We live in weird times, so I can quite understand why some people long to be governed by appeasers. I can hear the voice of a long dead relative repeating at times of domestic crisis, “The quiet way is the best.”
Published: 8 January 2026
The problem with that philosophy, as I observed as a child, is that sooner or later impatient people will trample all over you.
Our prime minister has proved to be a catastrophe.
He performs an elaborate dance of two steps forward, two steps back, as he reverses his policies to placate the left of his party.
Worse still, he is a true believer who has swallowed hook, line and sinker the ideology of international lawyers, including his best friend, Lord Hermer, whom he made attorney general.
Slavish adherence to the small print of international law, coupled with an absence of either political talent or common sense, is what gave us the madness of Sir Keir Starmer’s wholly unnecessary capitulation to an advisory ruling by the UN International Court of Justice in The Hague.
Against the wishes of the vast majority of the indigenous population of the Chagos Islands, he agreed to pay £35 billion over the course of 99 years to lease Diego Garcia to Mauritius – an ally of China, which is aching to get hold of it.
It endangers and further impoverishes us.
The good news is that Conservatives in the House of Lords, along with a few doughty warriors for common sense like Claire Fox and Kate Hoey, have amended this in the House of Lords.
This gives the forces of sanity a few weeks to show the US that this free gift to China is contrary to its interests and have the bill withdrawn before it returns to the Commons.
Another geopolitical problem for Donald Trump, but not one that would need to detain him long since it merely requires him to bully Starmer into performing another U-turn, is to tell him that the deal he is seeking to do with the EU is as stupid as it is self-harming.
He dislikes the EU for many reasons, but particularly its sclerotic bureaucracy that is tying it up in knots and undermining national sovereignty.
I am what might be described as rather ambivalent about Trump, but I admit I have consistently underestimated him.
He has apparently an uncanny ability to cut through complex problems outside the US that one of his circle should tell him is reminiscent of Alexander the Great.
The Greek legend is that faced with a crucial challenge to untie an apparently undoable knot in the ancient city of Gordium, Alexander simply cut it through with his sword.
That should appeal to someone who genuinely wants to end what seemed to be forever wars.
Look around the world and tell me who other than Trump frightens such enemies of decency and freedom as presidents XI and Putin.
Trump may appear to like them, but that’s only when it suits him.
I draw comfort from his genuine loathing for seeing people killed in warfare.
And his dislike of appeasement.
