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Donald and Melania Trump entered the hall at 8:16 to cheers and applause. “Hail to the Chief” was followed by presentation of the colors and the National Anthem.  We had a brief introduction from Weijia Jiang, this year’s president of the White House Correspondents Association, followed by dinner. Two questions hovered in the background. One, how would President Trump treat the press? And two, would he, as had many presidents in the past at this event, treat the audience to a little self-deprecating humor? “Donald Trump” and  “self-deprecation” are not words you often hear together, but who knows?  The President is also a master communicator who reads his audience well.   We never found out.

The Special Air Service, Special Boat Service and other elements of UK Special Forces are held in the highest regard by the Pentagon and by US special operators. British and American special forces have forged a bond of trust over decades with joint high-risk operations and combined training. A recent visit to Washington made clear that the American leadership on both sides of the political divide, and within the military and intelligence services, believe the current British government has broken that alliance. America views the SAS and SBS as equal to its own tier one special forces operators in Delta Force and SEAL Team Six. The eight saber squadrons of the SAS and SBS contribute a significant amount of the special forces’ manpower relied upon by both countries.

Tech companies like Palantir now find themselves in a bind. Wanting government contracts, they have a reason to stay politically neutral. At the same time, they rightly suspect that the greater part of the left has already marked them for destruction. The hostility has little to do with Silicon Valley’s enthusiasm for Austrian economics, or its occasional calls for a property-based franchise – an old National Liberal demand rather than a fascist one. Rather, the left is hostile to technology because it is America’s conservative party, suspicious of anything that threatens to undermine old solidarities.

I have just been contacted by a source who knows much more about what happened with Peter Mandelson’s vetting. It supports the case that I made in my summary of the case last night and Sam Coates made in his thread yesterday that the crucial decision was Keir Starmer’s political decision to appoint him. In essence, Oliver Robbins – the top civil servant who overruled Mandelson’s failed security vetting – was rubber-stamping a decision which had already been made. Things are much less clear cut than Downing Street has been claiming for the last three days I have heard too from an ally of Mandelson who believes Robbins’s dismissal was "egregious" for exactly the reasons which follow.

When John Healey was asked, onstage at the London Defence Conference, whether the armed forces were “ready” for war, the Defence Secretary replied: “Yes.” One of those present says: “That was greeted with near incredulity in the room.” Another attendee compared Healey’s plight to someone “playing French cricket,” with critics from all sides hurling balls at his ankles while he tried to bat them away. “You can’t score any runs in French cricket.” George Robertson, Healey’s most respected Labour predecessor and a former secretary general of NATO, was not present; he was in Scotland celebrating his 80th birthday. But he returned to give a withering interview to the FT and a speech.