Through a glass darkly: Trump Redux

He's back but nobody really knows what he is going to do.

Only an inveterate optimist could claim that 2025 has got off to an encouraging start. And the thing about inveterate optimists is that they can acclimatise themselves to anything. This is the way things are; there must be a reason why they are like this; since they are like this, the reason must be a good one. Thus all will be fine in this, the best of all possible worlds.

There is a lot of this about and not even Donald Trump’s inauguration today as president of the United States can be permitted to intrude upon, let alone shatter, the plain reality that 2025 is not going so very well. Even the briefest trot around the news demonstrates as much.

Why, the world’s richest man (at least on paper) is reported (by the Financial Times no less) to be “exploring” ways in which Sir Keir Starmer might be forced from office. That this seems an unlikely outcome - even allowing for the temper of the moment - hardly diminishes its dismal audacity.

And the thought, the reporting, is given added cr…