Indeed, given how vindictive Trump can be, what would be the repercussions if Labour didn't make contact and he wins?
You could apply the same criticism to Labour's original plan to ban zero-hours contracts. Hey it's a 10 hour-a-year contract therefore not zero hours therefore legalYou would hope though that the people in the civil service who write new legislation would be capable of thinking through how to make the law robust and avoid having such an obvious loophole. (Perhaps by setting a threshold that requires a reasonable number of hours each week, maybe with a couple of bands, though I'm sure there are other ways of working around the problem).
Frankly Labour should be keeping as much distance from "Team Trump" as they can. Because Trump is going to want something for any co-operation, and you know damn well it won't be something that benefits us as a country. This is an incredibly poorly judged move, and will only serve to bite us on the backside should the giant neurotic Umpla Lumpa get back in to power.
There’s no danger of this - John Prescott has retired.
Indeed, Prescott couldn't never match the orange-ness of Trump...I think you know full well who was being referred to.
But that could be done after November if he does avoid jail and makes the White House again. Do you really think anything Team Trump say will stick if they do win?
They might be a bit busy after November, as will Labour over here most likely, you are reading too much into what was probably pretty routine and bloodless. As for them apparently preferring Labour to Cameron, the Trumpists HATE Cameron especially that idiot MTG.
Well I'm not convinced its a good idea, Trump is the last person anyone should be looking to deal with unless they absolutely have to, especially at the moment when his focus is on raising money for his legal bills. Even if they've gone over there just to establish a working relationship they are wasting their time. The moment he gets back into power anything and everything thing talked about previously will get ripped up, unless of course it means a gain for Trump. Far, far better just to stand back and let US politics sort it's future out from a distance.
Then if that happens deal with him after his inauguration, no need to deal with him before because we can't trust that he will stand by anything he says now.
And then he turns round and decides to treat the UK harshly because what is now our government wouldn't talk to him before he was elected?
He could do that anyway. He can turn on anyone at any time, in fact he does all the time. The only way to keep in his favour is to keep massaging his ego and of course support his claim that the 2020 election was stolen from him. That is not a position we want to be in regardless of what party gets into power. Mark my words, this will not end well if he somehow regains power.
Honestly do you believe for one second his team don't have a strict brief from the orange one? Given how many advisors and people in his team he's been through since he first came down the escalator at Trump Tower, I think by now its a knocking bet that those working for him are not going to be reliable. Terrified of Trump for sure, but I wouldn't trust them to get coffee for me.
Agreed.
Agreed also....but whether or not we like them, the Russian government are there now and we have to deal with them. I would prefer not to have to deal with Trump until - and if - he gets into power. After all, I doubt that American foreign policy is going to change overnight in that event.
Trump is also there now to the extent that there is a strong possibility that he will be in power in January, and he's talked about making various non-trivial changes very quickly such as stopping aid to Ukraine and even pulling out of NATO. Seems to me it's worth a few days of somebody's time behind closed doors to understand and perhaps even to influence, while making no public comment. Compare and contrast he May government being apparently wrong-footed by his election in 2016 and her rushing to be the first to pay homage and be publicly humiliated.
I'm sure under normal circumstances a prospective government might want to talk to other leaders. However this is not normal circumstances. The team they are talking to represent a former president who is currently in court in multiple cases against him, led a protest that almost caused absolute chaos and insurrection in Washington, has stated that he wants total immunity to do what he likes, practically stated he was going to be a dictator on / from day one, admires other dictators, and has threatened allies if he thinks they aren't paying enough. I could go on but it would take all night, and I should have made my point.