An old man stumbles over his words, and the whole world holds its breath

An elderly politician losing his train of thought for a brief moment on the other side of the Atlantic Ocean may not seem that important to a British politician seemingly powering towards a landslide election victory. However, Joe Biden’s bizarre remarks during the US presidential election debate appear to have sealed the growing impression that he is no longer mentally sharp enough to be US President, virtually handing the White House keys to Donald Trump, a seismic geopolitical event that will shake the whole world.

Some Democrats appear to be trying to brazen out the situation, insisting that Biden can still do the job, still win the election, while others are scrambling around in the hope that another candidate can be found. It seems too late for someone else to mount a credible challenge, while the Democrats openly calling, in desperation, for Biden to drop out of the race are handing an obvious gift to the Trump campaign.

The main problem happened when Biden tried to explain what his government had been doing on healthcare. The President said he wanted to make “every single, solitary person eligible for what I’ve been able to do with the Covid, excuse me, with, um, dealing with everything we had to do with, eh, look… if... we finally beat Medicare.” Medicare is a government-run healthcare programme for elderly people.

Former Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, a liberal politician, summed up the consequences of these mangled words in bleak terms on social media: “American democracy killed before our eyes by gerontocracy!”

Whether or not Trump is able to become the dictator he has ‘joked’ about being, he has given multiple signs that he will withdraw the US from Nato. Former members of his own Cabinet have suggested it is a real prospect. And during the debate, when Biden claimed Trump would do this, the response was a facial shrug.

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Nato without the US is a much less daunting deterrent to Vladimir Putin, who has already issued threats over Western supplies of weapons to Ukraine. If America stops providing military support to Kyiv, Europe will need to fill the gaps or it is likely that Putin will win. However, the rise of the far right in countries like France means that traditional allies may not be quite as staunch in the defence of democracy as they once were.

All this should push the issue of national security to the very top of Keir Starmer’s inbox if he does become Prime Minister next week as almost everyone expects. He needs to quickly develop a coherent plan to bolster the strength of the Armed Forces, prepare the economy for a potential conflict with Russia, and ensure Europe remains united in opposition to Putin.

An early priority must be to make sure that the Trident missiles designed to carry the UK’s nuclear deterrent actually work, following two failed test firings. If the US leaves Nato, that would leave only the UK and France as nuclear powers.

Making preparations for war may sound alarming, but the aim is to project strength that Putin will respect, thereby preserving peace. With Putin clearly hoping to rebuild the Soviet empire, victory in Ukraine could well be followed by the invasion of the Baltic states and even countries like Poland, as Biden suggested. A bloodthirsty dictator buoyed up by victories in war will be hard to stop.

Our next Prime Minister would be irresponsible not to prepare for a Trump presidency and the dangerous world it will bring. Many lives may depend upon the right choices being made in the next few months. Never let anyone tell you that elections don’t matter.