It’s over, Putin. Soon you’ll be found dead in your bath from a mysterious ailment | The Sun
I WONDER what it will take for Vladimir Putin to realise that the West will not give up on Ukraine, and Ukraine will not give up on Ukraine?
The Russian president has been addressing his people again about the absolute tonking his army is taking in the war against his neighbour. He is desperate to save face.
First the Russian army got booted out of northern Ukraine when it tried to take Kyiv.
Now, wonderfully, the Ukrainians have recaptured 6,000 square kilometres in eastern Ukraine, pushing the Russkies right back to their border.
This is the greatest military failure of a superpower since World War Two. And Putin knows it, because it’s Putin’s fault.
So he has started threatening both Ukraine and the West with nuclear weapons.
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He and his henchmen have been doing this periodically since Putin launched his invasion in February. It’s been a continual recitation from a politician who, by now, knows he is done for.
The Russian breakaway regions of Donetsk and Luhansk are holding referenda to decide if they want to become part of Russia.
Nobody, anywhere, believes such a vote would be remotely fair or free.
Bad move
If it was, they would vote by a large majority to stay with Ukraine.
Some Western experts think that this is a ploy which will allow Putin to use his nukes. According to the Russian constitution, he can only deploy nuclear weapons if Russia itself is attacked.
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If Donetsk and Luhansk vote to join Russia and if Ukraine attacks those areas then Putin will have his authority.
The experts are forgetting two things, I think.
First, as I said before, Putin threatens us with nukes every few minutes. He thinks it scares us. But he also knows that nuclear weapons would bring a swift and decisive response from the West.
They’re also forgetting that Ukraine has regularly attacked Russian facilities in Crimea — which according to Putin is part of Russia. He did not respond with nuclear weapons.
The madman is also mobilising his country. Calling up 300,000 more Russians into his useless army.
Another bad move. It will have two consequences.
First, many of these reservists will need an awful lot of training, may be reluctant to fight and won’t be very good at it when they get to it. So it won’t help him much in Ukraine.
Second, it may well alienate an awful lot of ordinary Russians who don’t want to see their sons and husbands go off to fight. So it won’t help him domestically, either.
Meanwhile, the resolve in the West is strengthening rather than weakening. Most European countries have built up good stocks of gas, so they are not too scared about Mad Vlad turning the tap off.
And they can see what we can all see — and what Putin must now see.
That Ukraine can actually win this war and drive the Russians out of their country.
When that happens — and it will happen, one way or another — it will be the end of Putin. A megalomaniac tyrant who bit off a lot more than he could chew.
I suspect that one day, not long from now, he’ll be found dead in his bathtub of some mysterious ailment. Exactly the kind of treatment he metes out to his political enemies.
And by then nobody in Russia will shed much of a tear.
No nose-picking, no Stormzy, no dumbing down… bravo, BBC
THE BBC’s coverage of the Queen’s funeral was first rate.
Indeed, over the last two weeks the corporation has excelled itself, with special mentions to Huw Edwards, Kirsty Young and Fiona Bruce.
Oh, and of course David Dimbleby, who was the presenter on the day itself.
I’ve heard some very good reporting too, from Jim Naughtie and Mark Easton.
But here’s why I think the BBC got it right this time:
1. The presenters looked dignified and wore smart black ties and black dresses. They struck the right tone. They didn’t smirk, snigger or pick their noses.
2. They didn’t interview Stormzy for his view of what da kidz think of Her Maj.
3. They didn’t dumb down. The presenters said “catafalque” rather than “that wooden thing the coffin’s on”.
4. David Dimbleby was exemplary. He didn’t jabber throughout the ceremonies. He let people watch in peace, speaking only to identify that which needed identifying.
5. They largely managed to avoid being chippy and leftie.
Maybe the message is getting home?
A NIP IN THE AIR LOVE?
THE gas prices are falling. The price has already fallen for oil.
Forgive me for being a perpetual optimist, but it may be that the cost-of-living crisis – and inflation – won’t be quite as bad as we had all feared.
Incidentally, the missus wanted the heating put on yesterday.
I’ve told her we flip the switch only when hypothermia sets in and there are icicles hanging off her nipples.
Clash shows failing
THE violence between Hindus and Muslims has spread from Leicester, across the Midlands, to Birmingham.
They really don’t like each other very much, do they?
Don’t forget, majority Hindu India and Muslim Pakistan are rarely more than a whisker away from warfare.
My own view is that we have failed to integrate those who have arrived from the Indian sub-continent. And have let too many in, full stop.
AN Oxford Uni department is changing its name.
The Oxford Faculty of Oriental Studies is to become the Faculty of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies.
They think the term “oriental” might be offensive. Why? It is from the Latin, meaning where the sun rises.
Who could take offence at that except for an obsessive white liberal?
Ditch 'spite' taxes
OK. Maybe, like you, I’ve always used “merchant banker” as rhyming slang.
It’s true that those City monkeys are not my favourite people in the country. Most of the bankers I’ve met have been so dull that no light reflects from them at all.
To be so dull and so smug takes a real talent.
Also, I don’t like their clothes, their stupid sports cars, their coke addictions, their wives or their taste in music.
Sure, this is a generalisation. But I like generalisations and this isn’t a bad one.
But here’s the point. I still believe that if they are given a bonus by their half-witted bosses, they should keep their bonuses.
The same as if you or me are given a bonus.
Taking money away from the well-off doesn’t make poor people wealthier. There’s even a good argument that in the end it makes them poorer.
That’s why I agree with Liz Truss’s decision to remove the cap on bankers’ bonuses.
I also agree that we should get rid of stamp duty.
Why should we pay a whopping tax simply because we’re moving home?
Truss’s policies will be attacked.
But the removal of spite from our taxation system is something to be applauded.
LEFT-WING Labour airhead Zarah Sultana was on a train which got delayed. She immediately tweeted her annoyance.
Along with the demand that the train companies be nationalised so that such delays wouldn’t happen.
Sadly for Zarah, she was travelling on a nationalised service – LNER. Zarah got a majority of just 401 in Coventry. Divide that by ten and you get her IQ.
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My fill of Phil
I TEND to agree with Piers Morgan that it’s wrong to sack Phillip Schofield for supposedly jumping the queue at the Queen’s lying-in-state.
He was clearly there to report on the whole thing. But can’t we sack him for being a toxic, self-righteous, thick-as-mince munchkin?
In other words, can’t we sack him for being Phillip Schofield?
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