Wherever you look, the wheels are coming off. Across The Pond, the orange-tinted wrecking ball seems unable to distinguish between fact and fiction, or between between friend and foe. A problem for nations across the globe, though a little local difficulty’s also cropped up here, in the shape of Manchester Mayor Andy Burnham. As our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, Keir Starmer’s hold on power is looking ever more tenuous.
To deal with the tottering world order first, the rich and powerful’s get-together at Davos last week turned into a giant publicity stunt for Donald Trump.
A dizzying confection of contradictions, even by his standards. He was going to invade Greenland, then wasn’t. He was going to start another trade war, then wasn’t. He loved us all, then didn’t.
Oh, and btw, he wants to become Commander-In-Chief, not just of the US of A, but of everywhere else as well.
This isn’t fantasy talk. The international body he mooted just to clear away the wreckage in Gaza now looks designed to act as an alternative to the United Nations. With him in charge, natch.
Once upon a time our former Prime Minister Boris Johnson declared his ambition to be world king. Sweet, as he was only a kid at the time. Less so when the aspirant is the American President.
Among The Donald’s shifting sands of top priorities, meanwhile, there’s the ongoing war in Ukraine. Remember? The one he’d sort in twenty-four hours?
At least, after three years of bloody conflict he has finally engineered a three-way pow-wow between his guys and the combatants. But, with the Ruskies not up for giving ground, best not hold your breath.
In case all this sounds like a rant against the beloved Prez, it does chime with British public opinion. Latest polls show that two-thirds of us don’t like him.
Which poses a problem for potential Prime Minister Nigel Farage, who’s consistently aligned himself with the man.
At the same time it’s dented what little support Starmer garners these days. As Trump’s bellicose blunderings in our direction have trampled on the PM’s transatlantic strategy.
The Donald’s suggestion that we Brits didn’t do our bit in Afghanistan has generated outrage. And not just among the families of the hundreds of our boys who lost their lives fighting alongside the Yanks.
In short then, tame the beast by being nice to him? Forget it.
That hint’s hit home in Downing Street, as Starmer has now noticeably hardened his line about what we’ll put up with from the White House, and what we won’t.
It’s also upped the ante within Cabinet circles about the ever more urgent need to snuggle up to our European neighbours.
This at a time when Sir Keir’s desperately wanting us to spot how hard he’s trying to do something about the cost of living. Which ties in with the still mounting evidence of how much poorer Brexit’s made us all.
But it’s not just the king across the water that the poor PM’s got on his plate. There’s another one, oop north, who’s suddenly and almost certainly enduringly come into play.
With the widely expected appalling results for Labour at May’s local elections looming ever closer, the rustling in the undergrowth about giving someone else a go has got louder and louder.
And the way for Andy Burnham to be that someone has suddenly become, potentially, ever so much clearer.
Following the resignation of the discredited Labour MP Andrew Gwynne, the Manchester Mayor would, just, be able to get back into parliament and pitch for PM in time for the likely meltdown.
Not to say there aren’t a mass of possible pitfalls en route, mind. Farage’s Reform party could after all scoop up the by-election. And take the job that Burnham would be vacating. A double oops there.
Also, Andy’s not regarded as all that handy by lots of people on Labour’s controlling body. Meaning they could block his chance to even have a go at becoming an MP again.
On top of that, his pitch in the loose confederation of warring tribes that the party seems to have turned into is to its soft left. A faction to which former Deputy PM Angela Rayner already claims the crown.
Just to confuse the picture yet further, there are two additional and diametrically opposed factors to consider.
First, a leadership contest would be nasty, brutish and anything but short. Which would make Labour look like the serial-offending regicidal Tories.
But second, a check on the party’s members a few months back showed Burnham would beat Starmer for the top job by two to one. He’d also be miles ahead of Ms Rayner.
Then, when YouGov asked everyone else last month, he got top marks among all the politicos they asked about, with a favourability rating of plus twenty-nine. While poor Keir’s was minus fifty-four.
Oh, and surveys also suggest that two-thirds of those folk who voted Labour last year now wish they hadn’t. To say the picture’s cloudy, then, is like suggesting Mount Everest is just a little hillock really.
Still, the government’s somehow ploughing on with the daily business of, well, governing.
In coming days the Home Secretary will set out what’s expected to be the biggest overhaul of our police forces in decades.
She plans to merge lots of smaller ones into bigger ones, to try and do away with back-office doubling up. That way, the thinking goes, there’ll be more Mr Plods on the streets to actually fight crime.
Teachers, meanwhile, reckon it’s a crime the way more than a quarter of the little ones don’t even know how to use books. Some even swiping or tapping them like a phone.
More than half of those asked placed the blame squarely on the kids, and their parents, spending far too much time gawping at screens.
Little wonder that the House of Lords has just backed a ban on under-sixteens using social media. This did, however, leave the government feeling a tad boxed in, as they were against the idea.
But they’re also up against loads of their own MPs who’re insisting they own the problem.
Cue likely compromise this week, with the expected promise of a quickie consultation, with the way cleared for getting on with the job pronto when it’s over.
All a matter, really, of deploying tools to our advantage rather than letting them mess things up.
Imagine you’re a cow with an itch, on a part of your body that you just can’t reach. You could rub up against the brambles and risk getting painful tears in your skin. Or, you could go for useful technology.
Step forward Veronika, a pet Swiss Brown, belonging to an organic grain farmer in southern Austria. He’d noticed over the years that she’s an especially canny cow, and invited boffins to check her out.
And they were, frankly, gobsmacked, when she picked up a stiff-bristled broom with her tongue, gripped it firmly in her mouth and used it to rub the pesky bit of her back, just like we would.
Trump detractors have been known to call him bovine. Maybe they should rethink that.
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.