Daily Mirror (Northern Ireland)

Trump return for state visit

Gaffe-filled trip hailed a ‘success’

- BY CHRISTOPHE­R BUCKTIN US Editor

THE American ambassador to London has declared that Donald Trump may return to the UK next spring for a full state visit.

Woody Johnson hailed Trump’s recent visit a “flying colours” success, even though the President caused uproar by openly criticisin­g Theresa May’s Brexit strategy.

Mr Johnson told Channel 4’: “A state visit next spring would be, I think, kind of, the next step on his visits, but he might visit before that, who knows?”

On Trump’s time in the UK earlier this month, Mr Johnson said: “The President left accomplish­ing, I think, what he wanted to accomplish.”

Not only did Trump offend

Mrs May, he kept the Queen waiting, failed to bow to her and walked in front of her.

His visit was marked by angry demos. Trump has now raised tensions with Iran, tweeting that their leader Hassan Rouhani must “NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN”.

He was responding to Mr Rouhani’s warning that “war with Iran is the mother of all wars”. After Trump’s capital letters tirade, General Gholam Hossein Gheibparva­r, one of Iran’s top military chiefs, said the States “won’t dare” take action against them.

He said: “Trump cannot do a damn thing.”

Audiences know Ed Balls is not afraid of making a spectacle of himself after his toe-curling turns on Strictly Come Dancing. Lathered in fake tan, his antics included painting his face green and dancing Gangnam Style.

But not even in his most outrageous moments on the ITV show did the ex-shadow Chancellor slip on a leotard.

So when offered a Union flag outfit in skimpy Lycra as he tried wrestling during his latest project, the 51-year-old at least accepted with conditions.

“There were definitely points where I said no,” he says. “I’m not someone who previously had bikini line concerns but they wanted me to wear a tight-cut leotard and I thought it would be unflatteri­ng. I got a pair of black boxers under it. Had I only worn the bikini line, that might have ruined it for the viewer…”

The Norwich-born father of three, married to Labour MP Yvette Cooper, also decided shaving his legs and torso, like the other wrestlers, was a red line.

“As they were all wearing leotards, I couldn’t really come on in a suit and tie to do wrestling,” says Ed. “So I had to wear a leotard but there was a point in the afternoon where they said, ‘Are you going to shave?’ and I said, ‘I’ve already shaved, I shaved this morning!’.

“And they said, ‘No, no, we all body shave and oil before every round’. They shave their legs and torsos and then oil so it glistens. I just felt that was a step too far. So I had to say, ‘I’m really sorry, it may be scratchy for you but I am not going to shave my legs’.”

He adds: “My kids think dads should be embarrassi­ng but I substantia­lly overachiev­e. I could explain to my 13-year-old why it was important to do the wrestling but if I’d waxed and shaved, she would have said it was too much.”

The former politician takes to the ring in BBC2’S Travels In Trumpland With Ed Balls, which he describes as “early Louis Theroux meets The Real Marigold Hotel and a little bit of Ruby Wax”. He travels around the US asking people who voted for Donald Trump to explain why.

“Lots of people will assume Trump voters are going to be deluded and don’t understand or they are going to be extreme and almost dangerous,” he says.

“But we met nice, ordinary people, who are totally aware of Trump as they will say he tweets too much, they didn’t like what he said about women, the dangerous way he talks about North Korea. But they still support him because he offers something they want.

“People who see this who have a preconcept­ion of Trump voters will be in for a surprise because in the same way as Leave voters, they aren’t deluded or extreme, they are just ordinary people with a different point of view.

“I thought after the first year Trump would be losing support but we didn’t find that at all and it wouldn’t surprise me at all if he won a second term.”

Throwing himself into filming very literally helped when it came to warming up his interviewe­es. Ed says: “The wrestling guys are incredibly thoughtful and reflective but if we had arrived with a camera and said ‘We’ve come to interview you’ it would have been very hard.

“After two days of being jumped on from a large height by a very big man and survived it – I mean, it was very painful – they opened up.”

But the worst pain in his odyssey was being tasered by a police officer. Unsurprisi­ngly, perhaps, his producers kept him in the dark about that.

Ed says: “I didn’t really know what was going to happen. The tasering was the most painful experience in my life and luckily they didn’t give me much time to reflect on it.”

As an MP until he lost his Morley and Outwood seat in 2015 and a

Senior Fellow at

Harvard University, Ed is in a perfect position to see the story from both sides of the

Atlantic.

The three episodes look at different issues in the US, like gun control, wealth inequality and immigratio­n, going everywhere from a

Redneck

People who see this who have a preconcept­ion of Trump voters will be in for a surprise

With Paychecks festival in Texas to Trump’s favourite Mar-a-lago resort in Florida.

“Trump plays this fear card about the wall to stop illegals coming over,” says Ed. “The rhetoric around Muslims is shocking. We were in Mar-alargo and two or three people said to me in the first hour ‘You’re from London, is it safe? Isn’t it over-run by terrorists?’.

“When you talk to the working class, it’s less about fear. “I was surprised how immigratio­n was less of an economic issue than you would find in the UK. It was more about hope – what Trump offers is hope and change. You see the wrestler Johnny Slaughter saying the people you want to be president don’t become president and this is this best we can get.

“The thing people said is Trump is not in it for the money. I say ‘So you think Obama was?’ and they say absolutely. Bush, Bush Jnr as well.”

Ed believes it was a man who never voted before the last election who best explained Trump’s appeal. He told him: “All my life, there are Democrats who broke promises, Republican presidents that break promises, then it’s a Democrat again and suddenly this guy comes along and the Democrats and the Republican­s are both against him – and if they’re all against him maybe it’s worth giving him a try.”

In the first episode, Ed stays at a farm with veterans and joins them for a toast to friends who lost their lives.

He asks them to toast Labour MP Jo Cox, murdered by a far-right extremist in her Batley and Spen constituen­cy a week before the EU referendum. “The only thing which felt comparable to me was Jo, who I knew very well,” Ed says.

“Jo losing her life is a terrible thing, but I’m somebody who has three kids, and a partner who does exactly the same kind of surgeries every Friday, so it could have been us. I could both think about what it’s like to be Jo but also what it’s like to be her family.”

The show is timely, coming soon after Trump’s first official visit to the UK.

“I thought he’d become a more reasonable, centrist president but he hasn’t,” says Ed. But does he want to get back into the political arena? “I’m regretful politics is so chaotic and I look back at better times wistfully,” he says.

“But if you said to me, ‘You could be in Parliament or you could do this show at the moment’, I’d choose this show.”

Travels In Trumpland With Ed Balls starts on BBC2 at 9pm on Sunday.

After 2 days of being jumped on by a very big man they opened up

 ??  ?? FURY Demo in Edinburgh
FURY Demo in Edinburgh
 ??  ?? I’LL BE BACK Trump wants a state visit
I’LL BE BACK Trump wants a state visit
 ??  ?? POWER COUPLE With MP wife Yvette at Glasto last year
POWER COUPLE With MP wife Yvette at Glasto last year
 ??  ?? SMASH HIT Ed suffers for his art in show FINE FORM Ed in his Lycra kit &, right, in action in wrestling ring HOT TROT Routine on Strictly, 2016
SMASH HIT Ed suffers for his art in show FINE FORM Ed in his Lycra kit &, right, in action in wrestling ring HOT TROT Routine on Strictly, 2016

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