We used to laugh at Donald Trump’s mangled attempts at making himself understood.
We used to pity the United States for having such a blundering leader during a time of crisis. But look where we are now.
Just when our economy needs strong, clear leadership, as the airline industry warns it will take years to get back to normal and the hospitality trade is still reeling from repeated lockdown blows, along comes Boris Johnson to speak to the representatives of British businesses.
The Tory Prime Minister’s bumbling speech to the CBI yesterday was a slow-motion train crash.
Even by Johnson’s standards of waffle, this was an incredible effort, ranging from Moses to Peppa Pig to Russian revolutionary Vladimir Lenin.
His speech was nonsense and, apart from an excruciating delay when his notes were mixed up, largely a calculated act.
Johnson’s clownish persona disguises a cunning instinct for political survival and aims to cover up the actual bungling of everything he touches.
Like all comedy shows, though, Johnson’s ritual humiliation of the office of Prime Minister is wearing thin.
The joke, and the joker, is not funny any more and the sooner the curtain comes down on this clown the better.
United drug front
The Daily Record has led the way on calling for politicians to get to grips with the drugs death scandal, so it is heartening to find some cross-party consensus on display between Nicola Sturgeon and Douglas Ross.
The leaders of the SNP and the Scottish Conservatives put aside their political enmity to show that they are serious about finding some progress on the issue.
No one political party has a monopoly of wisdom on tackling this difficult problem and there is no one solution that will be effective on its own.
The Conservatives have to show that they are now serious about campaigning for safe drug consumption rooms.
And the SNP government has to show that it is going to respond positively to the massive demand for treatment for addicts.
In two decades of devolution, we have seen very little co-operation across the political divide in Scotland.
On such a serious issue that demands action, we have seen politicians inch towards where most voters want them to be – working together to solve problems. Finally.
