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[Entries are in reverse date order, latest at the top. Comm­ents and cont­ri­but­ions are wel­come to the em­ail add­ress at the bot­tom.]

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Thursday 6th February

Saturday 1st February

After the shock of Trump's first days as 47th president - four more years of this madness, really? - let me turn to another source of rage, the word that can still not be spoken in UK government quarters. Five years ago yesterday we left. Gloom, anger and bewilderment have filled these pages on the topic in all that time (and more, nearly a decade), and yes, the damage has been immense, but I'm inclined to be more positive today. Here's what YouGov (sort of a horse's mouth) says: It's maddening only to be reclaiming ground that we gave up voluntarily (that's right, 5% of GDP), but hey, at least we're heading back in the right direction, and some of the other half are coming to their senses. Starmer still can't say the word, but he clearly knows he has to be closer to Europe, or he can kiss goodbye to growth. How far might he go in another five years? Of course, that's a whole other debate, whether floundering Labour can pull themselves together enough to secure another term. Here's the link to explore more detail on the YouGov site:

Thursday 29th January

I'm chuffed that cartoonist Guy Venables has echoed my comments about Trump's take on opportunities in Gaza: In yesterday's The Rest is Politics podcast, Alastair Campbell and Rory Stewart debated whether Trump could be called a fascist. Campbell drew our attention to a document, a poster allegedly once sold in the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum shop in Wash­ing­ton DC, based on an article written by Laurence W. Britt in the bimonthly secular humanist journal Free Inquiry Magazine (Vol 22 no 2, 15 July 2003) titled "Fascism Anyone?". Britt had identified 14 common themes in seven regimes he examined: Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco's Spain, Salazar's Portugal, Pap­ad­op­oul­os's Greece, Pinochet's Chile and Suharto's Indonesia. Campbell asked Stewart - and the listener - to match and grade each of these assertions against Trump's MAGA-unleashed USA, where 1 = 'not at all' and 10 = 'completely'. What do you think? Useful in some, but not all, respects. I get that Campbell was trying to highlight unpleasant and dangerous aspects of Trump's intentions, but I'm not convinced that fascism is the right term, or that the 14 themes properly define fascism. Narcissism would be a more appropriate label for Trump himself, along with all his "art of the deal" trans­act­ion­al approach, the "look out for number one" or "what's in it for me?" instinct (both for Trump personally and the USA as a whole). He's too chaotic and obsessed with self to be defined by any -ism or recognised for any specific political ideology. He does however run counter to and distrusts most of the rule-of-law beliefs and institutions that the USA has developed and supported over many decades, the UN, WHO, ICJ and more, in all their wokeness. What most scares those of us brought up in the liberal tradition is the rejection and dismantling of forces for good, the collaborative stuff of a better world. And, of course, he is quite simply just horrid, creepy and repulsive.

Monday 27th January

Yes, like most, I'm reeling from the Trump in­aug­ur­al on­slaught, the MAGA tsu­nami. Four years of getting ready to go on day one of his ret­urn, cel­eb­ra­ted on the White House web­site : From the hours of news bulletin and pod­cast, from yards of print co­ve­rage in the last week, one ob­ser­va­tion that has stood out for me came from Rory Stewart on The Rest is Pol­it­ics. He sug­gested that Trump was aim­ing to build a strong­hold in the Am­er­icas (with the incl­us­ion of the Pan­ama Canal, Can­ada ... and Green­land). Xi Jin­ping can do what he wants in the South China Sea and with Tai­wan, Putin can re-col­on­ise East­ern Europe and rest­ore the Russia of his youth. A map imagined in 1949 comes to mind: Although Trump is not advocating the Oc­ean­ia-Eur­asia-East­asia per­pet­ual war (he does­n't like to pay for it), dyst­op­ian days none­the­less. Maga­speak instead of Newspeak, ob­ject­ive truth ban­ished. As long as Trump's home patch is un­aff­ected or ben­ef­its, the post-WWII con­cerns of the rule of law, in­ter­nat­ion­al ag­ree­ments that fos­ter whole-world health and safe­ty (WHO, Paris, NATO) can go hang. The rest of the planet in­ter­ests him only where he can make a dime, strike a deal. He was asked last Mon­day if he thought the Gaza cease­fire would hold and com­ment­ed that beaut­iful things could be done there, it's on the sea, great wea­ther ... you could see him imag­in­ing the dev­el­op­ment of Trump hotels and golf courses, after he's moved every­body out to Egypt and Jordan. Today is Holocaust Memorial Day. How app­ro­priate of in­aug­ur­al bud­dy Elon Musk to tweet this res­ponse to acc­us­at­ions of a fasc­ist sal­ute: On Saturday Musk made a surprise video appear­ance at Ger­many's far-right Alt­er­nat­ive für Deutsch­land (AfD) el­ect­ion cam­paign rally.

Friday 24th January

Monday 20th January

Thursday 2nd January

I said on Tuesday that I no longer need to make those hard­core res­ol­ut­ions, as al­co­hol and to­bacco are things of the past. I can dream a bit more, light­ly, acc­ent­uate the positive. Here's a sample of my non-ex­haus­tive, un­ord­ered list: Contact a friend ('phone, message, email, send a postcard ...) every day. Invite acquaintances, like people I know by sight in the street, to join me for a cup of tea and a conversation, with the intention of getting to know them better. Have lunch with my sister at least every other month. Plan long weekend breaks to European cities I have not yet visited. Visit my cousins. Go up to Minchinhampton Common regularly to hack a golf ball around and witness the big skies. Organise day trips to interesting places within striking distance. Cook something new every week. Walk in a Gloucestershire beauty spot once a week. Build and maintain my own events diary (aggregated from local media, newsletters and websites) for Stroud. My hope is that if I do some of these I'll be encouraged to tack­le the mun­dane crap that I must also add­ress, the things I'm prone to avoid. Others may have different plans (click to enlarge): That's the tricky part, isn't it? We have to put up with all of those above.

Wednesday 1st January