Kamala Harris’s Democratic running mate Tim Walz made an impassioned appeal to Americans this week: “Don’t be the frog in the boiling water and think this is OK.”
He was reminding voters that General Mark Milley, America’s most high-ranking soldier under Trump and Biden, had called Trump “the most dangerous person to this country” and that credible reports claim Trump complained while in office that he needed “the kind of generals Hitler had”.
We’re endlessly bathed in Trump’s hatred, extremism and lies to the extent that it’s become almost mundane. His battering ram assaults on democratic institutions – literally, on January 6 – are a given. His dishonesty is priced in. Walz has been trying to waken voters to the reality of the threat he poses before it’s too late.
And yet it’s Sir Keir Starmer, former human rights lawyer and “decent, public spirited man” (to quote his opponent Rishi Sunak) who is being painted as the bad guy of US politics right now while Trump plays the victim. This, over Labour party volunteers working for free on the Harris campaign – something that political operatives from across the political spectrum have done in US elections for decades. Enough already. Starmer is no meddler; Donald Trump is the destructive force at work here.
Foreigners volunteering on US election campaigns are commonplace. It's not just Labour - there are Lib Dems campaigning for Harris too right now, including the leader of the Scottish party Alex Cole Hamilton. And there are of course strong links between the........