Britain's Man in the US Says Trump Is 'Inept'

choi

Isabel Oakeshott, Britain's Man in the US Says Trump Is 'Inept.' Dailymail.com, July 6, 2019 (17:01 EDT) and updated on July 7 (04:29 EDT)
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news ... -dysfunctional.html
("exclusive" // "The Washington Files span the period from 2017 to the present * * * Even before today's revelations in The Mail on Sunday, few expected him to survive in Washington DC after the next UK Prime Minister takes office.  Now these unfortunate leaks may just hasten his departure")

Note:
(a) UK ambassador to US Kim Darroch (birth name: Nigel Kim Darroch) resigns today. This report first reported on the leak of the ambassador's diplomatic cables to London.
(b) "while Trump was making waves on the world stage, his domestic programme was getting nowhere, Sir Kim said.  The President's big election pledges – building a wall between the US and Mexico; stopping Muslims from certain countries coming to America and reforming tax and healthcare – had all hit the buffers."

The "hit the buffers" (always plural) is a phrase, which www.meriam-webster.com (based in US) says "British, informal," refers to buffer stop
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_stop
(c) "Sir Kim Darroch's gilded lifestyle, meeting the great and the good at Britain's lavish Ambassador's residence in Washington DC, is a world away from the council flat he grew up in.  His parents split up when he was just six years old * * * His mother Edna moved Kim and his younger brother back to Britain and into a flat on a council estate in Abingdon, Oxfordshire."

The "council estate" (made up of council houses) is England's equivalent to America's public housing -- government built housing for the poor.
(i) "Councils have historically had no split between executive and legislature."  Local government in England
(ii)
(A) Holly Bentley, Council Homes: the Rise, the Collapse and the Fall; Local authorities have been providing housing since 1890 with lots of ups and downs since. Daily Guardian, Aug 12, 2008
https://www.theguardian.com/soci ... communities.housing
("1890: The Housing of the Working Classes Act encouraged local authorities to improve housing. Three years after the act, the London county council built the first council estate, Boundary Street, on the border of Shoreditch and Bethnal Green in east London")
(B) London County Council
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_County_Council
("was the principal local government body for the County of London [also 1889-1965] throughout its existence from 1889 to 1965, * * * It covered the area today known as Inner London")
(iii) John Harris, The End of Council Housing. Daily Guardian, Jan 4, 2016
https://www.theguardian.com/soci ... nancies-pay-to-stay
(the first two sentences: "In 1979, 42% of Britons lived in council homes. Today that figure is just under 8%")