RUSSIA AND CHINA NOW RULE THE ROOST.

It seems that there is a belief, even a strong belief, that the Russian government has been involved in various incidents of international interference and terrorism. The evidence for at least some of these appears to be irrefutable and yet the rest of the world has proved completely toothless in its responses.

A number of years ago, Alexander Litvinenko was poisoned with a deadly radioactive substance, polonium, and subsequently died a very painful death in hospital in London. More recently, 2 Russian defectors, Sergei and Julia Skripal, were poisoned with a nerve agent, novichok, in Salisbury and, although they recovered, a British woman died. Now Alexei Navalny, a political opponent of the Russian leader, Vladimir Putin, has been poisoned with a similar agent and is fighting for his life in a hospital in Germany.

Alongside these appalling events, the Russian state and its operatives have also been strongly suspected of having attempted to subvert important elections in the United States and United Kingdom, as well as most probably in other countries too. 

The actions of the civilised world in response to these events have been such as expelling Russian diplomats, expelling Russia itself from pointless international gatherings and various measures targeted at specific Russians with dubious backgrounds. The problem is that none of this is of any concern to the Russian leadership, in particular to Putin who is undoubtedly the natural successor to one of the most evil men in recent history, Russia's former leader, Joseph Stalin.

While Russia goes about its subversive and murderous activities anywhere and everywhere, the Chinese government seems to be attempting to mimic the behaviour of NAZI Germany in ridding itself of a vast number of people whom it considers undesirable. The Uyghurs are an ethnic group, native to parts of China and who seem to have offended the government in Beijing. Consequently, many of them have been rounded up and shipped off to concentration camps in a remote area of China where they are being 're-educated'; reports suggest that they are actually being subjected to appalling treatment and systematically exterminated, if in less dramatic manner than that adopted by the NAZI regime. Various world leading politicians, and others, have made noises but nothing of note seems to have been done in opposition to this activity which some claim is akin to genocide.

It must also not be forgotten that the Chinese state exercises the tightest possible control over its people, often through technological means, and that its technology industry, in common with all Chinese industry, is also state controlled. Having become a major producer of many computer components and with effective marketing of its own products, companies such as Huawei now have access to, and potential control of, large parts of western infrastructure, as well as many millions of personal computers, tables, 'phones and so on. How have we been so stupid as to hand over such power with so little thought ?

As with the case in Russia, China currently has its most powerful leader for many years, General Secretary Xi Jinping, wielding greater authority than any Chinese leader since the dark days of Mao Zedong and his 'cultural revolution' that saw millions murdered. Also as with Russia, the civilised world has been largely toothless in its response to the atrocities in China, and is additionally in utter confusion about how to counter the technological control potentially available to this massive and anti-democratic state.

In reality, international diplomacy is all about fancy gatherings with important sounding names in exotic places; little of note is ever really discussed and, if anything contentious is raised, those whose behaviour is being questioned simply veto any actions against them. Thus the major powers, or those backed by any of them, are impervious to meaningful sanctions. The United Nations and its myriad of satellites absorbs vast quantities of money while delivering nothing of any real value - all decisions are reduced to the lowest common denominator, thus acceptable to all but achieving nothing of any note. Then they all sit down to an expensive dinner, paid for by us, and chat about the weather., their families, favourite sports or anything else that is utterly irrelevant.

Will the people of the world never realise that political organisations such as the UN, UNESCO, WHO, FAO, IAEA, IMF, World Bank,  (and the rest), NATO, the EU and so many more are designed to served those who profit from them who, themselves, are time-serving politicians, often ones who have come to the end of the road in their own countries. They have no desire to rock the boat as the first to be tossed over the side will be themselves. Consequently, the murderous activities of Putin, Xi Jinping and their counterparts in other places continue unabated and unpunished except for the rarest of cases where it's decided to bring some small fry to justice for overwhelmingly political reasons.

Politicians huff and puff and ask for our votes every few years, usually after they've thrown us a few crumbs of encouragement, but little ever changes. Then they elect, or appoint, their pals to high offices in international organisations to ensure that nothing changes there either. Life goes on, with the elite running things, enjoying the high life and getting rich, while the rest of us are expected to do as we're told and accept whatever comes along. Heaven forbid that anyone should ever risk upsetting the delicate balance of power that keeps the house of cards from crashing down. 

TORIES FACE OBLIVION - MAY SOLDIERS ON.

The absolute drubbing handed out to the Conservatives in last week's local elections must surely send a message to their senior management - time is up.

It's very clear that the voting public have had more than enough of both major parties with the Conservatives losing over 1,300 seats while Labour also lost seats, rather than gaining the hundreds which John McDonnell had predicted. The Liberal Democrats (a laughable name) may be celebrating their apparent 'victory' in winning 700 seats but they started from such an exceptionally low base and were no more than recipients of votes from those protesting against both Conservative and Labour incompetence at the national level. Effectively, these elections had nothing to do with local issues and were all about the failings of the two senior parties at Westminster.

The responses from Theresa May and Jeremy Corbyn have been pathetic. They seem to believe that carrying on as before, supposedly seeking some sort of cross-party consensus on Brexit, is the answer. Mrs May is moving ever closer to agreeing to Labour's demands for a 'customs' union' and close alignment with the European Union, while Labour will, no doubt, drop their demand for another referendum; expect an announcement before the end of the week. The result will be a non-Brexit Brexit which will satisfy no one other than those who cobble it together.

There is no doubt that Theresa May is the least competent Prime Minister for many years. Gordon Brown was poor and Jim Callaghan wasn't up to the job, but we have to go back to at least Alec Douglas-Home or Anthony Eden to find a PM who was so unsuited to the position. Not only has this obstinate and useless woman failed, she has failed so catastrophically that future generations may well refer to "doing a May" as a euphemism for making a real mess of things. Her claims of having reached an agreement with the EU will go down in history alongside those of poor Neville Chamberlain and his "paper which bears his name" agreement with Herr Hitler.

May's record is one of unmitigated failure. From the outset, her virtual coronation as David Cameron's successor in 2016, she has proved to be incapable of leading her party or her country. It took her until March 2017, 9 months after the referendum, to get around to formally beginning the process of the UK's exit from the European Union. Then, for no reason other than that opinion polls suggested the Conservatives were well ahead and could potentially achieve an increased majority in parliament, she called a general election for June of that year but which she managed so catastrophically as to ensure that her party not only didn't gain seats but actually lost the slim majority which it had previously enjoyed. Her only means of staying in power was to place her government in the hands of the Democratic Unionists from Northern Ireland, which led directly to her next failure.

May entered into 'negotiations' with the European Union from a wholly wrong direction. Instead of telling the EU what she was prepared to do, she asked what they would accept. Unsurprisingly, having set all of the rules, the EU's representatives then set about making Brexit as difficult as possible. Six months of 'negotiation' resulted in the insanity of an agreement, purely so that things could proceed to the next stage, which neither many members of her own party nor of her government's supporters, the DUP could ever accept. The 'Irish Backstop' was a mechanism invented by the EU, in collaboration with the government of the Irish Republic, specifically designed to prevent any meaningful Brexit from ever occurring, and yet May signed up to it.

Over the next year, the 'Irish Backstop' became the main talking point and Brexit became dependent upon finding a way out of this appalling mistake. May simply carried on regardless, reaching a supposed 'withdrawal agreement' with the EU and then stubbornly insisting that this was the only way forward. Ultimately, Parliament rejected not only her deal but also every other option put forward, except, of course, that 'no deal' was unacceptable. May lost control of her Cabinet, with the traditional collective responsibility shot to pieces, of her government and of parliament. She no longer has any authority at Westminster and the local election results send a clear message that Conservative voters have no faith in her, or her government, either. Incredibly, she has continued to ignore calls for her to resign, simply saying that she will go once the first stage of the Brexit process has been concluded, be that next week, next year or never.

May initially said that she would deliver Brexit on 29th March 2019, and that no deal was better than a bad deal. What she's actually done is to agree an EU determined withdrawal agreement which included the 'Irish Backstop', something which was never going to be acceptable to Brexiteers. She has presided over a complete breakdown of collective responsibility within her cabinet and government, a complete loss of authority in parliament and a near disintegration of her party in the country. Despite the Labour Party having veered dramatically to the left under the leadership of hard-left Marxists, she has failed to capitalise, as has the Labour leadership on May's catastrophic leadership of both her party and country, specifically because of its own neo-Marxist unelectability.  When, or even if, Brexit happens is in the lap of the Gods, 29th March having long since receded into the past and new dates being chucked around like confetti.

To add to May's record of failure, the latest example is truly bizarre. The saga of the Huawei leak is something which even seasoned mystery writers would have trouble dreaming up. A leak of information, not subsequently deemed to be of any real significance, resulted in a great furore stirred up by Mrs May's adherents and a 'leak inquiry' overseen by the Cabinet Secretary. Historically, such investigations rarely, if ever, produce anything but hot air but, on this occasion, a culprit was identified within no time at all. Secretary of State for Defence, Gavin Williamson, was named and sacked although he has vehemently denied any responsibility; Mrs May and her mates have subsequently refused to make their claimed evidence public and have refused to allow the police, or anyone else, to re-examine the matter. It all smacks of lies, convenience, duplicity and cover-up; in any normal case, Mr Williamson would be allowed the opportunity to defend himself against what he says are fallacious accusations but not, it seems, in Mrs May's world.

Where is all this going to end ? Last Thursday, I spoiled my ballot paper as did, reportedly, at least many tens of thousands of other voters, exasperated by the utter incompetence and duplicity of politicians of all parties and levels. If, or when, we are subjected to elections for the European Union's ridiculous parliament, scheduled for 23rd May, I shall be voting for the Brexit Party which seems likely to garner a large, probably the largest, percentage, of the total votes cast. Thus far, the Conservatives have failed to launch a campaign for these elections, Mrs May no doubt believing that her party is doomed to a monumentally catastrophic defeat whatever they do; so inaction, which seems to be her forté, is seen as being preferable to making a pointless effort for which she could be criticised even more.

As if to add to the turmoil, pretenders to the throne are lining up for the inevitable leadership election. Some of the potential candidates are well known - Boris Johnson, Michael Gove, Sajid Javid, Jeremy Hunt - others are virtually unknown - Rory Stewart, Dominic Raab, Matt Hancock. Frankly, none looks like anything more than yet another of the party hacks produced by the Conservative Party over the years; certainly, none looks like a Prime Minister in waiting; in the absence of a genuinely talented and charismatic new leader, the Conservative Party is surely doomed to oblivion.

That leaves us with Jeremy Corbyn and his Marxist, terrorist friends to inherit the earth. What a glorious prospect.

IS WILLIAMSON A LEAKER OR WAS HE FRAMED ?

Well, Well, Well !! A 'Leak Inquiry' which has actually produces a result, there's a novelty, or is it just a convenient fudge ?

The Prime Minister has decided, on evidence produced by her chief advisor Mark Sedwill, that the recent leak of information from the National Security Council on the matter of Chinese telecoms company Huawei was down to Gavin Williamson, the then Secretary of State for Defence. Following a meeting with the PM, Mr Williamson was sacked, having refused to resign.

On the one hand, Theresa May, remarkably still the Prime Minister, appears to be certain that Mr Williamson is the guilty party; Williamson has vehemently denied that he had any involvement in the leak and that he has been the victim of a vendetta. It's been said that Mark Sedwill has had a longstanding dislike of Williamson and some of his parliamentary colleagues have also expressed a dislike for him. It seems that his departure from the Cabinet will not produce any great sadness. From Mrs May's perspective, she has achieved a much needed success, rooting out the perpetrator of a leak and acting decisively to rid the government of the offender.

However, Mr Williamson's protestations of innocence may yet result in more trouble for the Prime Minister. Williamson remains a Member of Parliament and seems to have the support of his constituency party. Although the matter of divulging details of discussions in the NSC is a criminal offence, no police investigation has yet been initiated; it seems likely that whatever evidence has been used as the basis of the decision to lay the blame on Mr Williamson, it is largely circumstantial and would not allow for a successful criminal prosecution. 

Regardless of the result of the Cabinet Office inquiry and given that the alleged offence is criminal, a police investigation must surely now be established anyway; is not Mr Williamson entitled to a full and vigorous investigation of his alleged offence in order to have an opportunity to prove his innocence ? Of course, having already made a decision and acted upon it, the last thing that Mrs May wants is for anyone to investigate further and potentially prove her to have been wrong, so a police investigation seems unlikely and Mr Williamson will remain in political purgatory.

That this is wholly wrong is obvious. If Mr Williamson is guilty as charged then he should face the full weight of the law; if he is innocent as he claims, he should be allowed to prove this in court. The problem is that discovering that Mr Williamson has been wrongly charged and sentenced in a kangaroo court set up by his enemies would be the final nail in the already battered career of Mrs May. 

Unless he can get someone else to admit to being the wrongdoer, Mr Williamson's goose seems to be well and truly cooked.

LEAK ENQUIRY OVERSHADOWS BREXIT SILENCE.

Following the reported 'leak' from the National Security Council regarding Chinese technology company Huawei, the government has announced the establishment of a 'Leak Enquiry'. Ha, Bloody Ha !!

Anyone who is old enough may well remember the utterly brilliant series 'Yes Minister', one episode of which revolved around just such a matter. A 'leak' of supposedly secret government information was initially received with horror and threats of terrible retribution, but then everything was calmed down by the suggestion that there should be a Leak Enquiry. The logic to this was that such enquiries never actually discovered anything but they did enable the problem to be kicked into the long grass and ultimately forgotten. It was also mentioned that leaks nearly always came from Number 10, so there was very little desire to discover their source anyway.

Some 35 years on, little has changed and life seems to be imitating art. Uproar has been succeeded by the setting up of the inevitable enquiry and the problem will be quietly forgotten; after all, how long will this investigation take ? How thorough will it, or can it, be ? What real benefit can there be in discovering and naming the supposed offender ? 

It occurs to me that the main beneficiary of all this noise is the Prime Minister, for whom this is another story to overshadow Brexit for a day or 2. Attendance at a media funeral, missing PMQs, now a right furore about leaked information; with local elections next week, is this all designed simply to keep Brexit out of the headlines ? Can it be that our government and opposition, who are colluding, are really that cynical ?

You bet they are !