If the West sends the message it is no longer up for the fight, it will be open season for tyrants to do what they want

DONALD TRUMP promised he would be the American president to end wars, not start them. This week he vowed to end the conflict in Ukraine, starting negotiations with Vladimir Putin to bring to a halt the three long years of bloody carnage on Ukraine’s battlefields since Russia’s invasion. No doubt Trump, a self-styled “strong man” leader, would rather enjoy a ­comparison with Winston Churchill, whose bust sits in his Oval Office.

Unfortunately for Trump — and, indeed, the rest of the free world — he is closer to Neville Chamberlain, the British PM who proudly proclaimed in 1938 that he had secured “peace for our time” after he agreed a deal with Hitler to allow ­Germany to annex the Sudetenland, in a bid to avert a second world war. Today, just like Chamberlain waving that white piece of paper, the US President is actually waving the white flag of surrender.

And, far from preventing another world war, he is about to bring war that much closer. Instead of standing up to President Putin, a murderous authoritarian dictator who invaded Ukraine, a sovereign nation state and a democratic ally of the West, Trump has instead offered the hand of friendship to the Kremlin and demanded peace at almost any price. The US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth announced there was no realistic chance that Ukraine could regain all of the territory stolen by Russia since 2014, and no hope that Ukraine could join Nato to secure its remaining borders.

In one fell swoop, the US conceded to Putin’s two most important demands — and without getting a single thing in return. So much for Trump’s much proclaimed “art of the deal”!. Russian forces have smashed Ukrainian cities into rubble; tortured, raped and massacred innocent civilians, and abducted thousands of Ukrainian children across enemy lines. Now the message that has rung out from the White House is that war DOES indeed pay.

Be in no doubt that message has been heard loud and clear not just in Moscow but also in Beijing, and in Tehran and Pyongyang too. History teaches us that the likes of Hitler and Putin are NEVER satisfied with crumbs from the table. They always come back for more. The US President appears to share Chamberlain’s mistaken belief that dictators can be appeased with a little victory here, a bit of territory there (and of course that’s far easier to do when it’s not your OWN land you’re giving away).

But history teaches us that the likes of Hitler and Putin are NEVER satisfied with crumbs from the table. They always come back for more. A deal may indeed be done for now but, after a few years to recruit and re-arm, the Russian forces will be back with a vengeance. And then what will we do?. The Ukrainian leader, Volodymyr Zelensky, knows all of this. As does every leader of every European nation with the misfortune to share a border with Russia.

For three exhausting years, the West has given Ukraine just enough military aid to save them from defeat at Russia’s hands while never giving quite enough to enable them to win. The vast majority of that aid has come from America, while the UK and the EU twiddle their thumbs over whether or not to beef up their own defences, unable and unwilling to defend Ukraine on their own. If Trump does a deal with Putin — with or without Zelensky’s agreement — then he will send a message to the world that the West is no longer up for the fight.

With just one phone call to the Kremlin, Donald Trump has single-handedly brought World War Three one step closer. We are not willing to spend our billions, let alone spill any blood, to defend our democratic allies or to stand up for the rule of law. It will be open season for the globe’s many aggressors to act with impunity. The world has been growing more dangerous by the day and eventually, despite our leaders’ best efforts to keep their heads in the sand, it will be impossible for the West to ignore the growing threat.

With just one phone call to the Kremlin, Donald Trump has single-handedly brought World War Three one step closer. OH dear. Rachel From Accounts has been caught out for telling yet another porky pie on her CV. Not only did Rachel Reeves NOT work as an ­economist at Halifax Bank of Scotland as she’d claimed, but she also didn’t work at the Bank of England for anywhere close to the full decade she has publicly stated.

A spokesman for Reeves ­confirmed that dates on her LinkedIn were inaccurate and claimed it was due to an admin error by her team. Now there are even questions over some ­interesting expense claims she made too. We need a Chancellor we can trust to run the economy, not one who is economical with the truth. No one minds a bit of embellishment here or there on a CV, but Hans Christian Andersen would be proud to have written the fairytale that is Reeves’s CV.