The shooting war between Russia and Ukraine has now begun. As always, Truth is already dead. There’s no point in regurgitating the breathless reports by ‘intrepid war correspondents’ from the frontline: we know that there’s big bad bully Putin on the one side and brave, innocent little Ukraine on the other. “We” know that we mustn’t believe one word Putin says but that everything now coming out of Ukraine is ‘Teh Truth’ and must be believed.

“We”, that is our own intrepid PM, are meanwhile shouting from the sidelines where it’s safe. “We” were treated yesterday afternoon to an outburst from Mr Ben Wallace, ‘leader’ of the MoD, who declared that the president of Russia had gone ‘full tonto’, meaning ‘he’s totally lost the plot’ (link).  

Mr Wallace also displayed his extraordinary grasp of history by telling his audience that “we” have ‘kicked Russia’s behind’ once already. Yes, well, that ‘kicking’, the war in the Crimea about 170 years ago, was achieved with the support of allies like France and the then Ottoman Empire.

I seem to remember a reverse backside-kicking inflicted on our troops during that war (link), immortalised in Tennyson’s poem, ‘The Charge of the Light Brigade’. I also seem to remember that such nationalist rhetoric beloved by those who can afford to posture from a safe place was called ‘jingoism’ and has been condemned for a good 100 years. Funny how the fashion in rhetoric has suddenly changed.

For the record, I’ll mention that the PM has adopted a similar rhetoric, this time a bit more modern. He’ll let it be known that “we”, the West, will ‘cripple the Russian economy’ should Putin persist. He’ll demand this at a virtual G7 meeting today, for which:

“Ministers are understood to be drawing up plans to hit Russian energy, defence and chemicals firms; to stop the Kremlin borrowing on the UK financial markets, and to block Russia from the Swift payment system, which accounts for about half of all high-value international payments.” (link)

Well, yeah: kicking out Russian oligarchs paying our big footie clubs will make them gang up on Putin! As for the other ‘sanctions’: it’s eminently reassuring that ‘ministers’ are now, after the fact, drawing up plans. Perhaps they might ask if Biden is prepared to stop importing Russian oil for which he cannot pay without Swift.

I won’t ask if any thought will be given about how hitting Russian energy and chemical firms might impact not just the UK’s but other economies. Are these ministers even aware that Russia might already have worked out how to disengage from Swift, or that they can sell their energy and chemical products to their big neighbour next door?

Never mind – “we” are strong in rhetoric even if we’re weak and woke when it comes to actual plans and measures. We only need to look at our own security chief who has now published a ‘guide’ to MI5 and MI6 officers. Words fail me utterly:

“Britain’s spies are being urged to consider their ‘white privilege’ and declare their pronouns as Europe descends into war. A leaked guide to improving diversity and inclusion in the security services suggests the agents should avoid gendered terms such as ‘manpower’. Spies are also advised against such words as ‘strong’ and ‘grip’ which can ‘reinforce dominant cultural patterns’. And they are encouraged not to speak on all-male panels. In the document – entitled Mission Critical – the chiefs of MI5, MI6 and GCHQ extol the virtues of diversity and inclusion, saying both are vital in keeping the country safe.” (link)

It seems to me that the time spent, or better: wasted on producing this guide would have been better used on analysing the situation at the border between Russia and Ukraine – a situation which at least our beloved MSM kept reporting about since September last year. How going woke will keep us ‘safe’ – well, one needs to be the security chief to regard this as an urgent problem. You might like to read the DM’s Editorial about this ‘guide’ (link).

Meanwhile, US politicians are thinking out loud about installing permanent US bases in Eastern European countries (link, paywalled). It doesn’t matter that this might exacerbate the whole situation in regard to Russia. Politicians in far-away Washington are facing the US mid-term elections later this year. A little war somewhere else and rhetorical belligerence have always been sure vote winners!

Is it too much to hope that the events of the weeks leading to this shooting war might make at least some of those politicians take Putin seriously – or is it too late even for that? Shouldn’t they, shouldn’t our politicians take notice now, when Putin warned NATO and the West that ‘outside interference’ might lead to ‘consequences greater than any you’ve faced in history’ (link)?

Perhaps he only means economic consequences, such as Russia stopping all and every export to Western countries. That would be devastating enough, given our shaky economies. Perhaps some not-yet-woke spooks might also recall that there’s a Russian enclave on the Baltic coast – formerly part of Eastern Prussia, where missile bases are installed. 

Still, all isn’t gloom and doom: yon Rishi will give a speech today where he’ll promise to reduce taxes to help the economy, hurrah. However, this won’t happen just yet, it’s ‘for the years ahead (paywalled link). Yes, it’s lots of jam tomorrow, not today, and it’s a lovely juicy carrot dangled in front of the nose of all us tax-paying donkeys. Let’s not mention that Sunak will reap undreamed-for revenues thanks to VAT on energy prices which, as we all have learned, are going to rise by extortionate amounts.

Perhaps that’s why Johnson is so gung-ho, demanding to cripple the Russian economy: he knows that our economy will be crippled anyway, thanks to inflation, extra taxation and sky-high energy prices especially for the latest enemy of ‘green’, gas. It doesn’t seem to occur to the clever Treasury mandarins, to the Sunaks and Johnsons, that people without money can’t spend it to kick-start an economy.

I’ll leave you with one other news item which caught my eye. It is too stunning, too delicious not to look at it:

“An effort by scientists to learn more about how magpies co-operate in the wild had to be abandoned when the birds worked together to sabotage it. The research involved catching Australian magpies to fit them with lightweight tracking devices. The plan was to gather data on their movements to shed light on their social interactions. Before any meaningful information could be collected, however, the birds had removed the GPS tags from each other. Within ten minutes, the scientists saw an adult female use her beak to break apart the harness holding the tracker to a younger bird.” (link, paywalled)

Well! Bully for the Australian magpies! Apparently, the researchers say, these birds might have regarded those tags as ‘parasites’ which needed to be removed. Let’s learn from them and remove the parasites on our backs, from the woke spooks to the warmongers to the blood-sucking parasites in the Treasury.

If birds can do it …

 

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