So there I was, reading Nicola Sturgeon’s autobiography ahead of interviewing her for the UK’s most listened to podcast. Sorry there Matt(s), but if you’re going to call us “bastards” in an interview with Gary Lineker, just because we had 15 million downloads last month, what do you expect?
The Sturgeon tome is not out yet and I had to sign an NDA ahead of reading it. However, I don’t expect to be taken to court for saying that I think it will do very well, not least because she is much more emotional than her public image, added to which she has some excellent portraits of other politicians she had to deal with. (David Cameron will enjoy it more than Boris Johnson).
Not do I imagine the publisher will object when I say that one of the best passages concerns a phone call with Donald Trump, a man she never met (and never wants to) yet on whom she clearly made such an impression that he couldn’t resist insulting her as he left Scotland after last week’s World King trip to the land of his mother.
I suspect the reason he loathed Sturgeon is that she did not react as he wished to his green ink letters complaining about windmills near his golf course. I wish someone would explain to him the difference between a windmill and a wind turbine, but I guess if he doesn’t know at 79, he never will.
How Scotland’s current first minister John Swinney feels about being on the receiving end of Trump praise we may not know until he writes his memoirs. As to which leader he likes and admires more, Trump or Sturgeon, there is little doubt about the answer.
But what Trump’s business holiday showed is that as a tribe, current world leaders have essentially decided that they cannot change his man-child narcissistic personality, so they are going to play along with it.
For Swinney, Keir Starmer and Ursula von der Leyen, all three of whom were made to look like they were playing an away game, it is not easy to do the Hugh Grant/Love Actually thing and call out the US president to his face, as a former leader like Sturgeon can do.
I lost count of the number of lies told, or diplomatic norms breached, during his several rambles to the media. Starmer did sort of speak up for Sadiq Khan when Trump ranted away about the London mayor, and he pushed back gently when Trump went off on one about free speech.
But these are relatively minor set against the bigger issues of Israel-Gaza, Russia-Ukraine, climate and world trade, on which his fellow leaders regularly allow Trump to talk absolute nonsense unchecked.
There is of course a danger in checking him. But there is a danger in not doing so. Because if you make someone feel like they should be treated as World King, guess what, when they are as narcissistic as Trump, they behave like it.
Look at poor old President Lula in Brazil. Fifty per cent tariffs on almost everything, because the courts over which he has no control won’t drop charges against Trump’s fellow insurrectionist election-denier, Jair Bolsonaro.
It’s Lula yesterday, Canada’s Carney today, but it could be anyone else tomorrow. Trump wants Turnberry to host the British Open golf championship. He won’t understand if Starmer and Swinney can’t swing it for him. And if they don’t, the danger is that the manchild will kick in, and a price will be paid.
Far better that world leaders actually start to point out that what happens in the Brazilian justice system, the governance of Greenland, the German and Hungarian elections, the development of renewables in the North Sea, or the awarding of sport venues, has sweet FA to do with the lying orangeman. Principles matter even more when you’re dealing with someone who appears not to possess them.
Talking of golf, what on earth possessed the BBC to put out a soft ball interview with Eric Trump promoting the Turnberry bid for the Open, complete with the outlandish claim that nobody in the world has done more for sport than his father? Come again?
The closest we got to a tricky question was when Dan Roan suggested the Open organisers might worry Trump senior was too keen to be the centre of attention, as when he hung around the stage while victorious Chelsea players were presented the Club World Cup trophy. But where was the Roan rebuttal when Eric showed he is just as capable of lying as his father, claiming the team had wanted his daddy to be there, indeed that it was “the greatest honour of their lives”? Come again, again?
Also, how could anyone do a golf interview with a Trump without asking about cheating? TV is about pictures. Surely Roan saw the pictures of a caddy dropping a ball for Trump to save looking for the he had mis-hit deep into the rough.
Trump cheats at golf so much that a man named Rick Reilly has even written a book about it, Commander in Cheat. I hope the British Open decision-makers read it before deciding to give the next four Opens to Muirfield, St Andrew’s, Lytham St Anne’s and Carnoustie.
I don’t like missing Burnley’s first home game of the season, especially given we are back in the Premier League.
However, the reason is a good one, a pro-am football match in Bosnia to promote the Youth Sports Games, of which I am an ambassador. Founded in Croatia 29 years ago, three million children from four Balkan countries – Croatia, Serbia, Bosnia and Slovenia – have since taken part. The match is being held in Sarajevo to celebrate the 15th anniversary of Bosnia’s entrance into the Games. Children whose parents may well have fought each other in war now come together to compete in sport, 350,000 this year alone.
I don’t know if I have ever mentioned this but I once played with Diego Maradona in the first Soccer Aid, which may be the reason that at the grand old age of 68 I have been asked to turn out in Sarajevo. I will be playing alongside Portuguese legend Luis Figo (been there, done that, in the second Soccer Aid, before ITV decided I was too old and too slow … bastards) and lots of players with names ending in -ić. Former Croatian internationals Slaven Bilić , Mario Stanić, and Aljoša Asanović; Predrag Mijatović, ex of Real Madrid; and Serbia and Manchester United hardman Nemanja Vidić (who once told me off for “invading Kosovo”).
Among the non-ić players we have former England goalkeeper David James, ex-Croatian star Darijo Srna, currently director of football at Shakhtar Donetsk in Ukraine, Shakhtar manager Arda Turan and Bulgarian Stiliyan Petrov, beloved by Celtic and Aston Villa fans. Joining me in the “not really footballers” category are Paris Saint-Germain president Nasser Al-Khelaifi and UEFA president Aleksander Čeferin.
So Burnley will have to beat Sunderland without me, and I will once again fulfil my fantasy that I could have been an international footballer. What is not a fantasy is that I will be the only one there who played with Maradona. Some of them played against him, but it’s just not the same thing. Believe me.
Good interview with Lineker by the way, Matt (Kelly). Almost as good as the newsletter revelation that you were once babysat by your dad’s mate, Kevin Keegan.
I can’t compete with that, though I did once play with Maradona (never talk about it) and my dad was Frank Worthington’s vet.