THERE’S a scene in Love Actually where Hugh Grant as our PM tears US President Billy Bob Thornton a new one during a press conference set up to cement cross-Pond relations.
“A friend who bullies us is no longer a friend,” he says as a roomful of journalists sharpen their pencils and lick their lips.
Our PM showed bully boy Trump how to treat allies[/caption]
Donald Trump was exposed as the worst kind of bully during his meeting with Volodymyr Zelensky[/caption]
“And since bullies only respond to strength, from now onward I will be prepared to be much stronger.”
Ah, if only life could have imitated art after Donald Trump was exposed as the worst kind of bully during his supposedly friendly White House meeting with Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelensky.
If only Keir Starmer had possessed the minerals to stand up at a podium and tell the oafish, spiteful creep that while he chooses to treat our allies as enemies, he is no longer our friend.
Sadly, of course, this isn’t the movies. This is real, stark, scary life. And anyway, Grant didn’t say what he said in the name of peace, he was just cheesed off at catching Billy Bob trying to snog the secretary he fancied under the Downing Street mistletoe.
MAGA-wearing acolyte
But fair play all the same to the Prime Minister for his reaction to an outburst by Trump against a fellow world leader that surely left no one — be they MAGA-wearing acolyte or fire-breathing opponent — in any doubt about how unhinged and unpleasant he can so quickly become under precious little provocation.
The way Starmer threw his arms, symbolically as well as physically, around Zelensky sent a message to millions of Ukrainians that how one strange, paranoid little man behaves does not reflect the rest of the world.
The speed with which he then drew up his four-point “coalition of the willing” to protect a nation battered by Russia, and now being bartered over by America, took some guts, considering how much Britain has to lose should Trump turn against us next.
It had to be done, though, because there comes a point when the only way to deal with a bully IS through strength; especially when that bully gets gallus enough to push his victim around in public the way we witnessed during that White House debacle.
Because the moment when their true, rotten character is finally exposed is the moment when their grip on that victim begins to weaken.
If you’ve ever been picked on, you’ll know what I mean. Your tormentor is at their strongest when they’re being insidious, when it’s all done behind the bike sheds or in some quiet corner of the office. They feed off no one knowing what they’re really like.
They promise that things will only get worse if you dare tell.
Try to confide in even your best friends and they’re likely to say that you’re making it up.
Then, one day, someone walks in when the tormentor’s in full rant. They see the anger in those eyes, hear the venom in their voice, sense the fear coursing through your every fibre.
And the spell is broken.
For me, that’s what happened with Trump on Friday night, except with tens of millions of witnesses. In so publicly acting the tough guy, he made himself look weak and out of control.
Which is why it’s now so crucial that Britain, the Germans, the French, the Italians and anyone else out there who cares about genuine, lasting peace has to seize this moment.
Here and now, the sane world has to tell America that we will not let them drag us into a conflict with the potential to end civilisation.
There’s bad news… then there’s ferry bad news
THE good news is that it’s not only Scottish yards that can cock up on building ferries.
The bad news? Well, isn’t EVERYTHING about island travel these days bad news?
In the latest, misery-laden bulletin, a new fleet serving Islay, Harris, Skye and North Uist has been delayed by months due to labour shortages at Turkish contractors Cemre.
If they miss that deadline it’ll be bang on schedule to wreck the summer tourist trade and make life even harder for communities dependent on an efficient transport system. Islanders must be sick of the whole business, especially after delays with the Glen Sannox, left, and Glen Rosa. I know I’m fed up writing about it.
Yet all any of us hear from Holyrood or CalMac is that they’re doing their best to sort it out.
God help us if they ever decide to do their worst.
Counted as a leader
Again, I get that Starmer kept his powder dry-ish at the weekend by refusing to say straight out that Trump was no longer our friend.
It wasn’t the time to get all ballsy for the cameras — he didn’t have Martine McCutcheon waiting to leap into his arms for being a hero.
Plus he isn’t John Swinney, some wee guy playing to the gallery by demanding that a State Visit he has hee-haw say over should be cancelled.
That’s just vanity, not to mention sheer hypocrisy from a party who didn’t stop Trump building a golf course up by Aberdeen.
John Swinney is playing to the gallery by demanding a State Visit should be cancelled[/caption]
No, this is an issue for the grown-ups, a group among whom it’s a pleasant surprise to include Starmer after a performance these past few days when he’s finally stood up to be counted as a leader. He hasn’t used our so-called Special Relationship with the US as a parapet to hide beneath, he’s put his head above it to be shot at.
Yet there’s another, far greater test to come.
That’s the one where he really does have to go full Hugh and rip up that Special Relationship should America not pull back from the brink of throwing their lot in with Vladimir Putin.
I wrote here last week of the peril it would place us all in should Trump appease the Russian leader the way Chamberlain did Hitler back in 1938.
Listen back to how often he then defended Putin during his rant at Zelensky and you can’t help but fear the worst.
So let’s choose instead to trust the sane ones. And hope for the best.
