Westminster View - June 2018

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June.  A coalition Government, difficult negotiations ahead, a weakened Leader, dissent in her own ranks, can Mutti Merkel survive?  The hard right marches on in Italy, Rajoy is booted out in Spain, Erdogan tightens his dictatorial grip over Turkey, The Tramp makes mayhem at the G7 summit in Canada and `American Values` are devalued.  Seen from that perspective all, in Westminster, is calm. In our determination to `take back control of our own borders` do we deny ourselves the overseas doctors and nurses that the UK NHS relies upon?  In our desire to make provision for EU nationals resident in the UK do we neglect the needs of UK nationals living in Europe? Will the new Editor of the Bourgeois Women`s Tabloid reverse that newspaper`s xenophobia? Can the House of Fraser survive and will Sloane Rangers still be able to shop at `Rods`? Should we legalise cannabis oil for medicinal use? Or should we go the whole hog and legalise drugs as a former Foreign Secretary appears to suggest? Will a third runway at London Heathrow Airport ever get built?  Will `upskirting` make it into the Oxford dictionary? Or onto the statute book? Could England win the soccer World Cup? All of these questions remain unanswered at the end of the Westminster month. As does Brexit, of course. 

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The EU Withdrawal Bill has the Royal Assent and is now an Act of Parliament. This, said the Prime Minister, while not crass enough to `feel the hand of destiny upon my shoulder`, was an historic occasion.

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The road to “La Reine Le Veult” was, though, paved with grief, acrimony and ministerial and shadow-ministerial resignations.   It also came perilously close to triggering the abolition of the House of Lords and indeed may yet do so.  Former Cabinet Ministers Justine Greening, Amber Rudd and Damian Green are reported as wanting “a sensible Brexit”.  Well don`t we just all want that. The trouble is that one man`s sensible is anathema to another Mogg. Proposals to establish a ten-mile trading `buffer zone` between the Republic of Ireland and The Province are greeted with derision by the Democratic Unionist Party upon which the PM depends for her wafer-thin majority and equally by those in the South who rely upon the illegal trade in `red diesel` across the border for their livelihoods. The Old Knuckleduster, David Davis the Secretary of State for DEXEU (Department for exiting the European Union) makes this month`s threat to quit about the Border issue., enters a row with La Rudd over a `customs backstop` proposal and settles for a box of Number Ten Fudge.  In true Toytown style Mayor Boris accuses Chancellor `Eeyore` Hammond (aka Spreadsheet Phil` of trying to block Brexit apparently oblivious to the fact that that role is now being undertaken by the House of Peers. The Leader of the Lords Spiritual and self-appointed Number One Turbulent Priest, Justin Welby who defines the `EU Dream` as “the greatest achievement since the fall of the Roman Empire”. This would presumably be the same Archbishop of Canterbury that, while supporting freedom of movement, rails against the exploitation of Albanian car-washers who, he claims, are engaged in `modern slavery`.  As I recall, the Fall of Rome, was precipitated by debauchery, corruption, bureaucracy and interference on a scale that even the European Commission will be hard pushed, notwithstanding the best efforts of M. J-C Druncker, to emulate, and led to the Dark Ages and about five hundred years of war, pestilence and oppression on a scale that Joe Stalin and Vlad Putin could not even aspire to.  The inability to get a decent hand car-wash post-Brexit may yet lead to the end of civilisation as we know it if climate-change does not lead to the extinction of the human species first. 

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Her Majesty`s Disloyal Opposition are also in disarray. While a Government Minister of whom few people have ever heard resigned to rebel against their Lordships` amendments to the “Brexit Bill” Red Jerry and the Comrades, that well-known seventies` tribute band still playing the working men`s clubs of Northern Britain and the wine-bars of Islington, find the need to support Brexit in the interests of the Northern xenophobe vote while wanting to remain within the Single Market a difficult circle to square. A Momentum Party proposal to embrace a `Norway deal` causes confusion within the already chaotic ranks of the Brothers and Sisters. And so the day of The Gunfight at the UK Corral arrives. Six Opposition front-bench resignations and eighty-nine Labour rebels against the Corbyn line on a `Full Access` Lords` amendment on the Single Market with, of course, a consequent loss of International Trade Agreements and negotiating rights were it to be passed. In the end the Tory Brexit rebels led by former Attorney General Dominic Grieve held their noses and went into the voting lobby with the Government. They cried `stinking fish` afterwards, accusing the Government of reneging on a face-saving deal but the Gods were smiling on the Darling Bud.   The Labour and Liberal Lords, sensing that the tide was running against them and that now was not the time for over-fed turkeys to vote for Christmas, decided that degustation was the better part of valour and threw in the towel. The Private Members` Club that is the Upper House are aware, of course, that there will be other opportunities between now and exit-day to stuff the Government with their majority without offering themselves up plucked and oven-ready to the abolitionists. 

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Beyond the politics of the kindergarten there are, of course, rather more serious Brexit related issues that the Prime Minister is striving to grapple with. That Airbus, BMW and Unipart are talking of pulling out of the United Kingdom if there is no trade deal and that an entire car industry dependent upon just-in-time delivery of parts that may criss-cross Europe several times before a finished vehicle emerges for the showroom is not a regurgitation of “Project Fear”. Her Majesty`s illustrious Foreign Secretary may, with his own interpretation of diplomatic charm, say “F*** Business” but those of his colleagues who are taking a gung-ho hard Brexit line need to remember that it is not they who, after March 2019 if not before, will be taking global investment decisions This is not `Project Fear` but Project fact and facts ignored today will lead to jobs lost tomorrow. What is still more important and of real concern, though, is the European Mainland view of the United Kingdom as a defence partner and of security co-operation. The Prime Minister, a former Home Secretary of some distinction, knows where the bodies are buried, probably literally. She is well-placed to say, as she has done in Brussels, that if the EU chooses to abandon co-operation with Britain over security issues then European lives will be at risk if “our collective ability to map terrorist networks” is abandoned. At the European Summit the realisation dawns that “time is running out” but has Europe realised that the sands in the political -timer apply to both eggs in a pan that is in danger of boiling dry. 

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It is probably fair to say that the forthcoming visit of the President of the United States of America to the British Isles is not the foremost topic of conversation in the bar of the Half Moon and Seven Stars.

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The self-styled arch deal maker clearly regards himself as a consummate diplomat following his meeting with The Young Un in Singapore on 12th June It would be good to be able to say that this was `ninety minutes when the World held its` breath` but would that have been so it would more likely have been to stifle a yawn than anything else.  The Handshake in the Orient was rather overshadowed by a petulant and discourteously late appearance at and early departure from the G7 summit in Canada. The man that The Tramp had hitherto described as `a sick puppy` clearly got a lot of credibility out of the coverage of this fleeting meeting and it is just possible that downstream the world may, as a result of two narcissists enjoying a love-in with themselves, be a marginally safer place. Although the idea that North Korea will actually `scrap its nuclear arsenal by 2021` is almost certainly risible. Any reputational enhancement for The Commander in Chief back in the United States, though, was swiftly overshadowed by the `child migrant orphan crisis` on the Mexican border. With pictures of tearful toddlers separated from their parents and held in cages flashing around the world even The Tramp clearly realised that social media has its drawbacks. Those who live by the tweet shall die by the tweet. As the President chose this moment to announce that the USA was leaving the Human Rights Forum Mrs. Melania Tramp, First Lady of the United States, headed south to see, at the Lutheran New Hope Children`s Centre on the Mexican border, the plight of the children for herself. It may, at this point, have dawned upon the man left behind in the West Wing cooking his own supper and wondering when he might next share a double bed – well, the matrimonial one anyway, - again that ¬American Values` were on the line. The Tramp blinked. In a bizarre move designed to end a problem of which he was personally the creator, a point seemingly blissfully overlooked by his adoring if brainless faithful and by most of the American media, The President sought to grab the credit for signing an Executive Order to terminate the separation of immigrant children from their parents. You have to hand it to the man: that is chutzpah in spades. 

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So what do you do if you are President and you are facing a spot of criticism? Well, if you are The Tramp you escalate another diversionary trade war. “Say, guys, let`s slap a 20% tariff on European cars. That`ll play well in the Rust Belt”. In the long-run this, of course, will cost American as well as worldwide jobs and it will damage the global economy but if your mantra is “America First” then to be seen to be penalising `foreign goods` can only score Brownie points.  You then add to that the announcement that you will be meeting the author of the neo-Soviet Union, Vlad Putin, in Helsinki, possibly to thank him for helping you to win your election but ostensibly to talk Superpower business and you have taken the nation`s minds off a few pitiful kids in the El Paso version of Guantanamo Bay who are left screaming for their parents. 

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Her Maj has been advised, by sacked FBI Director James Comey, not to waste much time in preparation for her meeting with the man from the Old Colonies because “he talks constantly and you won`t get a word in edgeways”. She might not need to bother anyway as there are others who may have a few things to say before the Leader of the Free World scuttles off north the play a £5 million round of golf, at the expense of the Scottish police and the British taxpayer. 

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It is quite wrong to suggest, as some have, that the Government is obsessed with Brexit to the exclusion of all other business.  The Gover is pursuing his environmental agenda with vigour and it is good to see the Ivory Trade bill, which might help to save the elephant from extinction, making progress. But why have just one row at a time, over Brexit, when with just a little bit of effort, you can have two? It seems incredible, but it is true, that discussions surrounding the provision of a third runway at London`s Heathrow Airport, began thirty ago.  I can recall staying with a school friend in Stanmore, in Middlesex, when fully fledged post-war commercial aviation was embryonic and Heathrow was little more than a grass strip, cycling right around the perimeter track and then going up on top of the only terminal building to watch aircraft with propellers landing and taking off. Try doing that today and you would be in the Tower of London in chains before you could say “but I`m a plane spotter not a terrorist”. The fact is that UK limited is losing business today to Charles de Gaulle outside Paris and recipient of Old Windy`s Worst Airport in The World Award, to Frankfurt, a close runner-up, to Schiphol and even to Dubai. If we don`t get our act together and invest in runway capacity in the South East, where it is need, then we shall lose our status as a premier hub airport and interlining facility which, on the eve of Brexit, would not be good news. The idea that there are millions of travellers queuing up to fly to the East Midlands or to Manchester or to Edinburgh is hogwash. Those and other airports have their uses and their attractions certainly but in aviation terms Britain means London and London means either Gatwick or Heathrow and LHR is the premier business airport in the United Kingdom which is why the Government has decided at eye-wateringly squillions of pounds worth of construction costs to demolish half of Middlesex (that`s possibly a slight exaggeration but you get the drift) and expand Heathrow still further. 

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There was a time, possibly, before Stansted and when LHR was much smaller, when an Estuary Airport on the Maplin Sands in the Thames might have been a runner but the Geese and other wildfowl won the day and “Boris Island”, floated by the Foreign Secretary when he was Mayor of London, was a non-starter pie-in-the-sky distraction from the very beginning. The problem that we are now faced with is one of cost and scale and opposition. There are some political big guns, notably former Cabinet Minister Justine Greening and Mayor Boris who threatened to lie down in front of the bulldozers, and Zac Goldsmith from Richmond Park, `The Queen`s MP` Adam Afriye from Windsor, and some others who will use every trick in the political saboteurs` manual to prevent of delay. “The Northwest Runway”, LHR 3   The enabling bill, The National Policy Statement, went through the House of Commons. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling told the House that he was going to “end the dithering”. Greg Hands, the Fulham MP and a Trade Minister resigned to honour an election pledge and vote against the Government on a 3-line whip. Mayor Boris did not even metaphorically `lie down in front of the bulldozers` but courageously found that he had a pressing engagement in Afghanistan and so did not vote at all and the pro-LHR Labour Party, whose Shadow Chancellor nurses a constituency, Hayes and Harlington, close to the new flightpath, to a principled decision to allow a free vote to let Comrade McDonnell off the hook!  While the Government has rejected plans for a £1.3 billion tidal lagoon and generating project for Swansea Bay the £14.billion (at today`s prices and rising) Northwest Runway has been given clearance for take-off with eight Tories voting against the whip, ninety-for Labour Members and eleven Liberals opposing the measure and a voting majority of 296.  

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As a footnote Chris Grayling believes that the project can be completed within six to eight years.  Given the UK`s capacity for planning litigation I doubt that there will be wheels on new tarmac this side of fifteen years if that. We have to bridge the gap in the meantime or lose vital post-Brexit air freight business.  At Manston, in my constituency in Kent, we have one of the longest runways in the Country lying idle while there is a company waiting to invest north of £160 million for starters to create a state-of-the-art freight hub to take the pressure off Heathrow. The previous UKIP controlled Council – the only one in the Country – reneged on their election promise to re-open Manston but a new minority Conservative administration supported by some honourable former “Kippers” is giving the project a sporting chance. A Development Consent Order will, I trust, save the day and get cargo and passenger planes flying again from Manston. Post-Brexit we cannot afford to squander our national assets. 

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In other news Mutti Merkel has the devil on her back while trying to hold together a very shaky Government in Germany as Bavaria`s Horst Seehofer seeks to overturn her immigration policy and to reject more migrants. The last European Council was dominated not by Brexit but by immigration – the issue that clinched the UK`s referendum vote.  The rise of the hard right in Europe is palpable with Giuseppe Conte`s new populist coalition of the 5-star Movement and The League in Italy telling Brussels that “we will no longer be Europe`s refugee camp” and the shockwaves of election results rippling across the continent. From Hungary comes a demand for the EU to change its rules over asylum and Italy`s Prime Minister Conte uses blocking tactics to delay other business on the agenda. Druncker and Tusk find themselves having to cancel a pre-arranged press conference, re-write pre-arranged press releases on continue talking. Mutti`s power is clearly on the wane and may well be reaching an endgame and the golden boy of new European politics, M. Macron, calling for “an EU rather than a national” solution, cuts little ice and the discussion ends with an agreement over a disagreement and a fudged `solution` that is already unravelling.  The early election in Turkey, meanwhile, while reported as peaceful and “a fair reflection of the will of the people on the day” was clearly a deeply-flawed process with the dice heavily loaded in favour of the incumbent, President Erdogan.  Erdogan`s consolidation of power will be of small comfort to those very many people, including judges and schoolteachers and journalists who have been either languishing in prison without trial or who have lost their jobs since the `Gulanist` failed coup.  

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Britain`s contribution to the immigration debate is for the Yul Brynner of the Home Office, Saj Javid, to rip up the Darling Bud`s controls and announce, at the behest of a staff-starved NHS, that the UK will be taking Doctors and Nurses out of the immigrant cap and allowing eight thousand more skilled migrants into Britain.  The problem with that is, as we shall in due course discover, is that it is not so much the skilled staff that we will in the future need but unskilled workers that will undertake the more medial tasks – hospital ancillary work, jobs in care homes and the catering trades and the harvesting of crops – that the British choose not to do.  EU migrants resident in the UK will no doubt have taken comfort from assurances that Saj. Has given concerning their future rights in this Country but that will be of small comfort to those UK citizens living or wishing to live in mainland Europe and who still have no certainty about rights of movement, access to healthcare, pension uprating and other issues. It is, it appears at present, a one-way traffic. 

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Next there is the saga of twelve year old Billy Caldwell who has been treated for epilepsy with cannabis oil which is legal for medicinal purposes in many countries but not in the UK. His mother, Charlotte, described the interception of a supply of the oil from Canada as `a death warrant` and the little boy, suffering from multiple fits, was admitted to hospital. The Home Secretary used his powers to permit the use of the vital oil in this one case and has ordered a review of the use of cannabis for medicinal purposes. This has, of course, opened the whole Pandora`s box about the more general availability and use of drugs.  Former Tory Leader and Foreign secretary William, now Lord, Hague has called for the liberalisation of cannabis. The Home Office has said that it has no plan to relax controls of the drug for recreational purposes. 

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Four F35 Lightening jet aircraft have arrived from the USA at RAF Marham in Norfolk. The £100 million 1200 mph fighters are destined for the aircraft carrier HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2020 and will be joining 617 Squadron, better known as the famous `Dambuster` Squadron. 

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The wrath of God has descended upon my colleague Christopher Chope who used his parliamentary powers to block a Private Members` bill to make the bizarre practice of `upskirting` illegal.  Upskirting is the perverted and unpleasantly intrusive pastime of using a mobile phone camera to take photographs pf ladies` underwear, without their knowledge, up their skirts or dresses.

It should be said immediately that Chris Chope abhors this pastime and shares the view that it should be controlled. He also, though, as a matter of principle, believes that all legislation should be debated thoroughly on second reading and not just `nodded through` late on a Friday sitting just because somebody thinks that it is a good idea. For this reason he uses the procedure to call `object` to dozens of Private Members` Bills and the `upskirting` measure was just one of them.  Not surprisingly the blocking of this well-intentioned bill caused uproar amongst the sisterhood and consternation within the ranks of a Government which supported the measure and certainly does not wish to be seen to be endorsing an unpleasant pastime. The Voyeurism Bill, to give it its proper name, has now been debated in Government time and I shall be chairing it through its committee stage. It will, I am sure become law and that is a good thing but it begs another question: Chris Chope also blocked `Finn`s Law`, a measure which is designed to give proper recognition and protection to service dogs and which I passionately, as one of the sponsors of the bill, support. What about poor Finn? Will he get Government Time as well? Please.

 

Ballswatch 

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The Beckhams, Victoria and David, have been forced to issue a statement saying that they are not getting a divorce. This is in the face of “Bizarre and embarrassing rumours”. Social media has a great deal to answer for. 

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June 7th will now be celebrated annually as “Underwear Airing Day” at Colyton in East Devon. This arises from a `laundry revolution` following an attempt to prevent a resident, Claire Mountjoy` from hanging out her washing because the sight of her smalls `might offend visitors to the village`.  My late Father, who originated from the West Country, always used to say that a line of fresh washing blowing in the breeze was ` A brave sight` 

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Police in Swindon are hitting young criminals where it hurts – in the image. Under the proceeds of crime act they are apprehending the toe-rags, stripping them of designer clothes and sending them home in black school plimsolls instead of their pricey trainers. 

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The President of the High Court Family Division, Sir James Mumby, is a supporter of no-fault divorce who `welcomes and applauds` the end of the typical nuclear family.  Has it occurred to

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M’ Learned Friend that the breakdown of the family unit is probably responsible for more social ills than any other factor? 

Henry Blofeld, the bus-and-pigeon commentator, avers that 100-over matches are not cricket.  Andy Strauss, Director of Cricket, says that these matches are aimed at people who aren`t cricket fans. If they enjoy 1090-over matches then they might presumably develop a taste for what Old Buffer Blofeld would regard as `proper cricket`.

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Guardians of the illustrious 118 year old Sunningdale Golf Course in Berkshire have been accused of crow-trapping. It seems that golfers need protection from voracious corvids who mistake golf balls for other birds` eggs. 

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Chiltern Edge School in Sonning Common, Oxfordshire, has said that during heatwaves boys can wear skirts instead of trousers but not shorts because “shorts are not part of the uniform”.  

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A disabled felon in Croydon was sentenced to 12 months in prison. The Council has discovered that they cannot lawfully remove his car, parked outside the courthouse, because it displays a disabled driver`s badge and is therefore parked legally. 

Chepstow in Monmouthshire has declared itself a `plastic free town` and has commissioned a ten-foot flag to proclaim that fact. The flag is made of plastic!

 

Churches are accused of `monetising the steeple` by charging high fees to mobile phone companies to site masts on church roofs according to the Vodafone Head of Networks.  Vodafone are, presumably, short of thirty or so pieces of silver. 

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Mitcham boasts what is claims is the oldest cricket green in the country, founded in 1685. The Phoenix Group now wants to build a hotel upon it. What was that about `rising from The Ashes`? 

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Wallace, the eleven-year old rescue mule, is the victim of `equine racism` says his owner Christine McLean. The British Dressage Association has barred Wallace from competitions because the rules only admit `horses and ponies`. Not mules. Or zebras. 

There were more applicants to participate in ITV`s `Love Island` (85 thousand) than for Oxbridge (40 thousand). The programme`s first night attracted 2.8 million viewers. 

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Qatar Airways is now known as “The Dinosaur Airline” because the CEO, Akbar El Baker who has been in post since 1997 believes that the staff, who are fifty percent female, can only be led by a man “because it is a very challenging position”. 

Royal Mail has banned postmen from flying England flags from their vans during the world cup series because they present a `hazard`. Backroom staff are allowed to fly the flag but of course nobody can see them.  The head of Royal Mai, Moya Greene, is a Canadian.

 

A boy whose mother said “no” when he demanded an ice cream was taken into foster care by Carmarthenshire County Council on the advice of a Social Worker who accused the lad`s Mother of “failing to meet his emotional needs”. In the High Court Mr Justice Mostyn threw the case against the Mother out as being “utterly insubstantial”. 

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The Brussels gravy train has hit the buffers. Four thousand people, including hundreds of MEPs, together with two thousand trunks of documents were stranded when the ludicrously wasteful and costly `travelling circus` that travels between Brussels and Strasbourg was hit by a power failure just twelve miles from the bars and restaurants of Strasbourg leaving the normally well-services Eurocrats whining but not dining for some six hours. 

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And an old age pensioner from Margate has been barred from feeding a cat. Shirley Key fed the puss for a whole year and paid a £200 vets` bill. She now faces an £80 fine under a “Community Protection Notice” for `Cat Theft`. 

Valete 

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John Julius Norwich (88), Broadcaster and travel writer was the son of Tory diplomat Duff Cooper, created Viscount Norwich in 1952. He appeared on the My Word programme for four years and was made a CVO in 1992. 

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Commander John Freemantle (91) was the Fifth Baron Cottesloe. He served on the destroyer Concord that 0n July 31st 1949, escorted the Amethyst during what became known as `The Yangtze incident` 

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Mary Wilson (102) was the wife of British Prime Minister Harold Wilson and the veteran of five General Election campaigns during the 1960s and 1970s.

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She is said to have loathed living in Number 10 Downing Street and repaired to their home in Lord North Street, Westminster, as often as possible. She loved flowers and poetry and published her first book of her own poetry in 1970 selling seventy-five thousand copies. Harold Wilson resigned in 1976 with the early onset of Alzheimer’s disease and ever devoted to duty she cared for him until his death in 1995.

 

Peter Stringfellow, known as `The King of Clubs` leaves behind him four children aged from 55 down to 3 years old. He claimed to have slept with two thousand women and burned out at seventy-seven. 

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Maria Bueno (78) from Sao Paulo in Brazil lost Wimbledon to Billie Jean King in the quarter finals in 1963 but accumulated nineteen Grand Slam titles in her own right including three Wimbledons, four US opens and twelve doubles championships. 

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Paddy Feeny (87) was the television and radio broadcaster who established his reputation over thirty-six years as a BBC World Service Sports Presenter. He was with World of Sport in 1956, Saturday Special (Sports world) in 1959 and was present at the 1972 Olympics in Munich in 1972 when eleven Israeli athletes were murdered and covered the Hillsborough stadium disaster in 1989.  

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Dr Tom Stuttaford (87) served as the Member of Parliament for Norwich South between 1970 and 1974, worked on The Times for thirty years and The Oldie for twenty six years. He was also Chairman and Vice-President of the Prostate UK charity. 

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Leslie Grantham (71) is best known as the East Enders character Dirty Den, a part that he played for three and half years before being written out and then returning `from the grave` briefly in 2003/2004. In real life he served an 11-year life sentence for the murder of a policeman in Germany in 1966. 

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David Duncan (102) was the combat photographer who specialised in capturing images of battle-scarred soldiers in Korea and Vietnam.

 

And Puan was, at sixty two, the oldest known living Orangutan in the world when he died in Perth zoo. He sired eleven offspring and leaves fifty-four descendants behind him. 

 

And finally…………….. 

 

Ross Edgeley is seeking to become the first person to swim the coastline of Britain.  The two thousand mile journey will take him an estimated one hundred days. He set off at the beginning of June from Margate harbour, in my constituency, and he should finish up the River Thames under Tower Bridge.  Good luck Ross. 

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Stephen Hawking`s ashes have joined the remains of Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin in `Scientist`s Corner` in Westminster Abbey. A recording of his famous electronically generated voice has been beamed to the nearest `black hole` by the European Space Agency. 

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Dame Vera Lynn has, at 101, withdrawn her endorsement from a `Liberty Concert` to be held on the beaches of Normandy. This follows complaints from relatives of the fallen who believe that the sands are a sacred area and not the appropriate venue for a beach party. 

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And Journalists and staff at The Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, are mourning the deaths of five colleagues murdered during an indiscriminate mass shooting. Gathering in a car park following the massacre they held an editorial meeting and said that “we are putting out a damn paper tomorrow” The headline read “Five shot dead at The Capital” but the Editorial column was left blank save for the words “We are speechless.” 

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President Trump said, following the shooting, that “Journalists, like all Americans, should be free from the fear of being attacked while doing their job”. Unless, of course, they are attacking the President of the United States of America,

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