FROM now on, the special relationship looks like it is going to be the one between the United States of America and Russia.
President Trump is drawing up plans to meet Russia’s chief thug Vladimir Putin in Saudi Arabia, while our own Prime Minister waits anxiously for his first visit to the MAGA White House.
For this was the week when an alliance that has endured for 75 years came to a bitter end.
Trump and his flunkies did not simply tell Europe that the USA is no longer going to bankroll European national security.
It was far worse than that.
The brutal subtext of all the soundbites about Uncle Sam not being taken for Uncle Sucker was this — Trump is just not that into you, Europe.
It is undeniable that Europe has been hiding behind America’s military might for a lifetime.
And it is true that nobody has spent more on aid to Ukraine than the United States — £73billion, compared with £13billion from Germany, £12billion from the UK and £7billion from Japan.
Japan? Tokyo is more than 5,000 miles from Kyiv!
Why should Japan pay more for Ukraine’s protection than most of the nations of Europe?
Not good enough
The freeloading Euros are going to have to start defending their continent. And paying for it.
And for all British warm words and big promises to Ukraine — Starmer has promised that the UK will support Ukraine for “100 years” — that includes this country.
For all his wistful wittering about the Royal Family, Donald Trump doesn’t give a damn about us.
The UK has to be the military force we were in the 20th century.
Trump wants his allies — something tells me that should be “allies” in inverted commas — to spend five per cent of our national wealth on it.
Our defence spending is currently a paltry 2.3 per cent of national income, although Labour say they might be able to manage 2.5 per cent.
Although they don’t say when! Not good enough. Nowhere near good enough.
Not when Trump just emboldened the nuclear-armed warmonger in Moscow.
It feels like we have no choice.
Russia spends more on defence than all of Europe combined.
So our priorities have just changed for ever.
Allowed to rust and rot
Nothing can be considered more crucial than protecting our way of life.
Nothing is of greater importance than defending our nation.
But this Labour Government has allocated £13.3billion in foreign aid for 2024/25 and £13.7billion for 2025/26.
And we can’t afford that kind of virtue-signalling largesse any more.
It is total madness when Putin is waving nuclear weapons at us and expanding the Red Army.
And Labour can forget blowing £1.4trillion to achieve net zero emissions by 2050.
We can’t afford it. And £18.8trillion to Caribbean countries for reparations for slavery?
I think possibly not. We can’t afford it!
And our Armed Forces can no longer be allowed to rust and rot. We can’t afford it.
It feels like a golden age of freedom is coming to an end.
From the Western Front to Normandy, Iraq to Afghanistan, the British have fought alongside our American allies for more than a century.
No longer.
Mr President, your historic break with the past cuts both ways.
The British do not want a Cold War with China.
We never want another Iraq or Afghanistan.
So the next time America wants to wage a war, the Yanks can do it alone.
Peace under pressure
AS the ceasefire in Gaza looks increasingly fragile, it is clearly to the benefit of the Palestinians, the Israelis and the human race if the tenuous peace can endure.
Not least because there is nothing left of Gaza to bomb.
It’s fur real, Stella
WHEN Labour MP Stella Creasy coos that the late Queen having tea and marmalade with Paddington Bear was “a beautiful British moment that everyone celebrated”, I agree with every word.
Where Stella and I part company is when she says that our policies on illegal immigration should be shaped by our warm feelings about that little marmalade sarnie munching mammal from Peru.
Slamming the Government’s plans to block illegal migrants from ever becoming British citizens, Stella seethes: “It would deny, frankly, Paddington. He did the same thing! He came by an irregular route – we gave him sanctuary.”
Eagle-eyed readers will have spotted the flaw in Stella’s argument.
Paddington Bear is not real.
Paddington will never need housing.
He will never need health care.
He will never produce lots of little baby bears who will need to be watched over from the cradle to the grave.
I agree with Stella Creasy that, “We have to have strong border controls – but also decency”.
Let’s keep our humanity when discussing immigration.
But last year another 728,000 came here.
They were all flesh and blood, Stella.
Not fur, fantasy and marmalade sandwiches.
Asteroid panic
THE odds of an asteroid hitting Earth three days before Christmas 2032 just halved.
The space rock is the size of a football pitch, moving at 38,000 miles per hour, and would strike our planet with the force of 100 nuclear bombs.
NASA’s Planetary Defense Team currently has no plan.
Apparently getting out a Bruce Willis in a grubby vest to save the planet is not an option.
We will probably be fine.
Mind you, that is exactly what the dinosaurs said.
Bad year? I bet Taylor can Shake It Off
TAYLOR SWIFT left the Grammys without a gong, got booed at the Super Bowl and was mocked on social media by Donald Trump – because those same “football” fans in New Orleans cheered for him.
Some say that an era of unpopularity is coming Taylor’s way.
Oh, I don’t know.
Swift’s Eras tour grossed $2BILLION – the highest-grossing concert tour in music history.
The last time I looked, Taylor was young, rich, beautiful – and after all those years of dating skinny British boys, seems blissfully loved up with her lumberjack-looking NFL boyfriend, Kansas City Chiefs’ Travis Kelce.
She got booed at the Super Bowl – so what?
Do we expect fans of the Philadelphia Eagles to cheer her?
She left the Grammys without an award – but she already has 14 Grammys on her mantelpiece.
And as for “The Donald” mocking her on social media, that’s the price she pays for supporting Kamala Harris.
Taylor Swift, 35, has her health, those radiant looks, more than $1billion in the bank and she is dating the love of her life.
If this is a bad year for Taylor Swift, then I would love to see what a good one looks like.
Bank on fun times
A BBC investigation reports that Rachel Reeves and two colleagues were the subject of an expenses probe when the Chancellor was a senior manager at Halifax Bank of Scotland in the late 2000s.
A whistle-blower complained that the three were using company expense accounts to “fund a lifestyle” – something Reeves says she was unaware of.
Allegations include Reeves buying a £152 handbag on expenses as a Christmas present for her boss at HBOS, while her boss reportedly bought her a £55 wine gift that same Yuletide.
Other alleged expenses claims included dinners, gifts and taxis.
Doesn’t HBOS sound like a wonderful place to work?
I was at the NME for three years at the peak of sex and drugs and rock and roll.
But I don’t think I had as much fun as Rachel Reeves did at HBOS.
A bald move
SAM McKNIGHT, hairdresser to the stars, advises Prince Harry to remove the few remaining tufts of fur on top of his thinning bonce and have a hair transplant.
“You’re in California, where they have the best!” insists Sam, who was Princess Diana’s hairdresser and cut William and Harry’s hair when they were children.
“That fluff on top of his head is like a new-born chick and it is just horrible,” Sam, 69, posted on Instagram.
“If I was his age, I would have a hair transplant because they are so great nowadays.”
Harry will probably never have a hair transplant.
He is too self-consciously English and would recoil at such a brazen act of vanity.
But his former barber is right. Harry lives in the home of the hair transplant.
Which is why you never see a film star with a comb-over like Harry.
