The reason Michelle Obama skipped Trump’s inauguration is powerful

I have long been a Michelle Obama fan: impressed by the the grace with which she handled being first lady, and her extraordinary autobiography Becoming, which revealed her to be as funny and opinionated as she is whip-smart. I was also once lucky enough to witness her mesmerising a class of girls in east London, as she told them about growing up poor, sharing a bedroom with her brother in a deprived part of Chicago.

“When I see you – I see myself,” she told them, saying that if they worked hard and seized the opportunities that education afforded them, they too could flourish and make something of themselves in the world. Her talk centred on deferred gratification, working hard for the long term, duty, and doing the right thing.

This is a woman who has grafted for everything she has in life. Which is why I cheered while listening to her latest podcast, IMO with Michelle Obama and Craig Robinson (Craig is the brother she shared that tiny bedroom with).

“No is a full sentence,” she proclaimed. “It’s so important to give ourselves permission to make decisions that protect our peace.”

Michelle, now 61, was properly explaining for the first time in public why she decided not to attend Donald Trump’s inauguration in January (nor Jimmy Carter’s funeral the week before) alongside her husband, former president Barack Obama.

For the “sin” of not showing up, she had to contend with months of rumours about the state of her marriage, and vicious, unfounded gossip about her husband’s supposed affair with Jennifer Aniston, with commentators taking her absence as proof that the couple were divorcing.

However, Michelle says the real reason was much more mundane: she didn’t go because she didn’t want to. It was that simple. And after decades of taking one for the team – putting her own career on hold to support her husband and daughters – she finally did what she wanted to do, put her own needs first, and said no.

But it wasn’t easy

“My decision to skip the inauguration – you know, what people don’t realise – or my decision to make choices at the beginning of this year that suited me – were met with such ridicule and criticism,” she said.

“People couldn’t believe that I was saying no for any other reason; they had to assume that my marriage was falling apart. While I’m here really trying to own my life and intentionally practise making the choice that was right for me.”

She added, “It took everything in my power not to do the thing that was perceived as right, but to do the things that were for me – that was a hard thing for me to do.”

When we fall into the trap of serving others instead of ourselves, as her co-host notes, women become “shock absorbers” – absorbing the needs of our partners, our children, our family and our bosses. It is both exhausting and unfair.

Michelle’s generation of women have been bred to please (don’t believe me? Just read the Girl Guides manual from the 1980s – it’s all about being good hostesses, and above all, never seeking credit or praise). We were taught that being a good woman meant prioritising everyone else over ourselves. If we worked, then we worked harder than men to prove ourselves, and being Superwoman meant not having it all, but doing it all too. The double shift – home and work – is all too real, as Michelle Obama documents in Becoming.

In midlife, that finally begins to change. Research conducted by Noon.org.uk – The Secrets of Midlife Women – found that 43 per cent of ABC1 UK women aged 45-60 agreed that “this period of my life is finally about looking after me, not everyone else – it’s finally MY turn”. Midlife, as Michelle is now discovering, is when we can finally put our own needs first.

For the former first lady, this was a conscious and intentional decision. Not just for herself, but to model putting her own needs first – finally – to her daughters Malia and Sasha Obama. “I want them to start practising now the art of saying ‘no’,” she said. “It’s a muscle that you have to build, because if you don’t constantly build it, you don’t develop it.”

This is not a one-off. Earlier this month, on Sophia Bush’s Work in Progress podcast, she talked about how women are often criticised for putting themselves first.

“So much so that this year, people… they couldn’t even fathom that I was making a choice for myself, that they had to assume that my husband and I were divorcing,” she said. “This couldn’t be a grown woman just making a set of decisions for herself, right? But that’s what society does to us. We start actually finally going, ‘What am I doing? Who am I doing this for?’” she continued. “And if it doesn’t fit into the sort of stereotype of what people think we should do, then it gets labelled as something negative and horrible.”

She added, “I feel like it’s time for me to make some big girl decisions about my life and own it fully.”

It’s a sentiment that I see echoed by the community I run for women in midlife. Many of the women talk about feeling lost, having put their own needs, dreams and wishes at the bottom of the pile for so long they’ve forgotten what they are.

One woman said she looked at her life and felt, “I haven’t chosen any of it – it’s like I’m sleepwalking through my own life.” When I ask them what they love doing, what reliably brings them joy? Many look blank – often they have spent so much of the last 25 years looking after everybody else’s needs, they’ve forgotten their own. “My kids have both gone off to university,” said one. “I was walking around the supermarket buying food, and I’m so used to getting everyone else’s favourites that I had no idea what to buy for myself…”

Recovering a sense of who we are as grown-up women, with our own agency – not as mums, partners, daughters or employees – is crucial. Life spans have doubled in the last century – the average 50-year-old now can expect to live into their late eighties, nineties or even to 100. Yet there are very few models in our culture, or maps to show what the later stages of women’s lives might look like. That’s why Michelle articulating putting herself first matters so much.

And there is a biological imperative, too. As women hit midlife, the hormonal changes of menopause mean the “pleasing”, “love hormone” oxytocin wanes in our bodies. Oestrogen goes down and testosterone increases. We stop being primed for love, nurture, and doing what everyone else wants – and start naturally leaning into our own needs instead.

Midlife isn’t a crisis – it’s a chrysalis. Everything begins to shift: by 50, over half of women have been through many of the big life events, be that divorce, bereavement, redundancy, caring for a dying or elderly parent, raising a child with anxiety, facing an empty nest, or dealing with their own health issues.

But I’ve found the women who have been through the most – who have shed the most – end up the happiest. They end up with a life they have chosen, one which matches on the outside who they feel they are on the inside. But to get to that point takes a lot of sloughing off the dead wood, a lot of pruning what no longer serves us. It takes a lot of saying NO.

Eleanor Mills is the Founder of Noon.org.uk, the UK’s premium community for women in midlife, and the author of the Times-bestselling book ‘Much More to Come: Lessons on the Mayhem and Magnificence of Midlife’, published by HarperCollins

Outrage over mourners taking selfies with casket as thousands queue to pay respects

Catholic faithful paying their final respects to Pope Francis as he lies in state at St Peter’s Basilica have expressed outrage at fellow mourners taking selfies with the late pontiff’s open casket.

The Vatican kept St Peter’s Basilica open nearly all night on Wednesday after more than 50,000 people filed past the late Pope’s coffin to pay their respects in the first 12 hours of public viewing.

But a number of mourners criticised the “disrespectful behaviour” of those taking selfies next to the casket, with a Vatican source telling the MailOnline: “It would be good if people could try and remember where they are and have a little respect but there’s little else that can be done.”

World leaders, cardinals and crowds of pilgrims are expected to attend the funeral itself, which will be held at 10am on Saturday in St Peter’s Square.

The Prince of Wales will join the likes of Donald Trump, Sir Keir Starmer, Emmanuel Macron and Volodymyr Zelensky to pay their respects to the pontiff, who died aged 88 on Monday.

Farage sparks furious backlash over children’s mental health jibe

Charities have been condemned Nigel Farage over “wildly inaccurate” claims about people with mental health problems and children with special educational needs (SEND).

The National Autistic Society (NAS) led the criticism of Reform UK’s leader after he claimed in a rant on mental health problems that GPs are “over diagnosing” conditions.

Speaking at a press conference in Dover, Mr Farage said: “It’s a massive problem. I have to say, for my own money, when you get to 18 and you put somebody on a disability register, unemployed, with a high level of benefits, you’re telling people aged 18 that they’re victims.”

“And if you are told you’re a victim, and you think you’re a victim, you are likely to stay [a victim].”

He questioned the way conditions are being diagnosed in particular taking aim at children with special educational needs.

Mr Farage: “So many of these diagnoses, for SEND before 18, for disability register after 18 – so many of these have been conducted on Zoom, with the family GP.”

“I think you’re the family GP, and I’ve known your family for generations, and you’re saying to me there’s a real problem here with depression, or whatever it may be, it’s quite hard for me as your GP to say ‘no’.

“I don’t think any of these allocations should be done by family GPs. I think it should be done independently.

“And I think we are massively – I’m not being heartless, I’m being frank – I think we are massively over diagnosing those with mental illness problems and those with other general behavioural disabilities. And I think we’re creating a class of victims in Britain that will struggle ever to get out of it.”

The National Autistic Society was quick to attack Mr Farage’s comments accusing him of “spreading disinformation” and “perpetuating stigmas”.

In a statement on X, the charity said: “Nigel Farage’s comments are wildly inaccurate and show that he’s completely out of touch with what autistic children and adults have to go through to get a diagnosis or any support at all.

“For the record, absolutely no one has got an autism diagnosis through the GP – this is just incorrect, wrong, fake news. Children with SEND and disabled adults, including autistic people, are not victims who are being ‘over diagnosed’. They are people who face huge delays and long fights to get the most basic support across every aspect of their lives, including diagnosis, education, health and social care.

“Spreading misinformation only perpetuates stigma and makes life harder. We’re calling on all politicians to drop the political point scoring and stand up for their autistic and other disabled constituents.”

Minesh Patel, associate director of policy and campaigns at the mental health charity Mind, said: “The only victims in this discussion are facts – which are continuously overlooked in favour of fuelling culture wars.

“We agree that disabled people, people on benefits and those out of work are more likely to struggle with their mental health. And evidence shows three quarters of all mental health problems are established by the age of 24.

“But instead of asking what is driving this, our politicians choose to demonise those who are struggling most in our society.”

He added: “We will not solve the mental health crisis by stigmatising people who are already suffering.”

Labour MP Peter Swallow said: “Whether it’s [Tory leader] Kemi Badenoch saying that a SEND diagnosis is just a route to special treatment, or nonsense like this from Farage – it’s clear that Reform and the Tories both lack the compassion and basic understanding needed to tackle the SEND crisis.”

And Munira Wilson MP, Liberal Democrat education spokesperson, added: “Farage is clearly laying the groundwork to axe crucial special needs provision in councils he’s got his eye on – communities where families and vulnerable young people are already waiting years to access threadbare special needs funds and special schools bursting at the seams.

“If Nigel Farage had spent any time speaking to parents in his constituency, he’d know he’s barking up the wrong tree. The special needs crisis needs urgent repair – not his lazy rhetoric. We need a National Body for SEND to end the special needs postcode lottery now.”

When is a ‘mini heatwave’ set to hit the UK?

Temperatures are set to climb across the UK in the coming days, with parts of the country on track to bask in some early summer warmth as a mini heatwave arrives.

Warmer weather is predicted to arrive across the UK with more sunshine and a shift in the wind direction, the Met Office said.

The forecaster said temperatures in south-eastern and central England could reach 23 to 24C on Tuesday, falling short of an official heatwave, but marking a “very warm spell” with some areas expected to see up to 10C above the seasonal average.

Saturday’s temperatures will be between 13 and 17C, and there may be some rain in the western regions. The UK’s eastern regions should remain dry, although there will be a lot of clouds, according to the forecaster.

The 56,000 people taking part in the London Marathon will see highs of 22C in the capital on Sunday, with a current “settled” spell of weather meaning up to 24C could also be possible in the South East by Monday.

For those participating in the Manchester Marathon on Sunday, there will be spells of sunshine. Temperatures will peak at 17C in the afternoon, and a gentle south-westerly breeze will cool down runners.

Met Office spokesperson Oli Claydon said it looks like both the Manchester and London marathons will stay dry.

Elsewhere across the country, he explained that a band of rain will move into western Scotland and Northern Ireland on Sunday morning, but it is expected to “break up pretty quickly” and turn into scattered showers.

These may bring some rain and clouds to parts of Scotland, Northern Ireland, and the far north of England, though “conditions [will be] better for the South and across England and Wales”.

A heavy band of rain will affect Northern Ireland and some other westernmost areas on Friday before slowly clearing to the east overnight, but no weather warnings have been issued, the forecaster said.

Dry conditions and lighter winds are expected elsewhere across the UK, with low cloud and the chance of the odd shower clearing to give some warm spells of sunshine and highs of 18C in the South East.

Saturday will likely see patchy rain initially moving east across most of Scotland, England and Wales, with brighter conditions further north before sunny spells develop more widely into the afternoon.

Temperatures will stay around average with highs of 18C, but will “start to tick up” as the weekend progresses, particularly on Sunday, Mr Claydon said.

While northern regions of the UK will continue to see some clouds and scattered showers on Monday, the rest of the country will stay dry and bright with temperatures of up to 24C in the South East.

The Met Office said the UK is most likely to start “widely fine with sunny spells” once early mist and fog clear, particularly in the south. Northern areas, however, are expected to see more clouds, which could take longer to lift.

There is a small chance that very warm, fine weather could spread across the whole country in the following days, but the more likely scenario is that cloud and rain from the North West will move South East, bringing cooler and more changeable conditions by midweek.

“Generally speaking over the outlook, (it is) relatively settled with incursions of clouded rain at times, but some good sunny spells with temperatures increasing as we go into the start of next week,” the forecaster added.

‘We’ve gone from helping earthquake victims to clearing up Birmingham’s bin bags’

A charity that usually responds to global natural disasters has now turned its attention to clearing the streets of Birmingham amid the ongoing bin strike.

Aston-based Faizan Global Relief Foundation (FGRF) has previously responded to flooding in Pakistan and earthquakes in Turkey and Morocco by sending over supplies.

But now its volunteers are working into the early hours to clean up the towering piles of black bags left because of the seven-week strike.

Volunteer at FGRF Muhammad Wasim is a senior IT engineer by day but has dedicated his spare time to clearing the waste. While saying the clean-up wasn’t the charity’s usual line of work, he stressed that it is a “public health hazard” and the charity needed to step up.

“We normally respond to various disasters… but we also do a lot of work to tackle UK child poverty and helping people in the community get health checks,” he told The Independent. “Now the biggest issue in Birmingham with these bin strikes is the black bags that are not being picked up.”

A major incident was declared by Birmingham City Council on 31 March, which allowed the authority to increase the availability of street cleaning, with an extra 35 vehicles and crews.

But the bin strike has been ongoing due to a dispute between the council and Unite the union over pay and job security.

Mr Wasim said the team has seen the odd rat and mouse coming out of bin bags and said the sheer volume of rubbish is stopping people from leaving their homes.

He added: “There have been some areas we have gone to and the bin bags are literally blocking the pavement.

“We feel sorry for the people living there because obviously it stops them from going out because there are so many bags piled up.”

Mr Wasim said the charity was working with private companies to dispose of the rubbish.

Over the past two weeks the charity has already collected hundreds of black bags, thanks to the group of dedicated volunteers.

“The volunteers work eight to 12-hour shifts at their regular jobs and then dedicated their evenings to supporting the city, volunteering six-plus hours and then spending the bank holiday Friday also supporting the community. It is absolutely amazing the dedication we have,” Mr Wasim said.

One volunteer, Qumar Iqbal, who works as a professional driver, said: “I was concerned by the litter and unpleasant odours I encountered while working across the city on a daily basis since the strikes began.

“Motivated to make a difference, I volunteered my time and was proud to witness the positive changes and the uplifting impact it had on Birmingham’s residents.”

One resident from Sparkbrook in south-east Birmingham who gave his name as Sohail said his bags hadn’t been collected in more than two weeks, and it was becoming a “big concern”.

“One night, I saw the volunteers outside with a van and cleaning the street and approached them. They kindly took my household rubbish, which was such a relief and made me really happy,” he said.

It comes as Shadow chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Alex Burghart, warned of “Rats the size of dachshunds terrifying the local residents.”

He said the huge rats spotted scurrying though waste has prompted fears the piling rubbish could result in a surge in rodent-borne diseases.

Union officials have said the end of the bin strike is in “touching distance”.

What smart investors need to know about changing status symbols

“It’s not a bag, it’s a Birkin.”

In 2001, Sex and the City introduced us to the Hermès Birkin, with character Samantha Jones being told there was a five year waiting list for would-be buyers. The fashion set’s favourite accessory went mainstream.

The Birkin continues to sell well over 20 years later, both new and second hand. Resale values have reportedly risen faster than gold. The Birkin has helped Hermès to outperform in what has been a torrid time for luxury brands.

But how long can that appeal sustain?

Can the criminal justice system be reformed?

Assaults on prison staff are more numerous than ever and – not unrelated – overcrowding of inmates is also showing a marked deterioration. The latest figures on conditions in jails from the Ministry of Justice, covering England and Wales, come after a particularly violent assault by Hashem Abedi, the accomplice and brother of the Manchester Arena bomber, on three officers, using a homemade weapon and hot cooking oil to inflict serious injuries.

The scale of the overcrowding crisis, meanwhile, first became very clear to the public last summer when the incoming government had to implement an emergency programme of prisoner releases to avoid the collapse of the criminal justice system. Britain’s prisons seem doomed to permanent crisis.

The figures speak for themselves: 10,605 assaults on staff recorded last year, up 15 per cent on 2023; seven murders of inmates by inmates; and HM Inspector of Prisons earlier this year reporting thriving illicit economies of drugs, mobile phones and weapons. And basic security measures such as protective netting and CCTV have been allowed to fall into disrepair.

Arguable. It’s what Michael Howard, home secretary in the 1990s, famously claimed, unashamedly placing retribution ahead of rehabilitation. It certainly doesn’t feel like inflicting inhumane treatment and dangerous conditions on miscreants has helped society.

Unlike the NHS, schools, libraries or even the courts, in prisons the effects of past austerity and continuing constraints on the prisons budget are not apparent to the general public, and even if they were they might not trigger much concern. The British public has a classically cakeist attitude towards crime and punishment: demanding to bang up offenders for longer sentences but refusing to pay the taxes that would be required to pay for a radical expansion of the prison estate.

Indeed, creating many more spaces would mean higher taxation long into the future, because keeping a prisoner safely detained and alive in even the most basic way is extremely expensive – famously comparable to the cost of sending a child to Eton.

Given the public, and especially media, hostility to anything approaching a humane way of rehabilitating offenders, and the fact they are denied any electoral role, it’s fair to say there are no votes in prisons, in any sense of the phrase.

There are at least two substantial ways in which the pressure on places could be relieved relatively rapidly. The first is to start a process of reviewing the sentences of those still held under the archaic and discredited “indefinite public protection (IPP) orders”. These were designed to detail someone considered “dangerous” but whose offence didn’t merit a life tariff for an unlimited period until they could somehow prove they weren’t a threat to the public. Some of those put away for stealing a mobile phone have been left in custody for a decade or more. About 1,200 IPP prisoners are still stuck in the system – a sizeable number given that the system only has about 500 spare prison spaces available.

There are also more than 19,000 foreign offenders awaiting deportation, up from almost 18,000 when the Conservatives left office, the latest figures show. That number should be placed in the context of a total prison population of 84,210 men and 3,554 women.

Some foreign criminals are objecting to removal on human rights grounds, such as right to family life, a perennial problem for any minister who faces a virulently vengeful media but who feels obliged to obey domestic law and abide by the European Convention on Human Rights. Keir Starmer is reportedly keen to limit such rights.

It’s early days to make definitive judgments but the appointment of Lord (James) Timpson as prisons minister in the new government last July did raise hopes. Timpson, as chief executive of Timpson Group, successfully pioneered the recruitment of ex-offenders, and as chair of the Prison Reform Trust he was an outspoken advocate for reducing pointless and self-defeating custodial sentences. He’s on record as saying that the UK is “addicted to” sentencing and punishment, and thinks a third of prisoners, especially female offenders, inappropriately serve custodial sentences. He wants more alternatives for the courts, such as sophisticated tagging (eg to detect drink and drug abuse) and community punishments.

However, save some sympathy for the justice secretary, Shabana Mahmood, who’d face a tsunami of attacks for “going soft on crime” from her vindictive shadow, Robert Jenrick, and the adamantine resistance of most of the media. There is no political space foreseeable for the kind of liberal reforms we saw when the death penalty was abolished, for example, in the 1960s.

In a sense, the British criminal justice system is itself under a kind of “whole life order”, condemned to a never-ending cycle of ever-tougher sentences creating ever-more hopeless, hardened criminals ready to break the law again and again.

Ukraine has a chance of defying the odds – but it depends on one thing

The latest massive, deadly attack carried out by Russia on civilian targets in Kyiv is a timely reminder that this conflict – and its eventual resolution – is not just about territory and lines on a map.

It cannot be, in other words, some Trump Organisation real estate project writ large. People live in these faraway partitioned oblasts. Making peace is about the fate of millions of Ukrainians, people soon to be left to colonial-style subjugation and reprisal by an enemy that wishes to crush their spirit and their culture. Abandoning them to Russia feels wrong – because it is wrong. It is appeasement – and will work no better now than it did when President Obama and the West allowed President Putin to annex Crimea in 2014.

The Trump peace plan, now leaked, carries with it the unspoken but lethal notion that various tracts of Ukraine can be transferred to Kremlin control with few ill effects for the inhabitants, and that those driven out as their homes were smashed and whole cities flattened can just return in safety or start again elsewhere. It is heartless beyond words.

The Ukrainian people are being treated as if they need not have a say in the matter – and if their democratically elected leader so much as questions Donald Trump’s “deal”, he is mocked, bullied and vilified, while there are invariably only warm words and endless concessions to Russia. The indulgence of the Kremlin by America is as incomprehensible as it is obscene, and the world knows it.

What we see in the mass bombings of Kyiv, Kharkiv, and, on Palm Sunday, Sumy, is proof, as if any were needed, that Vladimir Putin is not interested in peace. He has a total disregard for international humanitarian law and nothing but malign intentions towards Ukraine. More specifically, it shows that President Putin holds the American proposal for a ceasefire in utter contempt. As Volodymyr Zelensky points out, it is now some 44 days since Ukraine agreed to Donald Trump’s call for a full ceasefire and a halt to strikes. And for each of those 44 days, the Russians have been continuing to take the lives of innocents.

It is not, as President Trump claims, President Zelensky who is responsible for these “killing fields”, but the man who he clearly counts as a friend and ally: President Putin. And it is not just sorrow and righteous anger that Mr Zelensky feels as he tries to defend his people, but surely bewilderment and betrayal as the US has changed sides so dramatically. Those are feelings shared by Ukraine’s more faithful allies across the world.

There are, in other words, no consequences for Russia if it continues to commit war crimes, kidnap children, allows its troops to rape, maim, murder and plunder their way through occupied lands, and advances further into sovereign Ukrainian territory. President Trump says he’s “not happy” about the latest bombings, and that they are “unnecessary”, as if mildly chastising a badly behaved guest at Mar-a-Lago.

That is not going to be taken seriously by Putin, because the Trump plan continues to reward Putin for his aggression. The plan will effectively draw a new border along the eventual armistice line, so President Putin has every incentive to push on.

And, apart from one outburst about being “angry” and “pissed off”, Mr Trump has allowed Putin to drag the process out almost indefinitely. Now, the Trump administration says that it will walk away if the Russians and Ukrainians don’t agree to the plan – but that would suit Putin equally well.

He calculates that without American military and intelligence support, Ukraine will quickly collapse – and instead of having to settle for the one-fifth of Ukraine that Mr Trump is offering, he will win far more on the battlefield. That is why there is no ceasefire. Putin has everything to gain by wasting time.

When Mr Zelensky raises legitimate questions about the peace plan, he is threatened and abused – but the reality is that the ceasefire and the Trump peace deal would have been signed long ago had President Putin not been inventing new excuses for delay and inserting unworkable preconditions into the process. “Ceasefire first, then talks” was the Trump plan – yet he has somehow allowed Putin to reverse the order.

The terrifying question that has been emerging for some time is now crystallising. If the US does finally abandon Ukraine and give Russia a free hand, can the Europe-led “coalition of the willing” fill the void and save the Ukrainian people? It is, in effect, the choice that faces President Zelensky: to accept the deeply flawed Trump plan, which guarantees virtually nothing about the future of his people (especially those under occupation), or to try to fight on against the odds, and with the risk that all will be lost.

It is certainly easy to be pessimistic. Ukraine would struggle without US military supplies and financial support, and Elon Musk said that Ukraine’s resistance would collapse if the Starlink satellite system controlled by him was shut off. When US assistance was “paused” briefly earlier in the year, the front line was turned into a turkey shoot for the delighted Russians. If Mr Trump pursued his strategic alliance with Russia, lifted sanctions and boosted trade, that would transform Russia’s highly stressed economy – and the Kremlin’s war machine with it.

Yet, as he pointed out to Mr Trump and the vice-president JD Vance in his most famous visit to the Oval Office, Mr Zelensky and Ukraine have been written off before and survived far longer than the few days or weeks they were previously given. Ukraine’s own military-industrial base and expertise in modern drone warfare has also been transformed – and would be useful indeed for the future security of what remains of “the West”.

Europe, with loyal allies such as Canada and Japan, has enormous industrial, technological and financial resources at its disposal – and there is no reason in principle why it cannot bolster Ukrainian resistance. Of course, Mr Trump could regard such actions as unfriendly to the United States, but given the way his trade wars have weakened the superpower, he might not want to start a cold war with his remaining nominal allies.

The success of the “coalition of the willing” depends on how willing the coalition proves to be. If Sir Keir Starmer and Emmanuel Macron, ad hoc leaders of this ad hoc alliance, manage to inspire their allies half as much as Mr Zelensky has, then Ukraine still has a chance of defying the odds.

It might not win Crimea back in the near future, but it would mean that President Putin would be forced to negotiate a more satisfactory and sustainable peace, after which Ukraine can build its defences and deepen its newly strengthened partnerships, at least until the Trump-Putin era passes.