Everyone’s got everything crossed that Donald Trump will have better luck than Neville Chamberlain did in 1938, and that the fragile Gaza deal really will lead to lasting stability in the Middle East. Beyond ending what’s been officially classified as genocide towards Palestinians there’s also the hope that what’s happening there will help detoxify the debate here. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, protests and subsequent arrests have put a strain on both the police and the government.
Looking first at the world perspective, the US President’s vainglorious hope of a Nobel Peace Prize was ever fanciful, but credit where it’s due. He did have the muscle to barge in and force the Israeli Prime Minister’s hand.
Up until then Benjamin Netanyahu had been unwilling or unable to face down the determination of hardliners in his cabinet to obliterate the very concept of Palestinian statehood.
When even they saw the game was up they rolled over. And the war of annihilation of the last two years is at least on pause.
Conflict management and conflict resolution are two very different things, however. Without the Nobel feather in his cap there’s the danger that the ever capricious Donald will lose interest, ease up on the pressure and let the whole thing fall apart.
But the hope is that he’ll get enough kicks out of everyone telling him what a fine job he’s doing to keep up the good work. Of which there’s so much to do, given that ninety per cent of Gaza City’s been razed to the ground.
And that’s just for starters. No one’s yet even scratched the surface of working out how and on what terms Palestinians and Israelis can live side by side and in peace. That problem goes back at least a century, if not a whole long longer.
Feed into that mix the indiscriminate slaughter of getting on for seventy thousand Palestinian men, women and children in revenge for the Hamas atrocity of two years ago, and it’s little wonder that passions have run high across the rest of the world.
Here in Britain, the problem’s compounded by the relentless campaign throughout the summer by Reform leader Nigel Farage to get everyone shouty and nasty about immigration.
Hardly the same thing, of course, but there has been a crossover, a general feeling of fragmentation within communities and an urge to replace debate with confrontation.
In the case of protests over events in Gaza the government’s rather tied itself in knots, notably by deciding in July that the non-violent Palestine Action group is a terrorist organisation, on a par with outfits like Hamas and al-Qaeda that go round murdering people.
Leaving aside the widespread criticism this decision’s attracted, from respected newspapers right up to the United Nations, it’s also landed the police in challenging and often incongruous situations.
On top of suddenly having to arrest hundreds of people who’re just holding up banners, they haven’t done a lot for their image in carting off old and sometimes infirm folk who’re manifestly more fragile than ferocious.
On that front at least things might settle down a bit.
But there’s no question that the spectre of Farage and all he stands for loomed large throughout the Labour annual get-together in Liverpool a couple of weeks back and the Tory equivalent that ended a few days ago.
Both parties came up with ideas that leant in the direction of the man’s right wing agenda, at the same time telling their followers again and again how rubbish he is.
At tad confusing, but in fairness both leaders outstripped everyone’s admittedly very low expectations in their efforts to present themselves as real people who believe in things and are actually capable of sounding like human beings.
The Prime Minister’s genuinely sincere sounding plea for Britain to revive its identity as a place where folk can happily mingle with others regardless of heritage struck a chord.
And Kemi Badenoch managed to sound upbeat and really rather jolly, as well as making up for her near hundred per cent deficiency in the policy department by announcing loads of them.
The standout was the abolition of stamp duty, which dangled the enticing route for young people onto the property ladder, instead of languishing in the rental sector.
It’d cost nine billion pounds, mind, which would have to be made up for somewhere.
Nonetheless, her speech was enough, probably, for the time being, to put paid to mutterings that one-time leader William Hague was on the money when he said that the Conservative party is: ‘An absolute monarchy tempered by regicide.’
So with parliament back both she and Starmer have, if not exactly a spring in their step, at least the ability to stagger on without the immediate risk of falling flat on their faces.
And so the speculation spectrum now eases back to the range of options Chancellor Rachel Reeves is facing for next month’s budget.
The Treasury’s floated ideas for months to try and gauge whether they’d sink or swim in the tide of public opinion. And given the nation’s stubbornly sluggish growth figures it’s obvious she’s going to do something pretty drastic.
There’ve even been murmurings about the possibility that maybe, just maybe, she might be contemplating the nuclear option of breaking her key promise not to go near any of the main moneymaking levers.
She got her fingers burned when she tried to make her sums add up instead by chipping away at edges, such as the winter fuel allowance or welfare cuts for disabled people. But these wheezes cost her far more in political capital than they’d ever have raised in revenue.
Upping income tax, or VAT, or employees’ national insurance by contrast, would bring in immeasurably more, while not making martyrs of clearly identifiable groups of vulnerable people.
That said, there are as many opinions as there are people when it comes to the options she may be weighing up. Hardly surprising as she’s being buffeted by conflicting demands from every direction.
The latest being the pressure to do away with the two-child cutoff point on benefits for families struggling to make ends meet. An expensive dilemma, which has now found its way into the race for who’s to be the next Deputy Labour Leader.
One of the two contestants, cabinet minister Bridget Phillipson, is saying it’s a must, even though it’d would shove another three-and-a-half billion up the Swannie. Poor Rachel, it must feel like a dog’s life.
Then again, our best friend can be a lifesaver, literally, it seems, in the case of Eeyore the Labrador from the Destin area of Florida.
When the alarm was raised after an eighty-six-year-old lady didn’t come back from a walk the search proved fruitless until sheriff’s deputy Devon Miller spotted him in the middle of the road and said: ‘Hi! Where’s your mommy?’
No problem answering that question, Devon said later: ‘He practically dragged me to her.’
Happily, in spite of having been immobilised by a serious fall, she was alert and conscious. As well as extremely grateful, judging her first words: ‘Oh Eeyore, you’re such a good boy. Grandma loves you.’
Sounds like the dear little pooch should have been given a different name. Like Tigger.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter Spencer has 40 years experience as a Political Correspondent in Westminster, working with London Broadcasting and Sky News. For more of his fascinating musings on the turbulent political landscape, follow him on Facebook & Twitter.