Speaker Paul Taylor - US Presidential Politics

Paul said that he was from North Yorkshire as we might be able to tell from his accent, but it is OK because his wife is from Dewsbury. He joined Fulneck School as the Head Teacher in September 2018. Previously he was Deputy Head at Trent College Nottingham. Before that he was Assistant Head of Fulwood Academy in Preston and a Boarding House Master and Head of Politics at St. Peter's School in York.

As third choice after one other had to back out and another refused to speak he ended up speaking to the 41 Club where Robert Askew is a member. He was happy to take the invitation because his mother and father had both been involved in service clubs so he had been around such clubs, for all his life. He didn't want to speak about private education but felt happier speaking about U.S. politics framed around Donal Trump. He had studied politics at university with the intention of teaching it afterwards and U.S. politics was what his dissertation was about. The big theme of his talk was whether Trump would get impeached.

First though he wanted to look back to British politics in 1992. This was the year that he started studying politics. There was a British Election and the Tories were expected to lose it but the didn't. John Smith the Labour Shadow Chancellor was persuaded to give his version of the Budget - it was a tax and spend Budget. Also, Neil Kinnock held a rally in Sheffield that was described by the media as "triumphalist". These two events lost Labour the election. 

In the same year Bill Clinton stood for President of the USA . Before the first Primary in New Hampshire (NH) four different scandals emerged. Firstly as Governor of Arkansas he allowed Ricky Ray Rector to be executed for murder despite him having a mental age of 4. Secondly Gennifer Flowers a singer, model, and actress revealed she had had a sexual encounter with him. Thirdly he admitted smoking pot whilst at university but claimed he did not inhale it. Fourthly he deliberately dodged the draft for the Vietnam war by switching programmes whilst a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford. This caused him to come second in the NH Primary but despite this he battled on. His campaign advisor wrote in big letters on the wall of his HQ "IT'S THE ECONOMY STUPID". He had done this because the economy was in a downturn and George H Bush ended up being one of the few incumbant Presidents not to win a second term.

In 1993 The American Spectator quoted two police officers alleging that they arranged sexual liaisons for Clinton back when he was governor of Arkansas. The article was all about what Bill was supposed to get up to while Hilary was out of town. The end of the article was left hanging with the phrase There was a lady called Paula. This got the media searching and they came up with Paula Jones who claimed that while she was a state employee in Arkansas Clinton had dropped his trousers in front of her but she said I'm not that sort of girl. She sued for sexual harassment but lost. However, when the Monica Lewinski scandal broke courtesy of Linda Tripp Jones appealed and Bill settled out of court for $850,000. This along with Lewinski led to the Congress impeaching him making him only one of two U.S. Presidents to be impeached the other being Andrew Johnson in 1868. This was passed to the Senate where a two thirds majority would be needed to pass it. This failed.

Based on this history could Trump be impeached? In short Paul thinks not as it would not get through the Republican controlled Senate. Furthermore, because Trump has actually done things that he promised in his election manifesto he still has a large public following in the country despite some of his more outrageous tweets. In addition, the economy is doing well and "It's the economy stupid" is still true. As such Paul thinks he will be the Republican nominee for a second time despite other Republicans putting up against him. He also thinks he will probably win a second term as President.