NATO were right. The Intelligence reports, shared widely with the public, pointed to a major invasion of Ukraine. Putin assembled the majority of his country’s substantial military forces around the borders of Ukraine for a purpose. We had to await the ending of the winter Olympics and the interviewing of a succession of western leaders, presumably to reassure him that NATO would not go to war. Only now has Putin decided to set some aims for his violent mission. He says he wants Ukraine to change its government to become a neutral state that would effectively be a puppet of Russia. If he does not get his way easily he may well turn to complete conquest to enforce his will.
Putin has revealed the strategic weakness of the European position. Short of energy, reliant on Russian gas, the Europeans gave the Minsk Agreement and a possible new settlement their best efforts. It was inĀ vain. Putin did not want to see Ukraine remodel its constitution as a single state looking towards the West. HeĀ ripped up what remained of Minsk by recognising the rebel states as independent countries.
The UK is right to work with our US and European allies in NATO to do the best we can inĀ a grave situation. What this mustĀ now do is make the UK take some hard and good decisions about our future national security. It should start with a National Security Council review of our energy supply with a view to re establishing self sufficiency as soon as possible. It needs to include a further military review to expand our forces. We could spend the extra tax we collect on producing more of our own oil and gas to pay for a larger military. It needs further work on our cyber defences, on protecting our networks for utilities and better defence of core technologies and industrial competences. We have been too free with our best ideas, and too careless about keeping domestic production and intellectual property in core areas like steel, special metals, ceramics, electronic chips and the rest.
February 25, 2022
Good morning.
It is all very well talking about Ukraine and what Russia was clearly provoked into doing, and looking to beef up our own security. But I find it hard to take it all seriously when the government refuses to acknowledge, let alone take action to prevent, the slow but constant invasion that is happening daily across the the English south coast by mostly young and of fighting age males with no documentation. I find it incredulous that we can talk about the invasion of another country we have little or no connection with, but cannot, and will not, do a damned thing about those invading mine.
February 25, 2022
Borders are very, very important to The Establishment when it’s somewhere in Eastern Europe and they’ll squander Ā£billions of taxpayers’ money trying to protect them. When it comes to the UK’s borders, they’re an inconvenience which they really can’t be bothered even trying to enforce.
February 25, 2022
Donna +1
February 25, 2022
Our borders are perfectly well protected. If you try to leave the country – you wonāt get in without a passport.
Indeed you Brexitists love borders so much you created a new internal one – so you can experience it without leaving the country. You also created massive queues at existing borders so you could enjoy them for longer. Well done.
February 25, 2022
They don’t even tell us the numbers any more…..transparency my arse
February 25, 2022
The government’s unacceptable withholding of daily Channel arrivals statistics: Let’s see if anything will be reported over the next couple of days as the weather down south is changing. The recent official petition to Parliament – Number 607119 is gathering support. At 10.000 signatures the government will respond to it. 9010 as of this a.m. If we want info in the interests of our national security then we need to demand it and at least this is one way.
The petition 599602 ( … to hold a referendum on Net Zero … ) above 22.000 to date, already has a government response but it’s as one might expect.
February 25, 2022
JR forgets, as does his govt, that the UK buy 86% of coal from Russia!! This is Johnsonās fault and his useless Tory predecessorās. Shyster Johnson talks about EU being dependent on Russian gas and oil but conveniently forgets we have hundreds of years of coal we could mine!!
Why have you not raised this JR?
February 25, 2022
Its quite unbelievable
February 27, 2022
‘Why have you not raised this JR?’ As there is no answer from JR he probably hasn’t thought anything about it.
February 25, 2022
Under the cover of Ukraine , the Home Office released figures to show 90% of illegal boat people are lone males of those 3/4 are 18-39 yrs. what about our borders Johnson? What about EU annexing N.Ireland, grabbing fishing waters etc etc. not interested in Ukraine, EU should resolve the problem it caused.
February 25, 2022
Mark B,
Agreed. Boris Johnson loves playing the great international statesman with sombre speeches/empty words for the world media.
February 25, 2022
āIt should start with a National Security Council review of our energy supply with a view to re establishing self sufficiency as soon as possible.ā
If ever a reason was required to ditch net zero this is it. However, the government will not ditch net zero. They are afraid to upset their future globalist patrons.
February 25, 2022
āIt needs to include a further military review to expand our forces.ā
I disagree. Britain is not the worldās policeman. We need an effective military that protects our own shores and our own strategic interests.
Military spend is never properly scrutinised. Defence companies get a few retired admirals and generals on their board and government contracts seemed to be nodded through with no financial repercussions for failure.
Manpower is undermined by pandering to many fashionable ideas around gender, diversity etc.
February 25, 2022
Peter,
In protecting our shores and strategic interests which are worldwide our reach needs to be of suitable and similar capability.
February 27, 2022
@Agricola – How are these “world wide interests” of any use to the common citizen – they have done nothing to ensure our energy security or even keep energy and food prices down. The city spivs and their pets in Whitehall and Westminster do very nicely thank you while offshoring our manufacturing, commerce, food and energy production.
February 25, 2022
We have the highest taxes since the second world war, very poor and declining public services, people on often worthless, soft loan, university degrees who cannot even pass english and maths GCSEs, very poor defence, poor criminal justice (both vast under detection & prosecution and vast over prosecution as with the post office), open borders and a government obsessed with woke drivel, personal pronouns, blocking the roads and freezing grannies with the net zero religion. Yet the alternatives to Boris are even worse than he is!
February 25, 2022
Peter
He is not and the speeches are.
February 25, 2022
Agreed. This government is incapable of doing anything other than muddling through. Re our own Channel invasion, the ban on publication of the daily numbers and āplanning figureā of 65000 this year for channel migrants, says it all.
February 25, 2022
Thats more channel immgrants than the size of our regular army
February 25, 2022
A ‘planning figure’ of 65,000? How utterly disgraceful. And with no shame at all, just hide it from the peasants.
February 26, 2022
And then some. Is the government going to look at the situation with the issue of the amnesty by any other name with regard to our Common Travel Area. Already commented on when it was in the news weeks ago. Alp Mehmet ( Migration Watch ) commenting now in an article on Conservative Woman website “Ireland gives illegal migrants a back door to the UK”
February 25, 2022
How are the only-for-profit lads – who may be from any country – going to provide energy security where the physical requirements for doing that reduce those profits?
February 25, 2022
By carefully writing the rule book. It would be interesting to know who else befitted when the large oil companies were allowed to extract fuel from our territory making vast profits while the end user in the UK was driven to impoverishment. Follow the money and realise there a great many incompetent contract writers in government.
February 26, 2022
Those rules then, would have to involve telling the owners of private property to whom they were allowed to sell it and much more.
Please ask a self-proclaimed libertarian how they can require that and still be a libertarian?
February 27, 2022
Clearly you are a public sector employee – school janitor is it?
February 27, 2022
Inane and completely irrelevant, again…
March 1, 2022
Your comments and general attitude set the tone of any replies sunshine.
February 25, 2022
If they were given licences by the UK government to produce oil and gas and coal from sources here in the UK they would NHL
Those permissions have been refused.
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
Mark B
Sad but very true.
February 25, 2022
+1 Mark B. As I see it we need a Churchillian government, not Chamberlain. Until then, we can forget it! The invasion of our country is obviously policy.
February 25, 2022
+1
Screamingly obvious.
February 25, 2022
I find your opening sentence bizarre but agree on the borders issue.
Whilst we need to have a strong military defence, this issue ( in Ukraine ) and recent developments with energy supplies and lack of wind has shown just how vulnerable we all are in Europe and no less in the U.K.
This is the perfect opportunity for the U.K government to extend oil & gas drilling licences to more than just the 6 they announced last week; to reverse the moratorium of fracking in Bowland and to give the green light to more nuclear development as well as coal mining in Cumbria
We need self sufficiency and continuity
February 26, 2022
Good positive thoughts. Practical, common sense comments as always Sir John. The Govt needs to listen to you more.
February 25, 2022
Indeed. We certainly must ditch net zero now and get fracking and drilling. Miliband’s climate change act (voted for by all but a handful of MPs) was always insane and Boris/Carrie/May’s Net Zero is even more so.
Plus on top of this we still have the serious threat to Taiwan – hugely important in chip, semiconductor and other manufacturing.
February 25, 2022
All John’s government has done in the last 22 years is cut, cut cut our armed forces.
They’ve deliberately made us reliant on rogue states for our energy and now are he’ll bent on covering large swathes of land with useless solar panels.
They must be working for a foreign power.
February 25, 2022
This year Ukraine next year Estonia etc etc.
February 25, 2022
One good outcome was to see Micron humiliated. Always a silver lining.
February 25, 2022
He’s another Boris
February 25, 2022
No supporter of his but I’ll wager Macron will have a seat at the eventual peace negotiations with Mr Putin while the UK will be excluded.
Ukraine was going to be part of the UK’s new soft power empire together with the likes of Albania and Bosnia.The British Establishment will be tearing their hair out given how much money they’ve blown in Ukraine.You have to feel sorry for poor Lyse Doucet-only just settled in Kiev,after her longterm billet in Kabul expired,and the bombs have started dropping!
February 26, 2022
So what would be the basis for your reasonable assumption in your first sentence, then?
February 26, 2022
My reply above is to Mitchel.
February 27, 2022
@Mitchel
You still here? Why aren’t you doing your bit in Ukraine for your BFF Putin?
As for your Macron boost, the French and Germans were already involved in the precursors to this mess with the Normandy Format so nul points for your guess.
February 25, 2022
PUTIN now knows he can threaten, destabilise, hit western economies, invade with impunity.
So much for sabre rattling, our friend is made of the old deranged dictator stuff.
Baltic states next – we had better plan for his similar stategy there.
February 26, 2022
He also knows that he can materially help to install a pliant president in the US and cause one of the European Union’s main military powers to leave it, which must have emboldened him enormously.
February 27, 2022
@ MiC near Nottingham – Still trying to avoid all responsibility I see.
The UK left the EU because of the behaviour and attitude of the EU towards the UK while we were members, emphasized since by the behaviour and attitude of the EU and their lickspittles in the UK since our false leaving.
February 25, 2022
Rubbish. Putin just doesn’t have the numbers and certainly not to be able to do it at that rate.
A 20 year president doesn’t all of a sudden become an expansionist megalomaniac.
If you want an example of how to do that look at Nato countries, their recent history of regime change (within and without) and their demented ideology that men are women and black is white and you dare question it.
Newspeak, woke, regime changes, cultural and historic erasure…. it’s all there. All of it.
February 25, 2022
PS,
Thanks to equality laws made by the Tories every major company now has a Woke Commissar in it (Diversity Coordinator) – usually fresh from university, who quickly becomes the most powerful person in that company.
On safety days Equality Training replaces First Aid.
NLH will doubtless say I’m unhinged, then he would, wouldn’t he.
Gaslighting is a speciality of the fanatical Left.
February 26, 2022
No, I think that far too much time and resources are devoted to pandering to self-obsessed tiny minorities who – groundlessly in my view – claim the right to dictate the language used by the other 99.7% of the people and more.
However, you on the other hand, greatly exaggerate the support that they enjoy and the practical impacts of their silly demands, though they can be a nuisance at times.
It’s generally just Anger Button-pushing by the right-wing media, and clearly, it works a treat on those who are a pushover for that sort of thing as we see in these pages so often.
February 25, 2022
Estonia is a NATO member. I’m not sure even Putin is that crazy.
February 26, 2022
Unfortunately predictability does not seem to be his weakness.
February 25, 2022
We need coal for steel production. Why does Johnson buy it from Russia!
February 26, 2022
Actually, the one good thing that has come out of this botched invasion of Ukraine is that the Russian army has been exposed as weak, shambolic and useless. They have failed to defeat the hopelessly under-equipped Ukrainian forces, and the British weapons sent to them have been particularly effective. Russia’s conventional forces are no danger to any NATO country. Their nuclear ICBMs, on the other hand, are another matter, which is why I keep saying that it is a dereliction of duty for the government not to invest in a comprehensive anti-ballistic missile defence. We are governed by traitors.
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
Solar panels they get most of the energy in the summer middle of the daytime when we need it mainly in winter evenings and it cannot be stored other than a vast expense and wasting loads of it too. Also they prevent other crops being grown on the land!
February 25, 2022
Yes. I see the spin is on the EUs reliance on Russian energy. The Tories over the last decade have also sold out our energy security going for Net Zero, lying to us because all much of it has done is ensure the CO2 is created elsewhere.
Truss and Johnsonās ludicrous bombast has got where we all knew it would, precisely nowhere. Lightweight is too higher praise.
February 25, 2022
It is strange how the collective memory of the public can be so short.
How can one failed Foreign Secretary (Boris) have the experience and knowledge to appoint another FS to the role. The geographical gaffs made in the recent meeting, between Liz Truss and Sergai Lavrov, was clearly indicated by Lavrov leaving the room without shaking hands to avoid wasting more of his time.
It would have been better if one MP had analysed the OSCE reports from 2015, after the Minsk II agreement, with a view to understanding part of Russiaās current beef over the civilian casualties in Donetsk and Lugansk.
30 years is not enough time to forget the promises made not to expand NATO militarily to the East.
Of course, the hypocrisy is jaw dropping. Is Syria not a sovereign nation? Turkey occupying part of northern Syria and uninvited American soldiers occupying the central area and stealing oil.
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
Wallace made another boob this morning-trying to reference his recent leaden Crimean War remark,he talked of Tsar Nicholas I “conquering Crimea and other places.”
Er,no.It was Catherine the Great-she had her agents place posters around the Crimean Khanate-announcing that she was now the ruler.The place had become so dysfunctional (partly due to her interventions!)that “these fierce descendants of Genghis Khan” meekly accepted the fact.
February 25, 2022
Nigel,
Johnson buys Russian coal rather than mine our own!!
February 26, 2022
That’s because Thatcher destroyed our coal industry, Hope. Not much thought was given then to ‘energy security’, even though that was at a particular crisis time in the Cold War in the early-mid 80s. It’s not just Johnson we have to thank for the mess we’re in now.
Reply Rubbish. Privatisation of electricity led to a large change from coal to cleaner and more fuel efficient gas. We had substantial surplus capacity in order to have security of supply. We kept the lights on even throughout the unhappiness of the miners strike.
February 26, 2022
Sir John, thanks for this rebuke to Hat man.
Maybe you could be a bit more forceful given the misinformation so often peddled by some people here, in good faith I presume, but without any clue of or any research on the historical trends on which they pretend to be āclairvoyantā (obviously after the facts).
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
Re the Milliband Climate Change rubbish, the politicians and our resident barrack room lawyer tell us one parliament cannot bind another, except seemingly in this case because no-one has the cojones to disagree with the green blob and its been in effect for what, 14 years or so. Time for another vote on it so we can let our MP’s know what we think of it and that we will give them the boot if they don’t do something sensible about the costs to this country of idiotic laws which cost us dear but have no measurable effect on the climate?
February 25, 2022
Obviously our priority should be to ensure that our military meets diversity, inclusion and Net Zero targets.
We will should try to adopt EV technology to replace the old fossil fuelled military vehicles (and ships). I don’t thing there are any alternatives for fossil fuel for our aircraft so the government may need to acquire a large amount of carbon credits to offset the RAFs CO2 footprint especially if our military use conventional ordinance which obviously produces CO2 when detonated. Interestingly, nuclear explosions do not produce CO2 (now there’s a thought).
February 25, 2022
I agree with you entirely John, defence (including cyber) and the integrity of resources need to be priorities for the government.
On a seperate, but related, note the party needs to cut ties with all Russian sponsors as a matter of urgency. It was tawdry before this now it is unacceptable.
February 25, 2022
Whilst people were being poisoned on the streets of Britain and shot in a far flung region of Ukraine it was tawdry? No, it was unacceptable then too – but it bought a Brexit and a Johnson Brexitist government so was a worthwhile investment for Mr Putin.
February 25, 2022
The EU has brought us to the brink of WW3.
It is fraying at either end of its map.
February 26, 2022
Putin says that it’s NATO.
If it were the European Union, then why would he not say that?
February 25, 2022
Yes indeed, and the Russians have shown us that many in the West have indeed become soft, egoistic, and petty-minded.
And what more object demonstration of softness, egoism, and petty-mindedness could there be than brexit or the anti-vaxxers?
February 25, 2022
Sounds like a demonstration of revolutionary exciting breakaway independent rational thought to me.
As opposed to boring groupthink.
February 27, 2022
“And what more object demonstration of softness, egoism, and petty-mindedness could there be than brexit or the anti-vaxxers?”
Your ego-centric complaints of having to use the longer non-EU queues at airports and Andy’s ego-centric whining about his falsely claimed lost freedom to occupy his many chateaux in France.
February 25, 2022
Utter tosh. I have never heard that link. Too much conspiracy theory. I guess in your mind it proves you were correct.
How is your beloved Macron and the EU doing? Not well again Andy.
February 25, 2022
Wow that’s a real conspiracy theory young andy.
You OK?
Got any others…911 , Moon landing, Area 51, lizards
Hilarious stuff from you.
February 25, 2022
Although I need to say I like the vaccine.
February 25, 2022
Fully Agree
February 25, 2022
The events of the last few days has exposed many countries in the cutting back of military capability. All the thoughts on our forces would be involved in different types of war and operations now looks like a wrong call.
Putin was given an open goal with the weakness of governments and their military capabilities.
Saving the world has taken on a new meaning and projects like Net Zero are not so important and no fracking and coal mining and oil exploration are. They will determine our energy security.
The Russian people it would seem are being played along with the man’s madness. One thing to stop the madness is for all sport,arts, travel wotld organisations should impose a complete ban on Russian involvement. All the international governing bodies should be united in this action. Then when the Russian people ask why, questions will be asked and answers given. Blank out all Sport satellite programmes to Russia. It will be the Russian people who will get rid of Putin not the world order.
February 25, 2022
Turbo terrier
Agree, it will have to be down to the Russian people!
Did anyone see on GB News last night, that despite it being illegal to protest in Russia; thousands of Russians in several cities have taken to the streets!
February 25, 2022
Yes I saw this and they are being arrested.
February 25, 2022
It seems to be something of a generational divide rather like brexit, with the old in favour of the war and the young against.
February 25, 2022
“and they are being arrested”
Our government didn’t seem too bothered about the same thing happening in Canada.
Trudeau’s government froze bank accounts and closed haulage firms too, their stated intent is to persecute Trump supporters.
February 25, 2022
Yes, and many were arrested as unauthorised protests in Russia are against the law. As in Canada, as in Germany and in Britain, during the Covid crisis, when the protests are/were against government diktat.
February 25, 2022
It is not illegal to stage a protest in Russia but you have to arrange the time and place with the police first.Spontaneous demonstrations are not permitted.
The police are actually far more restrained when making arrests than elsewhere in Europe as you may have witnessed from your TV screens in recent times.
BTW,Moscow is a stunning,super-modern,highly digital city these days-some of you would have a real shock if you visited it.
February 26, 2022
Bit like Tory Britain, then.
February 25, 2022
Putin and others know the United States is weak and in terminal decline. So they will be put to the test. China will soon do likewise in the waters around the Spratly islands and other areas of the South China Sea.
February 25, 2022
The Chinese sent 9 combat aircraft across Taiwan yesterday
February 25, 2022
“all sport, arts, travel world organisations should impose a complete ban on Russian involvement.”
That’ll make them tremble. Or we could make ourselves independent of all strategically important Russian and Chinese products. Hmm, choices, choices….
February 25, 2022
Is that what the govt wants though?
It has moved seamlessly and with great vitriol onto the ānext emergencyā.
And this one will allow it to consolidate a couple of its possible main objectives.
One being the āgreeningā and impoverishment of the ordinary person.
Well, we will soon know when it controls the borders and starts opening up coal minesā¦.or doesnāt.
February 25, 2022
A lot of our so called renewable energy has been sited for obvious reasons in very bleak and open locations. That in its self could create security issues.
Very easy target area to hit and a logistic nightmare to protect.
February 25, 2022
+many
Goshā¦what a good point! Windmills= target practice.
Hahaā¦our lot really believed thereād be no more trad warfare!
Let down by the goatsā entrails.
Again!
February 25, 2022
I’d far rather that a windmill was hit than any kind of nuclear installation, but please yourself.
February 26, 2022
NLH. Y ou don’t get it. Windmills are out in the open and are not guarded in any way. Nuclear facilities are. Windmills are an easy target as are
Solar panels.
February 26, 2022
Right…
February 25, 2022
Putin has spent the last few years putting into place his military and finances for his invasion of Ukraine.
During this time,The U.K. governments have been asleep at the wheel.
February 25, 2022
Putin has also put in place the politics – with his Brexit and with Trump.
February 25, 2022
Somebody must be paying you to post this kind of rubbish.
February 25, 2022
What about all the old people that Putin has put into Britain to take away its wealth? Come on, Andy, pay attention.
February 25, 2022
If he did then with good reason. Nato and the EU messed in his back yard and I today I frequently read Remainers saying that Ukraine – in a region of which is situated the Russian base of Sevastopol – is “Our back yard” and should be allowed to become a member of an organisation created to fight Russians.
The EU has brought us to the brink of WW3, not Brexit.
And is there not thought. No sensitivity that – within living memory – five times as many Russians died as Jews when a German axis approached in WW2 ? What is Putin meant to do ? Forget all those sacrifices now that a German axis approaches by stealth instead ?
February 26, 2022
NATO was purportedly created as a rampart against the Soviet Union and its ideology, not against a nation and a people.
It was silently and instantly transformed from one to the other upon the collapse of the authoritarian collectivism of the USSR, however, and that has been the disastrous mistake.
February 26, 2022
Andy, Unfortunately it started much before 2016. 1962 was the beginning of the āBritishā offshore money centres allowing money ādirtyā or otherwise to be parked far away from the prying eyes of individual countriesā tax systems, together with more recent Maltese passports, English libel laws, US privacy laws, Panamanian shell companies, Jersey trusts, Liechtenstein foundations ā¦
See Oliver Bulloughās books, with Moneyland being Book of the Year of the Times, Sunday Times, Daily Mail and the Economist in 2018.
February 26, 2022
You really are the most offensive poster on this site. Seek help.
February 25, 2022
+1
And apparently he has been working hard on being totally self sufficient.
Whatever harm will our pathetic sanctions do to Russia? She will just sell to China.
While we starve and freeze and send a handful of woke soldiers to Ukraine!
Job done!
You bet!
February 25, 2022
Our government hasn’t been asleep, its banning the cars, gas boilers, rising taxes, building HS2, revamping parliament building, blindsiding everyone over NI & the EU, implimenting a green revolution…..its been busy
February 26, 2022
Glen. You bet it has.
February 25, 2022
Thanks for taking up one of the points I have made many times here.
February 25, 2022
They’ve not been asleep, Ian they have been busy trying to save the planet, apologising for just about everything and spraying around endless amounts of our cash. So I am not surprised that they cannot find the time to sort out the mess they have created here back home.
February 25, 2022
+1
Exactly.
And what of all this brave talk in Parliament about defendingādemockwacyā.
Didnāt notice much of that in the last two years OR much regarding implementing Brexit.
February 25, 2022
Agree
February 25, 2022
Agreed, but two things –
Germany is probably an ally of Russia; for example the new German chancellor has said that Germany and the EU will not ban Russia from SWIFT, so no hard economic blockade.
Second, the US Administration from its actions since January last year, cancellation of the Keystone pipeline, abandonment of the southern border up to the cancellation of the Israel, Cyprus, Greece pipeline and the utter and complete surrender to the Iranian mullahs, the list is endless, is an obvious enemy of the United States and no ally of any part of the Judeo-Christian West. We are in a difficult situation.
February 25, 2022
Interestingly, the Green’s foreign minister is far more hawkish on Russia than the SPD’s Chancellor.
February 25, 2022
Aluminium imports to the U.S. from Russia are exempt from the new sanctions. Mr. Biden’s principles include looking after number one.
February 25, 2022
always will….
February 25, 2022
The usual American hypocrisy.
Note how many IRA terrorists were deported from America. The answer is none.
February 25, 2022
To misquote.
To lose one aspect of national security could be called a misfortune but to lose every single one is surely wilful calculation?
Still, let us not be deflected by all this. Our govt. has not proved itself to be kind or democratic of late. Quite the reverse. And its powers of prediction remain abysmal ā¦or maybe convenient?
February 25, 2022
Hear hear.
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
Why no condemnation of Trudeau and Canada? Trudeau has the cheek to criticise Russia protesters!
February 26, 2022
Do you really not understand the difference?
February 25, 2022
Spot on Everhopeful….spot on
February 25, 2022
Countries like China, Spain, Argentina will be watching the situation with great interest I should imagine as they all have ownership issues with other countries. A precedence must not be set in the way this situation is dealt with that illegal military operations are acceptable.
Russia may have oil, gas,and grain but if the free world unite and work together for once, none of it will be much use if they have no markets to sell it to.
The world has a choice another world war or absorb the pain and achieve the gains. Might have to throw out all the saving the world from CO2 and the money it is taking. The consequences of not doing anything could bring about the end in a far quicker time scale.
February 25, 2022
turboterrier : āRussia may have oil, gas,and grain but if the free world unite and work together for once, none of it will be much use if they have no markets to sell it to.ā
Unfortunately Russia does now have a market.
Although the West has become weak and decadent I donāt believe that Russia would have invaded Ukraine if it had not obtained a large new market for its oil, gas and grain, namely China.
And China not only needs these commodities but at the same knows that buying them from Russia will strengthen their collaboration against, and weaken, the West.
February 25, 2022
China has recognized Argentina’s claim to the Falkland Islands.Their President was in China for a meeting with President Xi(immediately following a meeting with Mr Putin in Moscow) to sign up for the Belt & Road Initiative.
The big agrifood deals China has just signed with both Russia and Argentina (which will not involve the dollar)will be at the expense of the USA.
February 25, 2022
Shouldn’t have poked the bear.
February 25, 2022
Protect our borders. Under the Tories the floodgates have been open. England remains
as a geographical entity but ceases to exist as a demographic reality – by design.
February 25, 2022
Correct – by design and social engineering
February 25, 2022
+1000000 forthurst. Why we English let them get away with it is the biggest mystery. The fake Tories are no friend of England.
February 26, 2022
The Konservatovs, you mean?
February 25, 2022
If Putin’s actions expose the sheer destructiveness, self-harming indulgences, loathing of real working people and immorality of the progressive western political class like Trudeau then it will have served a purpose.
$500bn wasted by Boris Johnson on a Covid inspired scam that has only benefited Labour’s public sector and cost the nation its future ability to invest in our armed forces and our natural resource independence through gas and nuclear. This is the arrogance and sheer stupidity of what we are facing right now.
Repeal the Climate Change Act NOW. Just do it. No debate.
Stop pandering to the Green lobby, to the BLM race lobby and to Stonewall. Purge them from Whitehall and bankrupt them
The Tories must stand with the real people of this nation rather than pandering to Labour and their Neo-Marxist diversity political agenda.
Wake up and ditch all the Frankfurt School Critical Theory left wing crap that is undermining the fabric of our nation
February 25, 2022
Dom
Hear, hear!
February 25, 2022
DOM.
Well said!
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
Whatever Putinās actions (and they can be bloody), a part of what seems to drive him is a love of his country and most of its people. I find that trait admirable.
Our elites despise their own countries and the vast majority of people living in them.
February 25, 2022
Beeb tax. +1. You only gave to look back at that vile woman Emily Thornbury and her comments about white van man with the English flag outside his house to see what they really think of us. Would she say that to a Welsh or Scotsman? She alone is enough to put me off Labour.
February 25, 2022
She didn’t comment on the mixed martial arts, ex-cage fighting tradesman.
She invited comment on what the reader thought her chances of being well-received in the locality would be, and it was quite funny on that basis.
February 26, 2022
You Lefties have a peculiar sense of humour, mostly splitting your sides over any misfortune as you see it for the UK. And you think we are going to vote Labour? Keep going, you and Andy are the best recruiters for the right, defending the indefensible however deranged.
February 26, 2022
Keep buying the Jim Davidson and Bernard Manning VHSs, Graham eh?
February 27, 2022
Gosh, you mean she knew his background before sneering at his support for the England footie team?
BTW your gaslighting isn’t what Thornberry wrote nor what she claimed after the event.
February 27, 2022
What namby-pamby snowflakes the Right are.
February 25, 2022
There is nothing to admire in Putin. He doesn’t care about his country, quite prepared to eliminate those that don’t agree with him.
I can understand he is in a position where if he releases his grip, his enemies will circle and execute him. The action in Ukraine makes no sense, as the country wasn’t a threat and quite prepared to do business with Russia. Perhaps he thought their march towards democracy and friendliness with the West was putting pressure on his tyranny in his own country.
The only sensible explanation is that he’s a madman.
February 26, 2022
The danger to Putin is the prospect of having a successful democratic West leaning country on his doorstep to show how poor Russia is, rather in the manner that the EU cannot tolerate the prospect of having a successful UK.
February 26, 2022
Don’t think that it will have to in the foreseeable, Graham.
February 25, 2022
āOur elites despise their own countries and the vast majority of people living in them.ā
No Beebtax just England.
February 25, 2022
You think it is a love of his country and people to steal billions from them for his own and his acolytes personal gain whilst most of them live in poverty? With a population more than twice ours but with an economy less than middle ranking? He spends two thirds of his GDP on arms as against our miniscule amount which is constantly being cut. He cares for one thing only – Putin and if this latest escapade goes wrong, I see nice lamp-post and piano wire waiting.
February 25, 2022
+1. Well said.
February 25, 2022
+10
February 25, 2022
Oh yes!
Absolutely, nail on head.
So they HAVENāT actually repealed the bloody Act then?
They probably think theyāll do a repeat Crimea and then discover a new plague to imprison us with.( Very democratically you understand!)
Half a league, half a league etcā¦
February 25, 2022
If you mean the Coronavirus Act, EH, Sajid Javid stated yesterday it will not be renewed. Let’s give him a bit of credit for that, at least.
February 25, 2022
This is what I have been asking. No one seems willing to expose it. There are 4 measures that the PM himself has said will be retained. What are they?
This new international law that all countries are said to be signing by MARCH 2022 may hold the clue.
https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/policies/coronavirus/pandemic-treaty/
What are the implications for our individual freedoms? Bodily autonomy? National sovereignty?
February 26, 2022
I’m not a detective, SP. Could you please identify the ‘clues’ and tell us what they mean?
February 25, 2022
Absolutely right Dom.
February 25, 2022
Gets my vote DOM
February 25, 2022
There wouldn’t be many people left in this country if all those whom Dom hated disappeared, would there?
February 25, 2022
+1. DOM
The Climate Change Act has already done immense harm, with even more to come!
February 25, 2022
Well said DOM, we need men not morons in parliament and we have very few at the minute. Sir John, we need the experience of people like you to to further prevent the green slime enveloping Britain. We must fight for OUR homeland.
February 25, 2022
+1
It is not Putin’s regime engaging in Newspeak and cancelling people (including high profile ones) for not upholding the new ideology. And this DOES emanate from universities – whatever my detractors say – and the no-win-no-fee lawyers run with it and the judicial activists approve it in their judgements and then the civil servants and the authorities enforce it.
Men are women and black is white.
Around 50% in Ukraine are not buying what around 50% in the West is not buying and a ‘popular’ revolution against an elected president (to use BBC speak) does not result in a civil war. Let alone a nuclear war or – as I suspect might happen – a biological one seeing as who has most influence over Russia.
February 25, 2022
An 80 seat majority to Get Brexit Done and defeat Woke.
Get on with it.
February 25, 2022
I’ve just heard from a normally reliable source that the Russians have just unleashed their Chechen special forces on Kiev.You would not want to mess with them.Their training manuals do not have a section on permitted nail varnish shades(for men).
February 25, 2022
@Dom > Hear hear
One hundred percent!
February 25, 2022
DOM, ++++++++. Well said
February 25, 2022
Hope nobody is holding their breath on a united EU applying tough sanctions because it ain’t going to happen as the majority of the are too closely entwined financially, on energy supplies and for their export markets.
1940s all over again Britain, its old commonwealth countries and the yanks in the vanguard. When push goes to shove europe capitulates and leaves it to others.
Situation normal then. A lot must thankful they have not got a EU army up and running, that could have created a few problems.
February 25, 2022
Err no ! I do not want us to be in the vanguard. We have done that time and time again and look at where it has gotten us ? For the heinous crime of wanting to be a self governing country once more, we are slowly being made to surrender a piece of our sovereign territory. If the EU tried to do that to President Putin, what do you think he would do ? Well we know what he would do.
We have left the EU and rejoined the Big Wide World. It is there that we will find better trading partners and the like.
February 25, 2022
Problem is Mark we have not really left the EU properly yet, The EU is acting a bit like Russia over GB and Northern Ireland in particular, whilst it does not want to invade, it wants control of an independent sovereign state, and we have been complicit in allowing it, time now for us to take back control with our own rules and regulations.
February 25, 2022
But taking a dispassionate view of events since the referendum I don’t blame the EU, or the Irish government, or even Sinn Fein, or even the assorted traitors in the House of Commons, as much as I blame Theresa May, my own MP, who started off well enough with “Brexit means Brexit” but then allowed sectional business interests – Tory party donors, a cynic might suspect – to deflect her to “Brexit means Brexit In Name Only”, and then began to hint that maybe there would be no Brexit at all:
https://www.politico.eu/article/theresa-may-warns-of-stark-choice-between-a-deal-and-no-brexit/
thereby opening the door for the Great Charlatan to prance through and then sell out part of our country for the sake of his much vaunted but never officially valued “Canada style” free trade with the EU.
0.75% of GDP is the EU’s estimate of the value of that deal to the UK:
https://johnredwoodsdiary.com/2022/02/13/getting-rid-of-the-budget-deficit/#comment-1299433
while others put it at various points between 0% and 2%, and I am still waiting for the response to my latest FOI request to find out if the UK government has ever made any assessment of its value.
“The Act requires that a response must be given promptly, and in any event within 20 working days. We will therefore reply at the latest by 1st March.”
I expect the answer will again be that nobody in the UK government apparatus has any idea of its worth.
February 25, 2022
I thought that Boris spoke well last night, unveiling a strong package of sanctions. Although I would have liked to see more actions against the Russian people – protesting in some 50 cities, overnight – the banning of Aeroflot was a nice touch.
I’ll also give a shout-out for President Zelensky, who is showing far more steel than we might have expected from a comedian.
And I’ll give you a shout-out too, for keeping this site a beacon for free-speech. I remain banned from Conservative Home and have given up trying to get posts on this crisis past Vuukle’s censorship over at GF.
Well, I wonder how the Russian stock market will do this morning?
February 25, 2022
+1
Funny how the pundits kept saying that gold was no longer the āgo toā in a crisis.
Itās the only thing thatās going up.
Oh ..not sureā¦maybe pharmaceuticals??
Respect for being banned by Con Home š
February 25, 2022
Thank you. One aside: I’ve just tried to move some cash from my bank to a fund manager. Overnight, it seems, the fund manager has executed, poorly, a change to its payments system – presumably to stop foreign cash movements. The change has also stopped me moving mine! I feel well and truly sanctioned!
February 25, 2022
Sir John, please delete MY comment to which this replies.
Reply deleted
February 25, 2022
Absolutely, it’s a badge of honour … I was banned for banging on about leaving the EU.
February 26, 2022
Are you sure, Denis?
February 25, 2022
Putin hasnāt even declared a āwarā with Ukraine as he doesnāt see them as a sovereign countryā¦. we should make the Russian government, its military, its economy and its people hurt for what ātheyā are all doing or allowing to be done in their name
February 27, 2022
‘…presumably to reassure him that NATO would not go to war. ‘ Don’t be silly, JR. Why would Putin put any trust in that when the West said no further East?
February 25, 2022
The Aeroflot ban has already rebounded on us -and badly.They’ve just announced all British registered planes will be banned,not only from landing in Russia but from the entirety of their vast airspace.Get your atlas out to see what that means.
February 25, 2022
If you want to fly direct to China you’ll have to divert…..anywhere else in the world okay
February 26, 2022
It’s a bit like what would have happened if the UK had just “walked away” from talks with the European Union and lost access to its airspace and infrastructure – but nothing like as bad.
February 26, 2022
Airspace isn’t under the power of the EU.
February 26, 2022
Correct
February 26, 2022
Russian airlines will no longer be able to use EU airspace, according to a German radio broadcaster. Matthias Deis, deputy studio manager for German TV broadcaster ARD Capital Studio, announced the decision on Twitter. Mr Deis said: “EU countries close airspace for Russian airlines. Just confirmed to me from a reliable source.”
Maybe they’d just do it country-by-country like that, then.
February 25, 2022
We have been cursed with a decadent “liberal” Establishment for the past 20 years which has become completely obsessed with identity/woke issues and the phantom climate crisis. As a result they have failed to carry out the most basic duty of any Government: to keep its citizens safe and the country secure.
We don’t have secure borders. We don’t have secure energy or food supplies. And we don’t have sufficient Defence/military capability to protect these islands, let alone go to the aid of any allies. And I’m afraid until we get some SERIOUS ADULTS in Parliament who are prepared to stand up to the Cultural Marxists and Eco Lunatics who infest the Public Sector we will remain vulnerable.
Putin must be quaking in his boots at the thought of the MoD’s Diversity and Equality Managers giving him a severe ticking-off for not pandering to the feelings of the woke and declaring his personal pronouns as he and his troops invade Ukraine.
For a start we need a serious energy policy and to forget the Net Zero idiocy. Windmills are not going to power a 21st century country and the obsession with reducing our carbon emissions from 1% of global emissions to 0% is going to destroy our economy.
The British Establishment is weak, decadent and doesn’t live in the real world.
February 25, 2022
Whole heartedly agree
February 25, 2022
Great post Donna. I said as much yesterday but not as well as yourself. Thank you.
February 25, 2022
Yes Donna, a wake up call to the cold reality of “Woken and Broken”.
February 25, 2022
Fully agree DONNA
February 25, 2022
Hear hear Donna, spot on.
February 25, 2022
How long would our windmills last in the first out break in hostilities? We would be without power and our country crippled in seconds .
February 25, 2022
Said Donna.
February 25, 2022
Donna, +++++ another excellent post, thank you
February 27, 2022
The only protection UK needs is from the boat people – who is going to invade the UK? What’s in it for any country to do so? The constant talk of Putin wanting to invade the whole of Europe is absurd – what would it cost? The Russian economy is not big enough. What to do with millions of enemies against you?
Putin has enough trouble to deal with in Russia. When the many who proffer this Putin wish are never countered by any radio presenter, BBC, LBC and probably many others.
So many know exactly what is in Putin’s mind and what he is going to do!
February 25, 2022
Ukraine has a population of 44m.
If it follows the path of Syria we can reasonably expect about 2/3 of these people to flee.
Around a third will stay put. A third will be internally displaced within Ukraine. A third – 15m or so – will seek asylum.
As a big country UKās fair share would be 1-2m.
Brexitists – this is your war. How many Ukrainian refugees would you like to take?
February 25, 2022
nonsense -if it is anybody’s war – it is clearly an EU test. And found on their back showing a belly to be tickled.
February 25, 2022
Absolutely nothing to do with the EU Countries then Andy eh ?
February 25, 2022
I don’t think Ukraine will follow the path of Syria. Syrians lived under a dictator and the few that had the belly to fight had disparate objectives. Ukraine on the other hand has had a taste of democracy and European progress and won’t be so ready to give it up.
February 25, 2022
Andy. You have made unreasonable comments before but this is the first time you have given cause to doubt your sanity. You claim, “Brexitists – this is your war.” How, exactly?
February 25, 2022
I think Andy is from North Britain, where they think of things slightly differently. They must do, to have elected such a strange ruling party.
February 25, 2022
https://www.brexit-watch.org/how-the-rejoin-eu-campaign-aims-to-destro-brexit-by-2025
“Back in 2018, Best for Britainās Campaign Director, one of Nick Cleggās acolytes, made it clear to us all sitting in his audience just how dirty they were prepared to fight and that they were prepared to fight for as long as it took. āWe have to connect EVERY problem with Brexitā were his words as he explained the approach that should be taken to convince the UK electorate that Brexit was a mistake and one that must be reversed.
Regardless of the facts, regardless of how slim or tenuous the connection might be, the task was to connect any negatively perceived outcome with Brexit: If a business failed it was due to Brexit. If prices for a particular product, or service increased it was Brexit. If there were supply shortages or over-supply problems it was Brexit. If interest rates went up making mortgages more expensive it was Brexit. If interest rates went down reducing income from savings it was Brexit.
Whatever it was that happened, which affected particular groups of people negatively, it had to be connected to Brexit. The objective was to get as many people as possible, for as many reasons as possible, to believe that Brexit was resulting in negative outcomes for them and others.”
February 26, 2022
Thanks, Denis. That is very informative. And could this spin merchant’s boss be the man now in charge of policing Facebook for content he doesn’t like?
February 25, 2022
Yes indeed. Losing the referendum has given him Brexit madness syndrome
February 25, 2022
He cannot admit it is the EU and their expansionist ways which have directly caused this situation, so besotted with their nonsense is he, he cannot put up a sensible post.
February 25, 2022
+1 + but not sure it is actually the first time.
February 26, 2022
Please explain how the UK’s – a major military power – leaving the European Union could possibly have done anything other than increase the likelihood of Putin’s behaving in this way?
Reply NATO is the main European defensive alliance which brings US power to help us which is essential given low EU defence budgets. This war is about NATOs reaction and the U.K. is fully committed to NATO. Pro EU people usually deny EU armies exist. The EU has not wanted to lead a war against Russia.
February 26, 2022
The UK’s membership of the European Union in no way whatsoever inhibited any measures that it might have taken re NATO.
So who exactly does want to lead a war against Russia then?
February 26, 2022
the first time? Did you join the blog just last week?
February 25, 2022
Pathetic comment again Andy. If we were still in the EU the same thing would have happened. Your obsession is becoming worse. Obviously your medication isn’t strong enough.
February 26, 2022
There is no parallel universe control experiment to prove your claim, but see my comment above.
February 25, 2022
But we’re not a big country are we Andy, since Brexit we are insignificant ‘Plague Island’ who have no influence on the world stage. On the other hand your beloved EU have played a big part in this by trying to expand up to Russia’s borders and creating an ‘EU army’ to oppose Russia. Rejoiners, this is YOUR war.
February 26, 2022
The clamour for Ukraine to be part of the European Union came from the people of Ukraine, not vice-versa.
What was it supposed to do? Tell them to go away and to mind their own business?
Putin appears to resent their in-his-view Slavic disloyalty.
February 25, 2022
I think quite a lot of Ukrainians would look forward to having the higher living standards that Russians have, compared with their country.
But of course there may be some corrupt Kiev oligarchs who will flee to the UK or Switzerland, with their money.
February 25, 2022
Andy stay off the keyboard and keep taking your medication.
February 25, 2022
Andy, I think UK should take lots of Ukraine refigees, and house them all in leafy Buckinghamshire, next door to you. Maybe you could emigrate and create a bit more space.
February 25, 2022
Zero.
February 25, 2022
That wasnāt very politically correct of me. I miss-spoke. I meant to say āNet zeroā.
February 25, 2022
Sit down and put your head between your knees, breathing slowly. This war is nothing to do with Brexit. You might like to reflect on the movement, today, of a British armoured battle group, to defend the Baltic States. I await something looking like action from your beloved EU’s Gendarmerie.
February 26, 2022
You raged against the creation of any kind of European Union military.
February 27, 2022
So did Nick ” a dangerous fantasy” Clegg
February 25, 2022
Andy.
As we already have a chronic shortage of houses for our own people, we may have to commandeer some private houses, in order to put up the refugees.
Would you like to be the first to offer yours? After all, you do seem to have all the answers!
February 25, 2022
Sir John, you think the Europeans have given it their best efforts to make the Minsk agreement work? Surely not. France and Germany brokered Minsk II, under the Normandy format. They did nothing effective to make Kiev implement the Agreement it signed up to, and grant the Donbas autonomy. That would have ended the fighting, and then Russia would have had no casus belli. Also, the EU has given Kiev a vast amount of money in recent years to help it recover from the fighting in Donbas. It could have made that aid conditional on implementing Minsk II, but it didn’t. If the Europeans had been serious about ending the conflict, we would not be in the position we are today.
February 25, 2022
There was no casus belli without the Agreement, and it’s not about the Russians, just the madman in charge.
February 25, 2022
Violation of human rights in Kosovo and Libya (as claimed by ‘The West) is by now certainly a casus belli. That doesn’t mean it’s a good one.
Nor does it mean Clinton, Blair, Obama and Cameron were madmen. They were furthering their geopolitical interests, as Putin is.
February 25, 2022
Start today by abandoning the planned closure of the coal fired power stations. Operate them 24/7 until the new domestic gas supplies come onboard. Re-open the Cuadrilla rig instead of concreting it in. Approve the Cumbrian mine.
February 25, 2022
Hear hear. Far too sensible and obvious for our numpties to do.
February 25, 2022
Whatever Putinās actions (and they can be bloody), a part of what seems to drive him is a love of his country and most of its people. I find that trait admirable.
Our elites despise their own countries and the vast majority of people living in them. I would like that to change.
February 25, 2022
That is how I view Putin and the short sighted idiotic hatred of the native population displayed by our PTB.
February 25, 2022
Not quite sure how one demonstrates one’s love of country and people by bombing the sh*t out of your next-door neighbour … let’s face it, Putin is yet another greedy, self-obsessed tyrant in the history of the world.
February 25, 2022
We need to get fracking and drilling immediately.
February 25, 2022
Agreed.
February 25, 2022
You’re right, James, but, disappointingly, Johnson shows no sign of abandoning his Green policies or re-visiting last year’s discredited Defence review. Conservative backbenchers must pressure him to see sense.
February 25, 2022
I see a lot of criticism from Continuity Remainers of Boris for “weak” sanctions and Tory ties to Russian money. As usual these Little Englanders have no interest or knowledge at all of anything that happens in their beloved EU. In Germany there’s a whole party, the SPD, who explicitly have as a goal closer ties to Russia and an ex-Chancellor Schroeder who is a paid lobbyist for Russia and a friend of Putin. They have also had another Chancellor, Merkel, who had an explicit stated policy to make Germany dependent on Russian energy (currently succeeding to the extent of 40-50%). So, who do we think is blocking the sanction of excluding Russia from the SWIFT bank payment system, because it’s not UK. But nothing from the Remainers on this – just lavish praise for Germany cancelling Nordstream 2, a pipeline that isn’t even operating yet so no immediate penalty to either Russia or Germany, whilst they still funnel money to Russia via the operating Nordstream 1 pipeline.
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
RG, Ben Wallace made quite clear his frustration that Germany was blocking the exclusion of Russia from Swift and Germany has merely “halted” procedures on Nord Stream 2. Years ago there used to be a road sign “Halt at Major Road Ahead”. It didn’t mean you had to abandon your journey and Germany will doubtless proceed with this pipeline when things quieten down.
February 25, 2022
Is not a new Government needed to see “… the UK take some hard and good decisions about our future national security”?
The one we have now has neglected or eschewed many sensible and appropriate actions that in the the present light can be viewed as essential and overdue. Its failure to address energy and food security and to protect our borders stands as a shameful rebuke to its “you bet” propaganda. Mr. Putin has bet and looks to have out-played those now frothing at his activities.
February 25, 2022
Russia 15,000 battle tanks , UK 227 and only 148 of those are going to be modernised. If Putin decides to invade Estonia, Latvia etc any guarantee by NATO is going to be pretty worthless with the Nuclear option coming into the equation pretty quickly. The cost of stripping our armed forces to the bone makes Nuclear war more likely. But no matter we have invested a lot in politically correct gestures in our military, that will have Putin quaking in his boots.
Any military review has to include our Woke Generals, and whether we want them to remain.
February 25, 2022
I see the Russian politicians social media accounts are working just fine.
You get blocked for a few hurty words, but invade a country is just fine according to the social media clowns.
February 25, 2022
Despite all the rhetoric the stock market at soon after 8am is up considerably after a similar situation on Wall St so the expectation is that Ukraine will soon be incorporated into Russia and things will rapidly get back to what passes for normal.
February 25, 2022
Whatever is happening in Ukraine and whatever Putin is or isn’t, it sickens me to the very pit of my stomach to see the likes of Johnson talk about democracy and freedoms.
In my life time (and I’m not that old) I have seen a once free thinking speaking people become cowed and tight lipped for fear of a knock on the door. We have people being thrown out of work, into prison, or their reputations ruined all for the crime of having a different opinion. We have a law now where not all are equal because it seems ‘protected characteristics’ lessens responsibility or blame. Those deemed not to have such characteristics can be ruined just for an act of stupidity or a wrong word.
We have had people persecuted for speaking out on rape and torture of English girls.
As for England itself and the English, well it is perfectly obvious how our ‘democratic’ loving politicians view them.
As you know Sir John EVEL just suspended without the raising of one eyebrow. Very democratic, fair and equal I suppose.
Perhaps Johnson & Co. could lecture Trudeau or Ahern. No? Thought not.
How long before alternative sources of news that show there may be other sides to a story are labelled as dangerous?
As for security of the West, ye Gods the Liberal Western leaders threw that out with the mass migration policy they’ve all implemented.
Politicians now even want to force people to take a ‘vaccine’ that at best only limits symptoms of something the vast majority will not be hospitalised for, let alone die of.
Putin may be a rogue, but I’m damned I’ll take lectures from the likes of Johnson & Co. on what’s right and wrong. When it comes to military invasions many in the West seem to have amnesia. Iraq, Afghanistan and a trail of destruction across the Middle East.
February 25, 2022
Your leader you respect just loves to be centre stage. Yesterday was another example in the HoC.
His grand announcements would without doubt have been anticipated and planned for by Putin who will get help from China if it is needed. In any event many of the restrictions will take time to impliment so are empty.
He made much of ending the reliance on Russian oil and gas, but when asked three times if he would authorise the extraction of ours he did did not answer or deviated.
Clearly he thinks more windmills are the answer – without doubt he is obsessed and has sold us out to this religion. He even said that one of the Baltic states should increase its dependence on renewables. Clearly he firmly believes that’s how we should defend ourselves against Russian aggression.
Do you think, Sir John, that we can put our lives in his hands?
February 25, 2022
You can read these posts and weep.
It confirms what actually a lot of people think but never say in public.
Our government has been well and truly screwed in so many areas and decisions they have made. They talk a lot with no supporting action.
In return it is the people of this country who are getting screwed even harder.
February 25, 2022
Turbo. We have been truly let down by successive governments. The ordinary man on the street can see what should be done and what is needed as do sensible MP’S like John but not the collective government and those in charge. We really could be in the shit soon. Something needs to change and bloody quickly.
February 25, 2022
Not screwed as hard as the people of Ukraine, who find that after they ill-advisedly heeded Western governments to defy Russia they are now told by Boris that the whole world offers moral support.
February 25, 2022
+1
February 25, 2022
If you can still read this postā¦.it means that our woke government hasnāt yet implemented its free speech (speech against the government act 2022) bill
February 25, 2022
TT.
Ref UK energy needs at affordable prices I would suggest that our government has screwed itself and there is no sign that they are growing tired of their self indulgence. There is a three syllable word that covers this.
February 25, 2022
With Johnson in charge you really donāt expect anything else. I see he promised Putin more NATO. Another one broken.
February 26, 2022
TT — ‘t confirms what actually a lot of people think but never say in public’.
The place to say these things is in the H of C. Not a chance…..
February 25, 2022
We have become disastrously dependent on Russian energy, that is now pretty obvious , but rather than correct this our Government sees this as an opportunity to force us even further into the arms of the Climate Change extremists. When they should be changing tack, they aren’t , they should be setting out policy to get fracking and get coal mines opened but won’t. I was reading that our fracking gas seams are extraordinary in their depth/size, US’s are 300 feet, ours they say are 3,000 feet deep in size. The British Government would rather have our European neighbours buy Russian coal or gas, not ours, I suppose it protects them from getting harsh comments from Greta.
We are not learning any lessons on energy supply while it is happening with Russia, so I suppose there is little chance any lessons will be taken from it regarding China. If/when China invades Taiwan we will be saying…. ‘Oh Gosh how terrible it is that China controls all the strategic commodities and industries’…. and be impotent to do anything. There is no chance our Governing class will take the opportunity to plan and make sure we aren’t dependent on China for anything, that of course is not in the globalist’s hand book, so we will carry on exposing our economic jugular to totalitarian regimes.
February 25, 2022
The EU wanted Ukraine to become part of it’s political sphere which is what restarted all of this.
The EU can take the refugees, no need for us to get involved. We will of course need to prevent more dinghies arriving.
Globalism has led to no security of supply of energy or food. While we must increase our support to NATA and reinforce our own forces we must not lose sight of becoming independently sustainable in the medium to long term.
btw Nice filename in the URL Sir John- why change the title of the piece from that which is in the URL? Is it purely for SEO?
February 25, 2022
Nato are masters of regime change. Much blood. Much instability. Biblical refugee crises. Headchopping fanatics in previously orderly countries – and NONE of them in Our Back Yard.
The EU and Nato caused the Ukraine crisis. We ignored and disrespected Russia.
Putin wants a neutral territory buffer. A 20 year President doesn’t all of a sudden become an expansionist megalomaniac with ideas of taking over Europe – he doesn’t have the numbers that Hitler had anyway.
And what of the Azov Battalion which models itself on a WW2 Nazi battalion which enjoyed village massacres ? Why are pro EU fighters modelling themselves on that and why are the BBC not mentioning it when they show them teaching old ladies how to shoot ? Did they not see the SS insignia on their uniforms ?
Ukraine is a complex nation, far from innocent.
Is everybody sure that they want they and their loved ones to die for it ?
February 25, 2022
Yes Sir John, you draw attention to a catalogue of security failures from the Cambridge Five right through to those in politics today who have been eagerly taking the Russian and Chinese shilling.
The fight against energy security has ranged from over indulged nimbies to the bedchamber, time for a u turn. Self sufficient energy is out there and readily accessible. Time for debate is long over, get it done. It was significant to note that Boris did not answer the HoC question yesterday as to what he was doing to open up our North Sea and frackable gas fields. I was amazed that he was allowed to get away with silence on the subject
Germany through the foolishness of mother Merkel is in a dire position. Can we prevail upon Biden to convoy some of their fracked gas to the aid of Germany and other dependant nations. Not knowing what our gas reserves are can we look to supplying Germany with what we are able. Not I would add for the benefit of the bottom line of the large oil companies.
Self sufficiency extends way beyond oil and gas. I would ask, having invented the computer and the internet, how have we descended to dependency on any overseas nation for computer chips. Their production is technical rather than labour intensive, so who in their wisdom decided it was a good idea that we handed it to Taiwan and China.
I can see the altruistic motives in educating thousands of Chinese at our universities, in time maybe they could change China. However in the present it is one big take away where the fat salaries of those who run our universities are the only UK beneficiaries. I see an urgent reset as an absolute necessity.
February 25, 2022
Putin and his circle must look at the West in bemusement. The main opposition governed by a senile old man whose administration is convincing State authorities that people who disagree with it are terrorists. A new religion has sprung up, so that a woman can be a man (and vice versa) merely by saying so. To the chess playing Russians this must seem truly bizarre. Imagine a chess game where the pieces can move wherever they want depending on what the player calls them, regardless of what they look like. The consequences of this weird belief is that men win lots of women’s events, just by saying they’re women.
In this country we don’t want to make anything, or heat ourselves, otherwise we will melt the planet.
Putin would be quite justified in thinking the West has gone collectively insane.
I agree with everything you say in your blog. I just wish there were more in your party who thought the same.
February 25, 2022
You’ve got to admire the Ukrainian President for defending freedom and democracy by rallying his people to step up to the plate when the chips are down!
February 25, 2022
Putin says he doesn’t want a country next door armed to the teeth but neither does Ukraine. What’s good for the goose ….
February 25, 2022
National Security ā our immediate enemy is the campaign of net-zero, the dominance of the climate change committee, the policy of banning our freedom of choice, the radical ideas of a green revolution, a fear of the woke media, our governance by command, little relevance to manifesto, our government allegiance to minority lobby group, the policy of renewable and imported energy over our own god given fossil fuels
Our national security is suppose to be protected by our government but its our own government thatās implementing policies that threaten national security
February 25, 2022
Following football action on the invasion, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called for Formula 1 to cancel this yearās Russian Grand Prix in wake of the Russian military invasion of Ukraine.
The race, held at the Sochi Autodrome, is scheduled to take place on September 25th. But its inclusion on the calendar has come under question from multiple figures in the Formula 1 paddock, including world champions Max Verstappen and Sebastian Vettel.
It would mean a welcome break for teams between Italy and Singapore GP during September.
February 25, 2022
As ever, everything written is true and obvious. However, politicians these days are always in hock to someone, including their own ambitions. I wonder how much Russian influence is wielded in our politics via funding etc.
What’s been notable in the piecemeal appraoch to sanctions is not only that few sanctions have happened, but those that have not happened. The City has been dubbed “Londongrad” since it’s still far too easy for malign actors to push money through the City to fund their lobbying and donor activities.
Everywhere I look thes days I see politicians with vested interests. Look at all those remoaners that Guido exposed as being in receipt of EU CAP grants to keep their “farming” land doing nothing. Or those whose ambition was to get a Commission job (given that one EU rule is that to do that, someone needs to have held high political office in their own country).
Then there’s the questions asked in parliament that are directly related to the interests of companies paying the MP in some “consultancy” capacity. The days when we had MPs with integrity and real-world experience are long gone. Will they do the right thing now? I sincerely doubt it.
Reply MPs take up causes that matter to constituents and we believe to be right. Political parties are banned by law from accepting foreign donations. I have no problem with rich Russians who often oppose Putin living in London legally in preference to Russia. They have to obey our laws on tax and origins of wealth.
February 25, 2022
Donna +100
February 25, 2022
I completely agree. We need to become completely independent and self-sufficient in terms of energy and also food production (for basic necessities). In terms of defence policy, we need an anti-ballistic missile defence system protecting our country, we need tactical nuclear weapons for the battlefield and a far greater investment in cyberwarfare and advanced weapons. We need to increase defence spending by at least 50% and an end to cretinous political correctness in the forces.
We also need to become much more assertive – indeed, AGGRESSIVE – globally. We need a new mentality, which says that we are a global superpower and will ACT like it. Instead, Boris the Traitor is weak and meek and wants to be seen as an internationalist rather than nationalist. Which is why he does NOTHING to assert British sovereignty in Northern Ireland, and allows Britain to be invaded by illegal immigrants flooding in across the Channel.
So we can see that nothing will change as long as Boris remains in power.
February 25, 2022
+1. DOM
The Climate Change Act has already done immense harm, with even more to come!
February 25, 2022
A very interesting lecture, this morning, thanks for making it available via zoom. The only problem was the very poor resolution of the video feed from the room. Having been to a previous lecture, I cannot see why the camera needed to be so far from you and the screen.
Several of the participants including me, had a very enjoyable and friendly conversation via live chat while listening to you. I don’t think anyone regularly participating here would have learned a lot, but it was useful to have all the issues related to Net Zero laid out in a logical presentation.
The one area that we should perhaps look at is what is likely to happen at the next election.
It seems to me that the financial consequences of the shortage of energy and the Ukraine crisis will combine to push Net Zero to the very back of voter’s minds.
Given that all the other political parties want the government to go even faster towards Net Zero, the one thing that would guarantee a substantial victory at the election would be to adopt a more realistic programme :
Much more North Sea Gas Production
Slow the phasing out of Hybrids and IC cars to 2040
Delay the move away from gas boilers to at least 2035
Scrap the idea of moving to heat pumps altogether.
February 25, 2022
Why ban cars & gas boilers at all…..please stop the idea of banning things…thats done in Russia
February 26, 2022
We cannot get the climate change idiots to drop their ideas altogether – that is just not realistic.
Pushing it back into the long grass is possible while we work on alternative technologies that will actually be practical and affordable.
February 26, 2022
We just need a political party with the bottle to repeal net-zero targets, the climate change act, the green revolution and disband the climate change committee
There is nothing stopping the Torys, Reform or any new party from declaring the end of net-zero and stating the same in their manifast ***vote winner***
February 25, 2022
A lot of good comments here and I agree with Sir Johnās conclusions. Just to put the other side of the story, though, I take the liberty of reproducing here a pertinent comment seen elsewhere:
ā This makes sense when you understand that the elites realise the covid con has run its course and they have moved on to the next stage of their āorder out of chaosā program ā war and all its associated spin offs like sanctions creating energy and food shortages for the poor, with rich pickings for billionaires trading in commodities and arms.
Iām not sure if anyone bothered to read Putins address to the nation yesterday ā but I agreed with every word of it. From the bit where he said the US/UK/NATO aggressor had broken every promise made to Russia, in particular the promise made after the Russian withdraw from Eastern Europe not to expand its troops and weapons silos beyond Germany, to Western elites attempts to destroy European societies from within by a process of aggressively imposing cultural ādegradation and degenerationā.
NATO should have been dissolved after the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact but now the US/NATO alliance, which is a tool of the cabal, is in the process of completly surrounding Russia with nuclear weapons, ICBMās, bioweapons and troops right on Russiaās border ā and the West has the gall to accuse Russia of warmongering, bullying and intimidation.
Now it emerges that Putin was right when he said last year the the US military had established a number of bioweapon labs in Ukraine. May Russian missiles rain down on those facilities, and take whoever is running them with them.
Since the 2014 CIA/MI5 sponsored coup in Ukraine, corrupt Western elites like the Clintons, Bidens, Sorus [sic] etc have been sucking Ukraine dry ā much the same as these elites did when they funded the Bolshevik revolution in Russia. Ukraine, a country of 43 million people with vast resources now has a GDP less that New Zealand, a country of 4.5 million people.
As Putin says, the cabal is determined to crush any nation that does not fall at its feet. For Russia, this is a fight for national survival.ā
Reply Mr Putin’s murderous assault on Ukraine must be condemned.
February 25, 2022
Who in your view owns the potential natural resources of a nation?
What exact percentage of these resources are energy companies contractually obliged to provide to the country they extract it from?
In the case of an even more serious worldwide shortage of energy, do you think that energy companies would prioritise domestic supply, or minimise it as much as possible and sell the rest to the highest foreign bidders?
For all the tax we make, would that not be more than spent on paying inflated prices to maximise the profits of energy companies, when some of it at least originally came from our own country?!
February 25, 2022
Is Russia now to be excluded from international collaborations in the development of fusion reactors?
If not, would that not be almost as ironic as some European countries deciding not to sanction their gas trade with Russia?
February 25, 2022
Russia should be excluded from the UN and the UN p5 disbanded
February 25, 2022
Sir John,
You are right that we need to examine and improve our national security in light of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and take all the measures you suggest.
But there is one national security issue that you have not mentioned and that is the slower, but equally dangerous, invasion taking place across the Channel of unidentified young men of fighting age coming from countries that do not share our laws, customs, culture and wish for democracy.
The Government even aids this invasion by collecting these men at sea and then providing them with free 4 star hotel accommodation, Ā£40/week pocket money and giving them the freedom to roam our streets until they disappear if they so wish.
These invaders pay the people smugglers for being smuggled into the UK all the way from their home countries and I would not be surprised if we were to find that funding for this invasion was provided by Russia and China.
February 25, 2022
I see oil going down.
February 26, 2022
But the six month trend has been rising from lows of 70 to highs of 100ā¦so your statement is a bit āclimate changeāishā and selective
February 26, 2022
is that down in price, or down the drain, down to the bottom of the sea, when it should be floating on the top?
February 25, 2022
A letter in the Irish Times today:
“War in Europe ā Russiaās assault on Ukraine”
“A response from Ireland to the Russian assault on an internationally recognised democratic country, which would reverberate in the halls of the Kremlin and all over the world, would be to summon the Russian ambassador to inform him that Ireland will now start to take steps to join the Nato alliance. The ambassador should be informed that this case has shown that diplomacy does not work with the current Russian leadership at the helm, and military protection is the only option. As a side issue, part of the island of Ireland is already in this organisation and this would represent the elimination of another barrier between North and South.”
Or, to put in another way, it would make it easier for the South to take over the North, even though the South no longer has a claim to the North, part of another country, embedded in its constitution.
Meanwhile Simon Covemey tweets that “Ireland/U.K. are an example of how 2 countries, with a difficult past, found a way to shape and sustain a peace process, guaranteeing an absence of violence.”; that is, unless the UK decides to make use of the Article 50 withdrawal clause introduced with the Lisbon Treaty that the Irish government supported so strongly that it forced the Irish people to vote again in a second referendum, in which case Coveney’s boss Leo Varadkar warned of a resurgence of violence unless the UK – or at least Northern Ireland – remained under the economic thumb of the EU, which he has got thanks to two successive UK Prime Ministers caving in to his implicit threat.
February 25, 2022
I heard Boris in the Commons 24/2 assert we now need energy security, so maybe the penny has finally dropped! Now we need to see concrete steps, that others have listed well on this site.
Whatever happened to qualified majority voting at the EU? If necessary cut Russian access to SWIFT & the German’s access at the same time… they need to fall in line with ROTW on SWIFT, no Ifs or Buts!!
Plenty of LNG gas available for Europe from other countries (Qatar/Oz/Saudi/USA etc), just start placing these orders to replace Russian gas asap. Ditto oil; all prepped for next winter.
Putin is threatening NATO to remove all its military and infrastructure from the 1997+ countries who joined NATO (https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html). Er no.
The answer must be a far more powerful NATO, much better resourced and ready despatch Putin & his cabinet when the time is right… as economic sanctions bite & he can’t pay his troops & is mired in a bloody insurgency in Ukraine. The unthinkable nuclear scenario needs a thoroughly honest re-assessment by those countries/NATO whom have this, with all necessary upscaling in defence and offence capability quickly organised. Putin only understands power, as any evil psychotic narcissist does, in the end we may need to activate this, if he invades other countries. Never thought I would be writing this š
February 25, 2022
No-one wanted the current situation. But it’s happened and it’s a mess. Weren’t there some negotiations long ago when Austria was in a right mess, with troops in occupation? After this, it agreed to become neutral in perpetuity.
Ah yes … the Austrian State Treaty 1955. I don’t think anyone’s called Austria a puppet state recently.
Apart from Austria, the other five existing neutral states in Europe are Finland, Ireland, Malta, Sweden and Switzerland. I presume these agreements only happen because they’re the least bad way forward, not the best so maybe there’s a case for neutral state 7? It would be allowed to join the EU, but not NATO.
If it’s the seventh, it’s hardly a novel idea either.
February 26, 2022
An alternative ‘Norman’ – the real one has been censored (by whom, I wonder?) Clever stuff!
February 25, 2022
To see a nation come under military attack is heart-breaking, but I also feel for the Russian participants acting under orders, and those in Eastern Ukraine who’ve been victim to several years of aggression from Kiev. It’s so regrettable that diplomacy seems to have been undermined by failure to implement the Minsk Agreement, and an alternative analysis I have seen indicates that all is not well with the West’s case. We would expect better behaviour of children in the school playground. Meanwhile, innocent citizens of all ages are denied the whole truth and are caught up in the fall-out. Indeed, all very sad.
February 26, 2022
Thank you, Sir John. I talk to Romanians quite often, and in recent days, express empathy towards them, knowing their different perspective on events in the East. Over the past few years, one thing that has saddened me is hearing that all is not well back home, and that some are now saying they were better off under Ceausescu – something I never thought I would hear said. The West takes many things for granted – sadly, it is all too often oversimplified. We forget the long-term pernicious effects of Marxism, and the lack of a Reformation, that so graced much of the Western wing of the old Roman Empire. As you well know, understanding history is a vital aspect of civilised wisdom, and mutual understanding between the nations.
February 25, 2022
China looking after its own National Security ā āWhile Europe struggles to sanction Russiaās aggression and threatens its own security with focus on Net Zero, China is ramping up coal production despite their climate promises.ā Net Zero Watch
February 25, 2022
German Energy Minister declares that the shutdowns of coal-fired power plants planned for this year are a mistake and Germany must keep existing coal-fired power plants operational rather than depend on Russia for energy supply – Net Zero Watch
February 25, 2022
Germany is also removing the Green levies on their people’s fuel bills, unlike Johnson for whom no pain is too much to show what a believer he is in Greta’s climate change.
February 25, 2022
This weekend think of the young men and women fighting to defend their freedom in Ukraine. From the website https://ukraine.ua/news/support-the-armed-forces-of-ukraine/ I have copied these details for donations:
Beneficiary Customer ā Name The Ministry of Defense of Ukraine, 6, Povitroflotskiy Pr., Kyiv, Ukraine, 03168
IBAN UA963223130000025307010029738
* Currency of Bank Account, only US dollars; Euro; British Pound sterling; Swiss francs; Canadian dollars; Polish zloty; Czech crowns; Russian rubles; Australian dollars.
Bank Name: JOINT STOCK COMPANY
Ā«THE STATE EXPORT-IMPORT BANK OF UKRAINEĀ»
Bank Address: 127, Antonovycha Str., Kyiv, Ukraine, 03150
Bank SWIFT Number EXBSUAUX
Setting of payment (Obligatory Remittance Information): Donation for the logistic and medical support of the Armed Forces of Ukraine (UA458201720313281002302018611)
February 26, 2022
I see India abstained in the UN on the vote condemning Russia. Yet another example of why India should not be given privileged access to favours in the UK, and from the UK.
February 26, 2022
+1.
February 26, 2022
I see that China has made another move to look after its own ‘national security’, easing the import of wheat from Russia. I’ll wager that the wheat will be coming from The Ukraine.
February 26, 2022
Sir John,
What you have suggested was right before we had the excuse of Ukraine invasion by Russia. We cannot support such actions by Governments as too many innocent people die Including in the Military of both sides.
But the UK has not done it’s best to stop this invasion. It has ignored what has been going on in Ukraine for the past eight years. It has turned a blind eye to the corrupt involvement of the US(I mean the elites not just the Government) in Ukraine development since the end of the USSR. The EU not much better. This was not honest political influence here that all countries seek to achieve over each other by discussion. Russia has more of a excuse, if that’s the word in these terrible circumstances, to invade Ukraine than the West has had in for example Iraq , which was an out and out lie.
Most people do not have time to look into the history of Ukraine and how it was formed and the events and influences since the fall of the USSR leading to the current situation.
History will show that the West took no action to avoid, minimise, and help reduce the tensions between the different ethnic groups in Ukraine but used these tensions to further it’s own Political and Military ends based on a matter of faith, rather than reason, that Russia is the route of all evil and the West is pure and completely democratic.
February 26, 2022
I emphatically agree with Sir JR’s analysis and what we need to do.
I just wish other MPs were as concerned about our security, industrial and military, as JR is.
The run down on the hardware side of the military must be reversed, and the military must be fully equipped to support feet on the ground, with better control over procurement programs.
Food security is another great concern – we need to stop further solar farms and use the land and sunlight there upon for producing crops.
We need our critical infrastructure and energy generation to be largely British designed, owned and built, with input only from reliable friendly nations (that rules out part of the EU). The utilities should be majority British owned and not be used by foreign owners as a cash source.
Also what appals me is the willingness of certain academics to cosily work with Chinese institutions – yet they choose to live in the West.
February 26, 2022
Having just seen a residential building in Kiev receive a missile hit, could I suggest that we need to add to our sanctions list every last Russian commander identified as being within Ukraine. Every single battlion, brigade, division and army commander!
February 26, 2022
I see the French have seized a Russian bound cargo ship, why cant they stop the dinghy divers the same way?
February 27, 2022
British public opinion won’t support going to war to defend EU members. Putin has not destabilised Northern Ireland, threatened us with a trade war or sought to deny us vaccines during a pandemic.
The U.K. needs to form a mini NATO with only reliable partners such as Turkey, the USA and Canada. EU countries are not allies or even friendly. If Boris is under the illusion he can win votes in Parliament or the country to defend the Baltics or Poland when they have been playing EU games against us since 2016 he really will be out of office.