Leaving With the Dolphins.

The statements of certain senior political figures in the US have made one thing quite clear over the past few weeks: America is no longer interested in watching Europe’s back. It has to stop, they say, because it’s ‘pathetic.’ They’ve shifted now to describing Putin in glowing terms. He’s being described as a good man, honest and trustworthy. ‘I like Putin,’ said one senior member of Trump’s team ‘and the President was very moved by the portrait.’

(I’m all for politeness and even conviviality in matters diplomatic, but the relationship between the Putin and Trump teams is becoming a little too close, methinks. It’s more than strange, more even than creepy. It looks menacing for the cause of world peace.)

And so we have portraits and palliness, and all annotated with infantile language and emojis on official documents. So are we now heading for the biggest diplomatic divorce case in world history? Has the time come to say ‘So long, America, and thanks for all the candyfloss.’ In the case of the UK, is the ‘special relationship’ now dead and come to dust?

I can’t know the answer to that one because I don’t know the complexities of macro economics, and there are those will say ‘don’t worry, it’s only for anther 3½ years and then we can become adults again.’ But is it, or will Trump somehow contrive to change the system? He’s already reminding me of the little guy who runs North Korea, and in so doing suggesting a whiff of a third world dictatorship about the USA, so who knows?

Given the state of my body these days, I think there’s a good chance I’ll be watching with interest from the other side.