The Americans are in even deeper trouble over the war they've started in the Middle East.

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Yesterday, Donald Trump said he was going to Blockade the Strait of Hormuz to put intolerable pressure on Iran.

Today, a Chinese tanker, the Rich Starry, bobbed happily through the waterway carrying 250,000 barrels of methanol, and the US did not dare to lay a finger on it.

Yet again, the gap between the grandiose swagger of the president - the threat to destroy an entire civilisation, the claims of divine power - and the actual world around him, is brutally exposed.

But before we take refuge in mocking laughter at the pretensions of President Trump we should remember that the Tehran regime are not the good guys and the world will be more dangerous if they rebuild a nuclear programme.

We should remember that if, in the really big contest but in the US and China, Trump is overseeing an American defeat, that isn't good news for us.

And we should also remember, at this incredibly dangerous moment, just how exposed and weak we are.

The former defence secretary and NATO boss Lord George Robertson, rightly says tonight that Britain's leaders have shown corrosive complacency over defence.

After months of seething quietly in private over the relaxed response to his strategic defence review, he accuses the Treasury of vandalism and says: "we cannot defend Britain with an ever expanding welfare budget".

The people he is attacking, now by name, are, of course, his Labour colleagues, the Prime Minister Keir Starmer, the Chancellor, Rachel Reeves and the Defence Secretary John Healey.

Now, they might say it was the Tories who for years underfunded British defences - true enough, but a history lesson doesn't help anyone right now.

They might say they've done a bit to rebuild Britain's hollowed out military - I don't think any of them would claim in all seriousness, they'd done enough - but they'd go on to say Labour MPs won't let them find the money by cutting welfare or anything else.

So, do we conclude it isn't their fault? Well I'm sorry, but these are supposed to be our leaders during days of great peril.

I hear that committees are being set up. More international conferences are being organised. No go. Not enough. Not nearly enough. It's time to get real.

Andrew Marr is an author, journalist and presenter for LBC.

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