Is there any politician that could pursue sensible policies that look after the interests of the people of Europe? Let’s play fantasy foreign policy! Who would we have lead Europe?

Not Ursula Von Der Leyen who caved against Trumps tariffs for Europe. Kier Starmer? He is the embarrassing ever-so-humble Uriah Heap of international politics, draped in a Union Flag. Emmanual Macron? All over the place. German Chancellor Mertz? Sounds like his Nazi grandfather.

Robert Fico the Czech President? – courageous, but unacceptable to most Europeans. Victor Orban of Hungary? – lots of common sense but too right wing. Georgia Meloni? Flamboyant but can’t hide her feelings and has a neo-fascist lineage. The Dutch PM? Breaks into tears following threats to take over Greenland: not someone you want to represent you in a punch up.

Who does this leave? Only one politician whose country is in NATO who has any common sense and strategic clarity and is acceptable to the west: Mark Carney, ex-Governor of the Bank of England and now President of Canada.

Carney took over from the dreadful Justin Trudeau 9 months ago and immediately had to face the wrath of Trump, who wanted to annex his country as the 51st state of the USA (!!). Unlike his grovelling predecessor, Carney stood up to Trump and then did something brilliant. He phoned President Xi. He has negotiated a trillion-dollar deal with ‘reliable’ China right under Trumps nose. Imagine what Trump, the narcissist on steroids, must feel?

Carney is a neo-liberal, but he’s not a fanatic like the current European crop. He has brains and strategic clarity. He is pragmatic and diplomatic which is what the ‘west’ and the world needs. He would be acceptable to the people of Europe. Trump would be stuffed.

At the recent Davos summit attended by an incoherent Trump, Carney outlined in forensic detail in a speech he crafted alone that the world order that Europe had ponced off since the end of the second war was over. He did the most intelligent thing anybody could do in his position – completely changed the playbook.

Carney could deliver peace with Russia by clever diplomacy and clear strategy. He could negotiate trade and energy deals and a security deal for Europe to fix borders and end the war in Ukraine, get rid of US military bases and create an independent European alternative to NATO. He could reform the EURO, eject the idea of a European super-state and simply maintain it as a free-trade area.

The USA will not go back to the days where it got its own way by just ‘being nice’ to Europe. It is now exposed as a political brute. Europe has become a vassal because that is what it has allowed itself to become. It needs to stand on its own feet and tell Trump to sod off.

Let’s offer a transfer fee to Canada for their PM. It’s just political fantasy - but I propose we trade Starmer and Mertz and Macron for Carney.