Were it admitted to the United States, the UK would not be much of a swing state. An exclusive Ipsos poll for the Evening Standard finds that more than twice as many Britons want Kamala Harris rather than Donald Trump as the next US president — 50 per cent to 21 per cent.
In further evidence of how different our two nations’ politics are, even Tory voters prefer the Democrat by a wide margin. Yet Britons do not necessarily expect to get their way, with many more predicting the Republican will win. Indeed, polls suggest that while Harris has gained ground on Trump in the popular vote, she is still an underdog in the electoral college which determines presidential elections.
Still, Harris has demonstrated a few things. First, that she is not the weak candidate that conventional wisdom suggested she might be. Second, the Democrats were right to twist. And third, she appears to have unnerved Trump, who had been preparing for years to face an elderly Biden.
Indeed, Trump’s revolting ruminations over Harris’s ethnicity at an event are evidence not only of his venality but his having been wrong-footed. Last night, Trump falsely claimed that the vice-president, who has a Jamaican father and Indian mother, only recently “happened to turn black”. With a running mate announcement pencilled in for next week, Harris may be on the march.
Farage fuels the fire
It is a curious sort of patriot who hijacks a vigil for dead children and goes on to attack police. But that is the reality for some protesters, following the appalling events in Southport.
Driven by fake news and supercharged by social media, a small but vocal minority have taken to the streets across the country. More than 100 people were arrested in London yesterday, which follows similar violent scenes in Southport on Tuesday, when demonstrators attacked officers and set cars alight.
That Reform UK leader Nigel Farage sought to question the police assessment that the Southport knife attack was not terror-related served only to pour further fuel on the fire. New laws cannot prevent those inclined from indulging in conspiracy theories. But such baseless assertions should not be spread by elected officials. As the American experience shows, it ends in a dark place.
Glover keeps going
Team GB flag bearer, multiple Olympic champion and mother of three, Helen Glover is at it again. The 38-year-old has won silver at the women’s rowing four today, to add to her golds in London and Rio.
Having already twice retired, a third such announcement would only confirm that Glover will be lining up for glory at Los Angeles in 2028.
