Pretty much wherever you look, things aren’t going to plan. In some areas ominously, in others farcically. With signs that the Gaza peace deal is fraying dangerously at the edges the bloody tension’s spilling over as far as British football fields. At the same time alleged Chinese espionage is tying the government in knots. And, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, the bit that really matters to all of us is getting lost in the fog.
To deal with the funny business first, what started as a right-wing newspaper campaign to hammer the Prime Minister’s security credibility has now spread like a virus, with little sign of going away.
Two schools of thought about what the maybe maybe not spooks were getting up to.
One, they were sharing glorified tittle-tattle that anyone with any nous could get their hands on. Two, they were putting the state’s safety at risk by full-blown spying.
Since the case against them collapsed, essentially because the potential threat level posed by China to Britain’s interests was downgraded, the Telegraph has had Keir Starmer in its crosshairs.
And, when other media outlets got sucked in, Westminster started to hyperventilate. Labour blaming Tories, Tories blaming Labour, while a succession of public officials were also the baddies.
Increasingly it got like a kids’ game of pass-the-parcel, and now with parliamentary inquiries diving into the detail it ain’t over yet.
Interestingly, while Fleet Street’s licked its lips the readers haven’t. A YouGov poll suggests a bare fourteen per cent of us are following the story closely. As one hack ruefully admitted: ‘It’s too complicated.’
Behind the silly headlines, however, there is a serious dilemma facing the nation. Is China a useful business partner or an existential threat? Or, realistically, more likely, a bit of both?
Easy enough for the late Margaret Thatcher to declare when the Cold War started thawing to describe the soon to be Russian leader Mikhail Gorbachev as: ‘A man one can do business with.’
In those days all the superpowers had to do was take their fingers off the nuclear triggers and everyone could get on with life.
But now, in the ever more globalised digital age, there’s virtually no end to the ways in which nations can undermine one another. Some subtle, some less so.
China has, for example, invested massively in Britain’s infrastructure, with significant stakes in Heathrow airport, our gas distribution network and the Hinkley Point nuclear power station.
This means that they’d have plenty of leverage if they didn’t like what we were getting up to. And, as the MI5 boss gloomily pointed out last week, their spooks are on our case all the time.
Of course, before we all start foraging around for reds under the beds it’s worth pointing out that the Americans too could get us in an armlock if they so chose.
Those huge Yankee data centres that Starmer was so proud to have smarmed Donald Trump into building here will run all manner of vital high tech services, up to and including online banking.
This might sound a bit fanciful. But what if, say, Starmer got caught in a hot mike situation? Saying what he really thinks of the Orange Manbaby, who everyone knows isn’t very nice to people he takes against? Just a thought.
Credit where it’s due, mind. The man’s muscularity did get the Israeli government to agree to a peace deal of sorts in Gaza, though how long it’ll actually hold is horribly debatable.
Little wonder there’s no let-up in the passions that conflict has stoked across the globe, evidenced by the cleft stick faced by police over whether it’s safe to let Israeli footie fans cheer their team at an away match in Birmingham.
In this context it’s perhaps unfortunate that Trump’s already taken his eye off the Middle-Eastern ball, flipping over to his somewhat delayed forty-eight hour resolution to the Ukraine conflict.
Also unfortunate that he seems to share a failing once unfairly used to describe one-time British Prime Minister John Major. A tendency, to quote: ‘To bear the impress of the last person who sat on him.’
Though The Donald originally had Vladimir Putin down as his kinda guy he’s spotted that he might not be after all. Hence his decision, vaguely, perhaps, to let the Ukrainians have the long-range missiles that could win them the war.
But, surprise surprise, the wily Russian dictator got on the blower to talk him out of it, before Volodymyr Zelenski got his chance to clinch the deal. And surprise double surprise it’s up in the air again, so to speak.
Some say the Prez has the attention span of a goldfish, though others reckon that attitude’s a bit goldfish-ist. At least he’s not giving up on his Nobel Peace Prize. Two would be even better, of course. But best not hold our breath, eh?
Meantime, another focus Stateside has been on Chancellor Rachel Reeves’ speech to the International Monetary Fund in Washington.
With her budget now only a few weeks away there has been and will be an unquenchable deluge of speculation about how she plans to make her sums add up.
Little wonder that so many questions are being asked by so many on this topic. Unlike the international stories that’ve dominated headlines of late, this is about the pound in all our pockets.
It’s been suggested that the relentless chatter is making that selfsame pound smaller, as it perpetuates the uncertainty so hated by the markets.
But it’s hardly to be wondered at, given the broad consensus among economists that Reeves will have no choice but to break her promise of last year, and tax some if not all of us more.
In fact, she’s already come clean, conceding that with unfavourable fiscal indicators just about everywhere, she’s got to get us out of the doom loop of never getting enough coming in to protect her from having to come back for more.
In short, something’s going to have to give, though naturally enough everyone’s hoping it’ll be someone else, not them actually doing the giving.
Maybe when it comes to the no-questions-asked sharing thing we could do worse than take the occasional tip from the animal kingdom.
A lion in the Kariega plains of South Africa has become something of a local celebrity because of the company he keeps. And his backstory.
Some time ago the locals spotted that he’d been abandoned as a tiny cub but rescued by a colony of feral moggies, that clearly had no problem with this needy relative.
And what might have started out as mere curiosity quickly turned to love, as they groomed him, played next to him and cared for him as one of their own.
Of course it wasn’t long before the baby got bigger. And bigger. Until, obviously, he could have swallowed the lot of them if he fancied. Which, clearly, he didn’t.
Instead, though he did eventually go his own way, he never forgot their kindness.
Hence the villagers’ regular sight at sunrise of one very large cat resting on a rocky ledge among a group of very little ones. If that isn’t testimony to something wonderful then nothing is.
Watch Peter’s report at peterspencer.org
Peter’s column will return on November 2nd.
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.