Mark Andrews: No more slogans, PM's defence challenge, and why Trump may have shown us how to erase the national debt
Putting on his stern face and serious voice in a sombre address from the Downing Street branch of Oak Furniture Land - er, sorry,.the briefing room - Sir Keir Starmer outlined his position on the mounting crisis over Greenland.
“Britain is a pragmatic country," he said. "We prefer solutions to slogans."
Indeed. Too right, we've all had our fill of slogans, we certainly don't want any more.
What we really want to see is a 'Plan For Change', a government 'getting on with the job' of 'Fixing the Foundations', with a 'laser-like focus' on creating 'A Britain Built for All.'
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But credit where it's due, and on the whole the Prime Minister did a pretty good job of standing firm in the face of Donald Trump's mafia-like behaviour with regard to Greenland.
The problem is, of course, that making the defiant speech is the easy bit. The real test - and the same will apply to Nigel Farage, Kemi Badenoch, Andy Burnham or anyone else hoping to take his place - will come in building a defence alliance between democratic countries that is not dependent on the whims of the United States, and finding hundreds of billions to build a defence force that is not reliant on the largesse of Uncle Sam. It will mean having the courage to make unpopular decisions, cutting valued services and probably asking us to pay more tax as well. It will also mean facing down recalcitrant backbenchers screaming about 'benefits, not bullets' and 'welfare, not war'.
The easy times are over. The real question is whether the Prime Minister is up for this fight, or whether he will fold at the first sign of mutiny. Past performance isn't encouraging.
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What is interesting about the whole affair is President Trump's £750 billion valuation of Greenland, like he was negotiating over a spot of land reclamation in post-industrial Detroit. Yes, it's a strategically important site, and there are a lot of valuable minerals to be harvested, but what would he do with the bits he didn't want, the bits that are just snow? Given that he appears to view the world as a giant game of monopoly, he could probably put houses or hotels on them, but it's hard to see the Arctic Circle becoming a magnet for tourists or Florida expats.
Moreover, Britain could do with a bit of cash at the moment, and we've got loads of overseas properties, sorry territories, which it could probably offload to the Donald if the price was right. After all, the Government negotiated a pretty nifty deal with Chagos.
If Greenland is worth £750 billion, what are the Caymans worth? A couple of trillion each? Imagine the number of gold-leaf tower blocks you could build there.
Or maybe we should retain control, but float a minority stake on the stock market. Who wouldn't want a bit of their own island in the sun? If you see Sid, tell him.
