Was Liz Truss denied a ‘realistic chance’ to succeed?

‘I assumed upon entering Downing Street that my mandate would be respected and accepted. How wrong I was.’ This is the crux of Liz Truss’s defence of her 49 days in Downing Street: the shortest-ever stint for a Prime Minister. It is also the start of her attempt at a political comeback.

Writing in today’s Sunday Telegraph, Truss gives us, for the first time, her account of things: 4,000 of her own words on ‘what happened’ last autumn and what she’s learned from it. Mistakes were made, she admits: in fact, they were all-but-guaranteed, she says, as she had ‘a vast amount to do and very little time in which to do it’. She repeats, as she did last year, that ‘communication could have been better.’ Truss is not ‘claiming to be blameless in what happened,’ though the details of what she most regrets are largely skirted over. But as she tells the story – from Boris Johnson’s resignation, all the way through to her own – it becomes very clear she places most of the blame elsewhere. She signposts nearly every political event with details on the many ways she felt her economic agenda was undermined, ‘by a very powerful economic establishment, coupled with a lack of political support.’

Who exactly was doing the undermining, in Truss’s view? ‘The Treasury.’ The ‘system.’ The ‘wider orthodox economic ecosystem.’ The ‘blob of vested interests.’ To her detractors, this will sound like borderline conspiracy; an attempt to place the blame anywhere but No10. To her supporters, these comments will ring true, as she details the frustrations of having to deal with a Treasury focused on ‘micro, top-down, tinkering’ and the Office for Budget Responsibility, which she describes as the real ‘driver of fiscal policy’: so powerful with its forecasts that ‘undervalue the benefits of low taxes and supply side reforms for economic growth.’

These economic actors are not the only naysayers. Shade is thrown at ‘the media’ for taking the many struggles facing Britain last autumn and using the government as a ‘useful scapegoat.’ Truss doesn’t pull punches: not even for her own party. While she does not formally add the Tory party to her infamous ‘anti-growth coalition’ list, she heavily implies it deserves top billing. ‘I underestimated the resistance inside the Conservative Parliamentary Party to move to a lower-tax, less regulated economy,’ she writes, while also accusing her fellow MPs of ‘triangulating with Labour policy’ over the last decade, instead of promoting conservative beliefs. No doubt recent rebellions within the Tory party over planning reform have emboldened her take.

But what really did her government in, she says, was not any element of her mini-Budget, which she still stands behind and believes would have worked to boost economic growth. In Truss’s view, it was the LDI pension scare that drove things off a cliff:

‘Brewing in the background there was an issue relating to pension funds of which neither of us had been made aware of – a problem that would ultimately bring my premiership to an abrupt and premature end because of the panic it induced.’

The Bank’s decision to announce quantitate tightening the day before the mini-Budget ‘put pension funds under pressure’, she says. Then the exposed vulnerabilities (and mismanagement) of LDIs explains the ‘dramatic movements in the bond market’, creating a ‘very difficult environment’ for the mini-Budget to succeed.

This timeline will be questioned: it was just hours after her then-chancellor Kwasi Kwarteng sat down from delivering the mini-Budget that the pound started to fall and borrowing costs for the UK started to rise. Over the weekend, Kwarteng doubled down on the plans, telling the world it hadn’t seen anything yet, and when markets opened on Monday the situation deteriorated rapidly. That was how the LDI crisis came to the fore – a result of fast-rising gilt yields following the mini-Budget – and the Bank started buying gilts to help steady the situation. 

This won’t be the only timeline quibble for Truss. Claims that it ‘would not have been appropriate’ to use the OBR for the mini-Budget because it wouldn’t take into account the details of a ‘Medium Term Fiscal Plan’ announced ‘a few weeks later’ seem to forget that the date for that fiscal statement was only announced by Kwarteng after the mini-Budget – as part of an emergency response to its negative reception.

But the debate that is sure to follow from Truss’s account of dates, times and events poses a much larger question: to what extent was the perfect storm that gathered over Britain’s economy last year a result of external factors, and to what extent was it her government’s fault? Interest rates were going up world-over last autumn, as the era of cheap money was finally declared to be over. But why did the UK lead the pack? The OBR does indeed have a history of underestimating supply-side reforms. This was witnessed during the Cameron years, as his labour market reforms boosted economic activity more than expected. But can one blame the OBR’s negative forecasting when, on this occasion, there was no forecast (on Truss’s demand)? 

For all the economic boogeymen Truss names in her oped as part of the problem, there is a rather important actor that doesn’t get much of a mention: ‘the markets.’ It is not impossible to believe that bias, and indeed pure politics, are embedded in the many institutions that weigh in on Britain’s economy. But in the end, it was investors worldwide – not politicos– who were looking at the UK and thinking the numbers didn’t add up. 

This is what, even now, Truss has not addressed: what happened to the spending side of the ledger during her premiership. In her account of all that went wrong last autumn, her plan to add tens of billions of pounds to the deficit for day-to-day spending is not included. 

Instead, she defends the Energy Price Guarantee, insisting that a cheaper, ‘targeted scheme was impossible given the urgency of the situation’ – despite targeted schemes already created and implemented by government throughout the year. She writes in today’s essay about radical plans to address the national debt, including ‘raising the pension age’. Of course none of this was ever mentioned during the leadership contest. If she had a plan for deficit reduction, the markets were not aware. No one was. The whole summer and early autumn were spent promising to borrow for tax cuts and more spending. 

Truss believes that she got the diagnosis of Britain’s economic woes exactly right. Today, she is asking readers to put more emphasis on that diagnosis than on the outcome of her attempted solutions. Some will symapthise with Truss was trying to do. Others will struggle with how little responsibility she has decided to take for what happened. 

Truss seems to think, despite her mandate from party members, that the cards were stacked against her from the beginning, not least because of a ‘broader consensus in favour of raising taxes’ she thinks has taken hold of Whitehall. Her supporters are likely to agree. Yet she does not address how the consequences of her premiership directly led to those higher taxes she detests: after all it was not Rishi Sunak, but Truss herself who handed the reins of the economy over to Jeremy Hunt to start fiscal tightening after the mini-Budget. 

Ultimately, Truss believes she was judged and pushed out ‘almost entirely on the “optics”’. That, and, ‘large parts of the media and the wider public sphere had become unfamiliar with key arguments about tax and economic policy and over time sentiment had shifted leftwards.’ That second point is almost certainly true. But after reading today’s essay, I continue to wonder (as I have for some time) if Truss lost her way too. She dressed up price controls and a massive-spending agenda as free-market economics, and is still defending this position as ‘economically sound.’ The Liz Truss of just a few years ago would have never allowed a prime minister, current or former, off the hook for muddling up such ideas. But doubling down on ‘Trussonomics’ is how she is reentering the political arena.

We’ll find out soon enough what the reaction is to her comeback: from both her fellow MPs and the country at large. Some will spring forth with praise – and criticism. Others will sit quietly and wait, wanting more than several months’ separation from events to decide what really happened. We’re set to hear more about ‘the lessons’ she has ‘learned in the coming weeks and months.’ Regardless of reception, this is simply the start of Truss’s return.

Why the West is reluctant to give Ukraine F-16s

Ever since Russia invaded Ukraine almost a year ago, the questions of if, when and how to supply the Ukrainian Air Force (UkrAF) with western fighter aircraft have been a matter of fierce debate. President Zelenskyy has made repeated and impassioned calls for American-made F-16s in particular, as have UkrAF leaders and pilots.  

A significant majority of people in Europe and the United States want to see Ukraine emerge victorious and at peace on its own terms as soon as possible. Therefore, it is natural that many are wondering why it is taking so long for western countries to give Ukraine’s pilots the formidable combat aircraft used by the United States and its allies to such devastating effect in every conflict since the end of the Cold War. After all, it is a truism in western militaries that air superiority is a prerequisite for battlefield success. Recent announcements by the Dutch and Polish governments have hinted that they might transfer F-16 Viper multirole fighters to the UkrAF, but senior leaders in the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany have all stated that they will not for the time being. There are several likely reasons for this reticence.  

First and foremost is the problem of Russia’s dense and highly lethal network of ground-based surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. The skies over the frontlines in Ukraine are covered by multiple layers of air defence threats from large, long-range systems like the infamous SA-21 ‘Triumf’ (known in Russia as the S-400) to more numerous and mobile medium-range SAMs like the SA-17 ‘Buk’ and short-range SA-15 ‘Tor’. In addition, Russia has also deployed exotic long-range sensors like the 48Ya6-K1 ‘Podlet’ all-altitude-radar, which can further increase the distances behind the frontlines at which the longer-range Russian SAMs like the S-400 can shoot down Ukrainian jets and helicopters.  

The US has supplied significant numbers of the AGM-88 High-Speed Anti-Radiation Missile (HARM) to the UkrAF, and these have been ingeniously integrated onto Ukraine’s existing Soviet-made Mig-29 and Su-27 fighters. Anti-radiation missiles like the HARM (and Russian Kh-31P that has been fired in large numbers against Ukrainian SAMs during the war) detect and home in on radar emissions from enemy SAMs when fired. However, if the SAM crew detects the missile being launched, they can generally avoid being hit by turning their radar to passive mode so it stops emitting energy that the missile can detect. Russian (and most Ukrainian) SAMs are also mobile, and so will reposition if they are fired upon in addition to stopping their radar emissions. The result is that while a lot of anti-radiation missiles have been fired by both sides, comparatively few have actually achieved direct hits on SAM systems. They can force SAM operators to stop transmitting with their radars and relocate temporarily, and so have a suppressive effect when used, but HARM has not come close to removing the threat from Russia’s air defences against Ukrainian jets.  

This matters because any western jet that might plausibly be supplied to Ukraine will face the same major threat from Russian SAMs. Even the full might of Nato air power would require a serious campaign at scale to degrade Russia’s integrated air defence systems, and would take losses doing so. Such suppression and destruction of enemy air defences requires hundreds of combat aircraft, with very complex mission planning, weaponry, aerial refuelling tankers, sophisticated surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft, and specialist training and practise to be viable. The relatively small number of western jets that Ukraine is likely to receive and be able to operate sustainably at some point in the next year or so will not come anywhere close to the required level of capability.  

Instead, western jets like the American F-16 and F-18 or Swedish Gripen, would have to fly at very low altitudes in Ukrainian service when within tens of kilometres of the frontlines to reduce the effective range at which they could be detected and tracked by Russian ground-based SAM radars. Uneven terrain like hills and river valleys, and even the curvature of the earth, allows pilots to ‘terrain mask’ by putting solid ground between them and enemy ground-based radars at longer ranges. However, in the largely flat terrain of eastern and southern Ukraine there is a limit to how effective terrain masking can be, and in any case flying at very low altitudes would seriously reduce the effectiveness of combat aircraft in many key missions.  

In the West, we have relied heavily on multirole combat aircraft like the F-16, Typhoon and Rafale to provide responsive and precise firepower in support of troops in counterinsurgency and intervention campaigns since the 1990s. However, this form of close air support requires fighters to fly above around 15,000 feet, outside the range of anti-aircraft fire and shoulder-fired MANPADS missiles. The fighters then use targeting pods with powerful cameras to find, identify and then designate targets for guided bombs and missiles. This is not possible in the range of enemy SAM systems, since fighters orbiting over the frontlines at medium altitude would be quickly shot down. At very low altitudes, pilots have an extremely short period of time – merely seconds – to actually see potential targets, due to the flat angle at which they approach and the high speed and evasive flying manoeuvres required to reduce the risks from gunfire and MANPADS. Using targeting pods and accurately delivering laser-guided bombs or missiles to hit moving targets on a battlefield is, therefore, extremely challenging. GPS-guided bombs or standoff missiles can be used, but these can generally only hit fixed targets and the precise coordinates must be known before a weapon is released.  

Ukrainian pilots would, therefore, be unlikely to be able to provide any significant close air support to Ukrainian troops in the battles that will define the war this year, even if they receive western fighter jets. Instead, western jets are needed to provide a crucial improvement to Ukrainian pilots’ ability to engage Russian jets and cruise missiles in the air-to-air role. Against cruise missiles western fighters could operate, as the Mig-29 and Su-27s already do, at medium level in safer areas of Ukrainian airspace away from the frontlines.  

Against Russian fighters and ground attack aircraft, western fighters flown by Ukrainian pilots would probably still need to stay at low altitudes to avoid being engaged by long-range S-400 SAM systems. However, if equipped with missiles like the latest American AIM-120C/D AMRAAM variants or the European Meteor missile, western fighters could much more credibly threaten and thereby push Russian aircraft away from the frontlines. As Ukrainian SAM systems continue to take slow but steady losses and risk running short of Soviet- and Russian-made missiles to use as ammunition, the provision of western fighters will become critical to keeping the Russian air force from regaining an ability to bomb Ukrainian forces effectively.  

Whatever western fighters are ultimately supplied, it will be a significant logistical and training task to create the ground-based support infrastructure and personnel to operate complex modern aircraft under fire from Russian missiles. Western contractors will undoubtedly be necessary at first to help guide and train Ukrainian maintainers, and any fighters supplied would be priority targets for Russian missile attacks on their bases, so would have to move regularly. This imposes a significant degree of political risk. Retraining pilots who are already qualified on Ukrainian fighters is less challenging, however, as western jets are actually significantly easier to fly than their Soviet-made equivalents, although they are more complicated to operate as weapons systems.  

Escalation is also overplayed as a concern, as due to the Russian SAM threat, western fighters would be almost purely defensive weapons in Ukrainian hands, unless deliberately supplied with long-range stand-off cruise missiles.  

Perhaps the biggest challenge is the opportunity costs, however. Western logistics and military personnel capacity is far from infinite, and so the danger with starting to supply western jets now is that the people, resources and supporting infrastructure needed to make it work will be diverted away from support tasks that are more urgent – most notably providing western tanks, armoured vehicles, ammunition and ground-based air defence equipment at scale for the major ground battles to come. 

Ultimately, neither the Russian nor Ukrainian armies are designed to rely on air support like Nato forces. Instead, they are primarily artillery and armoured land forces. The Ukrainian Air Force undoubtedly needs western fighters to improve its air defence capabilities and give it more strike options to complement ground based capabilities like HIMARS. However, the question is if the resources needed to make this work are better used elsewhere for now, given that western fighters will not significantly shape the land battles over the coming months.  

China won’t have gained much from its spy balloon

If you didn’t know any better, you might have thought China was preparing to unleash a large-scale invasion on the continental United States.

News of a Chinese surveillance balloon loitering over the picturesque landscape of Montana generated a wave of sensationalist coverage and panicked responses from lawmakers. We don’t know much about the balloon other than what the Pentagon has told us: the device, which was orbiting miles above the earth, made its way through Alaska’s Aleutian Islands into Canada before flying somewhere over Montana and drifting across the continental United States. On Friday, the Pentagon reported a second balloon flying somewhere over Latin America. And then this evening, according to AP, the balloon was shot down over the Atlantic Ocean, where the debris can be retrieved.

The balloons didn’t threaten civilian air traffic, although the airport in Billings was shut down as a precaution as the Biden administration weighed what to do. As the balloon passed over the US, F-22 fighter jets were scrambled in case President Biden ordered a shoot-down, but concerns over the debris field led Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Mark Milley to recommend holding fire.

All in all, the Chinese are unlikely to glean much information from the flight. Defence officials told reporters that the balloon wasn’t all that sophisticated, at least compared to other surveillance methods Beijing has already used. But this hasn’t stopped Washington from treating the incident as if it were the early murmurings of World War III.

Shortly after the news broke, Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy tweeted that ‘China’s brazen disregard for US sovereignty is a destabilising action that must be addressed, and President Biden cannot be silent.’ Senator Tom Cotton, a member of the Armed Services Committee, advised Secretary of State Antony Blinken to cancel his upcoming trip to China and hammered the White House for continuing to appease the Chinese. Representatives Mike Gallagher and Raja Krishnamoorthi issued a joint statement claiming the discovery showed that China’s recent diplomatic entreaties were likely a smokescreen and ‘do not represent a substantive change in policy.’

China’s behaviour, of course, is concerning and condemnable. Nobody likes to see an adversary fly over his territory or violate his sovereignty, as the Chinese clearly did (China’s foreign ministry has called the whole thing a misunderstanding, claiming the balloon was for meteorological purposes and expressing regret it drifted over the US). But it’s important to keep the entire situation in perspective: the saga over the big balloon is a simple case of espionage. And espionage, while it sounds sexy in books and movies, is a very ordinary occurrence in international politics.

Countries have been spying on each other since the nation-state came into existence. The Athenians spied on the Spartans before and during the Peloponnesian War; the Roman Empire had a unit called the Frumentarii, which among other duties was tasked with acquiring information in the periphery; the Byzantine Empire had a number of spies who proved their worth during the war with the Sasanians in the 500s.

And the art of intelligence collection has only gotten more sophisticated as the technology has improved. Today, everybody spies on everybody else; the Cold War was defined in large part by games of espionage, including surveillance flights, electronic intercepts, and human sources working deep inside political and military establishments. In fact, spying is such a common element of statecraft that the US, Russia, and 22 other states hashed out a treaty in 1992 to allow surveillance flights over one another’s territory (Donald Trump formally withdrew from the arrangement in 2020).

None of this is to excuse China’s conduct, but rather to point out that states want as much information as they can get, including but not limited to what weapons systems other nations have, where those systems are deployed, what their political leaders are thinking, and what plans they may have up their sleeves. This is especially the case when the nations doing the spying have adversarial relations with each other: the more intelligence a state can get its hands on, the better situational awareness it has during policy deliberations. The phrase ‘information is power’ very much applies.

The political atmosphere in Washington being what it is (getting tough on China is the one thing Republicans and Democrats seem to agree on), Biden has already postponed Blinken’s visit to China next week, where he was scheduled to sit down with Xi Jinping — the first time in six years that a secretary of state has done so. Sanctions will likely be discussed (sanctions are always discussed), and the China select committee that was recently established will likely come out with all sorts of legislative recommendations on how to clamp down on Beijing. If anything, the balloon will reaffirm in the minds of many that China intends to displace the US as the world’s most prominent superpower.

But one has to ask what postponing a diplomatic trip to China will actually accomplish. Outside of a public finger-wagging at Beijing, it will accomplish about as much as China’s balloon flight, which is a long way of saying nothing at all. It’s yet one more useless act of symbolism at a time when serious disputes between the world’s two most important powers continue to pile up. The White House claims to want responsible competition with China, but it’s hard to promote responsibility when substantive diplomacy is being cut off at the knees to mollify those who see the entire episode as a humiliation.

Is Germany the West’s weakest link?

At the height of the Cold War, it was Britain that appeared to be infested with Russian spies and moles. From the 1950s to the 1980s a series of security scandals, from the defections to Moscow of the Cambridge spies Burgess, Maclean and Philby, to the exposure of the Queen’s art advisor Anthony Blunt as a Soviet mole, made Britain in the eyes of her allies the weakest link in confronting Communist Russia. 

Today, with a real war involving Russia raging in Ukraine, that dubious ‘honour’ belongs to Germany. The Daily Telegraph has named a man arrested in December on suspicion of supplying secrets to Moscow as Carsten Linke, a 52-year-old ex-soldier turned a top official in the BND, Germany’s equivalent of our foreign intelligence service MI6. 

Linke’s technical expertise lay in signals intelligence or ‘sigint’ – and he is alleged to have had access to top secret data on the Ukraine conflict and passed on what he knew to his Russian handlers, meaning that information gleaned by the West on Putin’s invasion has been compromised. 

Germany’s embarrassment at the scandal is compounded by the fact that Linke seemed to have been spotted not by Berlin’s own counter-intelligence spooks, but by its allies who realised from analysing data that there must have been a mole at work inside the BND and tipped them off accordingly. 

The exposure of a suspected Russian mole near the top of Germany’s spy agency may be shocking, but it is scarcely surprising. Even before the collapse of Communist East Germany in 1989, the Federal Republic had been the top target for Moscow’s penetration operations. In 1961, Heinz Felfe, head of the BND’s counter-intelligence division, was exposed as a long-term Soviet sleeper spy. 

A decade later, Gunter Guillaume, a top aide of West German Chancellor Willy Brandt, was also revealed to be a Communist spy, leading to his boss’s fall from power and the collapse of Brandt’s Ostpolitik policy of cosying up to the Soviet empire. 

Cosying up to Russia continued to be a mainstay of German foreign policy even after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the reunification of the country. Gerhard Schroeder, Chancellor from 1998-2005, was on the boards of and was a passionate lobbyist for Russian energy firms, and has proudly boasted of his close friendship with Vladimir Putin. His open links with Russia caused Schroeder’s secretarial staff to resign en masse in March after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. 

Schroeder’s successor as Chancellor, Angela Merkel, who spent her early life in East Germany, deepened Berlin’s dependence on Putin’s oil and gas after she closed down Germany’s own nuclear power industry. After she was succeeded by Olaf Scholz, Germany had to be dragged kicking and screaming into severing or at least distancing itself from its close relationship with Putin’s Russia. 

Scholz’s initial refusal to supply Germany’s Leopard 2 tanks to Ukraine – only reluctantly reversed last month – has spawned ‘Scholzing’ as a new word on social media, meaning promising much but delivering nothing 

Germany’s reluctance to pull its considerable weight on the international stage stems from the dark days of its Nazi and Communist past. The inefficiency of its intelligence agencies is rooted in public distrust of state snooping because of the fearful history of the Nazi Gestapo and the Communist Stasi secret police forces. Meanwhile this week’s 80th anniversary of its great defeat at Stalingrad raises uncomfortable memories of the last time that Germany confronted Russia on the field of battle.  

For all its economic strength and its impeccable present position as a bastion of liberal democracy, Germany still has to learn that power should be accompanied by responsibility. It is high time for it to make its armed forces and intelligence agencies ready to defend a sovereign state against a barbarous attack by a false former friend.

Is the world ready for a Harry and Meghan rom com?

Those of us unlucky enough to have suffered through the six interminable hours of the Netflix Harry and Meghan series might now be regarding further updates from the less-than-dynamic duo with the same excitement that a dental patient looks forward to a round of root canal. But because the Sussexes have signed a multi-year deal with the streaming service in 2020, Netflix remains determined to get its money’s worth, and has decided what Harry and Meghan’s next venture with them should be: romantic comedies.

A source at the company has informed the Daily Telegraph that ‘There will be more of a heavy focus on fictional, scripted content. It will be rom coms, feel-good and light-hearted programmes.’ Given that Harry and Meghan was about as feel-good as a barium enema, this is a distinct change of pace, and potentially a welcome one, although Meghan herself is not expected to resume her previous thespian career: instead, the Sussexes’ artistic contributions will be limited to executive producer credits, the usual sinecure given to big-name contributors whose actual involvement in a project is limited to signing a few cheques and morale-boosting set visits.

Needless to say, both Harry and Meghan have described themselves as keen admirers of the romantic comedy genre in the past; she is a particular aficionado of When Harry Met Sally and ‘the Julia Roberts films’. As for Harry, he’s outed himself a binge watcher of Friends, although the question remains as to whether he’s closer to Ross (neurotic, involved in unfortunate entanglements with the opposite sex) or Joey (good-natured, thespian ambitions, intellectually limited). Given the Duke’s more eyebrow-raising revelations of his sexual activities in Spare, it is tempting to imagine him being played by a hapless Hugh Grant-esque figure, constantly getting into embarrassing social scrapes with (hopefully) hilarious consequences.

It is uncertain whether the deal that Netflix has struck with Harry and Meghan is going to extend to a recreation of their meet-cute, marriage and subsequent flight to California. If it did, and their lives together were to be turned into a 90-minute film, it would be perhaps the strangest romantic comedy ever made: the usual staples of the genre (kooky best friends, dating disasters, a last reel get-together amidst cheering crowds) would have to alternate with rather less amusing scenes in which the hero fights his family (quite literally, in the case of his brother) and battles the media. It would make for a bracing combination, but also perhaps not the light escapism that audiences are begging for at the moment.

This year has already been dramatic for Brand Sussex, but as sales of Spare are tailing off, the pair have stepped away from the limelight. Apart from Harry’s Invictus documentary, which is due to air this summer, they have largely weaned themselves off the oxygen of publicity over the past few weeks. Even an appearance at Ellen DeGeneres’s renewal of her wedding vows to Portia de Rossi was relatively low-key, with their presence doing nothing to overshadow the happy couple. A neutral observer might even start to wonder if, after the hoo-ha of the previous few years, they are beginning to weary of the spotlight.

Yet there are no neutral observers when it comes to Harry and Meghan, and so we all await the news as to whether they will be attending the coronation in May or not. It remains unclear, with only three months to go, whether they have been formally invited, and whether they will attend if so. This continuing sense of ‘will they, won’t they’ has its own inbuilt drama: dare one suggest it, but the sword of Damocles that now hangs above the Royal Family thanks to its most notorious former members’ continued actions is a far more engaging spectacle than anything likely to emerge from the Netflix deal. With the Sussexes, fact remains much more watchable than fiction.

Putin will stick to his world war two narrative – it’s all he’s got left

‘It’s unbelievable but true,’ Vladmir Putin said on the 80^th anniversary of the conclusion of the battle of Stalingrad. ‘We are again being threatened by German Leopard tanks.’

The Russian president is once again turning to an old staple he has often used to rally support in the absence of a genuine, unifying ideology: the great patriotic war, as the Russians call the eastern front in world war two. And this time, he’s doing it as he wages a war in Ukraine he has sought to portray as existential, while Russia struggles to mobilise resources, personnel and morale.

The trouble with grand narratives – particularly ones where the fictions are rooted in reality – is that the longer you repeat them, the more likely you are to start believing them. And in the case of Russia’s victory in world war two – celebrated on 9 May – Putin has been doing this for nearly 20 years, gradually building a mythology of a state under siege from the dark forces of absolute evil.

It started innocuously enough, in 2005, when the Kremlin decided to revive Soviet-style mass celebrations on May 9, to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of victory day. By 2015 – a year after the annexation of Crimea and the start of the so-called Russian Spring in Ukraine, when patriotically-minded volunteers mobilised to ‘defend’ Russian-speakers in Donbas from fictional Ukrainian ‘fascists’ – it had become the biggest celebration in Russia. By then, the narrative was that Russia was defending itself against a collective West bent on partitioning the country and stealing its resources, or just destroying it out of malice, depending on which pro-Kremlin pundit spun the tale.

The Soviet victory over Nazism has always been an emotionally fraught issue. On the one hand, Russia (and Ukraine) made enormous sacrifices to defeat an invading foe that was actually bent on partitioning the country and stealing its resources. Celebrating it could have been a way to foster a healthy patriotism in a nation stripped of ideology.

But on the other, Putin’s fixation on this victory served to conceal its flip side: the Stalinist policies and repressions that wiped out not just the country’s best generals, but millions of civilian lives – and with it a good portion of its political, economic and intellectual elite.

What Russia needed was a reckoning with its past – but what it got was whitewashing. Putin ended up exploiting a deep collective trauma based on an existential fear of the government, repressed it to the darkest pits of the collective psyche, then projected it onto an outward foe. In the short term, this process produced exactly the kind of Stockholm syndrome that served to rally many in the security and military elites around a government otherwise lacking in legitimacy. But eventually, the runaway train that Putin unleashed – for there is no evidence to suggest it was part of a coherent strategy – led the country into war, with the president himself believing that you win or you die.

And so, as Putin digs in for a long-haul war in Ukraine, he will increasingly frame it through the lens of the patriotic war mythology. Germany’s decision to give Ukraine tanks will inevitably play into this. But this is where things get complicated.

The mythology has served Putin well in mobilising his security elites and ensuring their loyalty. But there are limits when it comes to the public. The Russian government has outlawed the use of ‘war’ or ‘invasion’ when talking about the ‘special military operation’ for a reason. And despite opinion polls claiming a majority of Russians support the war, in fact only a small minority agree to take part in the polls, skewing the picture towards those with a favorable view, and leaving out those too scared to share their opinion.

Only dread – dark, absolute dread, buried, compressed and then rechanneled over years in a spiraling feedback loop between Putin and his security elite – can skew one’s cognitive faculties to such an extent that tanks sent to defend against an invading force are made out to be the invaders. A people brave enough to defeat Nazism – as the Russians and Ukrainians did – will ultimately find the bravery to defeat that dread, as history has demonstrated. For Putin and his security hawks, it may well be too late – and they will stick to the only myth they have left.

Playgrounds are no place for Pride parades

Parents standing at the school gate have all kinds of hopes and expectations. They want their children to be happy, well looked-after and to learn something. Thankfully, most teachers agree. But for some classroom activists, education is less about the three Rs and more about LGBTQ+. Rather than geography and history, they teach gender identity and sexuality. Instead of team sports, they might encourage ten-year-old girls who bind their chest to do something less energetic. And rather than Easter bonnet parades there are Pride marches. That’s right. Playground Pride Parades. For four year-olds.

Back in 2018, the head teacher of Heavers Farm Primary School in south east London decided to line her tiny charges up for an LGBT pride march. A letter sent home to parents explained the drill was about ‘celebrating the differences that make you and your child’s family special’.

Everyone loves rainbows and flags and celebrations and being special. But you don’t need a degree in Queer Theory to work out what’s really going on here. Tiny children, barely more than toddlers, are being taught that some families have two mums, or two dads, or a parent who was once a daddy but is now a mummy. It isn’t too much of a stretch to imagine them being told that they too might have been born in the wrong body and, even though they were told by wicked doctors they were a boy, are really a girl. And all this is perfectly normal. Something to celebrate, in fact.

One brave mother, Izzy Montague, objected to her young son’s forced inclusion in the march. When she was told by the school’s head teacher that her child could not be excused from the event, she complained. What happened next manages, incredibly, to be even more bizarre than the spectacle of playground Pride. 

Rather than smoothing things over, the head teacher hauled Mrs Montague into school for a lecture – about Stonewall, women’s rights and black civil rights. Mrs Montague – who happens to be black – claims she was told we should ‘thank the Lord’ for Stonewall because, otherwise, she would not have been able to attend the school. This is as inaccurate as it is insulting: the offence compounded by the head teacher’s daughter, who also works at the school and who apparently attended the meeting, wearing a T-shirt bearing the slogan: ‘Why be racist, sexist, homophobic, or transphobic when you could just be quiet?’.

Mrs Montague, a devout Christian, is now suing the school in what is believed to be the first case to assess the legality of LGBT+ teachings and compulsory activities in primary schools. You don’t need to be a Christian or even a mother to wish the Montagues every success. Schools need to be in the business of education, not indoctrination. Whether they recognise it or not, making four year-olds participate in Pride parades falls very much into the latter category. 

Children are being used as a captive audience for the political views of their teachers before they are old enough and wise enough to know what’s happening. The very fact parents object to such ‘lessons’ shows that what schools are dealing in is not accepted truths or new cultural norms, but highly politicised and contested ideas. Rather than socialising children into the ways of adult society, some teachers are engineering them into thinking differently from their parents.

Unfortunately, the head teacher of Heavers Farm Primary School is not alone in assuming the role of schools is to indoctrinate children into paying homage to Pride and celebrating the achievements of Stonewall. As I wrote on Coffee House last year, the truth about trans teaching in schools is that it is endemic. Teaching about gender identity and sexuality is not simply the domain of activist teachers on a mission to convert, but accepted as best practice in schools up and down the country. What’s more, this ideology is not only promoted through extra-curricular activities – like playground Pride marches – but it has become the substance of the school curriculum.

In Personal, Social, Health Education (PSHE) lessons, primary school children routinely learn about gender, gender identity and sexuality. To spell it out for the unenlightened adults, this requires an entirely new vocabulary encompassing: lesbian, gay, cisgender, transgender, sexual orientation, bisexual, pansexual, asexual, gender expression, biological sex, intersex, non-binary, gender fluid, pronouns, transition, gender dysphoria, questioning and queer. This is the curriculum – to be delivered by the ordinary classroom teacher, Ofsted-approved and government-condoned – not crusading activists.

Let’s hope Mrs Montague is successful in her legal challenge. And then let’s spare every child from classroom indoctrination.

Welsh rugby is on the brink of collapse

Rugby is a gladiatorial game – as Wales’s Six Nations match today against Ireland will surely prove. But even the greatest commentators in the sport, such as the late Eddie Butler and Cliff Morgan, would wince reading the script of Welsh rugby’s spiralling decline. 

Wales has been more reliant on rugby to form the guardrails of national identity than almost any other country. Now the sport faces an ‘existential crisis’ in Wales. If anything those words, from the new head of the Welsh Rugby Union (WRU), are an understatement. They follow a BBC Wales investigation into the WRU last month which unearthed serious allegations of misogyny, sexism and racism inside the governing body. The former head of women’s rugby in Wales, Charlotte Wathan, has slammed the union’s ‘toxic culture’ of sexism, telling the BBC that she considered committing suicide after her experiences. She recalled a WRU male colleague joking in front of others that he wanted to ‘rape’ her. Another former employee of the WRU said that she wrote a manual for her husband in case she killed herself. 

Now a national institution is on the brink of collapse. After the documentary aired in late January the union could only apologise. The union’s then chief executive Steve Phillips added that it investigated claims with proper procedures but had – stating the obvious – ‘fallen short’ of presenting Welsh rugby in the best light. The reputation, governance and culture of the WRU was in such disarray that calls for investigations and sackings dominated Welsh radio and television. 

Mark Drakeford demanded ‘urgent and transparent action’; a chorus of outrage echoed by his cabinet ministers, while his predecessor as first minister Carwyn Jones said a Senedd inquiry should be launched. Sponsors of the WRU voiced grave concerns. The four Welsh rugby regions – Scarlets, Ospreys, Cardiff and the Dragons – wanted the entire governing board gone. To no avail. Steve Phillips insisted he was the right man for the job, backed by his chairman (and former Welsh international) Ieuan Evans. 

Phillips’s dramatic scramble for self-preservation proved futile; he lasted days. But the fact he survived more than a matter of hours has only shown how the infamous WRU boys-in-blazer club operates. When Evans was asked if his personal credibility had been impacted by backing Phillips to stay in post, he said that he was a ‘very loyal’ person. At least Nigel Walker, the new acting chief executive, appeared on the Scrum V programme after Phillips’s resignation to express ‘remorse’ and admitted that the WRU’s credibility had collapsed amid the ‘furore’. 

But the ‘furore’ is not over. Almost as shambolic as the union’s handling of allegations has been its haphazard public response to them. Earlier this week – in what was probably envisaged as a piece of strategic PR genius – the WRU banned choirs at the Principality Stadium from singing Tom Jones’s Delilah, whose lyrics depict the murder of a woman by her jealous partner. Talk about fiddling when Rome burns. Wales winger Louis Rees-Zammit, though not referencing the decision directly, wrote on Twitter shortly after the news was public: ‘All the things they need to do and they do that first…’ 

Whether the union can survive as an institution is uncertain. When Walker and Evans were hauled in front of a Senedd committee on Thursday, they were told by politicians that they were ‘in last chance saloon’. Their evidence was uncomfortable: the chief executive and chairman admitted their £100 million business was ‘in denial’ about sexism and misogyny, while acknowledging that there had been ‘warning signs’ about these issues. Things are so bad that Evans conceded that the WRU needed to demonstrate it was ‘a modern fit-for-purpose organisation.’ 

‘Governance doesn’t stop, it evolves,’ the chairman noted as he outlined his priorities last year. Events have forced an evolution to become a revolution. An external independent taskforce appointed by Evans begins its work next week investigating the allegations, and the chairman has unveiled welcome and long overdue proposals to modernise the union. If proposals are voted through by 75 per cent of national members at an extraordinary general meeting next month, at least five women will be on the WRU board with the chief executive or new independent chair expected to be female. Further reforms include increasing the number of independent directors as well as balancing the influence of professional and community game representatives. 

If they get their way, Evans and Walker will likely restructure their way out of a job. But the WRU has rarely had capacity for implementing reform. Convincing rugby clubs nationally of the need for radical action at breakneck speed will be a challenge, the 75 per cent votes needed for a mandate are perhaps too high. Evans and Walker must now adopt a campaign mentality if they want Welsh rugby governance to survive after March. 

And beyond these issues, the union must urgently work on other fronts. Director of the Scarlets and television executive Ron Jones, for example, has described the union’s relationship with regions as ‘abusive’ and said that clubs have been ‘bullied’ during discussions over their financial agreements. The union’s promotion of Welsh culture, most notably the language, is poor. On the day of Phillips’ resignation last weekend, for example, Evans didn’t even want to be interviewed in Welsh on the BBC. The Football Association of Wales, by contrast, has given an international profile to Cymraeg. 

A reset and rebrand to the WRU may be too much to ask when it has been so reluctant to change. But Evans and Walker are now accountable to bring their entire organisation with them and act on discrimination allegations. The Welsh Labour government must also do far more to apply pressure on the WRU than it has already, considering that it provided public money to support the union during Covid and that Gower’s MP Tonia Antoniazzi raised sexism and misogyny claims at the WRU last year with ministers. 

After two weeks of crises, the start of the Six Nations campaign offers a brief respite for the WRU. In spite of the advent of Welsh football on a global stage, rugby match days still give the country an unbridled opportunity to express its national pride. But whether the return of Warren Gatland as head coach can inspire Wales to triumph over Ireland today seems irrelevant. Welsh rugby is already badly beaten. 

No man should ever be sent to a women’s prison again

It’s interesting, the way that laws and policy can change seemingly out of the blue.

In April last year, following a massive outcry from feminists and others concerned about trivial matters such as the safety and wellbeing of incarcerated women, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) released a press statement about changes to the policy on transgender prisoners, which was presumably in response to public disquiet about the creeping invasion of extreme transgender ideology into state agencies.  

Prisons are full of women who have been sexually assaulted and raised in homes with domestic violence, sexual abuse and neglect. The current conviction rate for reported rapes is currently less than 1 per cent in England and Wales. Shockingly, it is more likely that the victim of a rape will end up in prison as a result of the trauma inflicted upon her than that the rapist will end up in prison as a result of the rape he committed. 

When we look at the likes of prolific sex offender Karen White, we should be clear that men, however they decide to identify, have absolutely no place in women’s prisons. After being incarcerated, White, a trans-identified male, went on to further abuse women. Liberal media outlets used the phrase ‘her penis’ to describe White prancing around communal prison areas, terrifying women out of their wits by exposing his genitalia. This is not about modesty: it is about women knowing fine well that flashing is a threat of worse to come.  

Anyway, as a result of White’s situation, the Justice Secretary promised that by October 2022 ‘transgender women with male genitalia, OR those who have been convicted of a sexual offence, should no longer be held in the general women’s estate.’ 

But those of us who have been campaigning against the inclusion of men in women’s prisons are not stupid. The phrase ‘general women’s estate’ is a clue that these men would still be in women’s prisons but perhaps in a separate wing.  

E Wing in Downview Prison, Surrey, was set up in the wake of the Karen White scandal. It is the first dedicated wing set up to contain high-risk sex transgender offenders placed in a female rather than male prison. The men in E Wing are allowed to mix with the female population during some leisure activities. However, this should be in the men’s estate. 

This also does not change the fact that female prison officers are forced to encounter these men in the course of their work, being subject to verbal threats, sexual harassment or even having to carry out intimate searches on male-bodied people. One female prison officer told me about walking into a cell occupied by a transwoman who was masturbating and refused to stop when told to.  

The public are supposed to be placated by the fact that ‘risk assessments’ are carried out when the prison service is considering whether or not to send a trans-identified male to a women’s facility. This is nonsense and offensive to boot. The very presence of a male-bodied person in a confined space, where the majority of the population have been brutalised by men, is terrifying and unnerving.  

After interviewing female prisoners who have been confined with trans-identified males, I was told that if these women pluck up the courage to complain to prison staff about the trans-identified males they are locked up with, the women are warned they will be disciplined for transphobia. The punishment can involve the woman having her right to phone calls and visits removed, both of which are essential lifelines for prisoners.  

But lo and behold, following the massive national outcry about double rapist Adam Graham being moved to the Scottish women’s prison Cornton Vale recently, the Justice Secretary has issued an update on this policy on 25 January. It was reiterated that only in exceptional circumstances would trans-identified males serve their sentences in women’s prisons.  

The updated policy framework would:

ensure a sensitive and common sense approach to meeting the needs of women in custody, while we continue to ensure that transgender prisoners are appropriately supported in which ever estate they are located in.’

But this new policy also does not cut the mustard. Trans-identified males may still end up in women’s prisons under ‘truly exceptional circumstances’. What might those circumstances be? That they are vulnerable to bullying, harassment and sexual violence from other men? In which case, get the male prison estate in order and clamp down on the culture of rape, violence and bullying. Do not leave the most vulnerable and disenfranchised women in society to mop up the mess. 

What we need is an end to men in women’s prisons, and that includes male prison officers. Why is this so difficult to understand? Women have a hard enough time in prison as it is, so the last thing we should be doing is pandering to the needs and desires of men who pose a serious threat to them. 

Last year, I interviewed Amy, a woman who was sexually assaulted in prison by a ‘trans woman’ who had convictions for sex offences against women and children. Amy, a brave and tenacious woman, brought a legal challenge against the MoJ over their ridiculous policy of allowing male-bodied sex offenders in the female estate. However, the judge ruled that barring all trans women from women’s prisons would be unfair and would infringe on their ‘right’ to live as their ‘chosen gender’. 

If this doesn’t tell you how little women’s safety is regarded, especially when they are in prison, then nothing will.  

At the time, the MoJ argued that the policy is about ‘protecting transgender people’s mental and physical health’, but it is obvious that there is a clash of rights between transwomen and actual women when it comes to protection from sexual assault. 

The reason we have single-sex spaces is because a sizeable minority of men carry out sex crimes and harassment towards women and girls. There is evidence to suggest that transwomen inmates are five times more likely than non-transgender prisoners to commit sexual assault on a non-transgender prisoner in women’s jails. Now give me your arguments in favour of trans-identified men in women’s prisons.  

Britain’s borders have become a joke

Were anyone still in doubt about the wholesale abuse of our asylum system by would-be economic migrants then the ever-changing make-up of the Channel boat arrivals should seal the argument.

Last year Albanians were among the leading nationalities of those suddenly finding themselves in fear for their lives in war-torn France. Many of them also claimed to have been subjected to ‘modern slavery’ as defined by the do-gooding legislation of one Theresa May. Belatedly, the UK government appears to be getting to grips with the Albanian racket.

Yet a new racket is already underway. So far this year, it is Indian nationals who are dominating the dinghies, with the Times reporting that 250 have crossed the Channel to claim asylum in the UK already in 2023, more than came via the route in the first nine months of 2022. As was the case in respect of Albania, it should be noted that India is not at war with anyone and is a reasonably functional democracy.

But plans by the UK government to limit student admissions from India to those winning places at top universities and to reduce entitlements to bring in family members alongside them mean the exploitation of the student visa route for wider migration purposes could be coming to an end. Arriving on a dinghy and lodging an asylum claim also means getting to the UK without having to pay international student tuition fees averaging around £15,000 a year to an accredited higher education establishment.

It was the right-wing economist Milton Friedman who observed that a country could have open borders or a welfare state, but not both. While he favoured the former, the British electorate has tended to vote for the latter. In reality, the UK governing class has been presiding over both, thereby facilitating a ruinous level of free-riding.

A major part of the attraction of Britain to people from countries where pay is low and without much in the way of welfare guarantees is undoubtedly the extensive and fairly open-access social safety net funded by UK taxpayers. So is the ability to secure paid employment in the informal, cash-in-hand economy and the existence in our major cities of diaspora communities from almost every country on earth.

People from poorer countries will use any available method to get to live in richer ones. In the age of affordable mass travel, the potential numbers of international immigrants wishing to live in a country such as the UK is almost limitless.

And far from the most persecuted people arriving on our shores via the dinghy service run by people traffickers, it often appears to be young men from relatively monied backgrounds who win out in this contest run under the current Hunger Games set-up involving arduous journeys across Europe and the payment of back-handers along the way.

The embryonic Indian surge merely underlines how crucial it is that the UK should exempt itself in short order from its present obligation to consider asylum claims from an unlimited number of foreign nationals who may arrive on its shores and wish to lodge an application.

When people from vast countries such as India, population 1.3 billion, start latching on to the asylum route as the obvious way round a clampdown on a student bulge which itself saw a doubling of admissions between 2019 and 2022, it is clear a tipping point has been reached.

The unveiling by Rishi Sunak, possibly as soon as the end of this month, of proposed new legislation to forbid asylum claims by illegal arrivals and guarantee their swift removal will initiate the mother of all ideological battles all the way to the next election and beyond.

Those who believe in communal obligation mediated by the nation state, with institutions such as a National Health Service paid for out of something called National Insurance and reserved primarily for compatriots will be pitched against ‘no borders’ leftist ideologues believing in the fuzzy notion of global citizenship – people for whom the utopian sentiments of John Lennon’s schmaltzy song Imagine form an actual political wish-list.

‘Imagine there’s no countries, it isn’t hard to do,’ sang Lennon. But for tens of millions of us it is in fact unthinkable.

It’s time to talk about Nato membership for Ukraine

There was a time when Ukraine’s accession to Nato was a fantasy. It wasn’t just that Ukraine was dismally poor, politically unstable, or highly corrupt – though all these factors played a role. Nor was it just that Ukraine’s rusting, unwieldy post-Soviet wreck of an armed force was not exactly Nato material.  

The bigger reason was Russia. The West wanted to indulge Russia and to partner with it. It wanted Russia to know that while its claims to a special sphere of influence in Ukraine could not be publicly accepted, they could and would be tacitly respected if Russia learned to behave. 

Russia’s brutal invasion of Ukraine upended all that. The Kremlin has burned bridges to the West, blatantly, with great relish, and without remorse. This newly radicalised state no longer has a stake in the European security order. Whatever legitimate security interests Russia may be judged to have had prior to invading Ukraine, it freely and unilaterally abrogated them and thus obviated the need to humour the Russians lest they become upset and throw a fit. 

Admitting Ukraine into Nato is no longer an outlandish, provocative idea. If anything it seems like the natural thing to do. It helps that, almost a year after the Russian invasion, Kyiv has developed a close cooperative relationship with Nato allies. The West has agreed to supply Ukraine with sophisticated modern weapons, including most recently Leopard 2 and M1 Abrams tanks. There is already a high degree of intelligence sharing and joint planning. Ukraine is already a de facto Nato ally, and an incredibly effective one at that.  

It would at first seem unlikely that a country mired in war with a nuclear power would make a good candidate for Nato membership, but nor does it have to happen overnight. Putting the offer on the table could be an attractive way to prefigure Europe’s postwar security environment.  

Ukraine’s Nato membership could still be possible even if the conflict ended in a stalemate, with Russia still occupying a substantial part of Ukraine’s internationally recognised territory. It ought to be recalled that when in 1955 West Germany joined Nato, it too was a divided state, which did not prevent its successful integration into the alliance. West Germany then rapidly became a most important pillar in the alliance. It took a further 35 years for West Germany to be reunited with its bankrupt evil twin in the East.  

Throughout the Cold War Moscow worked tirelessly to split up Nato by playing on the internal contradictions of its member states. It failed, not least because its own aggressive behaviour invariably brought allies together, even when they had real disagreements. The fates of Nato and Europe became closely linked, which is why even as the Cold War ended, Nato survived and indeed expanded eastward, helping anchor eager but deeply insecure East and Central European democracies to the European project.  

Ukraine was left in the lurch, which certainly contributed to Putin’s calculus as he plotted to subdue it. Some hopeful noises about Ukraine’s eventual membership – epitomised in the 2008 Bucharest Declaration – did enough to stir Putin’s jealousies but not enough to deter him from a fateful misadventure. It is now a good time to correct this oversight and make a clear commitment to Ukraine’s eventual membership in the alliance.  

Will the Russians complain? Sure. Moscow complained in 1990, when it faced the reality of united Germany’s membership of Nato. At the time, US President George H.W. Bush sought to convince Mikhail Gorbachev that Germany’s membership served Moscow’s interests because keeping it in the alliance would ‘guard against uncertainty and instability.’ Fundamentally, it was in the Soviet interest that Europe remained secure and prosperous.  

True, some in the Soviet military establishment voiced fears about Moscow giving up its positions in East Germany but it is hard to disagree with then-Gorbachev’s aide Anatoly Chernyaev who argued, in a memorandum to his boss in May 1990, that Soviet security did not depend on having forces in East Germany, because the Soviet Union was a nuclear power. Who would dare attack it? Gorbachev went along, perhaps because he shared Chernyaev’s logic, or maybe because he simply did not have a choice.  

Russia’s choices today are even more circumscribed, which gives the West considerable latitude in shaping the postwar environment. It is an environment where Ukraine may well emerge as a major military player in Europe. It will command one of the better-armed and by far the most experienced armies on the continent. Leaving Ukraine in a state of purposeless drift will create just the kind of uncertainty and instability that so worried George H.W. Bush in 1990. It would be a mistake that we cannot afford to make.  

Anchoring Ukraine in the North Atlantic alliance will thus be both in Ukraine’s and in the West’s interest. Moreover, any enlightened Russian political analyst, reflecting on the poignant consequences of Putin’s hare-brained gamble, will fully appreciate that Ukraine in Nato is a much better deal for Russia than Ukraine outside of Nato. Ukraine’s membership would help build confidence across the region and tie Kyiv more firmly to accountable western institutions, reassuring Russia and Ukraine’s other neighbours.  

Above all, it will encourage Moscow to accept Europe’s new realities and deter Putin’s successors from shooting themselves in the foot by invading Ukraine again.  It is thus that Ukraine’s European future and Russia’s return to happy normality have become intrinsically intertwined.  

How to stay sober-smug after Dry January

I simply love being sober. Isn’t it fun? Being totally level-headed throughout the day. Why would you want a glass of red when you can substitute some cranberry juice? January is just the perfect time to give up all of your vices because you get to hear, collectively, how great everybody feels. How much more productive and energetic your pals are after swapping out the sauvignon blanc for sparkling water. I’ll probably never have a drink again. I don’t even think about it.

Then there’s the exercise. The only thing better than putting down the bottle is doing it amid multiple gym classes. HIIT class on Mondays, the best day of the week. Then I get to meet up with Jenny for Zumba on Wednesdays. Get those hips moving! Ahhh, I just adore it. Don’t you? And my personal trainer, Taylor, well, he was only supposed to be a January treat, but I’ve really got into fitness now so he’s staying. He texts me all the time, to make sure I’m not scoffing down the chocolate after a gym sesh. I can honestly say that I feel like a new person.

It’s February now, so nobody asks about Dry January much any more. They’re just jealous that they didn’t have the strength to do it. I’ll be the one with the last laugh when they get all haggard and fat. Anywho, it isn’t about me, after all. February is Black History Month and #BHM has gone straight into my Twitter bio. Right now I’m choosing a Martin Luther King quote to learn by heart so I can recite it to people every morning at work. And then I can give a little wink to Yolanda. She has to know that I’m an ally.

March is my favourite. There are all kinds of special days to prepare for. My personal pick is the National Day of Unplugging, on 3 March. It’s to make sure that we all have a 24-hour respite from technology, to inspire us to have a healthy tech-life balance. I’ll probably do two days. Screw it. I can always use a streak freeze on my Duolingo. C’est la vie! Then, as a treat, we get International Women’s Day. We could do with having a bloody month if you ask me, those brave ladies didn’t burn their bras for nothing! Later in the month is Saint Paddy’s Day. It’s a big one because I’m one quarter Irish Catholic on my great-grandfather’s side, although I’m obviously appalled by the Roe vs Wade ruling. Will have to get some cans of non-alcoholic Guinness in for the hub. He won’t even taste the difference.

In between all of these days is Lent. I’m running out of things to give up, but I’m thinking about chocolate. Before January, I was dead set on giving up gossiping, but my Wednesday Zumba sessions with Jenny have made that nigh-on impossible. That woman, you wouldn’t believe the things she comes out with! Taylor just texted me. Online Peloton sesh on 3 March. How on earth am I meant to unplug in that case? Will have to do it next year.

My favourite day in April has got to be the first. April Fools’ Day. Hub won’t know what’s hit him when I slap a fake positive pregnancy test down in front of him. Absolute classic! Am I right? He’ll need a few 0 per cent Heinekens to get over that one. They honestly taste exactly the same. Then 17 April is International Haiku Day. How fun!

Really, I don’t miss
The cold glass of chardonnay
The sweetness, the tang.

May is Mental Health Month. I usually pull a sickie for the whole four weeks to focus on mindfulness. My bosses can hardly complain – disabilities aren’t always visible, you know. Hubs gets annoyed because I only get full pay for the first two weeks; after that it’s on him to pay the bills. But he’s fine because he knows it does wonders for my long Covid.

June is my birthday. It’s also the late Queen’s birthday, God rest her soul. Might even break my sobriety to raise a glass to Our Liz. My favourite part of the month is Bike Week, where from 5 to 11 June you can dust off your bicycle and get those glutes working. I can’t wait!

This article was originally published in The Spectator’s World edition.

China and the strange history of balloon warfare

China’s ‘spy’ balloon, (or is it an errant weather balloon?), is currently being tracked across America. Picked up above the Aleutian Islands, it was buzzed by US planes above Montana and is now headed eastwards as it is pushed by the prevailing Jet Stream. The Pentagon has decided not to shoot it down; it does not want debris landing on middle America. China insists the balloon is used for meteorological research and strayed because of bad weather. But the incident has prompted US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to postpone his trip to China that was scheduled for next week.

Was the balloon inspired by Japan’s Emperor Hirohito? Starting in November 1944 the Japanese army sent Fu-Go (Operation Fu) balloon bombs across the Pacific from various sites along the east coast of Japan’s main island of Honshu. The idea was to start forest fires in the northern states of America. During the five-month campaign some 9,300 Fu-go bombs were launched of which about 385 are thought to have made to the US. They carried several 11-lb incendiaries and a 33-lb bomb.

The balloons were made of washi, the beautiful paper from mulberry bushes that Japan still produces today albeit for more artistic purposes. The washi strips were then glued together by Japanese high school girls and the balloons were brought for final assembly at Ryogoku Kokugikan, the sumo wrestling arena in Tokyo.

They were a pathetically inaccurate weapon. The bomb balloons were found as far apart as North Dakota and Hawaii. One reached as far east as Michigan. There were no reports of forest fires despite Japanese propaganda claims. But there were casualties. Elsie Mitchell, the wife of a preacher, was killed along with five young children when they stumbled upon one of the balloon bombs during a picnic in Fremont National Park in Oregon. It is thought that one of the kids kicked it. They died instantly.

However, one of the bombs did significant damage of some strategic importance. By extraordinary luck rather than judgment one of Hirohito’s bombs landed on the power lines that fed the Hanford Engineer Works located in Washington State. This top-secret facility, part of the Manhattan Project, was producing the plutonium later used in Fat Man, the atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki in August 1945. Fortunately for the US – though perhaps not Japan – the reactors were only shut for three days.

Overall however, Hirohito’s balloons were one of those useless fantasy weapons that Japan used in desperation to turn around its fortunes in the Pacific War. Why, then, might Beijing be turning to balloons in its ongoing tussle with the US? Chinese state media is following the balloon’s flight closely; ‘If balloons from other countries could really enter continental US smoothly, or even enter the sky over certain states, it only proves that the US’s air defence system is completely a decoration and cannot be trusted,’ the paper said.

Whatever is going on, the balloon isn’t a one off: ‘this kind of balloon activity have been observed previously over the past several years,’ the Pentagon said. The current Chinese projectile is the latest episode then in the long history of balloon warfare. They were first used as military signalling devices by chancellor Zhuge Liang, a famous Han dynasty leader in the 3^rd Century. He is still celebrated in China’s annual Lantern Festival. In Europe, silk balloons were used in the wars of the French Revolution, though Napoleon did not think much of them and disbanded the specialist balloon brigade in 1799.

Fifty years after that Austrian Hapsburg forces dropped bombs from balloons onto Venice during the First Italian War of Independence. Twelve years later, the Union Army of General Irving McDowell used a balloon for artillery observation at the First Battle of Bull Run; they were frequently used thereafter by both Union and Confederate Forces including engagements at Sharpsburg and Fredericksburg.

Britain used balloons to support Imperial adventures in current day Botswana and the Sudan; 15 year later the British Army used them in the Second Boer War, notably at the Siege of Ladysmith in Natal Province.

Such was the fear of balloons that they were banned in the 1899 Hague Convention’s article IV, ‘Declaration of Projectiles from Balloons’ which stated that ‘the contracting powers agree to prohibit, for a term of five years, the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other new methods of a similar nature.’ The Convention made a timely bid to future proof bombing from the air. Studies on manned flight were already being circulated, though it was four later, in 1903, that the Wright brother made their first powered flight.

Despite the Hague’s best efforts, the proliferation of balloons, and more importantly military aircraft, doomed the banning of bombing. Only desultory attempts were made thereafter. Bizarrely it was Hitler who tried to ban bombing in a proposal to Britain and France in 1936.

Two years later at a meeting in Hitler’s apartment, it was suggested to Neville Chamberlain the idea of bombing women and children was abhorrent – even though it was Hitler’s Condor Legion, commanded by Wolfram von Richthofen, that bombed the ancient Basque town of Guernica on General Franco’s behalf on 26 April 1937 during the Spanish Civil War. Later, of course, Great Britain had to use blimps to defend London from Hitler’s V2 rockets.

In this bizarre balloon episode, Xi Jinping’s name will now be added to the role call of dastardly leaders who have used their intimidatory power. But don’t expect balloon limitation talks anytime soon.

Women prisoners are being let down

The safety of women in prisons cannot be allowed to plummet back down the news agenda after the latest Sturgeon saga is over. Not least because today has seen the publication of a report into one women’s prison in Gloucestershire that makes for troubling reading. HMP Eastwood Park, which holds 348 women, was the subject of an unannounced inspection in October last year. Staff from HM Inspectorate of Prisons made several findings that you’d expect: high levels of mental ill health; backgrounds of criminality, homelessness and substance abuse; and prison understaffing. 

However, they found plenty more. There was ‘no central record or oversight of the number of women who had been segregated, the reasons why or for how long’. The unit appeared to be used to house women ‘who could not be placed elsewhere in the jail, due to their mental health needs or associated behaviour’. One veteran inspector described the treatment and conditions of women in the segregation unit as ‘the worst that he had seen’.

The write-up notes that ‘rates of self-harm were very high and increasing’ – up 128 per cent since 2019 – and that women who are ‘acutely mentally unwell’ were being kept in ‘an appalling environment that failed to provide therapeutic support’. Of the 28 recommendations made during the last inspection (2019), seven had only been partially achieved and 12 had not been achieved at all. Worryingly, inspectors found that the use of force against the women ‘had increased significantly and we were not confident it was always used as a last resort’. By significantly, they mean up 75 per cent in the space of three years. In a prisoner survey, 27 per cent reported feeling ‘threatened or intimidated’ by staff. 

The report characterises the state of the cells as ‘appalling, dilapidated and covered in graffiti’. One was ‘blood-spattered’ while others had ‘extensive scratches’ on the walls indicating, in the inspectors’ analysis, trauma suffered by previous inmates. One cellblock was due to be closed over ‘fire safety risks’. The prison was also failing to provide basic supplies: one prisoner was forced to borrow underwear from her cellmate. Staff were ‘not adequately trained or qualified to support the women on the unit’ and, despite extensive mental health and ‘extreme’ self-harm problems, staff ‘received no clinical supervision’. No one in a leadership or oversight role had ‘noticed the severity of this situation’. ‘No prisoner should be held in such conditions, let alone women who were acutely unwell and in great distress,’ the report concludes. 

While there was commendation for some aspects of its regime, what inspectors saw was enough for them to assign Eastwood Park the lowest possible grade for safety. Conceding this is an unusual finding for a women’s prison, the report points to ‘gaps in care’ and ‘lack of support’ for the most vulnerable women. Inspectors found this ‘concerning’. 

Prisoners are among the most vulnerable members of the population, deprived of their liberty, choices, self-direction and placed at the mercy of the state. The vulnerability is all the greater for women prisoners. Six in ten have suffered domestic abuse, while self-harm is seven times more prevalent in women’s prisons than in their male counterparts. Women are also more likely to be primary caregivers and 17,000 children see their mothers imprisoned every year. 

There is a larger conversation to be had about our over-reliance on prison but an even more urgent one is needed on the conditions inside. While Eastwood Park does not represent all jails, it does represent our tolerance for custodial conditions that are – or ought to be – incompatible with the minimum human dignity guaranteed by an advanced liberal society. If prisons are necessary, and there are offender profiles for which they are, they must be places of safety, humane treatment, compassion, education and rehabilitation. 

Custody is the punishment, the conditions of custody are not. Prisons are there for public safety, not as dumping grounds for the abused, the mentally unwell, the addicted and the desperate, and not to inflict government neglect or public sadism on offenders. It is all the more important to recognise this in the case of female prisoners. Women who have been failed, abandoned and mistreated throughout their lives do not deserve to end up in a place like Eastwood Park. 

How will Mason Greenwood fare in the court of public opinion?

Mason Greenwood’s future at Manchester United remains uncertain, but one thing is clear: the footballer will not be available for selection for HMP Strangeways next season.

Greenwood – by all accounts an absurdly talented young footballer – had faced charges of attempted rape, ABH and controlling and coercive behaviour. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced yesterday that they were discontinuing the prosecution:

‘… a combination of the withdrawal of key witnesses and new material that came to light meant there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction. In these circumstances, we are under a duty to stop the case.’

It is no criticism of the CPS to say that this hardly begins to explain its decision. They are constrained in what they are able to reveal by both the law and good sense. Any complainant in a sexual allegation is entitled in law to lifelong anonymity. In this case her identity is an open secret, but the law prevents the CPS – or anyone else – mentioning it. 

Pictures of a woman with numerous bruises and blood coming from her mouth, together with a disturbing recording of someone – said to have been Greenwood – demanding sex with an apparently unwilling woman have been widely available on social media for over a year. We have no way of knowing whether they are genuine, misleading or downright malicious.

Of course it is very unusual for people to fabricate evidence in this way, but it does happen. Only last month, Eleanor Williams, a 22-year-old from Barrow-in-Furness, was convicted of making a series of false rape allegations against a number of innocent men – allegations she backed up by posting online images of her injuries she had inflicted on herself. Her claim to have been the victim of an ‘Asian grooming gang’ was revealed to have been an elaborate hoax.

Far more common than malicious allegations are those where complainants change their mind about supporting a prosecution. This seems to have been the case in Greenwood’s case.

The CPS statement refers to ‘the withdrawal of key witnesses’. There are any number of reasons why complainants no longer wish to give evidence, especially in cases with a domestic element. They may be threatened. Even if not actually threatened, they may be afraid of the consequences if they stand by their account. They may fear giving evidence because they have not told the truth, in whole or in part. They may simply wish to put the whole thing behind them and get on with their lives.  They may have forgiven their attackers and not want them punished. 

It is very rare to see a witness statement admitting that a previous statement was false (and making such an admission would immediately invite prosecution for perverting the course of justice), but all criminal lawyers will be familiar with the ‘withdrawal statement’ which includes the words ‘everything I have said previously is true but I no longer wish to support the prosecution of Mr X because ….’ Abused women, or men, may believe that their partner’s violence was a one-off and decide, often unwisely, to give them another chance.

For good reasons, the CPS does not always see such changes of heart as fatal to a prosecution.  Witnesses who change their mind once can can do so again. Ultimately they can be compelled to come to court: it is one thing to tell a police officer that they do not wish to support a prosecution, another to stand mute in a witness box or (far more likely these days) at the other end of a video link. Those deemed to be unwilling to tell the truth can be treated as ‘hostile’ and forced to admit that they made the original allegations. But an unwilling witness is often an unpersuasive witness; there is, in any case, a tension between the CPS exercising its public duty to prosecute a potential criminal without further traumatising someone who may have been that very criminal’s victim.

The courts are more ready than they once were to admit out of court statements – typically the original accounts given to the police – that would previously have been inadmissible as ‘hearsay’ unless the witness was willing to face cross-examination. So it is sometimes, though not very often, possible for the statement of a frightened witness to be read to a jury without the witness herself facing questions from the defence. Especially in cases with plenty of supporting evidence that can sometimes enable the CPS to continue a prosecution even with an unwilling witness. But the persuasive value of a witness unwilling to give sworn evidence in court is much reduced.

The CPS have not revealed whether the withdrawal of the ‘key witnesses’ in this case is something that happened recently or some time ago. There are some reasons to suspect that they continued to prosecute even after ‘key witnesses’ withdrew their support. However, their statement does say that the witness problem was only one of a combination of reasons for dropping the case. The other was that ‘new material came to light which (together) meant that there was no longer a realistic prospect of conviction.’ 

The statement gives no inkling of what that ‘new material’ might be. Was it something supplied by Mr Greenwood’s defence team or something uncovered by the police? Did this new material fundamentally undermine the whole case, or was it merely a straw on the back of an already creaking camel?

In the language of the CPS the lack of a ‘realistic prospect of conviction’ means prosecutors believe that a ‘reasonable jury properly directed and acting in accordance with the law’ would now be unlikely to convict Mr Greenwood. The court of public opinion is not similarly constrained. It will reach its own conclusion unencumbered by evidence, law or due process.

What is the point of another Trump presidential campaign?

It was always assumed that the moment Donald Trump walked out of the White House on the morning of Joe Biden’s inauguration, he would begin angling for a second non-consecutive term in 2024. A year ago, he launched his own Twitter imitation platform, Truth Social, and then in November he officially launched his presidential campaign. His speech was met with tepid enthusiasm, even by some of his most ardent supporters.

In the weeks since, Trump has spent his time on Truth Social attacking Republicans and prospective rival candidates and once again defending himself from the many lawsuits and scandals he finds himself in. That includes his imbroglio with Stormy Daniels and an unexpected dinner with Kanye West, Milo Yiannopoulos and Nick Fuentes.

But despite all the obvious signs that Trump was going to run again, it’s not clear that he, those close to him, or anyone in the punditocracy stopped to ask why.

Why does he want to do this? If you ask this question on Twitter, his supporters will reply ‘to make the country great again’ or something along those lines. But that’s not really a sufficient answer. America is a much changed country in 2023 compared to where it was in 2015 — and Trump will be forced to be a different candidate. He cannot run as an insurgent billionaire outsider, setting out to smash the corrupt system and drain the Swamp. With every new proposition or policy, Trump will be pressed on why he didn’t do this in his first term. We already know how he’ll respond: ‘The Deep State… bad actors within my White House… stymying my agenda…’ But will that cut it with voters?

Trump now finds himself as a post-pandemic candidate after being a pre-pandemic president, trapped by his usual bluster of blaming officials he hired, or never fired, over the way the Covid response was handled. Faulting the governors of Georgia or Florida won’t cut it when Trump was in charge of the country. He cannot hide behind the podium on this. How he deals with this quandary going forward will define his coming candidacy.

But then that leads us back to our question – why? Why does Trump, now age seventy-six, want to go through this again? What is the case for subjecting the country to another Trump candidacy? Because, as of now, it does not appear that Trump’s heart is truly in it in the same way as when he descended that escalator amid a sea of cameras and cheers. Right now, the only apparent reason for another Trump candidacy is because he wants to avenge his 2020 loss like a boxer. (Also, as MSNBC talking heads will remind you, legal problems.)

Trump is not someone used to being rejected or told no. In 2020, voters rejected him and told him no. To set out now to assuage his ego is not going to be enough. Voters will see right through it.

If 2024 is about winning for winning’s sake, and reliving every grievance from 2020, his candidacy will be a fool’s errand and an exercise in personal vanity, something Trump knows a thing or two about. Yes it’s true: he might once again secure the GOP nomination, and he could certainly make a case against Joe Biden’s handling of the economy and foreign affairs. But Trump has shown no ability to focus on these things, especially when the national media would rather engage him on election denialism.

For a Trump candidacy to be successful, he has to give the country a reason to look forward. As of right now, it doesn’t appear he’s capable of that.

A version of this article was originally published in The Spectator’s world edition.

What striking workers don’t tell you about public sector pay

You’ve got to hand it to the trade unions: they’ve done a fine job rallying the public behind industrial action that has caused widespread disruption and inconvenience. Despite train cancellations, school closures and medical appointment delays, nearly two-thirds of the British back the nurses’ walkout and close to half back the teachers’ strike. Even sizeable minorities support the ongoing train strikes, according to recent polling. 

The argument from the unions – that their hardworking members deserve a hefty pay rise (in order to ‘improve service’) – has captured the public imagination. But how many of those who complete YouGov or Opinium surveys stop to consider the huge discrepancy between public and private sector pensions?

This is the glaring omission in the ongoing debate over pay. It is feebly referenced by Tory politicians and ignored by Labour. I’ve yet to hear a single union leader volunteer to mention the gold-plated, defined benefit pensions all-but-guaranteed to their members (at unsustainable cost to the taxpayer,) though I will gladly issue a clarification if I’m wrong.

This is not to say public sector remuneration is perfect as is; at a time when surging inflation and rising energy bills are hammering disposable incomes, some workers will have a point about their pay. Nurses have seen real pay fall significantly since 2010, yet over that period they have consistently pulled long, tiring shifts at unsociable hours. Teachers have watched real wages fall as class sizes have risen. 

ONS labour market data has recently shown private sector wage growth outstripping that in the public sector, leading to warnings over the recruitment and retention of staff in teaching, nursing and elsewhere. But this hides the fact that public service jobs and pay were mostly left untouched by Covid, often for no work in return.

The problem is not the total package offered to public sector workers. Rather, it is the inflexibility of the package, how it is divided up between wages and pensions, and how it has allowed public sector workers to feel short-changed. In turn they are drawn to demand pay increases without any commensurate improvements in productivity.

As the IFS has underscored, generous defined benefit occupational pensions, virtually extinct in the private sector, remain ubiquitous in the public sector. The average teacher earned over £42,000 in 2021, but they were also benefitting from employer pension contributions of nearly 24 per cent, worth an additional £10,000 on average. A nurse on a headline wage of £35,000 a year actually receives a total package equivalent to almost £62,000 once accrued pension rights are taken into account. In other words, we are paying our public sector workers well, it’s just that much of the benefit is locked away in the distant future.

If the unions wish us to move towards a world where public sector employees are paid on par with their private sector counterparts, what justification is there for public sector employer pension contributions to remain triple that of those offered to workers in the private sector?

The current situation strips teachers, nurses and paramedics of control over their own pay and pension arrangements. In essence, two thirds of young workers do not see their pension as an important issue. Being offered a higher salary in the short term at the expense of a gold-plated pension might be attractive for some public sector employees earning £35,000. They may wish to invest in themselves and their families today. But others, perhaps starting work later in life or in a settled dual-earner household, might prefer a larger pension and a lower monthly income. This flexibility ought to at least be on the table in negotiations.

The harder truth, however, is that without some sort of radical reconsideration of these vast pension rights, the long-term fiscal health of the nation is at risk – as well as the deferred payments many will rely on. One official estimate is that the cost of future pension liabilities increased by £70 billion in 2021/22 alone, and the total – for nothing more than pensions liabilities for public sector workers – has now hit £2.6 trillion, equivalent to the size of the entire British economy. Even if unions are inclined to reject lower pensions in exchange for higher salaries, there is a risk with this high financial burden that their pension expectations may not be met in the future – strengthening the case for taking cash today over jam tomorrow.

Just as politicians should be honest about the cost, the public should be presented with the full picture on public sector pay and entitlements. Trade unionists, just like professional footballers, tech entrepreneurs and indeed everyone else, are perfectly entitled to fight in their own narrow, financial interests. But those interests ought to include exploring whether members would be better off earning more today, as they struggle to pay rent or exorbitant childcare fees, and a little less in retirement.

Mick Whelan gives the game away over striking railway workers

We’re all familiar with the usual trade union cliches: it’s not about us, it’s about passenger safety; staff morale is low; and strikers are being ‘victimised’. Or, in the words of Aslef general secretary Mick Whelan on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, train drivers are being ‘demonised’. More so than government ministers, who are forever portrayed by union leaders as callous evil-doers?    

But it is what Whelan said next that really catches the ear. Asked whether he thought the public should be sympathetic towards train drivers on £60,000 a year turning down an offer which would take their pay to £65,000 a year, he said:

‘It isn’t about what we earn, it is about what other people don’t earn. I want every nurse in the country, everybody in the fire brigade, everybody in the public sector, every teacher to have what we have.’

Whelan seemed to be accepting that train drivers actually get rather a good deal – in which case why is he still not satisfied? But let’s leave that aside and try a little thought experiment: what would happen if every nurse, fire-fighter and teacher really were to be paid £60,000 – or even £65,000 – a year. 

At present, the median UK salary for a full time worker is £640 per week, or £33,280 per year. Let’s now increase that to £65,000 a year. Multiplied by the 24.6 full-time workers in Britain, that would increase the national wage bill by £780 billion a year. The size of the UK economy is around £1.8 trillion. Government revenue in 2021/22 was £819 billion. But let no-one say that the money couldn’t be found. As the BBC was ticked off by Andrew Dilnot this week, it is wrong to equate public debt with household debt because governments have a facility which private households do not: the ability to print their way out of debt. So let’s print the money, and give every employee a Wage Guarantee – rather like the Energy Price Guarantee – which bumps up their wages to £65,000 a year.  

What does Whelan think would happen then? Most people would have a very pleasant surprise when they opened their next pay slip – only around seven per cent of the working population currently earn more than £65,000. Their sense of satisfaction would rapidly fade, however, when they went shopping. With all that massive extra spending power you don’t need too much imagination to work out what would happen to prices. You can print money, but you can’t print wealth; the corrective mechanism is inflation.

I don’t think that Whelan has quite worked out the implications for train drivers. The Wage Guarantee wouldn’t give them much of an uplift in their nominal pay because they earn so much already. What the resulting rampant inflation would do, however, is to eat away at their real earnings. Suddenly, their £60,000 or £65,000 a year would feel more like £33,000 does today.   

If equality of income really is what Whelan seeks, I don’t imagine his members would be too pleased with the result. What suits them – and very much doesn’t suit taxpayers, given that they contributed £13.3 billion in subsidy to the operational costs of the railway in the year to last March – is the current situation. The reality is that train drivers are a highly privileged group of workers whose wages are far out of line with nurses and teachers.

Piers Morgan is no match for slick Rishi Sunak

Gold wallpaper? All gone. That was the first big revelation of Piers Morgan’s interview with Rishi Sunak to mark the PM’s 100^th day in No. 10. Every trace of Boris’s trailer-trash décor has been replaced with squeaky-clean white visuals.

Piers and Rishi went head-to-head in a characterless kitchen-diner that looked like the show-home of a new-build flat in Milton Keynes. Piers got straight down to business and raised the issue that obsesses the entire nation: himself. He boasted that he’d reached No. 10 long before Rishi when he interviewed Tony Blair many years ago; he recalled that the Blairs had a singing fish nailed to the wall that crooned, ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy,’ at the touch of a button. 

‘What’s your mantra?’ he asked. 

Rishi said that was a question for his wife and he added, ‘she doesn’t sing “Don’t Worry, Be happy”, although we do love Bob Marley.’ Piers let that pass – or perhaps he didn’t spot it. The song was written by Bobby McFerrin.

Rishi is slick but not slippery. He’s comfortable answering intrusive questions about his personal tastes. He can discuss Southampton and Arsenal like a real football fan. He admitted to playing with Star Wars light sabres and belting out karaoke versions of ‘Ice, Ice Baby’. None of it sounded bogus. He’s an immensely difficult man to dislike and he dealt easily with Piers’s strange queries about how he proposed to his wife. 

‘On bended knee?’ asked the great political commentator. 

‘Yes.’

‘You’re stinking rich aren’t you?’ 

‘I’m financially fortunate.’ 

‘Are you a billionaire?’

‘I’m not going to get into that.’ 

Piers quizzed him on immigration, women’s rights and nurses’ pay. And whenever Rishi found himself in a tight corner he resorted to sophistries. He brought up an abstract virtue like ‘compassion’ or ‘humanity’ and re-framed the question on that basis. It’s a ploy favoured by woke activists too. A debater who endorses ‘compassion’ can cast their opponents as ruthless and inhumane. Piers invited the PM to condemn Suella Braverman for describing the channel migrants as ‘an invasion’. Rishi flourished his moral free-pass.

‘We should remember we’re a compassionate country,’ he said. ‘We open our hearts and our homes to people fleeing persecution’. He mentioned Hong Kong, Syria and Ukraine. Then he got a bit matey, like Blair, using a Cockney street-trader’s manner, with his consonants dropping: 

‘Buh we are no’ a soft touch, righ’? We are no’ a soft touch.’ 

He promised ‘new laws’ guaranteeing that illegal migrants will be detained and removed to a safe country, ‘within days or weeks.’ He said genuine asylum-seekers had nothing to fear: 

‘We will couple (the policy) with humanity…so we can capture those genuine cases.’ 

Asked to define a woman, he gave a reply that Julie Bindel would have been proud of: 

‘Adult human female…I married one, I have two daughters.’

Then he raised the moral force-field again to ward off accusations of hate:

‘We must have enormous compassion and understanding for those who are questioning their gender identity.’ 

Piers complained that nurses have to pay fees to park outside the hospitals where they save lives. This is unjust. Rishi ducked and dived. He blamed the hospital trusts, he mentioned student bursaries for nurses: 

‘And here are some of the other things we’re doing.’

‘Don’t change the subject,’ snapped Piers. Some nurses, he said, fork out £1,000 a year in charges.

‘I’d love it if people paid less to get to work,’ said Rishi. 

‘Will you at least look at it?’ 

‘Of course I will.’

That sounded like a tactical blunder. A U-turn seems likely.

For his big finale, Piers couldn’t resist bringing up his pet-hate, Harry and Meghan. He suggested to Rishi that the globe-trotting eco-warriors should be excluded from the coronation and, effectively, from the royal family too. An easy one for Rishi to avoid as the guest-list is a matter for the monarch. Of course, if there were any justice in our constitution, their future would be decided by Piers.

How a Spectator Life reader put me on to a 20-1 shot for a Festival handicap

One of the nicest parts about writing this weekly column for Spectator Life is the informed comments that greet it each week from readers. I am thinking specifically about people such as ‘Simian Leer’, ‘Oswald Grimes’ and ‘Simon’. This week my thanks go to ‘Simian’, who in late December highlighted the chances of NASSALAM in the Paddy Power New Year’s Day Handicap Chase.

Nassalam finished a staying-on third that day and ‘Simian’ later posted a second comment asking whether the Ultima Handicap Chase might be a good Festival target for Gary Moore’s six-year-old gelding. The astute reader seemed convinced a step up in trip to more than three miles would suit the horse.

As Nassalam prefers cut in the ground, the horse will also benefit from any guaranteed watering – if necessary –  to ensure the ground is ‘good to soft’ on the opening day. If the heavens open before day one of the Festival, all the better.

Today, too, the form of that New Year’s Day contest, in which Nassalam was third, could hardly be working out better with the fourth horse, Il Ridoto, dotting up on Cheltenham Trials’ Day last weekend and the sixth horse, Jacamar, winning comfortably just two days ago at Leicester.

Of course, Nassalam is not guaranteed to run in the Ultima and, if he wins another big handicap before the Festival, he will blow his current handicap mark/official rating of 144. But, hopefully, with the Festival not much more than a month away, that will not happen and this race could well be his target.

All in all, it makes sense to back Nassalam Non Runner No Bet for the Ultima – four bookies (Sky Bet, William Hill, bet365 and BetVictor) now have this offer on all Festival races. Take the 20-1 each way NRNB paying five places with Sky Bet rather than the 25-1 with some other firms not offering the NRNB concession and only paying four places. If Nassalam does line up on 14 March, he is very unlikely to be 20-1. If he doesn’t contest the race, we will simply get our money back. Make no mistake, this is a very good bet.

In the meantime, this weekend offers plenty of good racing at Sandown, Musselburgh and Wetherby – and, even more so, across the Irish Sea at the Dublin Racing Festival. However, my only suggested bet for the two days is on EMPIRE STEEL in the Virgin Bet Masters Handicap Chase (Sandown, 3.30 p.m. tomorrow).

Sandy Thomson’s nine-year-old gelding ran as many poor races as good ones last season but when he was on song he looked a proper racehorse. He demolished a six-horse field at Kelso in February last year winning hard held by 16 lengths off a rating of 139. He had earlier looked likely to win the Rowland Meyrick Handicap Chase at Wetherby off a mark of 141, but he fell four fences out.

Tomorrow his rating is still a very fair 143 and connections are hoping for a big run from him so that he is all but guaranteed a place in the Randox Grand National field at Aintree on 15 April (that would probably need a rating of 145).

Take the 12-1 each way, paying five places, offered by Sky Bet even though he would probably prefer softer ground than he will encounter tomorrow. Rapper, who won comfortably at Cheltenham on New Year’s Day, could be a big danger but time may tell he will be even better suited by a marathon trip of up to four miles.

Finally, even though I have already put up two bets for the Randox Grand National, I am going to put up a third in ANY SECOND NOW. The more I look at his form in last year’s race, the better it seems.

We now know that he had an impossible task trying to concede 12lbs to Noble Yeats and was only beaten just over two lengths into second place. The first two pulled 20 lengths or more clear of the third horse, Delta Work.

Noble Yeats is now rated 167 – fully 20lbs more than in the National – while Any Second Now has gone up a mere 3lbs to a rating of 162. Once again, his season is sure to be aimed with just one Saturday in April in mind and, even at 11 years old, he might triumph in his third attempt at winning the marathon contest.

Take the 20-1 each way five places with William Hill because he is unlikely to be outside the first five home if he jumps around safely. Any Second Now runs in the Grade 1 Paddy Power Gold Cup at Leopardstown tomorrow but all I want to see here is him come back safe and sound.

Last weekend worked out well for followers of my tips which, I am pleased to say, show a profit of more than 27 points in just two months. Master Coffey, as I had feared, was a non-runner (money back) but Back on the Lash, put up at 7-1, won nicely. As one Spectator Life reader, ‘Squire Western’, commented after the race: ‘Back on the Lash definitely an improvement on Dry January!’ I will drink to that.

Pending bets:

1 point each way Empire Steel at 12-1 in the Sandown 3.30 p.m tomorrow, paying 1/5 odds, five places.

1 point each way Nassalam at 20-1 NRNB for the Ultima Handicap Chases, paying 1/5 odds, five places.

1 point each way Mister Coffey at 25-1 for the National Hunt Chase, paying 1/5 odds, three places.

1 point each way Hewick at 20-1 NRNB for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, paying 1/5 odds, three places.

1 point each way Royal Pagaille at 50-1 NRNB for the Cheltenham Gold Cup, paying 1/5 odds, three places.

1 point each way Corach Rambler at 20-1 in the Aintree Grand National, paying 1/4 odds, four places.

1 point each way Lifetime Ambition at 33-1 in the Aintree Grand National, paying 1/5 odds, five places.

1 point each way Any Second Now at 20-1 in the Aintree Grand National, paying 1/5 odds, five places.

Settled:

1 point each way Hill Sixteen in the Becher Chase at 11-1, paying 1/5 odds, six places. Unplaced (7th). – 2 points.

2 points win Annsam at 8-1 for the Howden Silver Cup. Cancelled meeting. Stake returned.

1 point each way Eldorado Allen at 20-1 in the King George VI Chase, paying 1/5 odds, three places. Unplaced (4th).  – 2 points.

1 point each way The Big Breakaway in 20-1 for the Welsh Grand National at 20-1, paying 1/5 odds, five places. 2nd. + 3 points.

1 point each way The Big Dog at 12-1 in the Welsh Grand National, paying 1/4 odds, four places. 3rd. + 2 points.

1 point each way Grumpy Charley at 12-1 in the Newbury 2.25 p.m. paying 1/5 odds, five places. 1st + 16.4 points.

2 points win Midnight River at 5-1 for the Cheltenham 1.55 p.m., with Skybet. 1st. + 10 points.

1 point each way Coconut Splash at 12-1 in the Cheltenham 1.55 p.m,, with William Hill, paying 1/5 odds, six places. Unplaced (P). – 2 points.

1 point each way Sir Ivan at 20-1 in the Sandown 3 p.m., paying 1/5 odds, five places. Unplaced. – 2 points.

1 point each way Lord du Mesnil at 8-1 in the Warwick 3 p.m. race, paying 1/5 odds, five places. Unplaced. – 2 points.

1 point each way Dubrovnik Harry at 8-1 in the Kempton 2.40 p.m. race, paying 1/5 odds, seven places. Unplaced. – 2 points.

1 point each way Mister Coffey at 15/2 for the Doncaster 3.15 p.m., 1/5 odds, five places. Non Runner. Stake returned.

1 point each way Back On The Lash at 7/1 for the Cheltenham 12.40 p.m., 1/5 odds, five place. 1st. + 8.4 points

2022-3 jumps season, running total + 27.8 points.

My gambling record for the seven years: I have made a profit in 13 of the past 14 seasons to recommended bets. To a one-point level stake over this period, the profit of has been just over 469 points. All bets are either one-point each way or two-points win (a ‘point’ is your chosen regular stake).