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Shame

Rhetoric underpinned by action can be a powerful tool in War. It boosts morale and can weaken that of the enemy. Rhetoric unsupported by actions does the reverse.

We are constantly told that Britain is leading the world in sanctions against Russian oligarchs and in accepting refugees. However, the reality is a pathetic, weak, slow and incompetent response on both fronts.

It seems incredible that action on sanctions is being delayed because of government’s desire to ensure that what it does cannot be subject to legal challenge. This is a government whose leader is currently under investigation for breaking the law. It has picked an awful time to be scrupulous about legal matters.

What we should have done is take a precautionary approach and put all of the oligarchs named by the EU and the US on to our list and frozen their assets in this country and in all our dependancies. We should then have established an appeal system to enable those who have been dealt with unfairly to recover control of their assets.

However, we should have put Priti Patel in charge of setting up the appeal system. That way the need for the sanctions would probably have long passed by the time anyone secured a decision.

When we see what Poland and other front line countries are doing it makes you ashamed to be British.

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A Night at the Ballet

On Friday night, 4 March 2022, Matthew Bourne’s take on the Tchaikovsky’s Nutcracker was performed at the Liverpool Empire. The audience slowly filled the auditorium, greeting friends as they came in with smiles and hugs. Some having taken their seats were waving to catch the attention of friends they saw in the distance. The atmosphere was relaxed and congenial. The hum of voices relaxed and reassuring. The only warning being about the need to take your seats when the programme was “about to start in 2 minutes”.

The lights dimmed, the ballet began. Stunning dancing, breath taking sets and sumptuous music combined to meet all expectations. At the interval the arm of young girl in front of me described an elegant arc, clearly emulating that of the ballerinas she dreamt of becoming.

The second half built on the solid foundations of the first sweeping the emotions of the audience from climax to climax finally resolving in the triumph of true love. The curtain call delivered a much-deserved standing ovation. As the lights rose there was a feeling of happy contentment, of an evening well spent. People began to drift away, praising the wonderful show they had seen as they headed home through the familiar, bright streets of Liverpool. Just as many audiences had done since the theatre opened in the 1920’s.

As we departed just over 1,000 miles to the East thousands of women and children were settling down to a night in cold and crowded underground carparks or cellars. Mothers singing lullabies to distract their babies and children from rumbling and crashing sounds. In Kharkiv and Mariupol a continuous bombardment was reducing the cities above them, that had previously been just as solid as Liverpool, to little more than rubble.

In the blink of an eye someone’s home was torn apart transforming its occupant into a displaced person whose future was no longer that of a teacher, motor mechanic, civil servant or restaurant owner. Rather, a refugee with all their possessions in a single suitcase and whatever else they could carry.

A life, which a fortnight earlier had seemed as solid as the ancient buildings and modern homes of any European city, was changed forever. Whatever their prospects had been, the elegant arc of a rocket had delivered instant equality of misery.

In Liverpool, whilst a theatre full of people were enjoying the exquisite product of Russian high culture in a relaxed and taken for granted atmosphere of peace and stability. A short flight away, with barbaric savagery contemporary Russians were attempting to exterminate a nation.

Whilst in Liverpool the future seemed so solid and certain in Ukraine at the exact same instant the solid and certain was being dissolved in a ballistic instant. Killing and maiming many, terrorising and maiming many, many more.

Arriving home, the News at Ten, heralded by the reassuring chimes of Big Ben remained grim. But one item particularly caught the eye. A small but significant act of resistance. The whole of the staff of the Russian TV channel, TV Rain, resigned on air following the Russian authorities’ suspension of its operations because of its coverage of the Ukraine war. As they all left, one of its founders spoke to camera and said, “no to war”.

Their final act was to broadcast a black and white film of the Swan Lake ballet which had been shown on state run TV when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

A night at the ballet generating a kaleidoscope of emotions, uplifting, sobering, frightening and hopeful. We can only pray that, as in the Nutcracker, against all odds, true love will triumph. The resolute optimism of the Ukrainians is clearly infectious.

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Homage to Ukraine

I suppose it might be some comfort to think Liz Truss reads George Orwell, however, Homage to Catalonia should not be the set text for developing our response to Russian aggression.

To support volunteers with no military training (and if she meant only those with military training she should have said so, in terms) to go to fight against an overwhelming military force is practically useless and morally reprehensible.

Does she really believe that “supporting” volunteers to go to Ukraine is going to change the course of the war? More like it will just increase the death toll. It is a gesture which costs the government nothing but for volunteers possibly everything.

If people wish to go to fight, I admire their bravery and their solidarity with the Ukraniane people. The government should not prevent them but it should certainly not encourage them.

The western allies judge Ukraine will eventually fall after a bloodbath but the risk of nuclear war is too great for direct military intervention. Our red lines have been set around Nato. We hope that sanctions and long term armed resistance to an imposed puppet government will lead to Putin’s fall.

There are signs that strategy may work. Indeed there are many positive signs that Putin, encouraged by many previous successful probes at the norms of international behaviour, has overreached himself. There are people who can end this carnage now, but they are all in Russia.

It is truly inspiring there are people in our country and around the world who wish to risk their lives to support the brave people of Ukraine. I cannot encourage them, the Foreign Secretary should not. Any that do go and fight in the defence of democracy should be revered as heroes. We should pay homage to them and all the people of Ukraine.

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Why Sue Grey’s Report is Irrelevant

Why are Conservative MP’s waiting for Sue Greys report? We are told it will establish the facts. But in reality the facts are no longer in question. Were there breaches of the law in relation to Covid? Did the PM attend where the breaches occurred? Yes to both as admitted by the PM at the dispatch box.

The question is, did the PM lie to Parliament and the country when he admitted the actions but claimed they were unintentional and the fault of the advice of others.

His ministers are running around trying to see if they can get a defence to fly with the country. Jacob Rees Mogg has tried them all. Blaming the civil servants for arranging the breaches; the complexity of his diary; advisors telling him the events were within the rules; a PM focused on his big job and not the meeting he was taken to.

All of these are attempts to demonstrate there was no intention to break, or knowledge he had broken, any laws.

If this does not work there is the defence about how good the PM has been on the “big calls” he has made. How, all this obsession with Partygate, driven by the media and opposition, is distracting the PM from dealing with a vast in-box of issues not least the attempt by President Putin to invade even more of the Ukraine. Mr Rees Mogg even had a go at trying to undermine the severity of the breach by talking about how excessive the rules were.

However well delivered in the meliflous tones of the upper class, however remorseless the politeness and however supported by classical references, Mr Rees Mogg’s arguments for the defence remain bunkum.

In essence the PM’s own argument seems to be the age old defence of the nursery. “He told me to do it.” To which over the years parents and primary school teachers have responded, “So if he told you to jump in the river would you?”

Despite what some people may call him the vast bulk of the population do not think the PM is stupid. And certainly not so mind numbingly stupid as not being able to distinguish, for himself, when he is engaged in breaking a law he has designed.

The country has decided he has lied. He has a track record of this which many people discounted when he was lancing the noxious boil of Brexit, which had petrified UK politics for years after the referendum. Lying about breaches of the Covid laws, however, are lies about something intensely personal for many people. His lies were about behaviour which was in direct contrast to the behaviour of millions of law abiding citizens convinced of the sense of what they were doing to control a deadly disease.

But does Partygate matter? In one view it pales into insignificance when you look at what is happening in the world at the moment. The challenges and threats are significant and many imminent. Ukraine and Putin more generally, the rise of China and its threats toward Taiwan, global Covid, the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan, the threat of nuclear proliferation in Iran and the ticking time bomb of the existential climate crisis.

There is another view however which is about the challenge to democracy which is growing around the world. That challenge comes from “strong leaders” who certainly do not want to be held accountable for their kleptocratic behaviour by anything so awkward as democracy.

But it also comes from those within democracies who play fast and loose with the truth. Lying at the heart of government is corrosive. It involves more and more members of the government trying to defend the indefensible. Bending the truth, manipulating the facts, prevaricating to buy time. All the while undermining public confidence in the democratic system. It seems impossible to hold those who break the rules to account if they are rich and or powerful.

President Putin tells lies. He lies about state sponsored assassinations, little green men in Crimea, and the defensive purpose of a build up of 100k troops on the border with Ukraine.

It may be argued lying about breaking minor laws cannot be compared with the egregious life and death falsehoods of President Putin. But that would be a mistake. One of the fundamental pillars of democracy is trust in political leaders and this requires they speak the truth. If people do not feel trust in democracy they may be much less willing to defend it. Indeed they may be happy to try something different.

The PM behaved in a way which he knew would be totally unacceptable to the British public. He decided to try to pretend he had been misled into this behaviour. It does not wash. When you start telling lies to hold on to office you pave the way to ever more audacious falsehoods. Eventually, you do not lead by consent secured by convincing people with rational arguments you lead by force and state enforced “truth” which becomes whatever you want it to be.

The PM and President Putin may be at very different points on the spectrum in relation to lying. However, it is not a spectrum any leader should be on. People will forgive mistakes, they will even forgive some lies, but they will not forgive being taken for mugs. I am pretty sure the Tory party knows this and the PM’s days are numbered.