The USA of President Trump. Prime Minister May and the Palace

From cultural fiction, I turn to the main political events of the week. I begin with the America of Donald Trump and the recent second series of train journeys and stop overs across the USA by the former Conservative Deputy Party Chairman, Margaret Thatcher supporter and Leadership candidate Michael Portillo, and who travelled across the great plains to the Grand Canyon, Arizona. It is said that Mr Portillo who like me has a part Spanish background, was the front runner to become Tory Party Leader in 2001 before be backed out (it is said after pressure from the still influential Lord Tebbit, whose appearance on the Andrew Marr show in 2014 heralded the first announcement by the then Home Secretary of a national inquiry into historical child abuse for England and Wales).

Mr Portillo has since remained a political commentator since leaving the House of Commons in 2005 by being the only other stalwart of the late Friday evening Politics show. His main career move was to become the expert on railways throughout the UK, Europe and now the USA although he had featured in several TV series, notably Great Britons.

The USA Train series is the second series with the first commencing in Manhattan travelling to Niagara Falls and then Gettysburg before Washington DC to Mount Vernon and Jamestown. In the recent series he commenced in Missouri, St Louis, and moved to Jefferson City and Washington, Sedalia, St Josephs and the meat packing capital of the state, Kansas City, from there along Tornado Alley,  from Lawrence to Topeka and Dodge City and then Lamar Colorado; he visits Pueblo and learns what it takes to become a cowboy, the tourist centre of Colorado Springs comes before the n journey through the Arkansas river gorge on a narrow-gauge railway, and then to New Mexico and Santé Fe, Albuquerque and ending at the Grand Canyon. This week I am watching his journey from Minneapolis and St Paul built around the Mississippi River and then into the Deep South, to La Crosse Wisconsin Tomah and Portage, Milwaukee to Racine and the windy city of Chicago before travelling the Mississippi.

The journeys of Mr Portillo, and in which he always shows respect for the local history and cultures, are highlighting the size of the country, and the separateness and individuality of states, counties and communities, particularly from the Federal government and which reminds of my long belief in a one country states of Europe with Russia having the same relationship as Canada and Turkey as Mexico with the USA. It is several generations since I listened to Alistair Cooke’s weekly Letters from America on the BBC Radio and continue to treasure his book America which accompanied a TV series which also provided an overview of the history, vastness and diversity of this part of the American continents. Since those days when the cinema pictures provided perspectives on a weekly basis with the films on the USA participation in World War II, the Saturday morning children’s show Western, the gangster movies, small town dramas and the sophisticated relationships of the big cities, I believe I have understood the awesome individual power of the USA President and its limitations.

Anyone who wants to understand something of the truth of how a Presidency works in practice should view all 140 episodes of the West Wing, the recent film of Jackie (Kennedy’s Camelot) or the current TV series Scandal and Homeland. It is impossible to compare the roles of a heredity monarch, personified with Queen Elizabeth, celebrating 65 years in office,  and  whose  function  to advise and warn but  not command in terms of changes in the  laws and political policies and actions, with that  of the elected head of  state in the USA  where the office has a maximum  tenure of eight years, and is actually the commander and chief with the  power to create an executive order, the equivalent of the Royal Prerogative. 

The problem here in the UK is the misconception that the Government is just  the Cabinet led by the Prime Minister or even the raft of Ministers, their individual political advisors and Civil servants  but in reality is a complex balance of powers  brought together through the Privy Council and with a distinct role for the  individual Peer members of  the House of Lordships, the Barons, descended from the Barons of Magna Carta (The Upper House) and where there  are  Privy Council sub committees for the judiciary separate from the law makers and for national security  which covers the role of the various security services. Much of the work of the Crown, the Privy Council and Government is secret but recently there been greater transparency admitting that through the head of state treaties are entered with other counties and that are sometimes secret.

Separately I have been writing about Spies, and those working undercover and which includes the use of informants, traditionally used to bring down criminals and their networks but also as a major means to know what other countries are up to and as an offensive and defensive weapon in terms changing the balance of power between neighbours and in the twentieth century between continents. We are unlikely to know  how far moves to bring the buffer states between Russia an existing NATO countries into  the alliance provoked Russia into making moves against Ukraine or how far the openly knowledge that under President Obama the USA was reducing interest in NAT0 in part  because of the lack of funding coming from Europe, more because  of the to give greater attention to the Pacific ring and the political and economic advancement of China, in part because of the new approach to offensive  intelligence military action through cyber technology and military action and  because of the use of  digitally controllable pilotless air machines, defensive umbrella shields and so on it all means that unless one  is a top insider one only sees  what is intended to be seen and the appearance of anything is rarely its reality.

The British popular vote against the capitalist enterprise of the European Common Market created the international climate which enthused Donald Trump and his supporters into believing they could triumph in the USA using same methods successful in the UK, despite the whole apparatus of the state and establishment being directed to preventing this happening.  How much of Trumps reputed $10 billion went on buying him into power and how much was provided by those who can call in their debts will never be known. The reality is that he now able to use his knowledge and skill which got him into power to stay there for at least 8 years.  If he succeeds in his approach I foresee several changes to the USA constitution including the maximum tenure of any individual in office.

As commander and Chief he can use the power as an elected head of state in much the same way as Hitler did in Germany. We may also never know who put up the British PM to engineer the visit to see Trump and if this came from him via Farage. It could have come from within Europe as the price for an eventual soft Brexit and to get Trump to make positive public noises about NATO and to hold him back from doing open public deals with Putin.  It could have been from panic because the information about the reality of past and current UK and USA intrigue, under cover deals, are now to known to the new President. It was one of a series of major political blinders which the May Premiership is making.

There is no doubt that the President is determined to do what he said he would do and to do it quickly before the system organises to prevent him. The idea that he needs someone like the PM in the way Regan needed Thatcher is absurd, in the same way the idea that the Queen can be expected to have any influence is dangerous. Trump is what he is and has never made any secret of it just as Jimmy Saville was open about his behaviour and a wide range of people looked the other way. 

So far there has been a partial awakening to the implications of leaving the umbrella of Europe and the implications of a Trump presidency. The response of the Labour Party which has the risk of imploding has been excellent for once recognising the enemy without and the outburst from Speaker Bercow timely. The boat could be rocked further and even off course when the Lord out amendments to the Brexit Bill and it would be great if they force the government to hold a General Election to abolish the second chamber. Anyone who claims to know or be certain about the outcome of the Brexit referendum on the implication for British citizens of Trump’s triumph is a fool. I am still of view of a May General Election.