| Comments on the clues |
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| 1. A musician and model on the game, met a politician before Easter – as it goes |
| 1. | Sorry, but there is so much wrong here. T does not equal 'model' – 'the','met a' and 'it' are superfluous. Plus the surface reading is poor. |
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| 2. American President and French Queen? He's a man with the horn perhaps? |
| 1. | Made me smile, but use of TRUMP too obvious. |
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| 3. An ass in a fancy old hairdo – Republican one who proclaims and denounces |
| 1. | Nice story but don't like the redundant use of indefinite articles in wordplay. |
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| 4. Australian fish frantically utters short roar at first, caught by Melbourne's leading piano player. |
| 1. | My eyes are glazing over, sorry… | | 2. | Why does player give E? | | 3. | Best fish clue. Those pianists are great fisherpeople. |
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| 5. Bird or Satchmo emerges from speaker we brought out when entertaining prat? |
| 1. | Doesn't really make good surface reading |
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| 6. Blowhard President on Twitter taking everyone, ultimately, for a fool |
| 1. | Witty and well-worked clue. 5 points ahead of 19 |
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| 9. Dizzy, he may be, but Donald's safe, one might say. |
| 1. | But the last two syllables of trumpeter don't sound remotely like "Peter" | | 2. | Strictly speaking it's not homophonic |
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| 10. Dizzy, perhaps, with fluctuating temperature after leaving A&E |
| 1. | Strong clue – not quite convinced that fluctuating really means jumbled | | 2. | Best of the clues referencing an actual trumpeter |
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| 11. Dizzy? Temperature? Sadly there's no A&E. |
| 1. | Not as fluent as 10 and risks being a little tasteless | | 2. | Not quite as good as 10 which uses the same idea |
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| 12. Elephant perhaps better trained when not starting to guzzle buns |
| 1. | The "not starting to" considerably weakens the surface | | 2. | Different! |
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| 13. Fish that's tasty eaten for starters in great Australian batter |
| 1. | Reference is far too obscure, sorry | | 2. | Like the use of 'batter', but I think Trumper is a bit obscure. |
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| 14. Flier safe after endless blast |
| 1. | Doesn't make much sense. | | 2. | I'm afraid I struggle with the concept of 'after endless' anything |
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| 15. 'Game-player May has lost face meeting US President' — from a loud denouncer? |
| 1. | Not exactly current GK (six decades ago). Linkword 'from' pointing the wrong way for me | | 2. | 'Game-player'? | | 3. | Too many Mays in the sports world to make this fair on the solver |
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| 16. He can be seen playing Donald Duck in Newcastle with Mrs Daley – parking is limited (9) |
| 1. | Far too many stretches and liberties to be solvable, let alone satisfying. Sorry. | | 2. | This is stretching one's ability to read between the lines too far! | | 3. | I just can't visualise this scenario | | 4. | Nice idea but a little long-winded. |
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| 17. Herald gets President to chop tree (9) |
| 1. | Straightforward but doesn't mean much! |
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| 18. I loudly denounce mad nutter with perm, blanking out November |
| 1. | Nice story and neat construction | | 2. | Easily my favourite out of the President Trump clues because the president is not actually mentioned either in the clue, or as part of clue. | | 3. | Good idea to reference Trump indirectly, but could you both forget and denounce him? |
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| 19. I proclaim US President not entirely safe |
| 1. | Neat crisp clue. 4 points behind 6 | | 2. | Best of the Trump clues and how true! |
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| 20. I proclaim with polls dropping, Labour better dump leader – finally! |
| 1. | Still can't work it out – at best all the adding and subtracting is far too fiddly and not properly signposted | | 2. | Not sure about 'labour' as anagram indicator or its position in the wordplay. Its definition is 'work out in detail', otherwise very clever. | | 3. | Great surface. |
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| 21. Loud-voiced American creature regularly stirs up parliamentarians mostly and foreign royal |
| 1. | The "mostly" is very obtrusive | | 2. | Why not just 'parliamentarian' singular? |
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| 23. Met Rupert about swan, perhaps. |
| 1. | And how did that go? | | 2. | Good clue – maybe the 'perhaps' is unnecessary? |
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| 24. Network back chasing President's spokesman (9) |
| 1. | Nice surface, but a spokesman isn't necessarily a proclaimer. |
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| 25. Network backed by President. "Good news", he announces (9) |
| 1. | I like the 'network' idea |
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| 27. One praising Satchmo? |
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| 29. Perhaps mutter softly with hesitation? Not this chap! |
| 1. | Nice & lit. idea | | 2. | Worth a point though I've never understood how "perhaps" can indicate an anagram. |
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| 30. President chopped tree, he proclaims |
| 1. | A very nice spot – shame it has to be "proclaims" |
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| 31. Remains entertained by half-hearted rock musician |
| 1. | EE needs to be the centre of the word for this to work. | | 2. | I'm not keen on 'half-hearted' used like this. |
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| 32. Safe…with the Donald?! Not one scintilla of principle, a braggadocio |
| 1. | 19 does this far better I'm afraid |
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| 33. 'Satchmo' for one could deceive alien queen. |
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| 34. Satchmo the Swan? (9) |
| 1. | But why is Satchmo the swan?! |
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| 35. Say, elephant in rut with temper tantrums? |
| 1. | Lovely idea but e.g. "…in rut struggling with temper" would have been much safer and fairer (and got 5 pts from me). 1 point as it is. |
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| 37. Strange – dropping sea temperatures disorientated fish (9) |
| 1. | The first anag ind 'strange' doesn't bind properly with SEA | | 2. | Good idea – omitting "strange" would greatly improve this clue. | | 3. | 'Strange' is in the wrong place to indicate anagram of 'sea' | | 4. | Strange isn't needed – without it would have been a great clue | | 5. | What is 'strange' doing in the wordplay? |
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| 38. Swan in to stop Democrat replacing the President |
| 1. | But the replacement is the other way round: TRUMP replaces D. A bit too indirect anyway – compare the excellent 6 | | 2. | It should be President replacing Democrat. | | 3. | The President's replacing Democrat, surely. |
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| 39. Swan sees strong saint! (9) |
| 1. | Old English words totally unfair | | 2. | Alliteratively speaking, i'm sure. |
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| 40. Swann for one type of swan. |
| 1. | Unfair GK | | 2. | Swann a bit obscure | | 3. | With all respect to Rick, this is too obscure a ref. |
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| 41. Swan's odd domestic animal to be kept in terrace (9) |
| 1. | Along with 44, the best of the swan clues |
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| 42. The current President has limited term after base gives him a bird |
| 1. | 'The bird' would make more sense |
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| 43. This bird's a slut, after removing top starts entertaining regulars? |
| 1. | Offensive and puerile, as well as poor technically | | 2. | Good clue, but I would have given more points if a different synonym for 'strumpet' had been used. | | 3. | 'starts to entertain regulars' would have been better | | 4. | What a shame that this didn't read "…starts to entertain regulars". First rate other than, for me, unsound indicator of first letters. |
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| 44. This swan's ill-matched with mute partners |
| 1. | Lovely original & lit. idea |
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| 45. Time to get suspicious with safe-blower |
| 1. | Gets my first place! Straight forward clue, yet nicely disguised. | | 2. | Can't use 'safe-blower' to mean 'safe blower' | | 3. | Where's the definition? | | 4. | Hyphen unfairlt misleading – could easoly have been omitted to produce a respectable clue. |
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