Damian Green Sacked. Trump Pleased and Bullish. Travelling to Germany by Train

Wednesday 20th December: Prime Minister Theresa May had to sack her deputy Damian Green today. This was not because he might have downloaded porn onto his computer or made improper advances on a House of Commons member of staff. His downfall came because he had made misleading and inaccurate statements about having material on his computer.

President Trump has been quite busy this week, it looks as if his permanent tax cuts for businesses and time limited tax cuts for individuals have been approved.  The bill also contained another sting in the tail, weakening his bête noire, Obamacare. His address on the National Security Stragegy was actually less aggressive than the actual document. The latter identified Russia and China as mounting threats and resulted in sharp responses along the vein of "returning to the cold war".

Today's contribution was a blatant threat to those countries in the UN who vote tomorrow for the United Nations resolution opposing the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's capital. The US represeatative at the UN, Ms Haley, warned in a letter to dozens of member states to note, "know that the president and the US take this vote personally". A comment wholeheartedly supported by the President who bullishly threatened to cut off financial aid to countries that backed the resolution, telling reporters at the White House:
"They take hundreds of millions of dollars and even billions of dollars, and then they vote against us. Let them vote against us. We'll save a lot. We don't care."

Jane and I set off on another journey today, travelling within the EU before Brexit restricts movememnt. We caught the bus from Milton to the Science Park and then walked down to Cambridge North Station. The station's car park had been occupied by Travellers wanting to spend Christmas there earlier in the week. However, they had now moved to the old Park and Ride site, and the station appeared to be back to normal.

We caught the through train to Kings Cross, walked through to St Pancras Station where two pianists were playing to the Christmas crowds at either end of the long arcade, one decidedly better than the other. The centrepiec of the arcade was an enormous Christmas tree made of flowers.

Having bought our meal deal from W H Smiths, we joined the snaking queue to enter the Eurostar station. This involved the usual travel rituals: The Scanning Of The Ticket to pass the first portal, The Presentation of The Passport followed by the Trying to Look as Gormless as Your Passport Photo at the automatic face recognition gate, and finally, The Partial Disrobing and Divestment of All Wordly Goods and Suitcases - as they went through the scanner and we through the Gate of Metallic Doom, where woebetide anybody who caused the gate to ping as they were subjected to the body search.

The train from St Pancras to Brussels Midi ran on time. We entered into a conversation with two teachers from Cornwall, off to enjoy EuroDisney, which passed the time. At Brussels, we had a 75 minute wait for the next train. A Tibetan monk, resplendent in full orange regalia, was also travelling to Cologne. With our train being delayed and directed to a different platform, we made sure that he was OK and boarded in the right carriage. In the Thalys train, our partner at the table was a young expectant carpenter, returning from France, where she worked for a Briton, to Germany to spend Christmas with her parents. It was an example of the sorts of opportunities and lives that being a member of the EU made possible.

We arrived in Cologne more than 30 minutes late and missed our next connection by a whisker. Philosophically, we found ourselves a table at one of the food vendors and ate the first 'Pommes' - continental chips - mine with the traditional mayonnaise and Jane with Ketchup. At least the National Express regional train was on time and we made it safely home to my mother, 12 hours after setting off.