DONALD Trump said the NHS would need to be on the table when it comes to negotiating any post-Brexit trade deal between the UK and the US.
Though, in fairness, it’s not entirely clear he knows what the NHS is.
“I think we’re going to have a great trade deal, yes,” he told the journalists, diplomats and family members gathered in the Foreign Office for the only press conference of his three-day state visit.
“I think we’re going to have a great, comprehensive trade deal,” he repeated.
“With the NHS? Should the NHS be on the table, Sir?” an American reporter asked.
“I can’t hear him,” Trump mumbled to the Prime Minster.
May, awkwardly sidling over, told him: “It’s the NHS. The National Health Service. He says should the National Health Service be on the table.”
Trump said: “Look, I think everything with a trade deal is on the table. When you’re dealing with trade, everything is on the table.
“So NHS or anything else. There are a lot more than that. So everything will be on the table. Absolutely.”
Thanks Theresa, if you’d kept quiet at this point, or maybe even told a wee white lie, then maybe in 2030 we wouldn’t have kidney dialysis in Inverness being provided by Kraft Easy cheese cheddar spray can, or palliative care in Arbroath
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READ MORE: Trump praises May's 'good job' and admits NHS is on table in future US trade deal
READ MORE: Trump state visit symbolises all that is wrong with Tory Britain
No of course, that’s a joke, by 2030, as Ivanka Trump enters her second term in the White House and as the Chinese-American war enters its 11th winter, we won’t have an NHS.
We’ll have learned to make do, but thanks to independence the standard of Scottish leeches will be far superior to those available to patients south of the Border.
Actually given that the only British press allowed to asks questions at the conference were from Sky and the Times, and given that his only pre-trip interviews were with The Sun and the Times, it’s more likely that NHS Greater Glasgow and Clyde will soon be run by Rupert Murdoch.
The presser was, by Trump’s standards, fairly low-key.
He repeated his attacks on Sadiq Khan – what is about the first Muslim mayor of a major Western city that Donald Trump hates so much?
That’s the sort of testimonial a Labour politician can only dream about.
There was no mention of his attack on Meghan Markle – what is about the first women of colour in the royal family that Trump hates so much?
The whole episode was vintage May, with the Prime Minister’s magical golden touch making a difficult situation 100 times worse.
In one of her last acts as Tory leader, May has probably just thrown away the next General Election.
The person who came out the press conference best was probably Jeremy Corbyn. Which is maybe the first time that sentence has ever been written.
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