Sir Keir Starmer’s doing his utmost to get the Ukrainian and American Presidents back on the same page. A lot of talks with a lot of people, but the signs are he’s gradually making progress. It’s the tale of two very old stories.
The first concerns a ridiculously vain Emperor who loved strutting around looking like the coolest dude on the planet.
Unfortunately, he wasn’t much of a details man. Which is how come, when con artists told him they could make him clothes that were invisible to stupid people, he fell for it.
Then, when they presented him with the non-existent gear and he paraded in front of his subjects no one quite dared say what was on their minds.
Until, that is, a child blurted out the obvious. That he was stark naked. In Hans Christian Anderson’s version the Emperor is startled, but carries on anyway.
In the immediate and accurate version of this week’s story, Volodymyr Zelenskyy plays the little boy. And there are no prizes for guessing who’s the one wearing no clothes.
Since THAT memorable Oval Office bust-up, broadcast to millions of appalled viewers across the world, the boy’s been suggesting that the Emperor looked quite nice really.
And a partially appeased Donald Trump has sort of vaguely agreed that the Ukrainian peace process can be resurrected, via talks between minions on both sides, in Saudi Arabia.
That way he can still win the argument that he lost, without too much loss of face.
The third character in the fable, the Emperor’s wise counsellor, is played in the contemporary version by Starmer, who’s done much to unruffle the Donald’s feathers. Which ain’t easy.
At this point we leave the old tale behind.
Sir Keir continues to play a pivotal role in getting European leaders, notably the French President, to buttress support for the embattled Ukrainians if the Americans do decide to butt out.
This feels like a no-brainer, as Trump flounders around.
One minute tying the defenders’ hands behind their backs by effectively disabling the most powerful weapons in their arsenal, the next saying this may only be temporary.
Trump’s also learning the hard way that his isn’t the only voice in the world. And that when he mulls messing up the world economy with import taxes the money men have something to say too.
Some forecasters are suggesting his brilliant plan might knock the US economy into recession. Also, the dollar’s shrunk in value and government borrowing costs have gone up.
So much then for his pre-election promise to make everyday Americans richer.
Best put the idea on hold then. Er, well, bits of it anyway. You really couldn’t make it up.
But in numbers ten and eleven Downing Street they are doing their best to at least keep up. Because they’ve got to.
With the Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ spring mini-budget due in a couple of weeks, there are horribly hard choices in prospect. Made worse by the Trump-inspired double whammy.
First, it’s still not clear whether those threatened new taxes dumped on stuff sold to America will apply to us, as well as to countries The Donald isn’t very keen on.
And second, if he really does follow through on his great and glorious plan to upend NATO, that’s protected democracy since World War Two, it’s going to cost us dear.
Which is where the other very old story comes into play. The one about the big bad wolf and the three little pigs.
Brief reminder here: The wolf threatens to huff and to puff and to blow the piggies’ houses down.
He has no problem with the first two, as they’re built of nothing stronger than straw and sticks. But no luck with the third, as it’s constructed out of bricks.
Next he tries going down the chimney, but gets burned alive and eaten by his own prey. A happy ending then, of sorts.
Not a lot of prizes for guessing who’s the villain in today’s update. And, sure enough, Vladimir Putin is licking his lips at the idea of expanding the Russian empire halfway across Europe.
But here once again Sir Keir is teaming up with the French President to share the role of the clever piggy who gets the baddie huffing up his own puff.
First, Starmer and Macron are marshalling the troops, working on an international peacekeeping force in Ukraine if a ceasefire is agreed.
And second, talking big numbers about ramped up defence spending, right across the European Union.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, over thirty years ago, we’ve all enjoyed a peace dividend. But it now looks like a reorientation looms – from welfare to warfare.
Obviously the idea is to prevent it coming to that. Build enough of a defensive shield and it won’t turn muscular after all.
But we are talking serious money here. Starmer has already promised to up military spending during this parliament, and more in the next. But it still may be nothing like enough.
Back in the not altogether swinging sixties we were spending twice as much on weaponry as we were on health.
But with the Cold War over, as we thought, the polarities have more than reversed. We now invest in health more than three times what we shell out, pardon the pun, on armaments.
The bit extra Ms Reeves is setting aside for defence will come out of the pot hitherto reserved for people in need from overseas. Which is bad enough, but nothing to what could be to come.
She still stolidly states she’ll keep her promises not to jack up taxation, but the money’s got to come from somewhere. And that’s before we even get into serious ramping up of defence spending.
Opinion polls all show overwhelming public support for Starmer’s solidarity with Ukraine, and equal dollops of disdain for Trump and his antics.
But how good will that hold in future if British taxpayers end up having to put their money where their mouth is? That’s another question, and a very troubling one for Sir Keir.
The burdens of office do take their toll. Often, remarkably quickly.
That even seems to apply to the preening President across The Pond. Look closely at the footage of him and you can see what’s left of his barnet thinning by the day.
But help could be at hand for him at least.
A Texas-based biotech company’s been editing the genes of embryo mice, and created one with gloriously thick hair, that they’ve nicknamed ‘colossal woolly mouse’.
Check out the pictures. The creature is ever so hairy. And the colour’s a pretty good match with what you see on the bonce of the man once nicknamed President Combover.
The company now plans to genetically modify Asian elephants to make them into glorified woolly mammoths.
You’d have to squint awfully hard to hook up that sort of transformation to America’s Commander-in-Chief.
But, look on the bright side. If they did manage to turn him into something out of Jurassic Park he wouldn’t be able to do as much harm as he is now.
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