I can’t think of anyone better to butter up the Cheeto.
Me neither. He will flatter him, he will praise him, he will talk to him about his great business investments, he will go and learn how to play golf so he can have a round with Trump, the list is pretty much endless. He's also very clued up on trade issues, and I suspect that he'll be engaging in plenty of "Come on Don, no need for tariffs with the UK, after all you don't want to hurt your golf courses there, our people love playing on them" and all the rest of it.
Mandelson is also the kind of person who would tell Trump to do something and then convince him that it was his idea to begin with. Stuff like "Don't you think it would be nice to put that giant picture of your grandmother in the White House? After all, she just oozed royalty", and then when Trump does it, telling him that it's a wonderful idea and that he did the right thing. He also wouldn't be adverse to spending weekends at Mar-a-Lago as well, and it's quite easy to see him forging a strong relationship with Trump as a result.
Corbyn's opposition and insistence that war is never the answer.
He's right. War is never the answer, although there are times when it's justified.
Having said that, a lot of misery could have been avoided if assassinations were used more frequently. Milosevic is a great example: if he had been taken out in 1989, the Yugoslav Wars probably wouldn't have erupted. It was largely his very skillful handling of domestic Serbian politics that allowed him to run riot afterwards, particularly by stripping Kosovo and Vojvodina of their autonomy and their votes in the federal Yugoslav Presidency.
Tend to agree. I read a bio of Corbyn. He came over well on the whole (and the left is NOT my tribe). But, as you say, it was extremely clear that he: a) is not remotely suitable for any role that involves making and implementing difficult decisions; and b) thought locally and individually rather than in big picture terms. Finally, he seems to have a HUGE blindspot about antisemitism despite being commendably anti-racist in pretty much any other way.
The antisemitism stuff to me seemed to be more about Corbyn realising that it was an incredibly toxic issue that could tear the party apart, so he simply chose to ignore it because the party also had/has major issues with turning a blind eye to Israeli actions. He should have clamped down on it, but equally so, made it very clear that there would be no acceptance of supporting crimes against Palestinians as well. Yet, I understand why he left it alone, he simply wasn't strong enough to confront it in the way that it should have been.
And yup, he was and is very much influenced by the streets. He was screaming about mental health when everyone else thought it was just something that affected people in hospitals, and he seems to be absolutely tireless when it comes to getting involved with local initiatives. He's fortunate in that his constituency isn't far from Westminster, but I think even his most bitter political rivals would agree that he's exactly what an MP should be to their constituents.
