You have to let politicians go on holiday, I guess. You have to accept the existence of world leaders with whose views you disagree, especially now that it’s almost all of them. So why does it feel like a particular provocation for JD Vance to be planning a trip to the Cotswolds? His itinerary isn’t yet known, but its bare bones are that, sometime in August, the Vances will visit London, Oxfordshire and Scotland.
For a recap on what, exactly, is wrong with the US vice-president, there is nothing more evocative than February’s press conference with Donald Trump and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Of course, many of Vance’s more extreme views – calling Democratic politicians a “bunch of childless cat ladies with miserable lives”, claiming that staying in an abusive relationship was preferable to getting divorced, and saying that abortion should be banned – were already well known, from a combination of his voting record and his memoir, Hillbilly Elegy. But Republicans say a lot of things, particularly while seeking election. You may have been able to infer Vance’s drive to dominate and control others, but it wasn’t until that exchange with the Ukrainian president that you could witness it.
