Alison Rowat: How do you solve a problem like Elon? |
We have missed the boat for the New Year honours, but can someone make a note for next time to give John Swinney a knighthood for services to comedy?
Days into 2025 and the political landscape was already looking grim. A foreign billionaire was trolling a UK Prime Minister and one of his ministers. Across mainland Europe, democratically elected leaders watched in alarm as the far right continued its march into the mainstream. And it was ruddy cold outside.
In the middle of this mayhem up squeaked Scotland’s First Minister with a warning. Any scuppering of his Budget by opposition MSPs, said Mr Swinney, would play right into the hands of nasty populists like the one causing Keir Starmer trouble down south. Hilarious. I mean come on, First Minister. It’s not all about you and your Budget, John.
Swinney is not the first leader to lose his reason when faced with that man Musk. Keir Starmer, previously determined to rise above the fray, found his red line on Monday after Musk accused him of failing to tackle grooming gangs in England.
Starmer accused those calling for another inquiry – including the Tory leader Kemi Badenoch – of “jumping on a far-right bandwagon”, remarks which landed him in hot water with the Conservatives and their media pals.
Tiresome as Mr Musk is, he is not going anywhere any time soon. A way has to be found to live with him. The same goes for Donald Trump. Indeed, much of the reaction to Musk can be seen as a warm-up for the main act taking to the stage on January 20.
Have lessons been learned from last time? Not many, if the US media is any guide. Mr Trump is still seen as an aberration as if he landed in office by accident rather than via the votes of 77 million Americans.
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Given the choice between Mr Trump and Kamala Harris, more Americans thought they would be better off with him rather than her. It really is that simple. His critics could try to understand why voters preferred him, but that’s boring and involves a lot of work when there are hardly any reporters left to do the digging. How much easier to treat him as a law unto himself and his presidency as a freak show. This too shall pass. It will take four years, and it will be a helluva trip, but it will pass.
That wasn’t good enough first time around, but the same approach is being deployed again. Ditto for the Democrats, who never took the time to understand Trump and where he came from.
The UK media, and particularly those on the centre-right, are similarly dazed and confused when it comes to Trump, and his not-so-glamorous assistant Musk. For outlets that set so much store by sticking up for Britain they have hardly rushed to get behind Keir Starmer. Would that have happened to a Conservative Prime Minister? Hardly.
As the inauguration approaches the search is on for “Trump whisperers”, those who know, or can learn quickly, how to do business with the man. One who can lay better claim to the title than most was a guest on Radio 4’s The Westminster Hour last Sunday. The interview with Malcolm Turnbull, Prime Minister of Australia from 2015-18, is well worth seeking out on BBC Sounds.
Turnbull had been in office a year when Trump was first elected. Australia had made a deal with the new president’s predecessor, Barack Obama, to resettle up to 1250 “irregular migrants” detained on two islands in the Pacific. Trump refused to go along with the deal, and he and Turnbull had a furious row.
The president eventually relented. Turnbull said he succeeded because he refused to do what just about every other world leader did: “suck up to him”.
Turnbull’s administration also had an early taste of Trump’s fondness for tariffs, in this case on steel and aluminium, and again managed to negotiate a way out. Tariffs were not in America’s interests, Turnbull argued, and the President listened.
“The general advice at the time was that you should take Disraeii’s advice on how to deal with royalty – [use] flattery and lay it on with a trowel,” said Turnbull. “With Trump that is really a bad idea. Trump is like any bully – the more you give in to bullies the more bullying you get in return.”
As for Musk’s meddling in UK politics and talk of a mega-donation to Reform UK, Turnbull said: “If I was Mr Starmer I would really be standing up to this. You’ve basically got to say our political affairs will be decided by the people who live in these isles and are entitled to vote here, full stop.”
You might think it is only in the movies that such things happen.
Hugh Grant’s PM telling Billy Bob Thornton’s President where to stick the special relationship in Love Actually? “A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend”? Pure fantasy, but British prime ministers have stood their ground, most notably Harold Wilson and his refusal to send British troops to Vietnam.
As for Musk, the Robin to Trump’s attempt at Batman, let’s see how he gets on with that new government job. He might find those state-employed workers have access to better legal advice than the kids who were laid off in droves at twitter.
There are other reasons why Musk might not be around to taunt Keir Starmer for much longer. He will get bored eventually, but before that happens the MAGA faithful might have lost faith in him. He made powerful enemies when he backed visas for skilled migrants over training Americans to do the work. Musk is as transactional a being as Trump: if he doesn’t get what he wants he will move on to something else.
As for the relationship between President and adviser, that is going to be one of the best dramas in town. The jokes have already started about Musk being the “real” president, and Trump is of course famed for his sense of humour.
So here we go 2025, you might not be as bad as we fear. Not much of a commendation it’s true, but in the absence of more zingers from John Swinney it will have to do.
Alison Rowat is a senior politics and features writer on The Herald. Contact alison.rowat@heraldandtimes.co.uk