>>Don't you think its concerning when someone with a marginal mandate adopts extreme positions ?

That's like saying that the World Cup champion isn't actually the champion because another team had more possession. Sorry, but that's not how it works. Possession is a statistic that matters when planning for next time, but doesn't diminish the current result. In the US electoral college system, Trump had less possession but still won and has full mandate. IMHO everybody needs to accept this and move on.

FWIW, CNN also tried to invent a new scoring system when it quoted a never-before-used cumulative viewings count to claim near parity with Fox's views of the inauguration. Cumulative views mean that if 10,000 people watch now and 9,000 of are still watching next hour, you claim viewing of 10,000+9,000. Meanwhile Fox and everybody else (including CNN previously) uses the hourly view counts to determine rankings that make sense. Abraham Lincoln's saying about trying to fool people all the time, does not bode well for CNN unless it snaps out of it IMHO.

>>The Steve Bannon things also raises a few question. His statements in the past are concerning.

You may be right- but in view of all the bias, I need to see and verify actual quotations now before I'll buy into a MSM target-du-jour. Do you have examples? Most of the anti-Bannon essays I see misattribute words of other authors to him. I particularly liked the accusation of anti-Semitism based on a tongue-in-cheek article written by a Jew. Even Zionist organizations came out and said he's being smeared.

>>I'm not impressed by the prospect for the UK being a trade deal with a leader who has juts binned several trade deals that didn't suit him.

You mean the TPP that was not yet ratified by anybody except Japan? FWIW, the current NZ government was a very strong proponent of that deal despite noisy local protest, mostly by the left wing, about ceding of sovereignty to overseas corporations. FWIW, they did have a point on that one. So the irony is that Trump ought to be a hero to those concerned about the TPP... who instead join the vilification game. The big risk now is whether China can wangle a place for itself in a Trans-Pacific deal (it wasn't part of the original TPP) leaving the US outside a TPP at least triple the size of the EU.

>>Also they now seem to be warming up to conflict with Iran. Who should I support? The country ruled by an unstable leader backed by an extreme religious partisan group with a heavily militarised police force and an enormous prison population or Iran. ;-)

Quoting Hadith 624: "Help your brother, whether he is an oppressor or he is oppressed." The Prophet was asked: "It is right to help him if he is oppressed, but how should we help him if he is an oppressor?" He replied: "By preventing him from oppressing others." Seems to me we ought to decide who our "brother is" and how we can convert noisy protest and bonfires, into actual deeds. Positive engagement by Theresa May seems more sensible than petitions to ban Trump from the UK or overblown criticism by the London mayor on the same day as he welcomes representatives of nations with longstanding real-life bans of Israeli citizens. People seem more interested in slinging off and burning bridges than looking for ways to actually make a difference.