This article appears as part of the Unspun: Scottish Politics newsletter.

For an accurate assessment of Keir Starmer’s White House pilgrimage, where he proclaimed his fealty – once again – to Donald Trump, check the American press.

In Britain, coverage mostly compromised commentators heaving an almost audible and collective sigh of relief that Trump didn’t pull down Starmer’s pants in the Oval Office and blow raspberries on the Prime Minister’s bare belly.

American journalists were much more honest, if rather brutally so. The Washington Post, now MAGA America’s journal du jour under tech-broligarch Jeff Bezos, said Starmer deployed “flattery [and] deference”.

Starmer is seen as the bootlicker-in-chief. How humiliating. And he didn’t even get American security guarantees for Ukraine.

The way someone deals with bullies – whether in the playground or Washington – is instructive of their character.

John Swinney showed much more spine than Starmer when he called for Scotland to unite against “the far-right”. The First Minister branded Nigel Farage “an accomplice” and “an apologist” for the “Russian agenda”, describing his world-view as “fundamentally racist”.

Swinney took a principled, courageous stand – which was also politically savvy. He’s placed himself in direct opposition to the MAGA ideology sweeping the west.

As the leader of a party which proclaims itself centre-left, socially-democratic and........

© Herald Scotland