With Russian troops massing on Ukraine’s eastern border, and in Belarus, in readiness for a possible invasion, it is not difficult to paint Vladimir Putin as the arch villain. His actions in recent years have done little to endear him to us in the West: poisoning opponents, closing down opposition parties and media, engaging in cyber warfare, oligarchic corruption, the … [Read on]

Increasingly it seems we cannot trust the police and why should we? They used only to have to consider whether a crime was being committed and what action they would take. Now they make their own decisions, not as to whether a crime is being committed, but about whether they are going to stop it when a crime is clearly … [Read on]

The incomparable Jewish-American comedian Jackie Mason once commended Nixon over Watergate. He told lies but at least he sweated when he told them. The man had a conscience. But no sweat for Boris and his friends. Is it narcissism, Eton entitlement syndrome, or megalopsychia – the classical belief that one is a higher order ‘great souled man’? Whatever it is, … [Read on]

In scenes in the House of Commons reminiscent of the final chapters of Wind in the Willows Prime Minster Boris Johnson (Mr Toad) confessed to the assembled Stoats and Weasels – Labour, Lib Dem, SNP and other po faced creatures from the Wild Socialist wood – that he had held parties for the staff at 10 Downing Street during lockdown. … [Read on]

‘Ma’s out and Pa’s out, let’s talk dirt! Pee-poo-titty-bum-drawers!!!’ As a child I was a bit shocked when I heard that the esteemed (by adults) duo Flanders and Swann, had sung such a song, not on TV, ‘Auntie’ BBC would not have liked that in the 1960s, or Flanders apparently lingering in his Falstaffian basso over the word ‘drawers.’ These … [Read on]

Click here to give Tony Blair a kick where it hurts most, his enormous and all encompassing vanity. How this chancer of a political used car salesman somehow wormed his way into Downing St we will never know but the damage he did to our country is irreversible and many fear it is its death warrant. There is every chance … [Read on]

The leader of the Anglican Church Archbishop Justin Welby, a man given to increasingly bizarre pronouncements, told us in his Christmas sermon that we should show compassion towards refugees crossing the English Channel from France to Britain. I completely agree, if I understand compassion properly as ‘sympathetic pity and concern for the sufferings or misfortunes of others.’ Setting off in … [Read on]