The way things are

Donald Trump’s presidency means that the end of the world is nigh (as any fule kno.)

This is gist of the consensus, which has just reached our Christmas cards. 

“Merry Christmas and a happy (Trump) end of the world” goes the hand-written greeting. I received one yesterday.

Canny political activist and actress Juliet Stevenson managed to insert an anti-Trump / anti-Brexit allusion into her interview with Nick Robinson on the Marr show. It was supposed to be about playing either Queen Elizabeth lst or Mary Queen of Scots at the whimsical toss of a coin, but she shoehorned Brexit into it complete with the disappearing £350 million, as well as Trump and the post reality world.

Actors Juliet Stevenson and Lia Williams on Schiller's political tragedy Mary Stuart @AlmeidaTheatre #marr https://t.co/emm6tkO6EU

— The Andrew Marr Show (@MarrShow) December 11, 2016

“What seems to be the case just isn’t! What appears to be the case becomes reality. The Brexit campaign we’re told, you know, £350m will go to the NHS and people vote according to that pledge and as soon as that vote goes through that promise disappears like mist in the morning. I mean the Trump campaign built on all sorts of constructs and pledges that again magically disappear after he’s achieved power, and the idea that ‘seeming’ and appearance, and spin, and PR is basically what is controlling the electorate but then that doesn’t have to be maintained or supported in the event. So the difference between ‘seeming’ and reality is the line that Elizabeth says when she says “the way things appear *is* ‘what they are’.

(says the actress (!)) She knows it’s okay to say this because, in the post reality world (pre the forthcoming apocalypse) it’s understood.

Also on today’s Marrless Marr show was Michael Fallon, trying to redirect the vulture-like media away from feasting greedily upon the division in the Tory party. Yum yum. However, his attempt to make the case for the Saudis was doomed from the outset. Explaining that the Saudis are perfectly justified in defending themselves against the al-Qaeda-affiliated Houthis was never going to work. No-one’s gonna care. It’s the killing no-one can stomach, stupid. Never mind the rights or wrongs. 

The whole thing bore an uncomfortable resemblance to anyone’s doomed attempts to make the case for Israel during any of the so-called Gaza wars. You know, their spokespersons ask desperately “What would your government do if thousands of rockets had been fired at London from, say,  Wales?”

Doesn’t work. 

When it comes to images of dead children, no-one’s interested in hearing a justification, particularly when applied to Israel, given that our state broadcaster is incapable of explaining the situation impartially, even if it wished to do so.

If it doesn’t work for an unjustly reviled country like Israel what hope is there for a country with a deservedly awful reputation like Saudi Arabia?  Even coming from the super sober Fallon. 

Diane Abbott isn’t as stupid as people think. She’s quick-thinking and quite capable of sticking up for herself and her leader. What she doesn’t quite get is the very thing she claims to care so much about - the feelings of what she calls “the British people”. It’s her facial expressions that one marvels at. She’s the spitting image of something or other. Oh yes,  Spitting Image.