waiting 25+ years for it?
May 6, 2016
Trump’s message has little to do with taxes. The main drive is securing America’s borders and stopping the export of jobs overseas. These are messages the Conservatives refuse to listen to and probably explain Dave’s smaller than Major’s majority and the less than impressive performance yesterday
May 6, 2016
Dave failure to win two elections, and against absurdly weak oppositions, was due to his duff, essentially Libdem,agenda and his EU ratting. People wanted no EU, less immigration, lower taxes, efficient smaller government, simpler taxes, cheap energy, more jobs and far less red tape. Cameron and Osborne stand for and have delivered the opposite. They were just slightly less bad than the alternatives.
May 6, 2016
Dave said that the NHS was his priority in three letter. That was 6 years ago yet it has deteriorated even further and by a huge degree. The current system can never work efficiently but he has done nothing to improve matters. With immigration levels and health tourism he has made it even worse. G Osborne has even put a 10% tax on private medical (and other) insurance, for the people who pay twice already. He should be encouraging people to go privately, to relieve the pressures on the system. It will just collapse completely soon. How many thousands of pointless deaths will it take I wonder before action is taken to sort it out?
May 6, 2016
there is no NHS health cover for many of us. the NHS is like the emperors new clothes – everyone knows its crap and not salvageable but nobody is prepared to say so. Except of course the ordinary people up and down the land can see its crap and compares very badly with the rest of the world. its a nationalised industry at its worst.
May 6, 2016
YES would should pool our risks and have a state guaranteed universal medical insurance scheme
NO we should not have a monopoloy state owned provider of care
YES patients should be able to decide when and where their medical spend gets spent throughout the treatment lifecycle
May 6, 2016
JR will probably even tell you that paying for healthcare from general taxation is more efficient than a state insurance scheme. Think about how it works in Germany. You pay to see your GP, for example, up front and then reclaim the cost via the insurer and that is less bureaucratic and more efficient? On the private side in the USA you may now have guaranteed insurability with Obama but it still does not mean you can afford the cover.
In the UK remember you are completely free to chose who your GP is. The GP should also be able to guide you to a consultant who fits your requirements.
You are letting your altercation with a (non medic) car park attendant cloud your judgement against an organisation that exists in your own interest. I hope you read my comment yesterday about what the third most common cause of death in the US is.
May 6, 2016
I tend to agree with you, but a lot of people who I come across seem to think that the NHS really is the best thing about in the UK. Perhaps they should get out more !!!
May 6, 2016
There is absolutely not a free choice of GP.
For a start its done on catchment area despite GP’s hardly ever doing house visits, and many people working far away from home mostly.
For secondly there is no incentive for a GP to accept patients or actually attend to patients.
For 3rdly twice on moving to a new town I have tried to pick a highly rated GP only to be refused and forced to use a poorly rated one.
What is the point of the NHS rating GP’s if the customers have no choice anyway?
My choice in not coloured by car parks, as much as that’s crap, its coloured by letting my dad die far too early for want of simple cheap treatment, its failing to treat me and forcing me to go private for life saving treatment, its the dirt, the waits, the bad attitude, and so much more
May 6, 2016
Iain sorry but you are terribly misinformed. I speak here as someone whose other half is a doctor. There is no catchment area for GPs. My doctor (for work reasons) is in a different town from that of my spouse. GPs are paid per patient they can get on the books. If a surgery wants more money (and there are plenty which are struggling) its in their own interests to take you on. If you feel your Dad died due to malpractice there are lawyers who will take your case on.
May 6, 2016
Iain Gill; “its coloured by letting my dad die far too early for want of simple cheap treatment”
My sympathies, I lost my father far to soon too, despite the best care from the NHS (as good as any private medical cover could have given at the time), but ask yourself this; who controls the budget of the NHS, the health professionals or the government, you blame the NHS but you should be blaming politician (and those who vote for them), who put tax cuts before the proper and full funding of the NHS.
PS. do you know how many people in the USA die to soon for the want of the best treatment and or drugs?
May 6, 2016
What is very clear from the election results is how very unpopular the Libdem/Cameron/Osborne/BBC think/Ken Clark/Clegg view of politics is.
People want the very opposite of it. Even those who do want Libdimery would actually be better off with the opposite.
May 6, 2016
@ Iain Gill – you are absolutely right. If something is free it has to be rationed on other ways. Making people wait endlessly (often risking their lives), being dirty and being not very good or indeed totally incompetent are perhaps some of the best ways to deter patients.
May 9, 2016
Jerry,
The problem with the NHS is not a lack of money!
Lawyers to take it on? It happens every single day. And if you issue a summons against the NHS they will throw large legal teams into defending the indefensible, just like the police in Hillsborough. I know enough to know it would be a waste of time. And look at the horrible treatment dished out to te vindicated whistle blowers.
May 6, 2016
Cameron just now (in Peterborough which benefited from boundary changes) “the people want us to go on cutting taxes” . He is very good at making such impromtu speeches and saying such lies with a straight face.
A professional PR spin doctor or worse to his very finger tips.
But it fools very few. Taxes have risen hugely as he must know and the PSBR (in essence just further deferred taxation is still massive too). On top of that few services that are actually provided are, in general, dire, misdirected and deteriorating.
May 6, 2016
When will the start cutting taxes? It will take a very long time to get them back to what they were when they come to office.
May 6, 2016
âthe people want us to go on cutting taxesâ You talk about the “big lie”?
May 6, 2016
Dave’s failure to win two elections decisively – I meant to say.
May 6, 2016
Dave is good for pulling the wool over the eyes of people with the intellectual level of Benny from Crossroads .
That unfortunately encompasses about half the house of commons including leadership of some of the opposition parties .
May 6, 2016
This is the correct answer on the appeal of Trump.
Controlling borders and balancing trade/protecting jobs. I would bet that a significant number of true conservative voters would rate the above two as more important right now than someone obsessed with constitution.
etc ed
May 6, 2016
I am not sure that there were not enough conservatives to elect Cruz, but rather that many chose instead to back the nationalist/charismatic Trump whose own policies are opaque enough for people to think they may be conservative. A good move for Trump would be to say he’ll appoint Cruz to the Supreme Court where as a constitutional fundamentalist he can influence policy in a conservative direction.
May 6, 2016
Dear Mr Redwood
The attached Hansard entry shows what was envisaged in respect of UK immigration at the time this country entered the EEC, and may be of interest.
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201314/cmhansrd/cm140123/debtext/140123-0002.htm
Regards
Will
May 6, 2016
@D Williams; “The attached Hansard entry shows what was envisaged in respect of UK immigration at the time this country entered the EEC … [URL]”
Sorry, I might have missed the point (without reading the full transcript [1] in detail), but that appears to be a Hansard record from 2014, not a record from the early 1970s, if there is a direct quotation from an early 1970s debate then could to give a Column reference please?!
[1] a quick word search suggests that the word “immigration” doesn’t appear once within the said URL document
May 6, 2016
Always quick to comment on others.
I can’t quite make out if you are for or against mass unfettered immigration Jerry. Perhaps you’d be good enough to tell us your own views, and why you believe in them so we can comment on your own contributions.
Tad
May 6, 2016
Sorry, but Jerry has a point: D Williams’s document has roughly 20 pages with about 50 lines per page and 12-15 words per line. So at least 12,000 words to check. Any teacher would ask a pupil for a bit more precision on where to find the relevant information.
And that has nothing to do with the essence of the information.
May 6, 2016
Trump is scary, but Regan was also scary….
May be once in every couple of generations the “establishment” needs to be brought back to reality….
May 6, 2016
…..or, if impervious to change, re-fashioned…. Bolshevik style.
May 6, 2016
There is nothing to worry about Trump. He loves his country. On the other hand Cameron acts like a traitor standing by foreign leaders making threats to our country, talking it down to the world and prepared to give away democratic self government to a foreign power using deceit and lies to con the public. Only last week he sold the trade unions bill and broke his manifesto pledge and to change the law on unions in exchange for cash to help keep the UK in the EU! Cameron is more to worry about if he stays in office post referendum. JR and his colleagues need to move fact to oust him. Who would trust him in office if we voted to leave! It is truly scary. You cannot believe a word he says or anything written in his manifesto.
EU lining up countries to join their superstate once the vote is over. Suppressed all bad news about the EU until after the referendum. Fallon continuing the EU army by stealth under the guise of close working, when we have NATO. All remainers saying it is a fantasy to ally fears and con people when Hague disclosed in his article he vetoed the French proposal in 2012.
May 6, 2016
According to the Telegraph Corbyn was planning a trip to Istanbul where he would make a speech urging that Turkey be allowed into the EU, but some of his colleagues intervened to stop that and his trip has been postponed until after the referendum … but it may be that he was planning this to sabotage the Remain campaign!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/05/05/jeremy-corbyn-forced-to-abandon-speech-calling-for-turkey-to-joi/
Publication of Chilcot report to be delayed, until after the referendum:
http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/667643/David-Cameron-Iraq-probe-Brexit-embarrassing-European-Union-EU-Tony-Blair
May 6, 2016
They need to be brought back to reality nearly every other minute the are totally out of touch which what is needed by the population in general. What brings the maximum good for the maximum number of people. Most are far too busy with diversity issues, fact finding trip, increasing taxes, voting for higher wages or pensions or just fiddling their expenses.
Thought I am not sure Trump is the right one to do it.
May 6, 2016
Trump is a blunt crude businessman who is certainly not a polished orator . He has not minced his words about the problem the USA has with its borders with Mexico or with the lefty approach Obama brought to the Presidential Office . He is very proud of his achievements and he believes that only by being straightforward and positive that the USA will regain prestige .
His recent chant that China “is raping the American economy” is typical of his manner ; he knows that it will get across to the ordinary voter . Equally his views on taxation are an indication of where the power lies and why , by reducing taxation , the economy there will blossom .
I am no fan of Trump because he lacks the polish that a true world leader needs to gain respect , but , given the alternative of the slippery Hilary Clinton , I know who I would go for !.
May 6, 2016
Cameron has polish and is good on his feet – but has no working compass, no sense of direction and very little he every says is honest or true.
Perhaps a crude, blunt, businessman or woman is rather preferable.
May 6, 2016
It would be stupid and wrong to misunderestimate Trump; should he be elected President, he might be tempted to teach CMD just how far his nauseating self-righteousness and oversized gob cuts the mustard at the top table.
May 6, 2016
Trump represents a backlash against the ruling classes. It’s the same all over the western world.
I’m very pleased that he says European countries should pay their way for defence.
Many have had a free ride preferring to spend on welfare buying votes.
Maybe things will rebalance now.
May 6, 2016
@Ian Wragg; “Iâm very pleased that [Mr Trump] says European countries should pay their way for defence.”
As usual you appear to have little grasp on the historical whys and wherefores of why the USA -at the time- was happy to bankroll the defence of such (European) countries, and indeed I suspect that Mr Trump would not be saying such things if the Berlin Wall and the Warsaw pack had not collapsed 25 years ago. More so once, if elected and fully briefed, I would not be surprised if he goes very quite on such issues, considering the noises currently being made by Russia – even more so if the EU starts to self destruct.
“Many have had a free ride preferring to spend on welfare buying votes.”
That comment says far more about yourself than it does the politics of Europe.
May 7, 2016
I spent 6 years in nuclear subs during the cold war. What did you do.
May 7, 2016
@Ian Wragg; Irrelevant to the point I was making, as you (and @Edwards2) would know if you understood history rather than just the “who shouts the loudest” rhetoric. Once again both of you need to study some 20th Century history!
May 7, 2016
Ian is of course correct
European countries have had a major part of their defence costs paid for by USA since 1945
Trump has simply said it is now time they paid for their own defence.
The saving has allowed European nations to spend money elsewhere on more voter friendly areas.
May 7, 2016
Edward2: “The saving has allowed European nations to spend money elsewhere on more voter friendly areas.”
BOAR too, meant that Germany was able to direct its resources to its industrial sector at the expense of British taxpayers and British industry.
May 8, 2016
@APL; Germany was left an economic waste-land after WW1, look to history at how such a policy ended…
May 6, 2016
Both Hillary & Trump would quite probably be disasters. As things stand at the moment the advantage for non US citizens is that Clinton would alienate the world somewhat less.
May 6, 2016
It is strange that the USA, a great country that leads the world in so many spheres, should have such terrible politicians: Bush, Clinton, Nixon, Carter … But I will not add Reagan to that list, he was a breath of fresh air.
May 6, 2016
Qubus
Indeed but as with the UK, our countries and economies succeed despite the politicians not because of them.
I spend a lot of time around politicians and they are all currently taking credit for the UK jobs boom without having the remotest idea of where/why or how it happened and why we are on course for another million new jobs next year and thats just one example.
Spain hasn’t had a government since last October and guess what they had the first quarterly economic growth in years. Belgium functioned quite well without a government .
We need to drastically slash the number and levels of government and politicians
May 7, 2016
libertarian: “We need to drastically slash the number and levels of government and politicians”
Not much to disagree with there. We could start by leaving the European Union.
Then, perhaps we should revert to the old system, MPs should be unpaid, and submit their living expenses to be audited and approved. Subject to max expenditure of course.
The professional cadre of politicians has turned out to be a cancerous tumor destroying our civilization.
May 6, 2016
I see Trump has come out in favour of the UK leaving Europe… on that he is correct.
His nutty no admittance to Muslims on the border reveals a lack of friends from a muslim background, rather like Cameron constantly reveals his lack of friends with a working class background, neither is much good. Its completely unenforceable anyways as religion isn’t on passports, and more importantly he needs legal, decent, honest muslims on his side.
I think the political establishment should take a kicking, in the US and the same would happen here with an obvious candidate. We need far more real world views visible, and a proper challenge to the stuff that’s taken for granted by the establishment which is often in wild disagreement with ordinary people.
My biggest joy is reserved for Carly getting kicked out of the race, like her modern day equivalent Meg she is completely and utterly useless.
May 6, 2016
My instinct says that we need someone like Trump in this country. “Make Britain Great again”. I certainly could support most of what Trump says if put into the UK context. His main platform of securing their borders and providing more jobs in the US would resonate with most British voters and could reduce the number of unemployed and thus the benefits bill. Most of our politicians, of all parties, seem much the same as far as I’m concerned, the competition between the main parties seems to be who can borrow the most and who can throw the most money at the inefficient NHS.
Trump has run businesses and done a lot before deciding to enter politics; if only we had some politicians like that, people who had actually done a real job and not just worked their way into parliament via local councils. How many of our politicians have ever had a job at a senior level other than in one of daddy’s companies!
Reply I have
May 7, 2016
JR: “I have”
With respect, Mr Redwood, would those companies have employed you if you hadn’t already been an MP or cabinet minister, Privy councilor?
Reply I became the Chairman of a quoted industrial group and a Director of an Investment bank before becoming an MP.
May 6, 2016
I think Cameron should visit the US and tell all the Americans who to vote for and say that the world (as Britain is too small to persuade) needs them to vote for (??- whoever). This person they should vote for must be a Mexican politician and they must make all the laws that the Americans abide by and the Mexican Courts should make sure that the Americans do as they say or else the US will be fined huge sums of money for not obeying the Mexican Court. I think they would definitely do as we say don’t you ??
May 6, 2016
There is no question that if Dave was pushed , he would endorse Hilary .
He’s going to be exiting the domestic scene soon and joining his mentor Tony’s ex-leaders team .
What worries me is that his replacements look no better .
May 6, 2016
Its up to the American people..whoever they might be this time around? Trump is in big business and for a long time..isn’t that what the US needs? He says it does and so do we. But we have allowed foreign fools (and closer) to run our affairs. We need somebody like him to decouple from this EU mess.
What you read, what you hear…if you don’t like it don’t do that. Above all don’t strike out.
The Trump Train….LOL
May 6, 2016
Mr Trump doesn’t exactly show a great amount of enthusiasm for the European Union, and he might have a valid point.
And this from Open Europe:
Moodyâs: EU in such a fragile state that for many its failure is a question of when, not if
The Daily Telegraph cites a new report from the Moodyâs credit ratings agency in which Colin Ellis, its Chief Credit Officer for Europe, warns that a British exit from the EU could spark an âexistential momentâ for the bloc. He added, âEven if the EU survives its current challenges largely unscathed, even a âsmallâ future crisis could threaten the sustainability of current institutional frameworks, if it coincided with negative public sentiment and populist political developments. This can create the impression that the question is when the system breaks, rather than if.â
Tad Davison
Cambridge
May 6, 2016
The EU’s difficulty could be the UK’s opportunity.
Faced with a vote for the UK to leave the EU the eurocrats will have to make a quick decision whether to administer that “punishment beating” anticipated by Kinnock’s son, “pour encourager les autres”, with the risk that when we went down we would take them with us, or instead be sensible and pragmatic and agree arrangements to minimise the disruption, and above all of course disruption to trade.
Etc ed
May 6, 2016
My favourite speech by Mr Trump is the one he made at Cedar Rapids, Iowa December 19 2015 or as it is stated on the internet video: “Full Speech HD: Donald Trump Holds Rally in Cedar Rapids, IA (12-19-15)” .
Within that “Speech”, there is a story he tells intermittently approximately 40 minutes into it for about 10 minutes about his building of an ice rink. I advise all these UK and indeed American journalists who bad mouth him to just listen…make notes not necessarily on the detail but the way he talks with his audience.
To me, and with traditional British understatement, I say his communications skills are as good as you get.
May 6, 2016
I am not a US citizen and so I never take a view on who should be President. However if Trump does get elected I will very much enjoy the anguish of all those self-righteous UK citizens who have taken it upon themselves to condemn him. As for the particular one living in Number 10 Downing Street, he seems to have forgotten that if that does happen then he will have to deal with President Trump and what he has said may not help.
May 6, 2016
Agree Denis and I would like to see the smile wiped off smug Alex Salmond’s face too.
May 6, 2016
Off-topic, I don’t know why they’ve done it, but the FT has commissioned a study which shows that about three quarters of the immigrants from other EU countries would not have been allowed to come and work here under the rules that the government is applying to people from outside of the EU:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/43645264-12a7-11e6-839f-2922947098f0.html#axzz47rXdmVm9
“Most EU citizens in UK would not meet work visa rules, data show”
Of course while by the government’s present criteria they should not have been allowed to come and work here in the first place, and that only happened because of the EU, this does not mean that they will be required to leave the UK after the UK has left the EU.
Apart from other considerations, having invited them to come here, and stay permanently and start families if they wish, it would be unreasonable and unjust to now tell them that we’ve changed our mind and they will have to leave.
May 6, 2016
Trump has suggested that NATO is obsolete; well it is. Trump suggests the USA should try to get along with other people but should maintain strong defences.
Trump suggests the USA should protect itself from culturally and economically damaging immigration both legal and illegal. Trump has published a seven point plan to improve the disstrously expensive healthcare in the USA.
Clinton believes in both the Wolfowitz and the Brzezinski Doctrines; the former has destroyed the peace in the ME and North Africa and provoked an unprecedented flood of culturally incompatible people seeking a new life in the New Bolshevik Empire; the latter Doctrine has destroyed the economy in Ukraine, deliberately damaged Western trade with Russia and provoked it to seeking trading partnerships outside the ‘free’ world; all of which has not harmed the USA at all. In fact US’ belligerency is designed to improve the USA’s position and harm everybody else’s; it’s called bringing ‘democracy’ to the world. If Clinton became President we should (expect more military actions ed)Clinton has no healthcare plan.
May 6, 2016
I too recognise that the USA is not my country and itâs the Americansâ call. Nevertheless, it is fascinating that a complete political outsider can become the presidential nomination of the Republican party.
The much-maligned âRepublican establishmentâ is merely a coded way of referring to those Republicans who want to maximize Republican votes. If it had been up to them, the nominee would have been Rubio. He may have had a chance against Clinton who can hardly enthuse anyone.
A lot of people heartily dislike Trump. There are his political statements on the wall, Mexicans and the anti-Islam remarks. According to polls, he has far higher negatives than anyone else. The election is in six months, and it’s difficult to see how all those confirmed anti-Trump people would change their minds in that time.
Here and there is some good stuff. He wants to cut tax and does not think America can police the world for much longer. He has even come out in favour of Brexit which will warm the hearts of many here. But the Trump solution of bringing in tariffs on foreign goods is badly wrong. The US needs what the UK needs: lower and simpler taxes, a bonfire of idiotic regulation and less government all round.
There is also the little question as to whether you want a man with a short fuse to have his finger on the trigger of the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world.
May 6, 2016
Brexit will not be an acceptable outcome for USA foreign policy. Even if we vote leave, it will have to be neutralized in some way. A last minute offer that will give us everything we asked for. Or made to look like it by Cameron and Co. The U.S. only wants one, preferably federal, European government to deal with when organizing military forces along the Russian border. Google “Somnolent Europe, Russia, and China â Paul Craig Roberts”.
Hegemonic Washington Neocons are already the most dangerous tribe on the planet, totally paranoid and disconnected from reality. Could Trump get a grip of U.S. imperialism, better than Clinton? Who knows.
These are dangerous times.
May 7, 2016
Oh well, I suppose the prospect of “a last minute offer that gives us everything we asked for” is itself a very good reason to vote to leave. There certainly won’t be any offer of a much better deal if we vote to stay in the EU, quite the contrary.
May 6, 2016
Trump is speaking American English. It would take a linguist much greater than my pen to explain. It lacks the impressive but utterly boring precision of what may be called Barrister-English. His words and phrases carry with them dualities ( naturally occurring ) of antithetical meanings and consequences.
Whilst some commentators/ journalists deliberately misinterpret his words for political biased editors who give them a living; and, by opposing politicians who know and understand, possibly, his intent but interpret scientifically-literally for their own political gain, his English is readily fully understood and appreciated by those who have not been dumbed and mentally numbed by the superficial topography of literary texts as inflicted by taught classes in universities here and in America.
Yeah, he speaks the language of the people; and though academics will most certainly scoff and leer, the language of the continent of Shakespeare which, they certainly do not and can not.
May 6, 2016
Trump over Clinton for me 100% why I say this is because it will matter to our country especially if we leave the EU hell hole. Even Mr Trumps tells us we are better of out. Unlike Obama telling us all that we would be at the back of the line, Trump puts us first!
May 6, 2016
Back of the line or queue for a trade deal which would be of trivial economic benefit to the UK, even on the government’s own projection, and comes with huge risks. On the whole at the end of the queue for that sounds like a good place to be.
May 6, 2016
I suspect that the first thing President Putin does in the morning is to read Hillary Clinton’s emails on her personal server.
As for a Trump presidency, the only countries that need to fear that phenomenon are Russia, Iran and North Korea.
May 6, 2016
You may not have a view on who you want to win but I do. If Hillary wins, it will be more the Dean Acheson style stay-in-the-EU message, ‘helpful interference’ in Northern Ireland, UK involvement in American wars, and cold war knee jerk hostility to Russia.
I’m for Trump.
May 6, 2016
I’m for Trump too. He has stated he doesn’t believe in the crap about climate change being man made. Perhaps he will convince the EU that their policies are ruining their economy and maybe, if we are lucky, Cameron, Rudd, Osborne and all the rest of the luvvies who are against fracking and anything sensible regarding energy production will take a run and jump.
The Americans are just as fed us with this knee jerk reaction to nature and things that have been happening for centuries. We want realistic policies and not policies which harm our economy and ultimately our lives. Apparently, according to GWP Foundation, global warming could be good for the planet. More people die from the cold than they do from hot weather.
Good luck to Trump. I hope he proves them all wrong. Trump backs Brexit!! Good for him. What a difference when you compare him with our leader who wants us to stay in this asylum.
May 6, 2016
Even if we don’t like his persona or disagree with some of the things he says, there are surely lessons for our EU referendum campaign from Donald Trump’s approach, as you seem to imply – based on ‘we’re capable of much better than this’.
Let’s all try and adopt this approach in the remaining campaigning days up to 23 June.
May 6, 2016
Denis Cooper thinks that CMD will have to deal with The Donald. I have my doubts, as I do not see him surviving for long after the referendum, whatever the electorate decides!
May 6, 2016
“I do not of course have a view on who I want to win, as that is a mater entirely for US voters to decide.”
Not sure of your logic there, John. I know who I want to win and it is not the establishment.
May 6, 2016
Memo to John Redwood. Trump’s USP is he doesn’t bow to political correctness thus giving voters a real choice. Perhaps you and your party should try it sometime ?.
May 6, 2016
So now Cameron has lost London…it’s a pity he didn’t put in the same amount of effort into the mayoralty as he does telling lies in the Eu referendum campaign.
May 7, 2016
Once again David Cameron’s cronyism and appallingly bad people judgement skills have proven catastrophic. Why was a largely unknown Mp with all the gravitas and substance of a 12 year old schoolboy… with a track record of business failure, a preaching holier than thou attitude to environmental matters thought a good choice ?.
Once again the Conservative party are paying the price for the ‘loyalty’ of Mp’s who are forever fawning all over him when they should be braying at his down demanding he connects with reality…
May 9, 2016
I am glad you are not taking sides unlike Obamas unwelcome intrusion into the EU debate.