The Daily Telegraph - Saturday
A crisis for Joe Biden’s presidency
Special counsel Robert Hur’s report into Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents may turn out to be a devastating blow to the US president and his re-election prospects. Mr Hur concluded after an investigation that charges should not be brought because Mr Biden would appear to a jury as a “well-meaning, elderly man with a poor memory”. He listed several examples of when the president’s powers of recall apparently failed him.
Mr Biden’s Republican rivals were quick to conclude that this was evidence he was “unfit” for office. But the president rejected the criticism, denouncing those who questioned his faculties at a press conference and insisting that his memory was fine. His case was not helped, however, when he seemed to confuse Mexico with Egypt.
Even Mr Biden’s supporters concede that the president is prone to gaffes. Questions about his age and his mental acuity have tended to be dismissed by the White House as politically motivated. But Mr Hur’s assessment cannot be ignored in the same way by Left-leaning news outlets and Democratic politicians, and has triggered a ferocious debate about his suitability for a second term.
When Mr Biden was selected to run as the Democratic nominee for the presidency in 2020, he promised to bring a divided United States back together after the chaos of the Donald Trump years, and heal the country’s wounds as it grappled with the Covid pandemic.
It has not turned out that way. Under Mr Biden, the administration has tacked Left on a swathe of issues, including the economy, public spending and the culture wars. While the president retains a folksy and generousspirited public image, America is perhaps more divided now than it has been in decades. Questions have inevitably been asked about who is running the White House day to day, if Mr Biden is indeed taking a back seat.
Mr Hur’s report is likely to prove a gift to Mr Trump, who looks almost certain to become the Republican candidate despite his own well-known problems. But it would be no small matter for the Democrats to find a different nominee now, although some have suggested that moves are afoot to encourage Mr Biden to bow out, perhaps on health grounds.
The West is in greater need of strong leadership in Washington now than at any point in the past 30 years. Vladimir Putin has lost none of his thirst for conquest, as an interview with the American journalist Tucker Carlson on Thursday night demonstrated all too clearly. The crisis in the Middle East could yet spiral into a far greater conflagration. The free world has to be able to have confidence in its supposed leader.
Labour pension raid
Sir Keir Starmer is not used to playing by the same pension rules as everyone else. As this newspaper first reported, the Labour leader benefits from the unique “Pension Scheme for Keir Starmer QC” law, providing special tax advantages to the savings he accumulated while director of public prosecutions. Sir Keir has promised to scrap this law if elected, but does this history explain why he apparently feels no sense of moral queasiness at the idea of exempting public sector workers from his planned raid on pensions?
Reintroducing the lifetime allowance would see swingeing taxes levied upon pension withdrawals above roughly £1million. This would be damaging enough, by discouraging saving, and would be particularly devastating for those who acted on the abolition of the allowance and started paying more into their pots. But it is made worse by the possibility that it would not apply fairly across the board.
Labour is thought to be considering exempting some public sector workers from the cap to avoid losing them to early retirement. The fact that many companies would like to avoid losing their top workers, who generate the wealth that pays for the public sector, has apparently been ignored.
Sir Keir seems to know perfectly well what his constituency is, and is willing to go to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the pain he inflicts on the rest of the economy does not fall upon Labour-supporting vested interests. His party, meanwhile, appears to be embracing the worst of its Corbynite heritage – and it plans for pensioners to foot the bill.
Taking the biscuit
As the Earth trembles between competing powers, tens of thousands of Telegraph readers have turned their minds to an important question: the nation’s favourite biscuit. The chocolate digestive romped home, though it is unresolved whether the chocolate should be milk or dark. An element of anti-Americanism might have been behind the rejection of the Oreo, though its muted colour and dry texture may be explanation enough. Far more research is imperative. The wide continent of dry biscuits – eaten with cheese – is still to be charted. Between the two continents lay the muchmissed Chocolate Oliver. Was it too good for this world?