AS Donald Trump flails and flounders in a war he started, but does not know how to end, the POTUS furiously lashes out at America’s oldest ally.
The British Prime Minister is “no Winston Churchill”.
British aircraft carriers are “toys” because “you don’t even have a navy”.
“Get your own oil,” Trump tells us. “Build up some delayed courage.”
It is not just the UK that is on the end of Trump’s tongue-lashings.
This week, Donald described Nato as “a paper tiger”, an insult that sounds like it should be coming from the sneering mouth of some brutal Russian dictator, not an American President.
It is the British who have been singled out for withering ridicule by Donald Trump.
The special relationship is now an abusive relationship.
So it is little wonder there are plenty of voices in this country who think it is stark raving bonkers for King Charles to be making a state visit to the US later this month.
They are all dead wrong. It is crucial to our national interest that the King goes to America.
Because the King is the only world leader who does not shrivel in the mercurial presence of the increasingly erratic President of the United States.
Unlike, say, Keir Starmer, Charles shows no inclination to suck up to Trump in a feeble attempt to stay in his good books.
One remembers the late Queen Elizabeth having tea with some of the worst brutes in the world — Uganda’s Idi Amin, Russia’s Putin, Zimbabwe’s Mugabe, Syria’s Assad and Romania’s Ceausescu.
These monsters were all as meek as kittens in the presence of Her Majesty.
So it is with Trump and the King.
Our elderly monarch has already revealed he has a genius for diplomacy.
And he will certainly need it in America. Booby traps will be waiting everywhere.
Will there be calls for the King’s disgraced brother, the former Prince Andrew, to answer questions about Jeffrey Epstein in the US?
Will the anti-Trump “No Kings” protesters hit the streets? Might Harry and Meghan pop round?
Hanging over the trip, there will be the shadow of war in the Middle East, which will not have reached a happy conclusion before Charles lands on April 27.
That is the greatest trap of all — that the state visit of Charles and Camilla will be perceived by the US, the Middle East and the world as some kind of endorsement of Trump’s spectacular cock-up in Iran.
But the King can handle it. The key event will be when Charles addresses the US Congress in Washington on April 28.
Ostensibly a speech to mark the 250th anniversary of American independence from British rule, this will be more than a chance for Charles to reset the special relationship.
It will be an opportunity to affirm his — and our — belief in enduring values that existed before Trump ruled in the White House and will endure for long after Donald is orange dust.
This is, without question, the most important moment in Charles’ reign. I strongly suspect his address to Congress will define his legacy.
“I think he [Charles] would have taken a very different stand on the war in Iran,” Trump has claimed, comparing the British Prime Minister unfavourably with our King.
The POTUS is possibly mistaken. It is hard to imagine the King hearing Trump’s threats to bomb Iran “back to the Stone Ages, where they belong!”, without wincing.
Because although such belligerent threats may play well with fat, bearded morons in red Maga baseball caps, to many of us bombing a country “back to the Stone Ages” sounds like a crime against humanity.
But Charles now has a unique chance to speak — in his calm, understated manner — common sense to a President who sounds increasingly deranged, delusional and dangerous.
King Charles might save the special relationship. He may save Nato.
It is not too much to suggest Charles could even get an increasingly desperate American President to take a step back from starting World War Three.
Keir no bottle on EU
AS we approach the tenth anniversary of the EU referendum, I keep hearing Keir Starmer – Mr Second Referendum! – is about to “betray Brexit”.
But the PM is far too timid to make the case for rejoining the European Union.
If Keir wanted to unite the Left and win voters from the Greens and the Lib Dems, he would be DEMANDING that we rejoin the EU.
That’s what Starmer would do if he had any bottle.
But Keir has not got any bottle.
Jeer we go again
I WENT to the match with my Japanese wife, so I watched England lose to Japan with the away fans. And it was a revelation.
How disgusting it was to hear England fans boo an England player – Ben White of Arsenal – because four years ago, White decided to go home from the last World Cup camp after a bust-up with coaching staff.
How embarrassing to see paper planes drifting around that great stadium, as if some England fans wished they were anywhere else.
And how genuinely bewildered the Japanese fans were to see thousands upon thousands of England fans leave before the final whistle – when there was only one goal in it!
Those Japanese fans sang all night.
Japan were dynamic, quick, creative, and England were none of these things.
Many Japanese fans stayed long after the final whistle to help clean up the stadium – as they always do.
But that was not the shocking, shaming thing.
Those Japanese fans showed what it means to give your national team proper, passionate support.
And I wonder, do we really want England to go deep into this summer’s World Cup?
If so, we need to start giving them the support they deserve.
Yes, those England players were wretched at Wembley this week.
But from where I was watching, the England fans were even worse.
AFTER Italy failed to qualify for their third World Cup in a row, one Italian fan chose to look on the bright side.
“I am so proud of my country for boycotting the World Cups in Russia, Qatar and the USA,” he said.
Kim’s got a few bits in common with Sydney
YOU might think that Hollywood legend Kim Novak, 93, would be chuffed to be played on screen by the shiniest young star of today – Sydney Sweeney. But she’s not.
Sweeney, 27, was scheduled to play the young Novak in a biopic called Scandalous! – which would focus on Kim’s romance with Sammy Davis Jr, an interracial love story that shocked America in the 1950s.
The project, which Sweeney describes as “a labour of love”, has reportedly now stalled.
Novak is not sorry.
“I would never have approved,” says Kim about the idea of having Sweeney play her. “She sticks out so much above the waist.
“Sydney Sweeney looks sexy all the time. She was totally wrong to play me.”
Kim Novak’s career-defining role was as an icy Grace Kelly-clone in Alfred Hitchcock’s Vertigo.
But beyond her poised, chilly veneer, Kim was a rebel who was years before her time.
It took astonishing courage to have an interracial relationship with a black man in America in the 1950s.
And everything Sydney Sweeney touches turns to controversy.
From Euphoria to her political views to her commercials for denim – that infamous “Sydney Sweeney Has Great Jeans” campaign – to her own brand of underwear.
Kim Novak should not be quite so sniffy about Sydney Sweeney.
They are far more alike than she thinks.
DONALD TRUMP describes Bruce Springsteen as looking like, “a dried-up prune who has suffered greatly from the work of a really bad plastic surgeon”.
But having cosmetic surgery is not why Springsteen looks so good at 76.
Bruce is famously on the OMAD diet – one meal a day.
That’s how he maintains his weight. Bruce works out, but no longer runs.
He swims, which is much kinder on ageing joints.
If the Boss has had any work done, it has been very conservative.
I met him in New York in 1978 and I think he possibly has more hair in 2026 – but I wouldn’t swear on it.
If Bruce has had work done, it has been subtle.
And nobody will ever accuse Donald Trump of being subtle.
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