Make the Nobel great again

The Nobel Peace Prize most often has been awarded for grand but futile efforts towards noble but unattained ideals. In the past US presidents have been recipients: Barack Obama, perhaps more for hope than anything else; Jimmy Carter for intentions over outcomes; former vice-president Al Gore for gormless climate evangelism; and Woodrow Wilson, deservedly, whose reluctant intercession in the Great War proved crucial. Theodore Roosevelt was the first, in 1906. The honour board is mixed, to say the least; even Palestine Liberation Organisation leader Yasser Arafat won the prize, but there is no mention of Franklin Roosevelt or Winston Churchill.

Against this history, the suggestion Donald Trump might be awarded the prize if peace somehow is negotiated on the Korean peninsula seems a little out of place. Mr Trump, so far, has made progress that puts him at odds with many political Nobel laureates. Perhaps our best hope should be that if, indeed, peace does break out, the prize does not go to murderous tyrant Kim Jong-un.