Non-speakers
The Speaker of the House of Commons has made a forthright statement on why in his view Donald Trump should not be invited to give a speech in said House. Spoiler: it’s because Trump is a bad man. Specifically, it’s because he’s racist and sexist.
“Before the imposition of the migrant ban I would myself have been strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall,” Mr Bercow told MPs.
“After the imposition of the migrant ban by President Trump I am even more strongly opposed to an address by President Trump in Westminster Hall.”
Parts of the Commons erupted into rare spontaneous applause in support of Mr Bercow’s statement.
The intervention will cause headaches in Downing Street, where Theresa May has bent over backwards to rekindle the so-called special relationship with the US.
By rushing over here to visit, and by rushing to issue an invitation to Trump to pay a state visit, an invitation which is normally not issued immediately. It makes me furious that she’s doing that.
The Speaker said: “We value our relationship with the United States. If a state visit takes place, that is way beyond and above the pay grade of the Speaker.
“However, as far as this place is concerned I feel very strongly that our opposition to racism and to sexism and our support for equality before the law and an independent judiciary are hugely important considerations in the House of Commons.”
Theresa May please note.
The Speaker’s intervention is a particularly stunning development because the post is politically neutral. Mr Bercow was previously a Conservative MP before he was elected to the role; following convention he then gave up any party affiliation.
Nearly two million people signed a petition calling for Mr Trump’s state visit to be cancelled in just days after it was announced. MPs are to debate the issue in Westminster Hall.
He wants to play golf at Balmoral.
I’m waiting for his Trumped-Upness’s first visit to Ottawa. I suspect that, however much Trudeau may need to be all diplomatic, the welcome among the general population may not be so polite. (And if I can possibly make it, I’ll be there to help give the communal middle finger. I’m already thinking about protest sign messages).
I’ve heard that the first meeting of Trudeau and Trump will be in the US because of concerns regarding said public “welcome”.
Of course it will. In the US, Trump can close himself in the White House and pretend the rest of us don’t exist. Except he insists on following the news about himself, and then he gets all upset and crybaby because some of us (most of us, I suspect) don’t like him, don’t think he’s the smartest thing that ever lived, don’t regard him as some sort of virile Adonis (and don’t care, since that is not part of being president), and don’t believe his lies.
So he might need to take a break during his state visits to go blast off a tweet at some teenager who gave him the finger on YouTube or some toddler that’s said “I don’t wike Twump much, Mommy. Bad man scare me”.
Although ‘our’ opposition to all these things didn’t trouble him when the leader of China visited the Commons. In fact he was rather obsequious. Perhaps he knows something about China that we don’t know.
Although I’ve yet to see it confirmed, I did hear last week that after being invited to the UK Trump told one of May’s aides that he wanted to play a round of golf at the Queen’s private golf course with Her Maj ‘looking on’, and that he wanted to be greeted with ‘more pomp and ceremony’ than had been shown to any previous visiting president (meaning Obama, one assumes).
Also, it appears that he will not be allowed the privilege of speaking in the House of Commons. It seems some of our M.P.s have principles after all.
Correction to above; it’s Westminster Hall rather than the HoC. That should rankle as Barak Obama, Bill Clinton and Nelson Mandela have all spoken there.
Question: What do Barack Obama, Bill Clinton, and Nelson Mandela all have in common?
a. They are not orange.
b. They are not wearing a Pomeranian on their head
c. They won the popular vote in the elections that took them to the head of government
d. They all have at least a trace of human compassion
e. They are not Donald Trump
f. All of the above