Last Sunday, I took umbrage at the Sunday Times for an opinion piece that dismissed me, most of my friends and acquaintances, and thousands of other decent, law-abiding, intelligent, compassionate, conscientious people as Nimbys, because we object to the destruction of farmland, ripping up of trees, blighting of landscapes and spewing of greenhouse gases by building homes (mostly of dubious quality) and roads and warehouses in numbers we don’t need in locations that can’t accommodate them, because the Sunday Times, politicians and planners don’t understand the economics of the housing market, how to level up, nor the symbiotic relationship between all things nature and human wellbeing.
When it comes to long sentences, eat your heart out, Samuel Johnson.
By contrast, this week I’m the newspaper's biggest fan because of an article by Matthew Syed.
He writes, “I have followed this story [Russian oligarch Roman Abramovich’s ownership of Chelsea Football Club] from the sports pages for two decades, a surreal period in which I have been on the receiving end of legal warnings, death threats and “friendly” advice from Chelsea sources to “focus on other issues”. It has been a period that has revealed the dubious process through which institutions are compromised, and how entire classes of people can become enablers. Money, as ever, has proved the most potent sedative for the conscience.”
I’m applauding Syed, not just because he called it correctly, but because he called it in the face of menaces to stop calling it. He said what he felt had to be said for the greater good. Good for him.
While Abramovich and Chelsea are the dark side of Football, Saturday’s Premier League game between Manchester vs Everton was the backdrop, perhaps surprisingly, for the light. A banner depicting “We stand with Ukraine” was held by Everton supporters, and their players walked onto the pitch draped in the Ukrainian flag. City players wore T-shirts displaying the now readily recognisable colours of the Ukraine flag – yellow and blue – with the message "No war".
The unanimous support for Ukraine as a nation was especially for the benefit of Everton defender Vitaliy Mykolenko and City defender / midfielder Oleksandr Zinchenko. The Ukrainian duo who, one week earlier wouldn’t have thought twice about kicking, tripping or elbowing each other, hugged emotionally.
The war might be ‘just’ less than a week old, but already there are countless poignant images etched into our consciousness: the footballers’ embrace, the bloodied, bandaged face of the blonde teacher on day one of atrocities, and the Ukrainian motorist offering Russian soldiers a lift back to their homeland when their tank broke down.
Maybe in another week I’ll have decided whether Putin and his cronies are a plutocracy (rule by the richest), oligarchy (rule by a small elite), or a kleptocracy (rule by misappropriation of state funds at the expense of the wider population).
Whichever.
In a previous blog (five weeks ago) I claimed that Putin wasn’t mad but bad. Got that wrong, didn’t I. He’s both, and then some. I also claimed that the West shouldn’t have expanded eastwards into former Soviet territory as that was always going to rattle Putin’s cage. Still satisfied I got that one right, but the West’s former misjudgments are no excuse for us now not to support Ukraine more – banners, flags and hugs aren’t enough – hit Putin and his allies harder; use every economic, technological and intelligence tool in our arsenal.
In the past week, the only world leader showing much gumption is the brave Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Meanwhile, BoJo talks a good game, compared to many others. His address in Russian on social media direct to the Russian populace was almost Churchillian, and his call for Russia to be kicked out of the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) global banking system compared favourably with the initial myopic reaction of principally Germany (aber was ist mit unserem Gas) and Italy (ma che dire del nostro Gucci).
And what of Partygate? Didn’t I, in another blog about six weeks ago, say that Putin’s imminent invasion of Ukraine should be occupying everyone’s time and not what Boris had to drink and when?
It’s called perspective, which many claim is easy to spot with hindsight, because they’d rather not admit to their own lack of foresight and comprehension because they were too absorbed by their own opportunistic obsessions that suit their egos and personal agendas.
Hold that thought:
• “ … absorbed by their own opportunistic obsessions that suit their egos and personal agendas”. Doesn’t that sound like Putin?
• “ … they’d rather not admit to their own lack of foresight and comprehension”…
… Hopefully, that’ll be Putin in another week, when he realises how much he underestimated the Ukrainian President, his heroic people as well as the level of opposition from within Russia, and that he’d be better off in his ‘Führerbunker’ with a single-bullet revolver.
A week is indeed a long time.
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