PUTIN DEMONSTRATES THE WEAKNESS OF THE WEST.

 

"Who in the name of God does he think he is ?" said US President Biden, speaking of his opposite number in the Kremlin, Vladimir Putin. Well, Mr Biden, Putin thinks he is Emperor of all the Russias and he's probably right.

In the 1930s, another psychopath, Adolph Hitler, decided that all ethnic Germans, or Aryans as he termed them, should be under one flag and so he invaded the Sudetenland, part of Czechoslovakia; the rest of the world tutted, but did nothing more. Prime Minister of the UK, Neville Chamberlain, flew to Berlin and came back waving a piece of paper which apparently confirmed Hitler had no other designs. Of course this was poppycock and it wasn't long before the German war machine, something which had been outlawed by various treaties and agreements, rolled into Poland and the Second World War began.

Three quarters of a century later, Putin began to pursue a similar plan. All Russian speakers should be under one flag, he claimed, and set about recreating the Soviet Union which had been broken up in the years immediately following the smashing of the Berlin Wall in 1989. Various new, or resurrected, states in the south west of the old Soviet area of control began to find themselves under threat, eventually invaded and ultimately restored to control from Moscow. In 2014, Putin took the bold step of invading and occupying the Crimea, legally an integral part of Ukraine; the rest of the world tutted, again, but did nothing more.

In recent months, Putin has amassed a vast army along the Russian border with Ukraine; the world has tutted, dozens of diplomats and politicians have journeyed to Moscow and returned with various demands, moderated with assurances that Russia has no intention of invading Ukraine. Little more than 36 hours ago, Russia invaded Ukraine.

Putin claimed that this was a 'peace keeping' operation and that he was only trying to bring peace to areas of Ukraine in which there have been separatist movements causing trouble for some years. What this has to do with Russia is a mystery; the same logic could be used by France to invade the Basque region of Spain or the forces of Eire to invade Northern Ireland. That Putin's claims were utter rubbish has been proven by the fierce fighting much closer to the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, missile assaults on both Kiev and a nearby airfield, locations nowhere near the claimed separatist areas.

During all of this, the United Nations has said very little and done even less; that it is a completely useless and toothless organisation which consumes vast amounts of money must be obvious to all. The European Union and NATO have made noises but done nothing significant to prevent the invasion and occupation of a sovereign European state by a highly militaristic and expansionary nation. The European Union, the United Kingdom and United States have made lots of noises and warned of very damaging sanctions against Russia, Russian organisations and wealthy Russian individuals. None of this has caused Putin any concern and the invasion has continued. Indeed, Putin has even threatened the Western powers that any actual intervention by them will result in the most appalling consequences, a thinly veiled threat that he may deploy nuclear weapons. The UN, NATO, EU, US and UK have all been shown to be utterly toothless.

Part of the problem is that the Western civilized, democratic world has, for years, allowed Putin to build a power base from which he is in control of critical economic elements. Much of Europe is reliant on Russian oil and gas, Russia is a major exporter of wheat and various essential metals; at the touch of a switch, Putin can virtually cripple European economies which have become far more concerned about the nebulous nonsense of equality, diversity and 'net zero' than in manufacturing. These European nations have allowed themselves to believe that Russia was a friendly country, one which could be brought into the fold, rather than seeing it for what it is - a state under the control of a vile, autocratic, psychopathic monster who will stop at nothing to achieve his ends. Thankfully, Hitler never developed nuclear weapons - Putin has them in thousands and has made it clear that he might well opt to use them if the West gets in his way. To all intents and purposes, Ukraine is lost and Putin has won  Round One of what could easily become a long and horrendous conflict affecting much of eastern Europe. 

Far too late in the day, Boris Johnson has talked of Europe becoming independent of Russian oil and gas although he has done nothing to ramp up production from our own North Sea fields or to give the green light to 'fracking'; in fact, it's only a few days since fracking was all but banned for good from the UK. With inflation soaring and an energy crisis already in place, Johnson actually has an opportunity to not only help the rest of Europe but boost our own economy, yet there is no sign that he will do either. 'Net Zero', and the 'equality, diversity and inclusion', lunacy which tries to redefine our culture and history, language and even our biology have taken precedence over all else. None of these are of concern to a man like Putin and they are a terminal weakness to a society which has become obsessed with such matters, inward looking and afraid to .stand up for itself.

Putin has won in Ukraine. Next stop - Estonia ? Lithuania ? Latvia ? Romania ? Poland ? Yesterday, President 'Sleepy Joe' Biden was seen smirking as he was asked questions about the current situation. Clearly the US will not intervene in a war which is many miles from its shores and does not involve a NATO country, but what will it do if Putin's next target is a NATO country ? What if Russian troops next march into Estonia or Romania ? Putin knows that the West is scared of him and what he might do if he is opposed; he has the upper hand, just as Hitler had, up until he went one step too far and invaded Poland. 

The parallels are too great. Putin is today's Hitler and he will not stop until he is made to, but is anyone brave enough to stand up to him ? We will soon find out.

CRESSIDA DICK - ON HER BIKE AT LAST !

At last, Cressida Dick has been fired. Why it took so long is a mystery.

It seems that this woman was earmarked for the top job from an early age and, regardless of whatever happened during her career, she was always destined to become Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. Somehow, her involvement as leader of the operation which culminated in the public murder of a wholly innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, who was chased by armed police officers and shot multiple times on a London underground train, failed to derail her career. Even the subsequent lies and attempted cover up had no effect. Dick still progressed to the top.

As Commissioner, she has overseen a force which appears to have more interest what people think than in what they do. While drug dealing and murder have spiralled out of control in parts of London, time and money has been spent on investigating the nebulosity of 'hate crimes' and, even more ludicrous, 'non-crime hate incidents'. Although some see the Met's initial refusal to become involved in investigating whether or not there were parties in Downing Street during COVID lockdown as a failure, I see it as one of the few signs of any sanity within the force. Sadly, the sanity, if that's what it was, quickly vanished and a full scale operation, reportedly costing up to £1m, was established to discover the 'truth' about the Prime Minister's cake-eating habits.

While the men and women of the force were spending their hours investigating thoughts in true Orwellian style, a serving officer, Wayne Couzens, was left free to kidnap, rape and murder a member of the public despite there having been more than enough known about him to have justified his imprisonment for earlier, uninvestigated offences. Officers at Charing Cross station engaged in passing around hundreds of highly dubious and seriously inappropriate messages with no one seeming to be concerned. This and much more was what Cressida Dick oversaw during her 5 years at the helm.

Today, much is being said about the need for the Met's culture to change; for God's sake, isn't that what Dick should have addressed from Day 1 ? Much is said about the failure to solve real crimes; again, isn't this were Dick's energies should have been directed all along ? 

Cressida Dick was picked out to be the Met's first female Commissioner from an early age and she gained that appointment, not because she was the best person for the job but because her appointment had been pre-ordained. That she's been a disaster should be obvious to all. That such an appalling mistake should never be made again is equally obvious. The next Commissioner must not be an internal appointee, indeed it may even be that it should be someone from an entirely different background, perhaps the military or major business. Whoever it is will have a devil of a time re-engaging with the public and turning the Metropolitan Police Force into an organisation which is trusted and which does the job the public expect of it.

TIME TO FOCUS ON THE IMPORTANT THINGS.

While Boris Johnson has busied himself rearranging the deckchairs, the 'drip,drip' of allegations of misdeeds has continued. The clearly coordinated assault on Johnson's character, equally clearly with the egregious Dominic Cummings hand on the tiller, has produced claims and pictures of the Prime Minister supposedly breaking all sorts of rules during the national lockdowns related to the late unlamented COVID epidemic; rather shockingly, much of the media has ignored it's own responsibility to be truthful and has painted every tasty morsel in the worst possible light, effectively prejudging the outcome of a police investigation which, itself, is an enormous over-reaction.

One of the worst examples of this emerged yesterday when it was reported that Johnson had been pictured surrounded by bottles of fizz and people adorned with tinsel. The photograph in question actually appears to show the Prime Minister standing at some distance from either people or fizz, which raises serious questions about the reliability of press reports and the media in general. How many of the other multitude of allegations, made by a coterie of anti-Boris zealots, have been similarly hyped up and  misreported ? 

Boris Johnson may well have broken rules, but he didn't murder anyone, nor did he actually injure anyone in any way. In fact he stands accused of what are little more than social contraventions, albeit that some of these had been enshrined in law due to the panic over COVID. However, the current obsession with pursuing 'crimes' which are no more than causing offence has led to Johnson's misdeeds being accorded a far higher level of scrutiny and far greater approbation than they deserve. 

It does appear that Johnson has, at least, been unwise at times and may well have infringed some of his own COVID rules; he may even have tried to cover up his indiscretions, though whether such behaviour is worthy of the character assassination currently being practised is debatable. Many previous Prime Ministers had their shortcomings too, though they were lucky that the internet, social media, instant photography and the paparazzi either didn't exist in their time or were less active.

It really is time to move on from what has now become a rather boring story. Cummings may be a very clever schemer but the continued drip of allegations, while it still attracts the attention of the media and Westminster Bubble in particular, for most of the population I suspect the story has now run its course. We have other things to worry about, such as potential war in Ukraine, dealing with the aftermath of Brexit, rising inflation, sky-high energy prices and issues of energy supply, a 'Green' agenda no one voted for, uncontrolled illegal immigration, illiterate children, drug gangs controlling multitudes of children, street violence, increasing restrictions on freedom of speech, police vigorously pursuing 'non-crime hate incidents' in preference to real crimes, and so much more.

Do I care about the honesty and integrity of our political leaders ? Of course I do, but today's mob are almost certainly no different to those of the past and the attention on the minutiae of their behaviour is hugely excessive. We all know that Tony Blair lied about Iraq's 'weapons of mass destruction', John Major had an affair with Edwina Currie while both were MPs and Major was a government Whip, Ted Heath misled the nation about the EEC, Harold Wilson had friends who were later implicated in cases of fraud and corruption and, of course, to go back to an earlier generation, William Gladstone was well known to have an interest in 'fallen women'. All of these, and others, were far from perfect. 

Today, there are far more important things to focus on than whether or not Boris Johnson failed to maintain a 2-metre distance between himself and others in his offices, or whether he partook of a glass of bubbly at a colleague's leaving do.

TIME TO RETURN TO REALITY AND FREE SPEECH !

I find myself wondering exactly what has happened in the world over the last few years. Instead of a world in which reason took centre stage, we find ourselves in one in which all reason seems to have been thrown out.

Dissent from any supposedly established view is not longer allowed and even discussion is shut down. Anyone who dares to say anything about the genocide perpetrated by the NAZI regime in Germany is labelled a "Holocaust-denier", called antisemitic or even labelled a NAZI themselves. Anyone who questions the established view on climate change is instantly called a "climate change denier", and all discussion is  virtually outlawed. Anyone who dares to try to start a discussion about the latest load of nonsense, gender identity, is labelled as a sexist, misogynist, transphobe, 'terf' and worse. Effectively, only one point of view is allowed, that being the view vigorously promoted by a handful of lunatic 'activists'.

What is going on ? Is it really the case that there is no alternative to the heavily publicised ideology of climate change and the 'Green' agenda ? I think not. There are undoubtedly alternative views but we are not allowed to hear about them, the government and media being united in their adherence to the supposedly unquestionable certainty of their position. That the 'Green' agenda has left our country dependent on imports of vast amounts of energy is ignored, as is the unimaginable cost of changing to all renewable energy sources within a couple of decades. 

When it comes to the matter of so-called gender identity, even our universities and major corporations have joined in with the lunacy. That the very idea of biological sex being sidelined has been accepted is insane; that anyone who wants to be seen as something that they are patently not, is accepted is even worse. I don't care what people do as long as it doesn't affect me and they don't try to impose their views on me, but I draw the line at the utter nonsense of 'trans' people being accorded the rights of whatever sex they decide to claim to be. We are being bombarded with the most ludicrous range of 'identities', people claiming to be not just homosexual or lesbian, but now we have bisexual, pansexual, non-binary, trans and heaven knows what else, and organisations such as the egregious Stonewall, promote all this rubbish as if it's all normal. I have news for them - it isn't. That some of our schools are promoting this tripe to our children is terrifying, and for universities and others to ban discussion and even refuse to allow people with alternative views to appear on their campuses is obscene, particularly when, at the same time, they happily accept huge financial support from the grotesque and tyrannical government of China.

Why do so few stand up against this tripe ? Men are Men and Women are Women; yes, there are a very few people who are born with indeterminate sex due to genetic abnormalities but these are not even included in the discussion. What we have is the introduction of a laughable redefinition of 'gender' to allow for anyone to claim to be whatever sex they like and to demand to be treated as if they'd been born with that sex. Reality check - NOTHING can change a biological man into a woman or vice versa. Appearance can be changed, even physical attributes can be changed cosmetically but the underlying body remains as it was born. 'Trans', as it's promoted, is the invention of a tiny minority of anarchists who simply want to destroy the basis of our society. 

Of course, all of this goes much further. We are being increasingly beset with rules, regulations and even laws which limit and criminalise our right to free speech. How can 'hate crimes' really be assessed ? What on earth is going on when anyone can claim to be a victim and their assailant is automatically deemed to be guilty ? How can simply expressing a view render someone potentially guilty of an offence ? This is the beginnings of an authoritarian police state akin to that of George Orwell's "1984".

Why is no one in government fighting against this ? Why are our schools, colleges, universities, public services and major corporations kowtowing and even providing their staff with badges showing their 'preferred pronouns' ? That this is all quite frightening is obvious and yet no one in authority seems to either care or want to do anything about it. 

God help us.