Rory Stewart

in UAE, who were in lockstep.

They went together to war in Yemen.

They were very close to Trump.

And now a division has emerged.

Who managed to put out a tweet where his major demonstration of his skills was 30 press-ups with his Marine bodyguard.

It was impressive.

It was impressive, but on the other hand, is that really what we need from our senior diplomats?

What's Talleyrand?

Probably not, but tell me... Was Ernie Bevan known for his ability to do press-ups?

Is the whole skill of an ambassador being able to do 30 press-ups with your security team?

It's not, but... So why the hell is he dedicating his big launch to the social media team watching him do press-ups?

Two reasons, Rory.

On UAE, sadly, we'll return to that.

But you can see in Yemen, you can see in Sudan, you can see in Somaliland, and you can see on policy to Israel.

They're knocking bits off each other, and there's a social media war going on that's very destabilizing.

Before we move on to the big substance of our thing, which is to talk about the big speeches, Rubio, Starmer, etc., I was at a late-night event with Google last night, which I'm afraid I didn't leave until almost midnight, so I'm feeling pretty rubbish this morning.

It was striking how much of that

was about Europe now really worried about its tech sovereignty and Google having to try to reassure Europeans, and Microsoft will be doing the same and other American companies the same, that they can let you use their products without the American government either being able to spy on the contents or have a kill switch.

And the kill switch point is that the head of the International Criminal Court

was sanctioned by Trump, basically accused of being a terrorist, and Google and Microsoft effectively felt they were forced to completely disable all his accounts and all his access to everything, leaving Europeans thinking, well, could this happen to us?