Huge, expensive and dilapidated… this slime-covered warship is a metaphor for Trump – and just one example of US poor strategy and leadership: PETER HITCHENS

Here is the image of a superpower in serious decline, perhaps a metaphor for President Trump himself – big, expensive, almost useless and increasingly dilapidated.

The American aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln looks as if she has been dredged from the seabed. She’s covered in rust, smeared with slime and heaven knows what barnacles and weeds are clinging to her bottom, out of sight.

It would cost £10 billion to build a new building.

Her ship’s company endured 260 days at sea without a real break. There was not enough food, the pipes were moldy, sailors had to queue for hours for the scarce soap and toothpaste, there were even rumors that desperate sailors had jumped overboard. Officially one has ‘fallen’.

I know very well that in times of war warships can become quite battered and rations can run out. My late father was in the terrible convoys to the north Russia in the World War IIwhen it was either wild, freezing storms or an incessant German attack. But Trump’s floating air base hasn’t been roaming the stormy high seas fending off air and submarine attacks from a dangerous enemy.

I suspect the reason for her problems is something we haven’t heard much about yet. This is Iran‘s successful destruction of what was once the US naval base at Manama, Bahrain. This is one of the many ways the Trump war on Iran has not gone according to plan.

Iranian missiles have caused around £300 million in damage, and the US Navy has more or less abandoned the devastated ruins, with no plans to return. This is the kind of thing that happens to poorly run countries that think they are more powerful than they are, and it is a sign of physical decay, poor strategy and poor leadership.

Make of this what you will. You could contrast it with Trump’s recent glib musings on the Falklands, which seem to indicate that we need not turn to him for help if Buenos Aires makes another attempt to seize them.

The truth is that the US was never fully on our side during the recapture of the islands from the Argentine military junta in 1982.

What a stupid waste of time, energy and goodwill it was for King Charles to go to the White House and suck up to Mr. Trump.

Months later, I still can’t figure out where the Palace found that suspiciously large, elegant and well-preserved brass bell from the long-scrapped submarine HMS Trump. However they found it – if ‘found’ is the right word – was it worth it?

It is patriotic to oppose a Russian war

I have a question for many members of the political class and the national media. If this country were in fact a one-party state where only one opinion was officially allowed, how would your behavior differ from what it is today?

There is no debate about the increasing rush to war with Russia. But how many of you have seriously researched the facts and history of the dispute? The tendency to dismiss any dissent as treason (Putin apologist! Lord Haw Haw! etc.) is totalitarian and despotic, pushing such dissent to the margins.

It is entirely possible to oppose British involvement in a conflict with Russia on the simple patriotic grounds that it will do more harm to this country than it will help it.

There are many things that disturb me about the death of Dr Mark Deakin, the witness to the Letby case who was recently found unconscious in his car after being discharged. One is this. The medical journalist Dr Phil Hammond writes of him: ‘If all NHS staff were sacked for sharing information about patients they cared for in confidence, there wouldn’t be many left working.’

Charles jumps in with both feet

Years ago I visited the Bayeux Tapestry in that beautiful town in Normandy, one of the few places near the D-Day landing beaches that was not cut to pieces during the war. That’s because the Allies captured it so quickly.

But I can remember almost nothing about the embroidery itself. What sticks in my mind is the extraordinary British war cemetery nearby, full of the men who helped save the world during another, very different invasion.

Mrs. Hitchens and I went, more and more slowly, from grave to grave, utterly humbled by the extraordinary youth of many of those who died, so that we could come along later and live our easy lives – and also by the short and intensely sad inscriptions.

I think I better go to the exhibition. But I do wish the king would stop saying how long it is in meters. As my Daily Mail colleague Robert Hardman has pointed out, it was made in feet and centimeters. And wasn’t one of the things our fathers fought for again and again: the Britishness of Britain and the Englishness of England?