During the Cold War, any citizen of a Soviet bloc country who made it to Britain and claimed asylum was welcomed with open arms. The fact people wished to take great risks to move westwards for safety and shelter, while hardly anyone wanted to move in the opposite direction, settled the question of which system
Home Boris Johnson, the Prime Minister, said of the invasion of Ukraine by Russia: ‘Never in all my study or memory of politics and international affairs have I seen so clear a distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil, between light and dark.’ He was speaking during a visit to the Ukrainian Catholic
Lviv, Ukraine On the Ukrainian side of the Polish border, near a place called Shehyni where the refugee crisis is brewing, an old black man approaches us. ‘Am I in Moldova?’ he asks gently in French, pointing to the fence. ‘No,’ I tell him. ‘That’s Poland.’ Moldova is 250 miles away. The man shrugs and
Is Putin a tyrant? Aristotle (384-322 bc) might well have thought so. Seeing the turannos as a deviant type of king, Aristotle tested the distinction under four headings. Was he subject to the law? Did he rule for a set term, or for ever? Was he elected? And did he rule over willing subjects? We
The wild one Defence Secretary Ben Wallace said that Vladimir Putin had gone ‘full tonto’. The word tonto is used in Spanish for ‘stupid’ or ‘foolish’, but one of its suggested origins has a meaning which would perhaps go down better with Putin himself. Tonto was used by Apache Indians as a term for the
Soft options Sir: In relation to strengthening the impact of the Russian sanctions package (‘Tsar Vladimir’, 26 February), please may I suggest three enhancements? Firstly, to encourage the UK’s Dependencies, such as the British Virgin Islands, to enforce the UK’s sanctions on the government target list of Russian criminals who are operating within their corporate
