“We don’t want to lose you but we think you ought to go.” Politics on both sides of the Atlantic is putting a new spin on the old First World War recruiting song. This time the emphasis is on the “go”, making room for others and getting out of the way.

In the US, Joe Biden is struggling to show that he is the man capable of beating Donald Trump and being a competent leader of the free world for four more years. His performances at the end of the Nato summit he had hosted in Washington were as agonising as any operatic dying aria but less elegant. Worse, nobody seems capable of bringing the curtain down.

The UK is doing much better than the US in ushering the superannuated towards the exit. Age and under-performance are being deployed as axes to cull the ever expanding House of Lords, even if it will still be the largest legislative body in the world outside China. On the cricket pitch, James Anderson, England’s most successful fast bowler, has felt “the tap on the shoulder” and is being celebrated in his final test match at Lord’s.

To any outsider, Biden’s refusal to acknowledge his fading abilities is a horror show. On Friday afternoon the 81-year-old introduced President Zelensky of Ukraine as “President Putin”. He followed up in a blundering press conference by confusing his deputy with his main opponent, insisting, “I wouldn’t have picked vice president Trump to be vice president, if she’s not qualified”. He did not notice or correct that error, nor when he said he would be........

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