Keir Starmer could actually learn something from what Donald Trump is doing and save failing Labour
IT is hard to think of a presidency that has got off to such a start within 20 days.
In his first weeks in office, Donald Trump has released a lorry-load of policies that have left his critics reeling.
One reason why this feels so dynamic is that he is following Joe Biden.
President Biden hardly ever held a press conference. He rarely had a Cabinet meeting from one month to the next.
And as even some of the people who worked with him now admit, it is hard to know who was running America while he was in the White House.
Well, there’s no mystery now.
Since returning, Trump has been firmly behind the Oval Office desk and constantly in front of the cameras.
He has used the time to release policy after policy, like a great barrage against all the people who have been wrong in recent years.
The barrage has been so intense that Trump’s opponents don’t seem to know what to do.
Distort language
They are currently running for cover, jumping into ditches and occasionally wailing with frustration.
Look at their reaction to Trump’s order to ban men from competing in women’s sports. The returning president signed this order surrounded by dozens of young girls and women and in front of a roomful of female athletes.
He explained that it was their right as American women to compete in sports against other women.
His order will also ensure that they can use changing rooms with only other women for company.
How did the BBC headline this? “Trump signs order banning transgender women from female sports”.
That is how Trump’s opponents are currently trying to skew things.
It was the same last week when the President ordered a ban on the mutilation of children and prescribing of hormone drugs in the name of trying to change sex.
The BBC and others said the President had put a halt to “gender-affirming care”.
That is the best that these people can do now. The facts aren’t on their side, so they distort the language. Women’s sports becomes “trans-exclusion”. Stopping the mutilation of children is “banning gender-affirming care”.
Well, no wonder the people who play these sinister tricks are on the back foot.
They deserve to be.
Sinister schemes
This week, with one stroke of the pen, President Trump removed America from the UN Human Rights Council.
It is about time. That group is one of the most disgraceful, Alice in Wonderland places on planet Earth.
On Thursday, Trump signed a bold executive order to sanction the International Criminal Court (ICC) — which he accused of “illegitimate and baseless actions targeting America and our close ally Israel.”
It included financial and travel sanctions against the organisation and its officials, and any family members who are found to have assisted in investigations into US citizens and allies.
Coinciding with a visit from Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu, who is wanted by the ICC over the war on Hamas, Trump’s order added that by issuing the warrants, the ICC “abused its power”.
Trump has also withdrawn funding from the disgusting UNRWA.
This is a so-called UN group which has received billions in foreign funding in recent years.
Their job was — among other things — to oversee education in Gaza. In fact, the money was siphoned off by terror group leaders.
And it turned out that UNRWA acted as an arm of Hamas.
Its members have not only encouraged terrorism, but actually taken part in terrorism, and acted as bodyguards and assistants to terrorist leaders.
With another stroke of the pen, Trump did away with USAID.
This is one of those groups that used to have the aim of using American taxpayers’ money to further American interests abroad.
But now it is most famous for paying for electric vehicles in Vietnam, funding “diversity and inclusion in Serbia’s workplaces and business communities” and covering the costs of a “transgender opera” in Colombia.
Splurge billions
If that all sounds like a joke, then you’re right. It is. It has been a joke at the US taxpayers’ expense for far too long.
Why should Americans pay for this sort of nonsense? Why should their government pay terrorists abroad?
The answer is, they shouldn’t.
But I wonder whether there is anything for our government to learn from this.
The Labour Government is currently in a funk about what it’s going to do with Trump.
On the one hand, Labour politicians are trying to reverse their past attacks on him.
Trump has even replied in kind by saying last week that Keir Starmer is doing “a very good job”.
The kindest thing you can say about that is Trump is being diplomatic. Which he can be.
But perhaps Starmer could actually learn something from what Trump is doing.
Why do British taxpayers have to splurge billions of pounds around the world on schemes just as stupid as the ones Americans were paying for until this week?
Why does our foreign aid budget send money to countries which are richer than regions in our own country?
And why does Britain have to give up our territory — the Chagos Islands — just as Trump is talking about gaining territory?
Because America has got serious. Let’s see if Britain can follow suit.
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