The Norms of Current Day Presidents Once They Leave Office (Minus Of Course Donald J. Trump)

By Donald “Braveheart” Stewart

As I sit in my Kailyard I wonder often about the future.

Whilst we are all wondering whether next week shall spell the end of the independence of Ukraine and the start of a new Russian Bear menacing the centre of Europe, something passed under the radar.

Donald Trump says he is in touch with Kim Jong-Un. Still.

The only foreign leader to keep in contact with Trump, perhaps the North Korean leader is still passing on some of his famous disinformation tactics? Whatever may be the reason it made me think of how former leaders behave when they leave office.

The list of former Presidents of the United States who have tried to continue to make a difference in areas of concern to them has been quite impressive. Whilst the Betty Ford Clinics are hardly examples of what Gerald Ford could do, the way that libraries are established for Presidents once they leave office, from over here, seems like an excellently progressive idea. (One wonders if free crayons will be available for the Trump library…)

In the United Kingdom, we seem to just let former Prime Ministers rust into unhappy commentators who haunt their successors. For current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson that has included scathing testimony from former Prime Ministers John Major and Theresa May. It has not hastened his departure from office, which is what they had hoped for, but we do not have the same affection for previous Prime Ministers that y’all seem to have for (most of) your ex-Presidents.

Mind you we do try to keep them in check. There is an arcane system of patronage available to British Governments that has gone beyond its sell by date by some decades. It is a system of honoring people which still attracts some dignity. Former politicians can be given titles to shut them up, offices to keep them pliable and speaking tours to keep them occupied. It is not wholly corrupting but the idea that former Prime Ministers are more than welcome to hang about and attack the latest leader of a party they once led may well be just a British thing.

Where we got a more US style leader with the charm and charisma of a Clinton, the accusations of war mongering of a Bush and the political savvy of an Obama – Tony Blair – it becomes quite a different prospect. Blair was able to scale the heights of being a somebody that internationally, other bodies wanted to know. He has hung about in Europe and done some speaking tours in the US which have cemented his style and reputation. When he speaks, however we tend not to listen so much. Internationally though, people like Tony…

Internationally, however, we are a different breed when it comes to how we and others see our own dear leaders. This is no truer than in Mrs. Margaret Thatcher.

There are parts of the United Kingdom who loathe and detested Thatcher. Her death, in some communities was celebrated.

In the outside of the UK, especially it appears in the US, Thatcher was seen as a strong and capable leader who had backbone and fortitude. Much of that is very accurate. What she also had was a single focussed determination to follow a pathway which destroyed communities up and down the United Kingdom. There is even evidence that she rewarded a police force because of the way they handled our miners during the 1980’s strike which led to the scandal of Hillsborough. This was where 97 soccer fans were killed due to alleged police incompetence. Whilst responsibility for the tragedy may be in doubt, what is not in doubt is that police officers falsified statements under instruction from their superiors to fit a narrative being peddled that was a lie. Thatcher commissioned a whitewash report that exonerated the police force as they had been awfully helpful when she beat the miners some years before…

And so, your leader of today may be seen in one light within your borders but to another country may be seen in quite a different and fascinating light.

There is hardly any doubt how the dictator of North Korea, who apparently fell in love with Trump, sees the former President of the US. Of course, these claims might be … ahem … Fake News…
As if that could ever happen…

A view from the new Kailyard or, how you look over there, from over here…

(Kailyard n. a cabbage patch, often attached to a school of writing – the Kailyard School – a genre of overly sentimental and sweet Scottish literature from the late 19th century where sentimental and nostalgic tales are told in escapist tales of fantasy, but here we seek to reverse it by making the Kailyard Observations of effective invective comment from that looks not to return to the past but to launch us into a better future by the one Donald worth believing…)

And today’s Scots word tae bamboozle ye…

Each time we see ye, we shall try tae leave ye wi a word o oors tae replace a word o thine. Jist fur the sake o learnin, ken!

Queens – We hae quite a few o queens, and the yin that has flowed tae ma lugs is thon o the Hebrides. Queen o Hebrides is the isle o Islay. Whaur ye get “Uisque Baith”, or the “Watter o’ life” … you may ca it whiskey…