總理顯然正在想辦法讓總統贏得 2028 年公開賽的舉辦權。有了這樣的朋友，總統肯定不會自己帶球桿
一個現實政治什麼時候會赤裸裸地助長利益衝突/腐敗？在讀到基爾·斯塔默政府一直在探索高爾夫老闆是否可以在唐納德·特朗普位於艾爾郡的坦伯利度假村舉辦 2028 年公開賽後，我只能以最嚴格的假設來提問。抱歉，不行。這幾乎就像首相正在為具有開創性的2025年商業手冊收集材料一樣。稱為「跪拜的藝術」。或許史塔默可以要求財政部「探索」購買大量川普表情包幣。
據報道，唐納德·川普在與總理的電話中多次提到，他希望英國公開賽重返坦伯利。正如這位特定的來電者經常遇到的情況一樣，對此的回答應該很簡單：“我更喜歡與米老鼠交談，但我們都在做出妥協。”如果做不到，那就直接說：“上帝，你總是想要更多，不是嗎？蘇格蘭發明了偉大的高爾夫運動。你說過一次謝謝嗎？ ”可惜，實際的回答似乎是：“總統先生，這太棒了！”我們怎麼說過一次謝謝嗎？ ”可惜，實際的回答似乎是：“總統先生，這太棒了！”我們怎麼說過一次謝謝嗎？ ”可惜，實際的回答似乎是：“總統先生，這太棒了！”
據說，文化、媒體和體育部的官員一直在向主辦公開賽的 R&A 諮詢，了解坦伯利舉辦這項幾乎與公開賽一樣利潤豐厚且聲望頗高的賽事的潛在障礙。 Turnberry 在過去 10 年中僅有一次盈利，目前是川普兒子 Uday 和 Spewday 經營的眾多營運公司之一。去年球隊虧損了 170 萬英鎊，但一場大型錦標賽的到來肯定會扭轉這一局面。可惜的是，由於 1 月 6 日美國民主中心遭到襲擊，R&A 實際上已將坦伯利從公開賽合格舉辦地名單中除名，而此次襲擊事件當然是俱樂部老闆煽動的。
但 R&A 的新老闆 Mark Darbon 對這座球場給予了更多積極評價，同時也強調，考慮到近年來賽事規模的擴大，場地的基礎設施仍然是一個挑戰。達邦先前曾表示，要滿足這一成長速度，需要 6 萬張飯店床位。我只能想像首相在想什麼。 “等等，這麼說有人需要再建幾家酒店了？這對某些幸運的商業天才來說，真是個好機會……”
說實話，為什麼我們一貫奉承的政府不全力以赴，開始投入資金給川普的加密計畫？本週，總統宣布他將與川普加密貨幣代幣的前 220 名持有者共進晚餐——這一承諾讓他和他的盟友在不到兩天的時間內就獲得了90 萬美元的交易費。一位參議員稱這是“一位總統做過的最明目張膽的腐敗行為”，但不知何故沒有加上“大概從上週開始”幾個字。畢竟，我們所面對的是一位將白宮草坪變成朋友埃隆馬斯克汽車銷售場的男人，考慮到自那以後發生的許多事情，那一天彷彿已經是一百萬年前了。但經檢查，發現只是上個月的事。正如當時所討論的那樣，這並不是一個國家最好的日子即將到來時應有的感覺，這就是為什麼墮落到川普的水平會讓人感到既屈辱又不道德，在戰略上毫無用處。
令英國越來越多的人感到驚愕的是，我們已經在邀請他進行第二次國事訪問。兩個月前，史塔默在橢圓形辦公室的鏡頭前出示了國王的邀請函，其表演就像魔術師從兔子身上變出一頂帽子一樣令人難以忍受。據稱，外交日記作者們正將目光鎖定在九月份的一系列恐怖演出上，上次演出中，諾曼底登陸老兵和英國士兵遭到一名逃避兵役者的“檢查”，該逃避兵役者將自己在 20 世紀 80 年代的曼哈頓生活中試圖避免感染性傳播疾病的經歷描述為“我個人的越南戰爭”。再忍受一輪這樣的情況應該是我們最好的牌。
但我們從中得到了什麼呢？不是關稅豁免，也不是對烏克蘭的安全保障——或者實際上是對我們自己的安全保障。沒有任何一位世界領導人邀請川普進入他們的禮儀套房並從中獲益，但他們卻繼續這樣做，或許他們認為，多次重複同樣的操作並期待不同的結果就是治國之道的定義。
顯然，總得找到另一個小玩意。對於任何想一想這個問題超過 10 奈秒的人來說，即使是討論在川普擔任總統期間將公開賽重新帶回坦伯利的可能性，也會讓你陷入骯髒的誘惑之中。但奇怪的是，當接受者是總統時，贈送個人貴重禮物以換取優惠似乎是合法的。
我們只能推測為什麼公務員需要進行這些骯髒的小可行性研究。也許史塔默太膽小或太懦弱，無法向川普解釋這顯然是不合適的，而是將總統的持續質詢推給下級，希望由其他人來做出決定。也許是經營高爾夫球場的人。對於一個國家來說，這會給人留下一個有趣的印象，不是嗎？唯一能阻止斯塔默完全傾向於明顯不道德的交換條件的是 A719 的寬度。做出艱難決定的人不是總理，而是 R&A 的執行長。
瑪麗娜·海德（Marina Hyde）是《衛報》專欄作家
If Starmer is willing to help Trump host a lucrative golf tournament, will he caddy for him too?
The prime minister is apparently pursuing ways to land the 2028 Open for the president. With friends like that, POTUS surely won’t be carrying his own clubs
At what point does realpolitik tip over into nakedly facilitating conflict of interest/corruption? I only ask in the strictest hypothetical terms after reading that Keir Starmer’s government has been exploring whether golf bosses could host the 2028 Open championship at Donald Trump’s Turnberry resort in Ayrshire. Sorry, but no. It’s almost as if the prime minister is compiling material for a seminal 2025 business manual. Call it The Art of the Kneel. Perhaps Starmer could ask the Treasury to “explore” buying a load of Trump meme coins.
According to reports, Donald Trump has frequently mentioned in his phone calls with the prime minister that he’d prefer it if the Open returned to Turnberry. As so often with this particular caller, the reply to this should simply be, “And I’d prefer to be talking to Mickey Mouse, but we’re all making compromises.” Failing that, just go with: “God, you always want MORE, don’t you? Scotland invented the great game of golf. Have you said thank you ONCE?” Unfortunately, the actual reply seems to have been: “Capital idea, Mr President! How can we make that happen?”
And so it is that officials from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport are said to have been sounding out the R&A – which organises the Open – as to the potential obstacles to Turnberry hosting the championship, an event almost as lucrative as it is prestigious. Turnberry has made a profit precisely once in the past 10 years, and is currently one of the many operating companies run by Trump’s sons, Uday and Spewday. It lost £1.7m last year, but the advent of a major championship would certainly turn that around. Alas, the R&A effectively suspended Turnberry from the list of eligible Open venues over the matter of the January 6 attack on the seat of US democracy, which the club’s owner had, of course, fomented.
But the new R&A boss, Mark Darbon, has made more positive noises about the course, at the same time as stressing that infrastructure at the location remains a challenge given how much the event has grown in size in recent years. Darbon has previously said that keeping pace with that growth would require 60,000 hotel beds. I can only imagine what the prime minister is thinking. “Wait, so someone would need to build some more hotels? What a great opportunity for some lucky business genius …”
Honestly, why doesn’t our permanently ingratiating government go the whole hog and start putting money into Trump’s crypto project, which this week saw the president announce he’d have dinner with the top 220 holders of his $Trump cryptocurrency token – a pledge that promptly earned him and his allies $900,000 in trading fees in under two days. One senator called this “the most brazenly corrupt thing a president has ever done”, somehow not adding the words “since maybe last week”. After all, we are dealing with a man who turned the White House lawn into a car sale for his friend Elon Musk, on a date that feels about a million years ago, given how much has happened since. But, upon checking, turns out to have been only last month. And as discussed here way back then, these are not the vibes of a nation whose best days are ahead of it, which is why sinking to Trump’s level feels as humiliatingly post-moral as it is strategically useless.
To the consternation of a huge and growing number of people in the UK, we are already giving him a second state visit, Starmer having produced the King’s invitation on camera in the Oval Office two months ago, with all the excruciating flourish of a magician pulling a hat out of a rabbit. The diplomatic diarists are supposedly zeroing in on a run of dates in September for that horror show, which last time saw D-day veterans and British troops being “inspected” by a draft dodger who described trying not to get STIs in 1980s Manhattan as “my personal Vietnam”. Enduring another round of this is supposedly our best card.
Yet what have we got out of playing it? Not tariff exemptions, or security guarantees for Ukraine – or indeed security guarantees for ourselves. No world leader has ever got anything out of inviting Trump into their gifting suite, yet they keep doing it, perhaps imagining that repeating the same play multiple times and expecting different results is the definition of statecraft.
Evidently, another bauble must always be found. To anyone who thinks about it for more than 10 nanoseconds, even discussing the possibility of returning the Open to Turnberry while Trump is president lays you open to being involved in mucky inducement. But weirdly, giving personally valuable gifts in supposed exchange for preferential treatment seems to be legit when the recipient is the president.
We can only speculate about quite why civil servants should be required to conduct these grubby little feasibility studies. Perhaps Starmer is too cowardly or wet to find a way of explaining to Trump that obviously it wouldn’t be appropriate, and has instead kicked the president’s persistent inquiries down the chain, in the hope that someone else will make the decision instead. Maybe the guy who runs the golf. That would be an interesting impression for a country to give of itself, wouldn’t it – the idea that the only thing stopping Starmer from leaning wholly into an obviously immoral quid pro quo is the width of the A719. And that the person who makes the tough decisions isn’t the prime minister, but the chief executive of the R&A.
Marina Hyde is a Guardian columnist
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