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Israel is undoubtedly the most reliable ally the West has in the Middle East. But is she herself Western?

Some argue about the extent to which the ambient Middle Eastern culture has left an imprint on Israel’s mores, ethos and general social tone. This isn’t an argument I feel qualified to join.

However, it’s clear that a state younger than I am had to borrow its political models from elsewhere, and the West was happy to oblige. Mutatis mutandis Israel’s political system resembles ours, with executive power vested in the cabinet, legislative power in the Knesset, and the judiciary independent of either.

Moreover, like all truly civilised countries (well, Britain, to be exact), Israel has no written constitution, relying instead on a system of precedents. Sounds ideal so far, but alas here on earth we aren’t blessed with ideal systems. There’s got to be a damp squib somewhere.

As there is in Israel. For the democracy the Israelis largely borrowed from us came packaged with our hypocrisy, including the tendency to appeal to mythical political virtues for real political gain.

We pretend to expect pristine probity from our politicians, and they pretend to possess it. When they do something that shatters that expectation, our reaction depends on how we feel about their politics.

If a left-wing politician turns out to be less than angelic, all right-minded individuals are up in arms: doesn’t that Satan’s spawn realise that the moral standards of a democracy must exceed those in a Trappist monastery? And of course vice versa: a conservative politician overstepping the imaginary line instantly becomes the devil incarnate.

The nature of Western politics is such that the vice versa scenario is played out more often. Conservatism is alien to the post-Enlightenment ‘liberal’ culture, which is the area where most media operate.

To be elected, a conservative politician has to scale the barrier of generally hostile coverage. And once in office, he has to watch his step like a soldier negotiating a minefield. One tiny step in the wrong direction, and his career may explode into a red mist.

This brings us to Benjamin Netanyahu, the first standing PM to face prosecution in Israel’s history. Mr Netanyahu, who’s on trial not only for his career but also his liberty, denies accusations of bribery, fraud and breach of trust.

Now, though I don’t follow Israeli politics as close as I should, I have followed Mr Netanyahu’s career ever since he was Deputy Foreign Minister, doing diplomacy in impeccable English, or whatever passes for it in the US, where he was educated.

My affection for politicians in general isn’t without certain in-built limits, but that disclaimer aside, I’ve always liked Mr Netanyahu. I see him as an extremely shrewd political operator with conservative instincts, but enough acumen to know when he has to compromise on them.

He certainly looks like the best Israeli PM in my lifetime, and most Israelis agree. After all, Mr Netanyahu is Israel’s longest-serving prime minister, which is no mean feat in a country with a socialist DNA.

That tenure will end if he’s found guilty of the crimes he’s charged with. But how criminal are those crimes? I’ve looked at the indictment, and the only crime Mr Netanyahu seems to have committed is being, well, a politician.

Not a saint, not an angel, not a messiah – only a man who has to survive in the minefield of political rough-and-tumble. That’s a game played for keeps, and its rules are different from the charter of a Trappist monastery.

To be a player, one has to leaven one’s principles, moral and intellectual, with a certain amount of latitude demanded from a modern politician. It’s a game for big boys (of either sex), and those who can’t or won’t be big boys shouldn’t get into politics.

Being a big boy, Mr Netanyahu has been indicted on three counts, known as Cases 1,000, 2,000 and 4,000.

Case 1,000: He’s accused of receiving cigars and bottles of champagne from businessmen in exchange for favours.

I don’t know much about Israel, but our politicians certainly don’t come so cheap. The only favour a box of cigars or a bottle of bubbly will get you is a handshake. In today’s world, such things barely qualify as tokens of appreciation, never mind bribes.

Again, I’ll remind you for the last time that we aren’t talking about a Trappist monastery here, nor a Carmelite convent. 

Case 2,000: Mr Netanyahu is accused of offering to boost the circulation of the newspaper Yediot Ahronot in exchange for positive coverage.

Now show me a politician who wouldn’t do that, and I’ll show you a figment of idealistic imagination.

In 1990, when I wrote ads for Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, he was asked if he’d fire any employee voting Labour. “No,” he said, “but I’d pay for his psychiatric examination.”

Imagine my surprise when all Murdoch papers, including the most conservative ones, came out for Tony Blair in 1997. Are you going to tell me that Rupert had undergone a change of heart and no quid pro quo was involved?

Please don’t; I’m not going to believe you. Yet I don’t remember any demands for an investigation, much less an indictment. Then of course our democracy has had more time to develop a cocoon of cynicism.

Case 4,000: Mr Netanyahu is accused of promoting regulations favourable to Shaul Elovitch, principal shareholder of Bezeq telecom giant, again in exchange for positive coverage on his news site.

That’s not strictly kosher, as it were, and perhaps Mr Netanyahu deserves a reprimand. But a criminal indictment? Oh please.

As I said, Mr Netanyahu denies all these charges, and I hope he’s found innocent. Yet even assuming for the sake of argument that he did do all those awful things, do they really constitute criminal corruption?

We can’t accuse politicians of corruption when they merely act as politicians. Criminal corruption starts not when a politician accepts a bottle of champagne, but when he enacts ruinous policies undermining his country’s national interests.

As far as I can tell, Mr Netanyahu isn’t guilty of that kind of corruption. Quite the opposite, he has served his country’s national interests with wisdom, courage and dignity. Throwing him to the howling leftie wolves would be unforgivable.

I’m not using the word in its colloquial meaning of ‘mad’. I’m sure HRH is a paragon of sanity.

Nor do I wish to denigrate his work for the Royal Foundation, organised to promote his, his wife’s and his brother’s charitable impulses. It’s just that the part of this work that most fascinates HRH concerns mental health.

Now, I wouldn’t be the first to suggest that people are nowadays obsessed with psychology more than ever before.

In the absence of any higher values their inner selves assume an undue significance. They are encouraged to delve into their psyche and then share every perceived anomaly with all and sundry. Traditional – and laudable – British reticence is castigated as ‘repression’ and ‘bottling up the emotions’, with supposedly detrimental effects.

Naturally psychiatric disorders, such as clinical depression, do exist. However, clinical problems are best dealt with by, well, clinicians.

The rest of us, like HRH, simply don’t know enough about this area to contribute anything helpful to the discussion. The opportunities for sounding excruciatingly vulgar, on the other hand, are rife and HRH seldom neglects to take advantage of them.

His forthcoming BBC discussion of ‘mental issues’ with the footballer Marvin Sordell is a case in point. Reading the preview I wondered if Prince William has contracted Covid.  

For the sake of the dynasty, I hope he hasn’t. However, he does show one known symptom of coronavirus: absence of taste. HRH seems to think that babbling about one’s problems to anyone willing, or at a pinch even reluctant, to listen is an unequivocally good thing.

However, I’ve known several people suffering from clinical depression, and none of them could have been helped by a public chinwag.

They sought qualified medical help, which typically came in the shape of psychotropic drugs, accompanied by some therapy. For, my psychiatrist friends tell me, such diseases are either caused or accompanied by abnormal biochemical activity.

Controlling it with medicines usually controls the depression – on this they all agree. They do at times diverge on the relative importance of counselling, with many just shrugging their shoulders: can’t hurt, could help.

Obviously, psychiatrists need surgeries, hospitals, salaries, equipment and other costly things. Any charity is therefore welcome, but that doesn’t mean psychobabble is. Medical talk is best left to medical professionals.

Yet I’ve also known many people who use the technical term ‘depression’ when talking nineteen to the dozen about their bad moods, inclination to melancholy or sadness caused by bereavement.

In the past, such self-indulgent individuals were told to pull themselves together and have a stiff drink. I for one can’t understand how it’s possible to let one’s emotions run riot for too long when Laphroaig, Tanqueray and Absolut are readily available. If the sufferer is a friend, I’ll happily share such delights with him and listen.

But those people shouldn’t be encouraged to pour their hearts out to anyone but family and close friends. For one thing, when doing so it’s almost impossible not to overstep the boundaries of good taste.

Enter HRH, talking to Sordell who seems to suffer from real depression and has attempted suicide in the past. That’s unfortunate, and I hope his doctors are working overtime.

Yet I can’t imagine his condition improving as a result of being exposed to a barrage of HRH’s platitudes, expressed in the language of downmarket faux-sensitivity.

Moreover, I’d rather not be a subject of a king capable of saying “It’s okay to not be okay”. ‘Not to be’ would have been an improvement, but only a marginal one.

Royals shouldn’t sound like tabloid agony aunts for the whole family. That punches holes in their aura of mystique, which, in the absence of executive power, is an important part of their raison d’être.

The footballer complained that: “I grew up without my father… and now I’ve got a child. I don’t really know how I’m dealing with this and I really struggled with my emotions at that time.”

People who can’t cope emotionally with having children shouldn’t have them. Instead they should seek treatment and only consider procreation when the therapy has succeeded.

HRH could have suggested it to Sordell, perhaps couching that advice in more compassionate words than mine. Instead, he echoed the striker’s complaint with one of his own: “Being a dad was overwhelming after losing my mum.”

It seems that the words ‘father’ and ‘mother’ have gone the way of the masculine personal pronouns. Somehow we’re supposed to replace them with soppy prole equivalents. I bet William’s father doesn’t refer to his parents as ‘mum’ and ‘dad’.

No upper-class people do. They may say ‘mummy’ and ‘daddy’, and in fact Prince Charles has referred to Her Majesty as ‘mummy’ on a number of occasions.

Then again, the word ‘after’ sounds as if the loss of William’s ‘mum’ was closely followed by his becoming a ‘dad’. In fact the two events were separated by 16 years, which is enough time to come to terms with the tragedy and not let it remain ‘overwhelming’.

On we go, in the same vein: having children is “one of the most amazing moments in life, but also one of the scariest”.

I’ll buy “one of the most amazing”, but what’s so scary about it? Was William worried about paying babysitters? Future school bills? The possibility that little George would grow up to be like Harry?

And then: “But I think emotionally things come out of the blue that you don’t ever expect, or maybe you think you have dealt with.” How much more banal can one get?

I’d better stop – thinking about the future of our monarchy makes me too depressed for words.

No equivocation. No sitting on the fence. I’m hereby declaring that Joe Biden is good, very good. For a laugh, that is.

I can understand my American friends who expect more than just entertainment value from their chief executive. That’s fair enough.

However, since I don’t live in America, the person of a US president affects me only indirectly. Hence I’m less interested in such boring qualifications as sagacity, statesmanship and leadership. I don’t want to be led. I only want to be amused.

Given such frivolous requirements, Joe Biden fills the bill perfectly. In fact, if elected, he’ll break new ground in the history of American politics.

First, at 78, he could become history’s oldest president at the beginning of his first term. And we know that age has more than just its privileges. It also has a rich potential for other things as well, such as senility.

Now, some US presidents developed age-related mental problems towards the end of their tenure, usually in the second term. Off the top one could mention Woodrow Wilson, Dwight Eisenhower and Ronald Reagan, who none of them were quite compos mentis towards the end.

Yet Joe may claim the distinction of becoming the first president to start out that way, which promises many a delightful moment. While acknowledging that laughing at other people’s misfortunes is wrong, a part of me looks forward to four years of Joe’s gig, complete with memorable one-liners, pratfalls, bloopers and general hilarity.

However, in his rare lucid moments Joe is capable of deep, if inadvertent, insights. For example, the other day, addressing a predominantly black audience, he unintentionally vindicated one of my cherished observations.

“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump,” said my main man, “then you ain’t black.” That’s it in a nutshell: negritude has no more to do with race than womanhood has with sex. Both are above all political categories.

I cracked a joke about that shortly upon arriving in England. Talking to a perfect English gentleman, I said that most American blacks are left-wing. “They are left-wing because they are black,” replied my interlocutor. “It’s the other way around,” I said, pleased with myself. “They are black because they are left-wing.”

Thus Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas or philosopher Thomas Sowell may be black in colour, but not in essence. Because they aren’t left-wing, they aren’t black.

I also admired Joe’s use of the vernacular “ain’t”. That takes a long stride towards being accepted by blacks as one of their own.

Yet that’s only a first step. For even greater verisimilitude, Joe should fashion his speeches along jive lines more comprehensively.

False modesty aside, I think my speech-writing acumen could swing the election his way. After all, Joe has used British scribes, such as Neil Kinnock, before. And anything Neil can do, other than being an EU Commissioner, I can do better.

For example, the phrase “they ain’t black” shouldn’t have been allowed just to hang there. Joe should have tackled head-on the issue of the 1.6 million blacks who voted for Trump four years ago. This is what I would have had him say:

“Y’all wanna strive and thrive, it ain’t no jive. But I ain’t neva lied, them folks ain’t got no pride. They ain’t black, brother man, they’s coconuts, black on the outside, white on the inside.

“How come I’s the first Biden who be black inside? That peckerwood cracker Trump, he say, ‘What are the five most dreaded words in the English language? Hello, I’s yo new neighbour.’ I say, ‘Yo, Trump, you be one jiveass. I report yo ass to the po-lice.’

“When I be pre-si-dent, ain’t no whitey mofo say something wrong wi’ brothers for neighbours. I have a dream, man, that one day bloods live on Fifth Avenue. An’ I have a dream that one day… Well, can’t remember no dreams no more, there be too many. But you dig, yeah?

“My cam-paign go on, man. One monkey don’t stop no show, and this monkey be yo pre-si-dent. You crack the whip, home, I make the trip.

“As my main man… can’t remember his name… wrote, ‘Got a quarter tank of gas// in my new E class// But that’s alright,// cause I’m gon’ ride.’ I sure is, and I’s gon’ take y’all for a ride too.

“You don’t want no racist honky for pre-si-dent. So stay cool, bloods, keep jumpin’ and thumpin’ but no trumpin’ – and maintain.”

There, I hope I’ve established my credentials. If Joe’s got a plan, I’s his man.

“We owe it to ourselves” sits high on the list of irresponsible statements about public debt, next to “In the long run we are all dead.”

The first is by one of today’s most popular economists, Paul Krugman; the second, by his inspiration, John Maynard Keynes. Both imply that, since the debt will never have to be repaid, we shouldn’t worry about it.

If only that were true. Our public debt already stands at £1.9 trillion. Granted, this still isn’t a patch on the US debt that’s about 10 times as high, but if today’s news is any indication we’ll close the gap fast.

The Exchequer borrowed £62 billion in April, six times more than in April, 2019. And, since Boris Johnson has already promised there will be no return to ‘austerity’, which he flippantly calls “the A-word”, this is only a point of departure – for the sky.

But in rides Krugman on his white steed, saving the day: “Because debt is money we owe to ourselves, it does not directly make the economy poorer (and paying it off doesn’t make us richer).”

We ought to follow Descartes’s advice and agree on the meaning of the words we use. Such as ‘we’, ‘ourselves’ and ‘directly’.

Krugman’s ‘we’ is the global economy as a unit, and one has to congratulate him on possessing such panoramic vision. Indeed, if one looks down on the world’s economies from the vertiginous height of his intellect, they may all seem to be one homogeneous blob.

However, descending to the more familiar level of mortal humans, one realises that the international economy is largely a patchwork of national constituents. Hence, while a bird’s eye view will suggest that money borrowed by Britain from, say, China stays in the same global pocket, a closer look will show that Britain is the debtor and China is the creditor.

Perhaps some 20 per cent of our national debt is owed to the Bank of England and, though that’s still not exactly owing it to ourselves, that creditor is unlikely to tell us he knows where we live and threaten to have our legs broken.

The rest of it is owed to foreign governments and the money markets. Quite apart from leaving Britain exposed to political and economic blackmail, this debt has one annoying aspect familiar to all mortgage holders: it incurs interest.

Because we are living in a period of uncharacteristically low inflation, our debt servicing isn’t as expensive as it could be. Still, Britain pays the better part of £50 billion a year in interest charges, higher than our defence spend.

Another suspect word in Krugman’s epigram is ‘directly’. It’s true that borrowing doesn’t make the economy poorer directly, straight away. By the same token, a pleasure-seeker who borrows £10,000 to pay for a junket to Thailand suffers no instant pain.

The problem will start when the debt has to be repaid, and a state has similar, though not identical, problems. Yes, unlike our hedonist, the state stands a better chance of deferring repayments.

It can continue to issue IOU bonds, derivative bonds and bonds on the derivatives for a long time. But not indefinitely. At some point, its credit rating will drop, making further borrowing suicidal. The only way for the public to repay such debts will be to accept much higher taxes and much lower consumption.

To continue the parallel between our hedonist and the state, the former will have to repay his debt within a few years, while the latter may be able to pass it on to the subsequent generations. But it’s naïve to deny that at some point the balloon will go up, with bankruptcy beckoning.

Every Briton’s share in the present debt is about £30,000. In the next generation, that’s likely to triple if not quadruple. And I haven’t yet begun to list the blows huge public debts deliver to the public.

Promiscuous borrowing is inherently inflationary, at least over that long term that Keynes dismissed as irrelevant.

Inflation is low now, but chances are it won’t stay that way, especially with the government injecting more and more new cash into the economy. Just a generation ago, our inflation rate was higher than today by an order of magnitude. This may well return, and the cost of servicing our gargantuan debt will become unsupportable.

Even that isn’t all. For the billions borrowed by the state are the billions unavailable to free enterprise. Economists describe this situation as public borrowing ‘crowding out’ the private kind.

One doesn’t have to be a libertarian to observe that free enterprise generally uses investment more productively than the state. The state will spend most of the borrowed capital to finance grossly inefficient public services and infrastructure projects.

While zero-sum economics is spurious, money markets are indeed zero sum in that, the more finance goes to the state, the less is left for the private sector, the only one that can eventually get the economy back on track.

The chancellor likes to compare the current situation with the Second World War. He forgets to mention that Britain only finished repaying those war debts in 2006 and had to endure several decades of economic misery – thanks to exactly the kind of policies this government seems to favour.

Much of our asparagus harvest has rotted on the ground, and the same is likely to happen to the strawberry crop.

Taking a short-term view, one can legitimately blame Covid: because of it, to quote David Aaronovitch of The Times, “The country is short of 80,000 workers, usually supplied by the EU nations.”

However, judging by the title of Mr Aaronovitch’s article, Britain Won’t Work Without Unskilled Migrants, the short-term view isn’t the one he favours.

For he believes that, by ending EU-dictated free movement, HMG will do the work of coronavirus. The present arrangement will be replaced by a points-based system, whereby only qualified immigrants earning over £25,600 a year will be admitted. 

Mr Aaranovitch hates the idea. In fact, he takes little trouble to conceal his distaste for leaving the EU. And he’s particularly scathing about our arch-Leaver Home Secretary Priti Patel who spearheads the points system.

“If we were to erect a Statue of Liberty in the Patel era its plaque would read: ‘Give me your huddled Nobel prize-winners, your future tech billionaires yearning to breathe free’,” writes Mr Aaranovitch in an attempt at devastating irony.

He then uncorks what he sees as a clincher: “Under such a regime my own illiterate grandparents would have been turned away from the Port of London when their ship docked in 1904.” Some may feel such a tragedy would have been a small price to pay for the subsequent generations to be spared Mr Aaranovitch’s musings.

He is entitled to feel about Brexit as he sees fit. But this argument against it is as weak as Mr Aaronovitch’s humour.

His main idea is that we need Bulgarians and Romanians to do unskilled jobs because indigenous Britons won’t do them. This argument would be valid – if only it ended with a small proviso: “as things are”.

Then the numbers quoted by Mr Aaronovitch would indeed end the discussion, for some people at least: “The first instalment of a campaign to get furloughed Brits to do the work began a few weeks ago. One organisation reported last month that of 50,000 people who had applied, 6,000 accepted an interview but only 150 had taken up offers of work.”

Others acted in the manner of one healthy young man Mr Aaronovitch gives as an example. Instead of looking for a job, he stays at home all day playing video games. That, I’d suggest, is an improvement on going out to mug passersby for drug money, but yes, asparagus still stays in the ground.

Mr Aaronovitch has outlined the problem well; shame about the conclusion: “The only viable options for fruit picking are migrant labour or mechanisation. There will be no British jobs there… [And in social care] even if you were to put the salaries up by 15 per cent that computer boy still wouldn’t want to care for dementia patients.”

The problem indeed seems unsolvable, but I’m happy to lend Mr Aaronovitch a helping hand and solve it. For, in a flash of epiphanous inspiration, I’ve found a way for ‘that computer boy’ to get off his calloused rump and go off to work.

Why doesn’t he do so now? The answer is, because he doesn’t have to. Assuming he gets a full range of social benefits, he’d have to earn roughly the income required by Miss Patel to match them.

As with most epiphanies, the conclusion is so simple that it’s amazing Mr Aaronovitch hasn’t thought of it: The computer boy should be taken off the welfare rolls.

Paying young able-bodied people to do nothing is morally wrong, economically ruinous and socially disastrous. It creates whole generations of parasite classes sponging off the rest of us, through the good offices of the megalomaniac state.

Sociologists will tell you that there exist two main incentives to work: survival and the improvement of one’s lot, with the first being much stronger than the second.

Thus someone getting enough to buy computers and electronic games may not want to work simply to buy more recent computers and more elaborate games. But he’d have to work if his food and shelter were at stake.

Considering the level of our compulsory and comprehensive education, the computer boy wouldn’t be able to command a wage to match his benefits. But if he didn’t get those benefits he’d be happy to pick asparagus or care for demented patients. For, as St Paul explained so lucidly, “He who does not work, neither shall he eat.”

Clearly, neither Mr Aaronovitch nor his ‘liberal’ colleagues can entertain this thought. They see no difficulties with having, say, three generations of the same family never doing a day’s work and living off public money.

Then again, they may feel that protesting against this outrage is akin to remonstrating against hurricanes. Such things just are, and must be accepted as they are.

However, such submissive equanimity contradicts a writer’s remit. It’s his duty to analyse the problem in its fullness, not to use it for the sake of scoring cheap political points.

In this duty Mr Aaronivitch is demonstrably remiss. And incidentally, I bet his illiterate grandparents went to work directly they arrived in Britain. After all, they must have had to. And look at their grandson now.

It’s so much more than just that. It’s a unique civilisation, without any close analogues in history.

Thus spake Vlad Putin in his speech the other day. Or rather he spake nine months ago, but the speech was kept on the back burner until the time was judged propitious for its release.

He then evoked a vivid memory of one of Chekhov’s short stories, where two officers argue whether or not Pushkin was a great psychologist. One of them wins the argument with an irresistible logical flourish: “If Pushkin hadn’t been a great psychologist, they wouldn’t have erected his statue in Moscow.”

I don’t know if Vlad has read that story; I rather doubt it on general grounds. However, he did employ similar logic to prove his point about Russia being not just a country but a civilisation:

“This is already an obvious fact: [otherwise] we would never have had modern weapon systems, high-tech systems, high technology indeed, that no other country possesses, at least not yet…”

The US may take exception to that last claim, but the conclusion was unassailable: in order to preserve this civilisation “it’s precisely high technologies and their future development that we must definitely emphasise.”

By singling out the kind of high technologies that kill people en masse, Vlad sold his great civilisation short. It has also perfected technologies involved in hacking, trolling, applied toxicology and money laundering.

However, his conclusion can’t be faulted. Without keeping pace with Western science and technology, Russia is destined for ever to stay on what Russian journalists call “the oil needle”.

Yet that fix depends on fickle markets: when oil prices are high, Russia can indulge her affection for designing sophisticated weapons and trying them out on those who can’t respond in kind. When the prices are low, the unique civilisation totters and begins to fall into China’s eagerly open arms.

Putin and his cronies will amass their billions either way, but the rest of the population may get restless. To wit, Vlad’s approval ratings have already dropped by some 40 per cent, and they are heading in only one direction, what with oil currently selling for less than it costs to produce.

Last year, even before Covid, the Federal State Statistics Service reported that 20.9 million Russians, more than 14 per cent of the population, were living on less than £163 a month.

The situation is even worse in areas where no natural resources are extracted. Thus in Smolensk (p. 330,000) more than 16 per cent of the people are trying, and often failing, to survive on less than £4.50 a day.

And of course coronavirus, while devastating all economies, is even deadlier in places like Smolensk. “Never… have I seen so many hungry and desperate people as during these months of coronavirus pandemic,” said a spokesman for a major local charity.

So yes, high technologies may well be a solution. However, developing them to a level where they could help the people eat regularly involves two things, and both are in short and dwindling supply.

One is money, which rushes out of Russia in a mighty stream, eventually settling in the numbered accounts of Putin and his immediate entourage. The other is brains, which follow the same path, ending up in Western companies, research centres and universities.

There they prove yet again that, if Russia were indeed a real country, rather than a mythical ‘civilisation’, she’d have no shortage of talent. After all, say what you will about Google and Facebook, but we’ve got both courtesy of Russian immigrants.

As it is, the brain drain has reached diluvian proportions. Apparently, Russian scientists and engineers stubbornly refuse to abandon the habit of eating, even in exchange for the privilege of living in a unique civilisation held together by unrivalled spirituality.

A scan of Appointment ads in the Russian press explains this exodus adequately, with no commentary needed.

For example, Vektor, one of the country’s leading research centres, is advertising a vacancy for a senior scientist in the genome research department.

Research areas: human genome, gene editing, development of anti-HIV and cell technologies. Required qualifications: a degree in biochemistry, numerous publications in science journals, at least 10 years’ R&D experience in such areas as molecular biology, virology, biotechnology.

Salary: from 20,000 roubles a month (about £225).

Now, I don’t know how much a scientist with such qualifications would earn anywhere in the West. But even in the absence of such detailed information, one can see a potential candidate jumping on the first plane out of Russia, whenever they start flying again.

We aren’t talking about more or less comfort here. At stake is basic survival, and the law of self-preservation hasn’t yet been repealed even in Russia.

Putin is half-right: Russia indeed is no longer a country. But neither is it a unique civilisation. It’s a mass of poor, desperate, brainwashed people bossed by a state that’s indeed unique.

It’s history’s only fusion of secret police and organised crime, with the two constituents forming a homogeneous elite. The elite relies on fascistic methods of boundless propaganda and violence to keep the population in check, while siphoning trillions out of the country.

Nowhere this side of tinhorn Third World dictatorships is the contrast between the rulers and the ruled so vast. Yet none of those dictatorships gets the kind of good press Russia receives from the West’s fascisoid papers and parties.

But then some of those purloined trillions can buy any number of papers and parties. Alas, there’s little left to keep the people fed and the brains in the country.

P.S. Umberto Eco, RIP

In 1985 Margaret Thatcher decided she’d had enough of the Greater London Council, which at the time employed 35,000 subversive parasites.

Under the stewardship of ‘Red Ken’ Livingstone, it pursued communist policies, hampering Mrs Thatcher’s efforts to get the economy back on track.

The Council had the means of engaging in Luddite sabotage, what with London accounting for some 22 per cent of Britain’s GDP. Moreover, Livingstone was part of a hard-left crusade to take over first the Labour Party and then the government.

Red Ken wasn’t especially reticent about that. In one interview he said: “We have turned [GLC] into the most effective platform the radical left ever had in Britain, and it has started to win massive popular support. That scares them because if we can do this here, think what we could do if we got our hands on the national Government.”

Mrs Thatcher clearly did think about it. That’s why on 1 April, 1986, the Council was abolished.

Fast-forward to the present, and the situation is eerily similar. The country is in the midst of her greatest economic crisis ever, although its magnitude hasn’t quite sunk home yet.

Our ministers haven’t yet announced a coherent plan for reversing the downslide. The early hints at their intentions inspire little confidence and a whole raft of less positive emotions.

The only proven route out of a precipitous economic downturn lies through intensifying commercial activity by every imaginable means. Conversely, anything slowing such activity down may well push the economy into a bottomless pit.

London is as critical to the British economy as ever or, considering the likely post-Brexit, post-Covid global realignment, even more so. And, just like in the 80s, London is again run by a radical leftie, prepared to destroy the city and the country for ideological gain.

London is of course a Labour bailiwick. Blair’s strategy of making Tories unelectable by importing swarms of potential Labour voters from the low-rent parts of the world has paid off to a large extent.

Nationally, it has succeeded in pushing the policies, if not always the votes, the Labour way. In London, with its mere 40 per cent of indigenous population, it has succeeded both ways.

As Boris Johnson has twice shown, a charismatic Tory can still win London’s mayoral elections, provided he isn’t really Tory. But normally a London mayor will always be Labour.

This brings us to Sadiq Khan, who is as ideologically Luddite as a Labour politician has to be nowadays. Except that the radical left ideology is a liquid that has since the ‘80s flown into new vessels.

The biggest of them is coloured green and contains every conceivable shibboleth about ‘saving the planet’. Yet, a few Gretinous fanatics aside, left ideologues don’t really care about the carbon footprint.

They use green puffery the same way as their fathers used anti-nuke propaganda: as a leftie battering ram smashing a breach in ‘the establishment’. The putative central issue was, and still is, always wrapped in the banner of anti-capitalist afflatus.

Acting in that spirit, Sadiq Khan is introducing measures tantamount to stepping on London’s economic throat just as it’s trying to rise from the ground.

Citing the information that since the lockdown London’s pollution levels have dropped by 60 per cent, he’s trying to make the city effectively car-free.

Now, the only way to eliminate anthropogenic pollution altogether is to stop all commercial activity. Some pollution and higher CO2 levels are the tax on widely spread prosperity. Even ploughing the soil releases CO2, which can only be prevented by accepting murderous famines for the sake of a pernicious ideology.

Not much soil is ploughed in London; its economy is mostly service. The City is arguably the country’s most important hub of economic activity, but London isn’t all about finance.

Restaurants, bars, shops, department stores, estate agencies, construction, hotels, entertainment, design, fashion, consultancy, tourism, professional services and so forth – all these make London the most vibrant European capital, a magnet for job-seekers from all over the continent (walking around my area, one hears more French than English).

Most of these oxygen tanks of the London economy depend on vehicular traffic to keep going: private cars, black cabs, car services, delivery vans and so on.

Moreover, HMG has advised that travelling by car is much safer than taking public transport, for obvious reasons. But, under Sadiq, one gets the impression London isn’t part of Her Majesty’s realm.

He has raised the congestion charge from £11.50 to £15, which is painful by itself. But, until now, the charge has only been applied between 07:00 and 18:00, Monday to Friday.

Thus, those who depended on their cars to get to Central London had to bite the bullet, a large-calibre one, considering that on top of that parking in London is more expensive than, say, in Paris or Rome.

The bullet will now grow to the size of an artillery shell, but that’s only the beginning. For many people, who rarely have to drive into the very centre during the day, use their cars in the evenings and on weekends to eat out, go to the theatre, visit museums, shop or see friends.

Now Sadiq has extended the charge until 10pm, seven days a week, which, on top of the extortionate parking costs, will make thousands of people stay away. This will have a devastating knock-on effect on London’s core industries, already crippled by the lockdown.

Moreover, the mayor is making many major roads around the City car-free, which will make even financial services harder to provide. And those stubborn souls who’ll cling to their cars will have to contend with much heavier traffic.

For, labouring under the misapprehension that London is indistinguishable from Amsterdam, one-tenth London’s size, Sadiq has introduced hundreds of miles of extra bicycle lanes. We should all swap our polluting monsters for bikes, as far as he’s concerned.

Traffic in London already crawls along at 7mpg on average, and Sadiq’s new bicycle lanes and road closures are guaranteed to reduce it to walking pace. That means that the thousands of businesses forced to close because of Covid may never reopen.

Britain in general, and London specifically, need to make doing business as easy as possible, both to intensify domestic economic activity and to attract foreign companies. Yet Sadiq’s needs are different: he clearly follows Lenin’s cynical strategy of ‘the worse, the better’.

The next mayoral election is a year away, which is enough time to do irreversible damage. Moreover, for reasons I outlined above, there’s every chance of Sadiq being re-elected, or replaced with his ideological twin.

Margaret Thatcher chopped through that Gordian knot by abolishing the GLC. Boris Johnson could, in my view should, do the same by getting rid of the mayor altogether and replacing him with a cabinet minister for London, with more power relegated to borough councils.

That would raise hue and cry from various quarters but, capitalising on his sterling knowledge of history, Mr Johnson could quote Guy Fawkes on the subject of desperate times and desperate measures.

But he’d have to be the man Maggie Thatcher was, and that would take more (or, in her case, less) than the ability to impregnate girlfriends. It would take qualities I doubt Mr Johnson possesses, but I’d be happy to be proved wrong. 

You know how it is. You get caught in some maelstrom, Covid in this case, and forget important dates in the calendar.

Your wedding anniversary. Wife’s and/or girlfriend’s birthday. Children’s confirmation and/or bar mitzvahs (today’s young people like to keep their options open). All such milestones can fall by the wayside in general tumult, much to your later embarrassment.

Embarrassment is exactly what I feel for having overlooked yesterday’s vitally important event. Actually, it’s known by another snappy acronym, IDAHOTB, but I think the one in the title communicates its positive content more clearly.

IDAHOTB stands for the International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia, which all progressive people, among whom I proudly number myself, celebrate with great pomp on 17 May.

Yesterday, the pomp had to be somewhat subdued due to Covid, but what matters is what happens in one’s heart, not out in the street. And my heart, while singing a joyous song of praise, is saddened by the negative overtones conveyed by the preposition ‘Against’.

While acknowledging the noble need to rise against HTB and, for that matter, HIV, I still believe that we should above all celebrate the lifestyles those HTB mongers attack. If some troglodytes have panic attacks at the sight of differently sexual persons, which is what ‘phobia’ really means, they don’t deserve recognition even in a negative context.

Hence another, admittedly slightly longer and to most people enigmatic, acronym is better suited to this glorious occasion. Yes, ladies, gentlemen and others, this acronym exists, and I think it should replace IDAHOTB.

That is, the ID part could remain, as in “show me your ID, and I’ll show you mine”. But it must be followed by LGTBQIA2S+.

Perhaps some may feel the term doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily as, say, HIV. Still others may not even know what all the initials designate. Since my purpose in life is mostly didactic, I’m happy to fill this shameful gap in popular education.

LGTBQIA2S+ stands for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer and/or Questioning, Intersex, Asexual, Two-Spirit, Plus the countless affirmative ways in which people choose to self-identify.

What the term lacks in concision it makes up for in inclusiveness. For example, if you choose to self-identify affirmatively as, say, Napoleon Bonaparte or Teresa of Avila, you’ll no longer be committed – you’ll be celebrated.

My slight problem is the double meaning of the Q. Until I learned this essential acronym, I thought Q referred to the Aramaic proto-Gospel later used by the Evangelists. Its existence is accepted by most theologians, even though it was never found.

However, what until now has been accepted by most progressive people is that Q stands for Queer in the now common acronym LGTBQ. This is one example of an insider word, offensive when outsiders use it, proud in the mouths of actual Qs (the n-word is another such).

Yet progress is expansive. As our sensitivity to the widening plethora of affirmative identity grows, so does our lexicon. That much is par for the course.

It is therefore natural that Q should now also designate torn souls pursued by what Dostoyevsky called ‘accursed questions’. In this case, the accursed question is what mammal (or perhaps an avian or marine creature) the affirmative identifier would like to copulate with.

My objection isn’t to the substance of the new Q category, but to the somewhat clumsy language in the acronym. I’d suggest that the lesser evil would be simply to add another Q, for the acronym now to read LGTBQQIA2S+. The more, the merrier, wouldn’t you say?

But we shouldn’t get hung up on such technicalities. Instead we should celebrate this occasion, if only belatedly.

Canada’s PM Justin Trudeau yesterday issued a rousing message of welcome: “No matter who you love or how you identify, you should be able to be yourself without fear.”

Again, I applaud the sentiment while taking issue with the language, and it’s not just the use of who where whom would have been appropriate. All those –phobias in H, T and B refer to the inordinate fear troglodytes feel for the affirmatively identified H, T and B persons, not the fear felt by them.

This possible confusion is another reason for renaming the International Day as I suggest. “We are all stronger when we embrace diversity …” concluded Mr Trudeau, and I couldn’t agree more.

We must all embrace diversity and anything else that moves or even, at a pinch, doesn’t. Diversity to us is what Mother Earth was to Antaeus, a source of titanic strength, and moral judgement be damned.

Happy LGBTQIA2S+ Day!

Since the name seems to be a dead giveaway, this question shouldn’t be hard to answer. Or so one would think.

Yet in a survey carried out ahead of World Whisky Day, 10 per cent of Britons couldn’t make the connection between Scotch and Scotland.

Another 10 per cent thought bourbon was Scottish and 22 per cent identified American Rye whisky as Japanese. They must have felt the modifier ‘American’ was there to throw them off the right track deliberately.

Such facts can open various avenues to explore. One could, for example, contemplate a political system in which people who can’t connect Scotch and Scotland are entitled to decide how, and by whom, the country will be governed.

On a different day, I’d probably pursue this line of thought, but today I’d rather celebrate Scotch whisky, that splendid achievement of the human spirit (or spirits, if you’d rather).

Single malt is, as far as I’m concerned, the best after-dinner drink in His creation. It’s also, next to the composer of genius James MacMillan, the greatest contribution Scotland has made to the world – and I hope James won’t take offence at being mentioned in that company.

How a nation with such an execrable taste in food could come up with such a refined beverage is a mystery. Can a man truly appreciate a wee dram with his deep-fried Mars bar or macaroni pie?

For whisky is like wine in that it must be consumed in the right setting, at the right time and with the right accompaniments.

This point is lost on the French. They are the opposite of the Scots in that their taste in food is superb, but their taste in whisky is awful.

They drink neat blended whisky as an aperitif, which is morally wrong. Even blended stuff has a strong taste that cauterises the taste buds, rendering them numb to the fine flavours of food.

That’s criminal, especially considering that the French have a wide array of aperitif wines ideally suited for the purpose, not to mention champagne. If, however, they need a mightier kick-off to their meal, a very dry martini would do the trick.

However, in all my years in France I’ve been unable to convert my friends in that direction, although a few of them have learned to appreciate shots of ice-cold vodka in a different setting.

Speaking of shots, some Scotch whiskies work, provided they aren’t too rich in taste. Speyside malts, such as Glenfiddich, or the blended J&B are perfectly fine when one drinks mainly for effect.

But there Scotch has worthy competitors, such as vodka, grappa or tequila. Where it’s sans pareil is as an after-dinner drink.

It’s ideal as a follow-up to a bottle of decent Burgundy and a prelude to a relaxed drive home, when one can treat with insouciant equanimity such road hazards as deer, boar and les flics.

There a rich, smoky, peaty taste is at a premium. Talisker and Macallan are good, but my favourites, Laphroaig and Lagavulin, come from the Isle of Islay.

To establish my qualifications to judge their merits, I bought my first bottle of Laphroaig for seven dollars in Houston. Now, 45 years later, it’s still my house tipple – there at least is one thing to which I’ve been staunchly faithful.

The French tend to prefer cognac or Armagnac, and some of those are sublime – if you can afford the really good stuff. As a birthday present every year, Penelope used to give me a bottle of Armagnac as old as I am – until I got too old for her purse.

However, sticking to commercial brands, a VSOP cognac or a comparable Armagnac is simply not a patch on a similarly priced Laphroaig or slightly more expensive Lagavulin. Moreover, if you don’t like peaty smoke, you can find among Scotch whiskies an infinitely greater variety of taste than among French or any other brandies.

I don’t wish to make frivolous medical claims – God knows we have enough people making those at present – but single malts contain more antioxidant ellagic acid than red wine does. That means Laphroaig has medicinal properties, which you negligently deny yourself if you don’t have at least a double every evening.

My affection for Laphroaig is shared by the Prince of Wales, a man of taste and discernment, in this area at any rate. Hence it’s the only whisky to carry his Royal Warrant, a worthy accolade for a nectar that five years ago celebrated its centenary.

Anyway, Slange Var!, which is the Scottish for Cheers. I’ve no idea how it’s spelled in Gaelic – but at least I do know Scotch comes from Scotland.

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In a conference video call with 125 MPs, Prime Minister Corbyn yesterday outlined his plans for handling the post-pandemic pandemonium.

What? It isn’t Corbyn but Johnson who is our PM? Could have fooled me.

Looking at Boris Johnson’s pronouncements, one struggles to discern anything that Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t have said. For every measure mooted by Mr Johnson is as socialist as it’s possible to get this side of concentration camps.

The MPs reported that, according to Johnson, “There was no question of moving to austerity and he would double down on capital projects like Northern Powerhouse Rail.”

The second promise, that of doubling down, was worded in blackjack terms. This would suggest that Mr Johnson sees socialism run riot as a gamble worth taking, whereas in fact it’s suicidal recklessness, like doubling down on a pair of twos.

Giant construction projects financed by the Exchequer are a short-term measure whose long-term effects are invariably ruined public finances, an increase in the number of people dependent on the government and a growing power of the state.

Such measures are called socialist, and in the last century they were put into effect, albeit for different reasons, by every known type of socialists: democratic (Roosevelt), national (Hitler) and international (Stalin).

Then, anyone who describes post-Blair economic policies as austerity is either dishonest or stupid, and Mr Johnson isn’t stupid.

When a state practises economic austerity properly defined, it shows a budget surplus and a reduced sovereign debt. Stretching the term as far as it can go, perhaps austerity could at a pinch mean merely a balanced budget.

None of those conditions was met during so-called austerity. The term is misused to mean the deficit and the debt growing at a slightly slower rate than before.

To scale this model down, when a family used to spend 20 per cent more than it earned and is now spending only 10 per cent more, it’s not practising austerity. It’s still being irresponsibly profligate, but slightly less so.

No Tory who uses the term the way Mr Johnson used it is really a Tory. This he joyously acknowledged with his usual bonhomie.

According to the MPs, he repeatedly said that “unlike any other Conservative government we have had, we are going to make sure we level up across the country and keep faith with the people who voted for us.”

Not being like any other Conservative government in history means not being a Conservative government at all, and Mr Johnson must be complimented for being upfront about it. His frankly expressed commitment to socialist levelling should further enhance his burgeoning reputation for honesty.

However, he then undoes his good work by claiming that going all-out socialist is a way of keeping faith “with the people who voted for us”.

The people had the option of voting for a socialist government – and rejected it. I’m not convinced they had a clear view of what the Conservative alternative would entail, but they certainly believed it was indeed an alternative.

The word, as the classically educated Mr Johnson doubtless knows, derives from the Latin alter, meaning other. Hence the people voted for something other than socialism, and imposing it on them anyway means betraying, rather than keeping, their faith. 

Mr Johnson then flaunted both his vocabulary and his vacuity by complimenting “the marmoreal Mount Rushmore common sense of the British people”. First, Mount Rushmore is American, not British. Second, it’s granite, not marble. Third, it’s a rotten metaphor, most unfortunate in a professional writer.

The PM’s attachment to giant socialist projects seems to be not only intellectual, but also emotional. Thus he claimed that his own Covid ordeal taught him “love and admiration for the NHS”.

This is a classic trick of socialist propaganda, encouraging people to love and admire socialist enterprises, rather than weighing their pros and cons rationally.

Instead of worshipping the NHS like some pagan demiurge, people should be encouraged to compare it with other ways of providing medical care, those practised by other Western countries. Such an exercise would show how woefully ineffective and exorbitantly expensive the NHS is.

The word “taught” suggests that before his own illness Mr Johnson had felt no love and admiration for the NHS. That certainly didn’t come across during his campaign, when he pledged unwavering loyalty to that socialist contrivance.

The crisis could be a “springboard for our ambitions”, Mr Johnson concluded. That much is doubtless true, if “our” means the modern socialist state, and the word “ambitions” denotes its in-built imperative for self-aggrandisement.

Jeremy Corbyn couldn’t have put it better himself.