Dropping in
The Trump-May meeting from the BBC’s point of view.
Prime Minister Theresa May is holding talks at the White House with US President Donald Trump.
They posed for photographs in front of a bust of Sir Winston Churchill – which Mr Trump pointed to, saying it was “a great honour” to have it back.
The new president had the bust restored to the Oval Office after it was removed by former president Barack Obama.
Mrs May smiled and told him: “Thank you, we were very pleased that you accepted it back.”
Sigh. A Fox News talking point. That whole fraudulent fuss about Churchill’s bust was a racist dogwhistle back in the early days of Obama’s tenure. Oh oh oh, the Mooslim from Kenya kicked the hero of Dubya Dubya Too out of the sacred Oval Office, oh oh oh, the bust of The Hero must always be in The Sacred Oval Office, that’s the law of the land and has been since 1672 as everybody knows.
Please. Churchill was a Tory; Obama is not a Tory; there’s no law that says Churchill’s bust has to be in the president’s office.
If your world view is not Old White Colonialist then Churchill’s bust is not particularly appropriate for an office.
Trying to reclaim those “great” old days…
Well, Churchill was arguably the right leader for Britain for WWII. Of course the British saw him off them selves soon after. As a citizen of a former colony, one ravaged by supplying troops to the empire, I acknowledge his achievements, but rather wish that he and his peers had put as much effort into preventing war as they did into winning it.
Assuming The Crown is anything like a fair portrayal, I can see why my dad didn’t think much of the post-war Churchill.
Rob,
Agreed, Churchill was also a treacherous bastard and a strategic incompetent who saw the “Dominions” as essentially a source of cannon fodder. He and the British were extremely lucky that The Soviet Union and the US entered the war.
Churchill’s legacy is greater than anything Trump aspires to. Nor did Churchill’s accomplishments ever make him indispensable. There should be a lesson in there to any leader with the ability to learn. For Trump, on the other hand, it’s just a crude political prop.
And yet another goofy picture of our clown president, President Donald J. Poopyhead.
Changing tack slightly, some people in the UK were upset when it was revealed that the new £5 were made with animal products. (As it happens, someone calculated that there was only a tiny amount of one cow in the whole batch. A centicow, or something.)
Fine. What bothers me is something different. It’s that they have Churchill on the back. It was plainly a decision meant as a sop to UKIP, the Daily Mail and potential Kippers. Now, I’ve got lots of friends from the mainland – Germany in particular. We all know that the fivers are meant as two fingers to people from the mainland from the demographically active parts of the population that’s grown up upset that they’re just too young to have enjoyed what must have been a splendid war.
I amuse myself by writing the word TURMOIL across his forehead on every fiver I have.