Across the globe fingers are crossed in hope, and hands are clasped in prayer, that the latest talks will finally bring an end to the nightmare that Donald Trump has inflicted on us. There’s no knowing whether the desperately shaky ceasefire in at least parts of the conflict can be made to stick. But, as our Political Correspondent Peter Spencer reports, even on the best case scenario we Brits will pay a heavy price.
It’s impossible to understate the enormity of it all. On the very day American astronauts took humanity’s biggest ever leap forward, their President threatened its most monumental lurch backwards.
Bombing a country with a population of more than ninety million people back to the stone ages is pretty hard to beat, by anyone’s reckoning.
But at least the bombast, cruelty or just sheer irrationality of it has finally emboldened our Prime Minister to tell him to do one.
Ok, not quite a Love Actually moment, but a significant step in the right direction. Albeit not without risks.
On one level Keir Starmer’s admission that he’s ‘fed up’ with the damage Trump’s little adventure is inflicting on the British economy is barely a dribble of small beer.
But his follow-up, comparing the man’s actions to those of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin, actually could come back to bite us. In spite of all the blatant insults the Prez has been slinging in his direction over the last few weeks.
Likening Starmer’s initial refusal to get involved to Britain’s wartime leader Neville Chamberlain’s attempts to placate Hitler was particularly savage and uncalled-for.
Needless to say Trump won’t count that bit, that’s if he even remembers, when he decides to divvy out his diplomatic and economic revenge when things do eventually settle down.
What can’t be swerved though is that we Brits are already having to dig deep into our pockets to finance all this absurdity. And cruelty.
Worth pointing out, and pointing the finger at, the role the Israeli Prime Minister has played in the fun and games since the outset.
Benjamin Netanyahu has been itching to settle all manner of scores locally for a very long time. He’s nobody’s fool, and Trump is widely seen as his very own useful idiot.
It’s as though he’s the bloke with a whip in one hand and in the other a rope securely fastened to the ring in the bull’s nose. Trouble being the animal in question is very much a bull in a china shop.
The fragility of everything it bumps into is writ large not just in the Middle Eastern countries in which so much grief and destruction is being inflicted, but everywhere else too.
Not least here in Britain, where people who understand these things are not pulling their punches about exactly how deep we’re going to have to reach in our pockets. And for how long, even on a best-case scenario.
Former shipping line boss Lars Jensen says his colleagues: ‘Are going to be hesitant about sending ships through the strait because if the ceasefire then breaks down, your ships are going to be sitting ducks.’
He’s referring of course to the Strait of Hormuz, through which a fifth of all the world’s gas and oil pass and which the Iranians have had in a stranglehold from the outset.
Jensen thinks it’ll be costing us for up to six months even if it gets sorted. But Graeme Downie, a member of parliament’s Energy Select Committee, fears that come what may we’ll be stuck with higher prices for years.
Pretty wretched, when you consider that before it all went so horribly wrong the money geeks reckoned things were finally starting to come right.
We’d got over the huge spike in energy prices that came after the Russians smashed their way into Ukraine, and lower interest rates seemed on their way, thus cutting the cost of mortgages and getting businesses to invest.
But now the growth that the government had been longing for, to reverse its own dire fortunes, seems further away than ever.
All thanks to a new word that’s just been invented. Trumpflation. Ta muchly, Donnie baby, you’re a pal. No wonder Starmer’s fed up.
He’s doing his best to shore up his standing by positioning himself at the forefront of international post-war efforts to get everything running smoothly again.
But who knows if he’ll be running anything after the Scottish, Welsh and town hall elections, now uncomfortably under a month away.
It’s widely predicted that Labour will lose more than a thousand sets in May the seventh’s night of the long knives.
The commentariat’s consensus is that even this probably won’t lead to a move to chuck him out. But if enough Labour MPs are sufficiently spooked who knows? Panic does crazy things to people.
Certainly, with YouGov currently polling the party at its equal record low of sixteen per cent, it’s no higher than the Greens, whose leader Zack Polanski is freer to say stuff that Starmer simply couldn’t.
For example: ‘If you threaten to wipe out an entire civilisation, then fascist is probably a watered-down word for who Donald Trump is.’
Would the British public agree with that? Francis Urquhart, the fictional PM in the TV series House of Cards springs to mind: ‘You might very well think that; I couldn’t possibly comment.’
All a tad awkward for the leader of the other new kid on the block, Nigel Farage, who’s long made much of what bosom buddies he and The Donald are.
Although his Reform Party is still way out in front, no one seriously disputes that Trump is now seen here as very much a baddie, to put it mildly. Hence no doubt his own harsh words about the man’s wiping out outburst.
He’s trying to square the circle by continuing to insist he’s well up for the special relationship thing, only all of a sudden tying it in with the country of America, rather than its present President.
Still, you can’t say there aren’t any happy endings wafting across the Atlantic these days, even after stories that really didn’t begin well.
Take Blueberry, a French bulldog, who had to have her front left leg amputated when she was found by the road in a terrible state after, clearly, something ghastly had happened.
And then, weeks later, a black cat named Meadow ended up at the same hospital in Maryland with a bit of her left hind leg missing. Which meant she had to have the rest of it chopped off.
So where, you might be wondering, is the good bit.
Well, the two of them cuddled during their recovery. And in no time they were inseparable, sharing toys and having fun chasing the squeaky ones, and one another.
To cap it all, when the rescue centre appealed for someone to adopt them both, just the right couple came forward. And now they sleep on the same bed and carry on playing the same games together.
As their adoptive daddy Kevin Tsang put it: ‘They’ve been through so much already, but yet they still have so much to offer through their love.’
Hard to beat, that one.
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.
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.