“The armed forces of the two states are both active in fierce fighting on the Turkish-Syrian border, in some cases just a few kilometers from each other,” one NATO official told Der Spiegel. Ankara’s aggression seems partially based on the assumption that, should conflict erupt, Turkey will be supported by its NATO allies. According to Article 5 of the NATO treaty, the collective defense clause would be invoked if any member state is attacked.

But European leaders have made it abundantly clear that they have no interest in participating in a war of Turkey’s making. “NATO cannot allow itself to be pulled into a military escalation with Russia as a result of the recent tensions between Russia and Turkey,” Luxembourg Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn told Der Spiegel. Of Article 5, Asselborn stressed that “the guarantee is only valid when a member state is clearly attacked.” Germany appears to agree.

“We are not going to pay the price for a war started by the Turks,” said a German diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity. NATO leadership made similar warnings soon after Turkey’s downing of the Russian bomber last year. “We have to avoid that situations, incidents, accidents spiral out of control,” NATO General Secretary Jens Stoltenberg said at the time. “I think I’ve expressed very clearly that we are calling for calm and de-escalation. This is a serious situation.”

In later years the crew-cut Barbies will be chuckled about over Sunday lunch. ‘Do you remember when…’ But now imagine someone else learns about the Barbie incident — during a seemingly casual conversation with that hurt younger sister, say. This person is not a relative or friend but an official appointed by the state, without your permission, and allowed to gather information about you and your children — in secret, if it is deemed necessary — and circulate it among other state agencies such as the police and social services.

It so happens that this snooper doesn’t possess the sense of proportion or humour that is essential when addressing the issue of warring children. This hacking-off of synthetic blonde locks appears a bit odd to our ‘state guardian’. Disturbing, in fact. So, this government-appointed busybody opens a file on you and your family and enters a remark: ‘Older girl exhibiting signs of aggression against younger. Doll disfigurement may indicate deeper issues of anger management within family unit.’ And suddenly it isn’t just about Barbie dolls any more.

George Orwell understood this kind of thing: how the state, always wary, always contemptuous of the people it claims to represent, forever seeks to exercise control over them. Knowledge is power — and what better knowledge can one have of a person than that pertaining to the inner workings of their family? Intelligence-gatherers, imposed on each and every family by the State, they are able to mould perceptions — often in secret — of the families allotted to them.

There is no right of appeal against their findings — indeed, no automatic right to know what those findings are — and no way to prevent their judgments spreading out into the state bureaucracy via a soon-to-be-created mass database. The idea is that these people will provide a ‘single point of contact’ for those concerned about a child, including its parents. No longer will a boy or girl in distress be allowed to ‘fall between the cracks’ created by different agencies.

But this is a benign interpretation of something regarded by opponents as profoundly sinister in its ambition and scope. This is like “Big Brother is watching you”. Simon Calvert of the Christian Institute, a main backer of No2NP, puts it simply: ‘The Named Person scheme is a Civil Service tick-box approach to family life, patronising parents, over-assessing children and trampling on people’s right to confidentiality.

‘Do these “experts” ever stop to ask themselves how the family has managed to function for millennia without them? Just who do these people think they are?’

While the timing is uncertain, the move ups the ante in an intensifying nuclear arms race between the US and China that heightens the risk of war. Since coming to office, the Obama administration has engaged in a military build-up and strengthening of alliances throughout Asia in preparation for war with China. It has committed more than $1 trillion over 30 years to the upgrading and expansion of the US nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.

The Chinese regime has responded by taking measures to maintain its ability to launch a reprisal in the event of a US nuclear attack on its military apparatus, cities and leadership. The decision to send nuclear-armed nuclear submarines (SSBNs) on patrol in the Pacific Ocean is the latest step in Beijing’s efforts to protect its relatively small nuclear force — estimated at 260 warheads, as compared to 7,000 for the US.

The nuclear arms race is compounding the increasingly volatile and unpredictable situation in Asia. As American academic Jeffrey Lewis, from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey, told the Guardian: “The law of unintended consequences is in danger of taking the upper hand. The two sides may thus be stumbling blindly into severe crisis, instability and growing competition by China with respect to strategic forces. A competition between unevenly matched forces is inherently unstable.” In its own cautious way, Lewis’s comment is another warning of the rising risks of a nuclear war.

In America today, nobody has a job in one out of every five families, and there are more than 100 million working age Americans that are currently not working. And thanks to our transition to a “service economy”, many of those that are actually working are deeply struggling too. According to the Social Security Administration, 51 percent of all American workers make less than $30,000 a year.

And the Federal Reserve says that 47 percent of all Americans could not pay an unexpected $400 emergency room bill without borrowing the money from somewhere or selling something. That means that about half the country is flat broke, and things get even more precarious for working families with each passing day.

Of course the plight of working families is not something that is new. Back in the 1950s and 1960s, wages and salaries earned by workers accounted for around half of all gross domestic income. But since 1970 there has been a precipitous decline, and during the Obama administration we hit an all-time low. In other words, the share of the pie being enjoyed by working families just keeps getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

Politics is no different. It is therefore absurd to frame the European referendum as a choice between a terrifying revolution (Leave) and an unthreatening embrace of the status quo (Remain); instead, what we are being asked is to choose between two radical change agendas with complex, unpredictable consequences.

Both come with risks and challenges; both are uncertain and will require adjustments; both will mould our country, our economy and our political institutions into something very different to what they are today. But while the Leave side has relentlessly (and rightly) been grilled about its post-Brexit vision, the Remain camp has been shamefully let off the hook.

It hasn’t had to explain how exactly it sees the EU evolving over the next decade or two, and what we would therefore be signing up to. Brexiteers have been confronted with the possible downsides of leaving; now Remainians must address the financial and political risks of staying.

Comfortable, middle-class voters who are considering sticking with the devil they believe they know need to think again. Voting to remain is a far greater leap into the unknown than voting to leave. It’s self-evidently normal to be independent and prosperous: just look at America, Australia, Canada or Singapore. But there are no known examples of a previously independent democracy being subsumed into a dysfunctional, economically troubled technocracy and doing well as a result. As mad gambles go, it is hard to think of anything worse.

The ex-Polish prime minister, who worked with David Cameron on his renegotiation of Britain’s EU relationship, also claimed now is the wrong moment to push ahead with further integration between all 28 member states. Speaking less than four weeks before the UK’s historic in/out referendum on EU membership, Mr Tusk delivered a candid speech to federalist euro politicians.

Top EU bosses have consistently warned Britain exiting the EU on June 23 could spark the entire break-up of the bloc. Addressing the European People’s Party to mark the 40th anniversary of the europhile group, Mr Tusk acknowledged “the spectre of a break-up is haunting Europe”. He said: “Obsessed with the idea of instant and total integration, we failed to notice that ordinary people, the citizens of Europe, do not share our Euro-enthusiasm.”

“Disillusioned with the great visions of the future, they demand that we cope with the present reality better than we have been doing until now. Today, Euro-scepticism, or even Euro-pessimism have become an alternative to those illusions. And increasingly louder are those who question the very principle of a united Europe. The spectre of a break-up is haunting Europe and a vision of a federation doesn't seem to me like the best answer to it.”

Back in February, I warned that escalating tensions in the region could be the spark that sets off World War III, but things seemed to cool down a bit in March and April. However, this latest move by Turkey threatens to take the war in Syria to a whole new level, and everyone will be watching to see how the Russians and the Iranians respond to this ground incursion.

Most Americans simply do not understand how insane Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan truly is. Our “ally” has essentially become a dictator, and he is obsessed with recreating the old Ottoman empire. These days, political rallies in support of Erdogan are quite reminiscent of what Nazi rallies under Adolf Hitler were like, and there is a nationalistic fervor in Turkey right now that is so intense that it is hard to describe it to someone in the western world. It is fueled by the rise of radical Islam, but what is going on in Turkey is broader than that. It is extremely dangerous, and yet nobody in the US criticizes Erdogan because he is our “friend”.

Are you starting to see how dangerous this man is? Our “ally” is an egomaniac dictator that dreams of recreating the Ottoman Empire, and he now has troops positioned in both Iraq and Turkey. And if he isn’t careful, Erdogan may end up starting a major war which would ultimately involve the United States. Hopefully cooler heads will prevail before events start spinning entirely out of control.