Month: August 2024

Anyone who writes regularly is bound to repeat himself now and then. After all, few people have enough new and original thoughts to fill thousands of articles and the odd book.

Some writers repeat other writers, which is called homage if attributed and plagiarism if not. And all fecund writers repeat themselves, but, and here’s the rub, sometimes they do so unwittingly.

I found yet another proof of this observation this morning, when sitting down to write a follow-up to my yesterday‘s reflections on language. Having collected my thoughts, I began to jot them down, but every statement looked oddly familiar.

A quick search confirmed that impression: I was writing a piece I had already written almost seven years ago. Now, I seldom look at my old work, and, when I do, I usually hate it. This stands to reason.

A mind is always work in progress, with old thoughts sharpened, modified, qualified or – as often as not – discarded. That old piece, however, is different. I could change it here and there, paraphrase a thought or two, but I couldn’t improve it. Pre-empting an accusation of conceit, I’m not suggesting that it can’t be improved, only that I can’t do it.

However, that old article complements my yesterday’s piece so naturally that the only sensible thing to do is re-run it, even at the risk of boring my regular readers blessed with retentive memory. So here it is, slightly shortened: Nobody in Europe Speaks English.

This statement is probably an exaggeration. But not nearly as much as its oft-used opposite, starting with ‘Everybody’.

Britons who say it mean that it’s now possible to exchange basic Anglophone units of information with French waiters, Italian shopkeepers and Spanish museum guides. Language is just a communication tool, isn’t it? So that’s it: a communication occurred, job done.

Yet I question the premise. Yes, language is a means of communication. But it’s not just that.

If we bring down to earth the Biblical statement about the Word that was in the beginning, perhaps language is what creates and defines a nation. And if we believe the Babel story, then language is definitely what separates one nation from another – and not just linguistically.

English and Russian, for example, are different in exactly the same ways as the English and the Russians are different. One example: an English sentence is based on the verb, the action word, whereas the centre of a Russian sentence is the noun, surrounded by numerous modifiers.

A Russian sentence can function without a verb – possibly because a Russian man can function without doing anything much.

Hence classical Russian literature, from Pushkin to Goncharov, from Gogol to Tolstoy, abounds in indolent layabouts who talk much and do little. On the other hand, Russian boasts a vast variety of affixation, ideally suited to conveying the shades of emotions in which the layabouts endlessly indulge.

English grammar is formally rigorous, which reflects (creates?) a propensity for sequential logic and rational thought, just as its reliance on the verb reflects action-oriented pragmatism. The set word order of an English sentence can only be violated for stylistic effect, while Russian word order follows no rules whatsoever and is entirely stylistic.

That stands to reason. For the Russians despise rigid forms into which their much-vaunted spirituality can be squeezed. Hence they’ve so far been unable to come up with stable statehood or reasonable legality.

Characteristically, Nikolai Lossky’s History of Russian Philosophy devotes 57 pages to the mystical thinker Soloviov and only two to all the Russian philosophers of law combined. Justice – defined as a set of codified laws, not arbitrary feelings – has never interested the Russians much.

According to Lossky (d. 1965), this disdain for form even penetrated the Russians’ gene pool, producing ill-defined facial features so different, say, from the chiselled North European profile. It’s as if, having drawn a sketch of a Russian face, God then went over it, smudging every line with his thumb.

Lossky’s observation may be too sweeping, but it’s certainly evident that the Russians’ amorphousness extends to the way they treat every public institution, political, legal or religious.

Fr. Pavel Florensky, the polymath thinker murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1937, commented on the Russian character in essentially the same way: “There is no sun in the Slavs, no transparency, no definition! Clarity and serenity are lacking… It seems to me that this is meaningfully related to their failure… to find the sublime in the here and now and not strain to seek it in the nonexistent or the far-away.”

All this explains why the genre of the rigorously argued philosophical essay is as alien to the Russians as it’s natural to the English. The English vocabulary is three times the size of Russian, which makes the language more precise: a concept can be fractured into many fragments, each conveying its own nuance.

Russian, on the other hand, is ideally suited to poetic expression. Poetry imposes discipline on the Russians willy-nilly, while the loose grammar and practically endless morphology of their language open up infinite poetic possibilities.

The morphology of Russian words is so rich phonetically that Russian poets don’t have to rely on consonant endings to produce rhymes: they can find them in the words’ roots themselves. That’s why rhyming patterns are more interesting and less obvious in Russian, and vers libre, though not nonexistent, is rare there. By contrast, rhymed English poetry can easily sound like doggerel.

To be sure, the English have produced more than their fair share of great poets (including the greatest of all, Shakespeare), but one almost has to be that to write superb verse in English. By contrast, Russian poets of even modest talents can often produce excellent poems – their language does much of the work by itself.

Because their language and therefore their mentality don’t encourage philosophical self-expression, Russian thinkers often seek refuge in literature, either poetry or prose.

Dostoyevsky’s novels, for example, are basically philosophy minus the intellectual discipline of the essay. And Tolstoy, possibly the greatest artist among world novelists, often indulged in tedious philosophical asides of the kind that would have destroyed the prose of a lesser artist.

The Russians welcome that sort of mongrelisation – it capitalises on their strength, poetic language, while downplaying their weakness, intellectual amorphousness. But Tolstoy’s Western contemporaries reacted differently. For example, Flaubert, having read the first French translation of War and Peace, exclaimed indignantly, “Il se répète! Il philosophise!”

So yes, an increasing number of Europeans are now able to communicate in English, after a fashion. But to speak English for real one has to have the mental, emotional and spiritual makeup the language reflects or even, arguably, creates.

Some – I’d like to suggest self-servingly – may perhaps be able to achieve this without being raised in an English-speaking country. A certain intellectual and emotional predisposition developed by lifelong study and decades of using English almost exclusively may see to that.

But such cases apart, I stand by the title above. If you juxtapose two sentences, “Everybody in Europe speaks English” and “Nobody in Europe speaks English”, neither is quite true, but the second is closer to the truth.

Linguists tend to believe that all Indo-European languages come from a single protolanguage, possibly Sanskrit or its predecessor.

As far as I know, no one has advanced this view beyond the level of a hypothesis, but it’s a credible hypothesis. It certainly explains why so many of the same roots appear in different languages, even those belonging to different groups.

Like numerous other scientific theories, this one doesn’t contradict the Bible. It states unequivocally that all people used to speak the same language. But then they decided to erect “a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven”, which rather displeased God.

The deity punished them with the disintegration of their common language: “Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.” So it is because of that ill-advised construction project that we now have to shout English words at Parisians in the hope that they may cotton on that we want ketchup and not mayo on our fries.

Tracing common roots in different languages is an amusing pastime, but I’m more interested in another linguistic phenomenon, one for which no explanation exists, not even a hypothetical one.

How did certain sounds get attached to the concepts they designate? Why is a bird called a bird, for example? And why does an Englishman associate those sounds with the avian creature, which a Russian calls ptitsa, a German calls Vogel, or a Frenchman calls oiseau?

I haven’t a clue, and I’m not sure anyone knows it either. There has to be some connection between the sound of a word and its meaning, but it’s elusive – and in these cases different in different languages.

There exist, of course, cases of onomatopoeia, a word imitating the sound it describes. The most obvious cases include ‘cuckoo’, ‘chirp’, ‘roar’, ‘oink’, ‘meow’, ‘choo-choo’, and some of these words are similar in different languages (the Russian for a cuckoo, for example, is kukushka).  

But I’d like to offer you another series of words that I had in mind when asking the question in the title: ‘slut’, ‘sloven’, ‘slag’, ‘slapper’, ‘slattern’, ‘slime’, ‘sleaze’, ‘sludge’, ‘slurry’, ‘slop’, ‘slug’, ‘slush’, ‘slob’, ‘soiled’.

Some of those words mean a woman of easy virtue, and they all designate something dirty, untidy or messy. And — they all start with the letters ‘sl’ or at least feature them prominently. Why? These words aren’t etymological cognates, they have come into English from different sources, and yet they all converge on those two letters.

What is it about the combination of an ‘s’ and an ‘l’ that’s associated in the Anglophone mind with physical or moral dirt? And is it just the Anglophone mind?

For example, an uncouth Frenchman may refer to a woman liberal with her favours as sale salope, meaning a ‘dirty slut’. Note that the letters in question appear in both the adjective and the noun, even though I’m sure no Frenchman will ever be rude enough to denigrate a lady in such a crude fashion.

But then one remembers that the same woman could be called Schlampe in German and shlyukha in Russian, and questions multiply, with nary an answer anywhere in sight. My gut feeling is that the phonetic shape of a word and its semantic content are linked at an ontological level.

In fact, Noam Chomsky, who makes more sense on linguistics than on anything else, argues that language in general is ontological. It’s a product of an innate and universal human property that develops in a certain linguistic environment as one matures.

If so, then linguistics is closely linked with all the sciences that try to penetrate the mystery of the human mind: philosophy, theology, neurophysiology, psychology, biology – and I’m sure I’ve left some out. Chomsky goes so far as to argue that all languages, from Latin to Urdu, are variations on a Universal Grammar, differing only in relatively unimportant details.

Once again, this rings true to me, though I’m not sufficiently well-versed in structural linguistics to argue one way or the other. Many scholars who are more knowledgeable disagree with Chomsky, but then scholars seldom share a uniform view of anything. (When I taught English grammar in my youth, I found structural linguistics to be a useful practical tool, but that’s a different matter altogether.)

Yet I’m sure that even the most erudite linguist will admit that the moment we touch upon the ontology of language, we approach a mystery that may well point at the Mystery, the ultimate secret of the human mind. So far we haven’t solved that puzzle, and chances are we never will.

However, anyone who insists that Darwin found the solution or at least signposted a path leading to it is guilty of slapdash thinking. You see, it’s those two letters again.

Keir Starmer and his accomplices are about to prove yet again the immutable law of nature to which there are no known exceptions. Here it is, in capital letters:

WHEN SOCIALISM MOVES IN, PEOPLE MOVE OUT

Every leaked piece of information about the forthcoming Autumn Budget suggests that Labour will do what socialists always do: soak the rich, loosely defined. That targeted category doesn’t just include billionaires. As far as Labour are concerned, anyone with assets of a million or two is filthy rich.

Considering property prices in the UK, especially in the southeast of England, the stigma of ill-gotten gains can be attached to millions of people who have the misfortune of owning their residence. Add to that a few ISAs (Individual Savings Accounts), some shares here and there, and the pool of soakable rich grows to the size of a decent lake.

Socialist dogma preaches the zero-sum falsehood, meaning that it’s only possible for some to become rich by making others poor. An economy to that lot is a pie whose size stays constant. Hence if some greedy reprobate helps himself to a large slice, someone else, a member of the downtrodden masses, will only get a small piece – if not just crumbs off the fat cat’s table.

Imposing confiscatory taxes on such plutocrats seems fair, in the professed false hope that the poor will become wealthier as a result. “Those with the widest shoulders should bear the heaviest burden,” is how our socialist PM expressed his take on economics.

This is a lie on many different levels. First, “those with the widest shoulders” are already bearing the heaviest burden: the top one per cent of taxpayers, that is about 300,000 individuals, already contribute 30 per cent of all income tax revenues.    

At least 10,000 of them are prepared to prove that their wide shoulders come with quick feet by fleeing Britain this year. How many will run away next year and in all the subsequent years of Labour government is anyone’s guess.

What is absolutely certain is that the proposed tax hikes won’t produce any more tax income, quite the opposite. For example, wealthy Britons and foreigners aren’t going to invest in Britain if capital gains tax is, as planned, brought in line with income tax brackets of up to 45 per cent. No matter how patriotic those Britons are, or how Anglophile foreign investors feel, they’ll take their money elsewhere.

Our globalised economy offers plenty of destinations for those running away from tax raids, with Dubai, Ireland and Italy currently occupying the top of the list. All over Britain, families with sizeable assets are packing their bags, filling them with thousands of jobs they’ll take elsewhere.

Ever since Arthur Laffer drew his famous curve on a restaurant napkin at the lunch he was sharing with Reagan’s advisers, everyone has known that higher tax rates don’t automatically produce higher tax revenues. This stands to psychological reason: people aren’t going to generate taxable income if they know most of what they earn will be taken away.

You know it, I know it – and Labour politicians certainly know it. But unlike you and me, they don’t care.

It’s not for economic reasons that they are planning a massive tax raid on pensions, property, investments, energy production and consumption, and everything else they can get their grubby fingers on. Whatever socialists may claim, they are driven by the Marxist ideology of class struggle, and what animates it isn’t love of the poor but hatred of the rich.

Another powerful craving residing in every socialist breast is to grow the power of the state over individuals. That includes economic power, and every person independent of the state is an affront to socialist urges.

Common sense casts the pearl of economic independence before the multitudes, saying that diminishing investment into the economy is bound to increase the size of the dependent class. The socialist swine oink their instant response: so much the better.

For decades, Britain has had one of the world’s best tax-allowance systems for private pensions. This is about to end: people who use tax-free cash to become independent of the state in their old age offend every fibre of the socialist soul.

Not only do those nasties slip out of state control, but they have the gall to reject Labour – 60+ was the only demographic group voting Tory two months ago. They need to be punished, and their numbers must come down – hence tax relief on pension contributions will be reduced, if not yet abolished.

Getting income from investments is just as offensive to socialists. Only labour, ideally physical, is countenanced as a way of making money.

The only other income welcomed by Labour is that made in the public sector or various government-run quangos. Investments, however, are the work of the devil: people who use their money to make money are the bogeymen of every socialist.

In that spirit, the Labour government is planning to raise levies on all ‘chargeable assets’. These are defined as personal possessions worth £6,000 or more, apart from a car, property other than the main residence (provided it’s not let out), and any shares that aren’t kept in an ISA or PEP.

Another bogeyman is inherited wealth – as far as socialists are concerned, the economic dial must be reset in each generation. Inheritance tax, that is tax on assets left over after the taxes the deceased has been paying his whole life, is Labour’s idea of fairness. And the closer inheritance tax comes to inheritance confiscation, the fairer it is.

At present, the state imposes a 40 per cent tax on estates worth over £325,000. Again, since most middleclass people own their residences in Britain, and since most houses cost more than that threshold, effectively bereaved families shell out 40 per cent of their whole bequeathed pot.

Yet even that highway robbery doesn’t seem to be extortionate enough. Every indication is that the Chancellor will raise the inheritance tax rate, and the only unclear thing is by how much.

The flight of capital has already started. People aren’t prepared to wait for the Autumn Budget to get going – by then it may be too late, especially for those whose assets aren’t easily movable. Good riddance, as far as Labour are concerned – socialists have no need for capital.

Capital produces jobs, and jobs produce a measure of independence. Publicly, socialists may complain about the number of people on benefits. But deep down they feel it’s the more, the merrier. The more people depend on the state for their livelihood, the more powerful the state. QED.

P.S. The sight of the abortion bus parked outside the Democratic National Convention got my creative juices pumping at a high rate. The idea is so brilliant it begs to be expanded into other areas.

How about a euthanasia bus, or rather a refrigerator lorry? Just think of the potential: drive that vehicle from one neighbourhood to the next, off the wrinklies, stack up the corpses in the refrigerator compartment, unload at the morgue after dark, go home with the pride of a day well spent and a job well done.

If you think the line above is a title, you are only half-right. It’s also the solution to the urgent problem plaguing the British Red Cross. Or rather it’s the solution to just one of many language problems that venerable humanitarian organisation faces.

It’s institutionally committed to “refusing to ignore people in crisis”, but this last word has so far been misunderstood. Until now, ‘crises’ within the Red Cross’s remit have been defined as dire predicaments caused by war, displacement, imprisonment, deportation and so forth. But that’s a crudely materialistic, physical interpretation.

It ignores the mental anguish potentially caused by misused terminology. Yet words can hurt even worse than the proverbial sticks and stones. Choose a wrong form of address or a preposition, and a person victimised by the misnomer may writhe on the floor frothing at the mouth and spasmodically flinging his/her/its limbs about.

That’s where the British Red Cross steps in. This organisation, describing itself as “neutral and impartial”, has issued an internal language guide designed to prevent such calamities, rather than having to offer succour to those who have already suffered them.

To start with, the guide proscribes the address “Ladies and gentlemen” because it is “not inclusive”. Actually, I’ve always thought so too. That salutation marginalises women of easy virtue who clearly aren’t ladies, and out-and-out cads who manifestly aren’t gentlemen.

But that’s not what the authors of the guide mean. They seek to protect victims who regard themselves as neither ladies nor gentlemen, but rather as members of one of the other 100 or so sexes – and God knows they do need protecting.

However, being an accommodating person by nature, I think it’s premature to ditch the time-honoured honorifics altogether. They can be simply augmented in the manner I suggest in the title above. That way, no one is excluded, no one is offended, no one is traumatised for life .

The guide also corrects a widespread misapprehension by telling the staff that “people who are not women can get pregnant and have periods.” Much as I welcome this overdue clarification, I still think it needs a bit more work.

Reading the text as it is, one may infer that transgender women aren’t real women. I’m not suggesting that the guide is discriminatory, but it can be misconstrued that way.

I’d edit the text to say that “people who used to be men but are now women can get pregnant and have periods.” They can also cry at the slightest provocation, throw tantrums about an unwashed teacup and devote all their spare time to interior decoration.

According to the guide, expressions like “born a man or a woman” or a “biological male or female” are potentially offensive to non-binary individuals and hence off-limits. They may be factually correct, but that makes them even more objectionable.

While the use of lavatories and changing facilities isn’t a language issue, the guide makes another valiant attempt to protect the sensibilities of transsexuals by stating they are welcome to use any facilities they fancy. I assume that anyone who objects to such inclusivity has no place at the Red Cross.

Moving right along, “illegal migrant” is henceforth banned. Lest you may think that this injunction limits freedom of speech, the guide gives staff a perfectly free choice between “person in need of safety” and “person experiencing migration”.

Any distinction between someone who experiences it by applying at a British consulate and someone who catches a cross-Channel dinghy is deemed irrelevant. They are all in need of safety, aren’t they?

The guide isn’t averse to coining useful neologisms, such as the title “Mx”, as part of the general commitment to promoting “gender-neutral titles and/or titles that do not indicate a marital status”. So you see, I have been right all these years when refusing to use the title ‘Ms’. ‘Ms’ is now obsolete, and good job too: it’s criminally gender-specific.

Slightly less offensive but also banned are words like “elderly”, “youngster” and “pensioner”. They “promote negative stereotypes”, although at a pinch I still think they ought to be preferred to such terms as ‘wrinkly’, ‘crumbly’, ‘brat’, ‘freeloader’ or ‘sponger’.

Regardless of their colour, no people can be described as belonging to a “minority ethnic group”. The recommended, nay mandated, terms are “from a minoritised ethnic group” or, even better, “from a global majority”. Here I have two minor quibbles.

First, “minoritised” isn’t a mellifluous word, and it isn’t exactly precise. It suggests that, but for horrendous discrimination, non-white people wouldn’t be a minority in Britain, which is doubtful, at least as things stand now.

And “global majority” runs into arithmetical problems. After all, globally speaking, white people outnumber blacks three to one at least. And if we massage the numbers by lumping all non-white people together, we risk offending the racial pride of each group.

To avoid such problems, I propose the term “historically oppressed and socioeconomically disadvantaged groups”. There, that’s much better. What we lose in brevity we gain in probity.   

When a Red Cross spokesman was questioned about this valuable document, he said it was designed “to help staff and volunteers feel more confident when speaking with or writing about different people”. Hear, hear.

But what about my lack of confidence when speaking to people like that Red Cross spokesman? What about the discomfort I felt when finding out that up to 40 and never less than 20 per cent of this organisation’s funding comes from the public purse?

The Red Cross doesn’t care about me. It’s too busy indulging in political activism, of a most radical and subversive sort. So how can I continue to pay taxes knowing some of my hard-earned subsidises glossocratic terrorism against everything I hold dear? You tell me.

If Americans fall for the diabolical drivel that was spouted at the Democratic Convention, they deserve Kamala Harris.

They’d also deserve Leon Trotsky, but I don’t think he’s in the running. That said, one could be forgiven for getting the impression he is.

In all my long years of following politics, I’ve never seen such a brazen, mendacious display of cynical propaganda, at least not in a supposedly free country. Not even George Orwell at his most mordant could have imagined such a macabre perversion of reality.

All the speakers were lying through their teeth. How do I know this? To paraphrase a popular joke, their lips were moving.

Anaphora was in full bloom, and the key word endlessly regurgitated by one wicked speaker after another was ‘freedom’. One such orator proudly announced that this is the word whose meaning the Democrats were going to broaden.

Since, quite apart from their other fine qualities, they are all ignorant, they are deaf to the distinction between freedom and liberty (the first concept being internal and spiritual; the second, external and political), but that’s a minor matter.

Their real crime against reason and decency is broadening the notion of freedom to a point where it means nothing at all. And if freedom does mean anything, it’s whatever ‘liberal’ luvvies want it to mean.

This is how Congresswoman Nikema Williams understands the term: “As our president, Kamala Harris will fight for our reproductive freedoms, our freedom to learn our full and accurate history, and our economic freedom because it is time to stop just getting by, everyone wants to get ahead.”

Yet again I feel called upon to offer my services as interpreter.

“Reproductive freedom” is the luvvie for freedom not to reproduce, that is to abort babies. “Our freedom to learn our full and accurate history” means pledging allegiance to the Critical Race Theory, an explosive charge under our civilisation primed by the Marxists of the Frankfurt School. And “our economic freedom” is the chance to “get ahead” by getting state handouts, thereby empowering the state even more.

Abortion on demand seems to be the central plank of Harris’s campaign. Quite apart from the attendant moral considerations, this is a bit thin as far as political philosophies go. But to the Democrats’ credit, they are prepared to practise what they preach.

While that verbal obscenity was going on inside the United Center in Chicago, physical obscenity was unfolding outside. Planned Parenthood parked a bus there, offering free abortions and vasectomies to be performed there and then.

Applications poured in, and a Planned Parenthood spokesman boasted that: “We served 9 vasectomy and 8 medication abortion patients between the two days.”  “Between the two days” means at night, which is the most appropriate time for this mobile satanic ritual.

While there’s no evidence that the Democrats commissioned the abortion bus, not a single one of them uttered a word against it. On the contrary, they all gave every reason to believe that, given the chance, they’d turn abortion into the only free medical service available in America.

Kamala’s accomplice, sorry, I mean running mate, reiterated the new, broadened meaning of freedom and explained how Republicans misinterpret it: “They mean that the government should be free to invade your doctor’s office, corporations free to pollute your air and water, and banks free to take advantage of customers”.

Again, a translation is necessary. Walz means that Republicans welcome the Supreme Court decision to delegate decisions on abortions to the states, that they think America should keep some of her industry going, and that banks should be allowed to go on charging interest on loans. That’s how low they’ve sunk.

But, unlike those reprobates, Democrats mean “the freedom to make your own healthcare decisions [abortion on demand at any stage of pregnancy], your kids’ freedom to go to school without worrying about being shot” [repeal of the Second Amendment].

Such is the essence of American democracy as seen by Democrats, and it’s that hallowed institution that Donald Trump is out to destroy. And trust Michelle Obama to alert the public to Trump’s fiendish designs:

“Gutting our healthcare, taking away our freedom to control our bodies. The freedom to become a mother through IVF, like I did – those things are not going to improve health outcomes of our wives, mothers and daughters. Shutting down the Department of Education, banning our books – none of that will prepare our kids for the future.”

Crikey. Not since Messrs Stalin and Hitler has democracy been so much in peril. As an aspiring intellectual, I’m especially appalled by the banning of books as the most visible part of suppressing free expression. Naughty, naughty Donald.

However, it has to be said that he had his chance to turn every American library into the bonfire of the vanities – but ineptly failed to take it. No restrictions on free expression were introduced by Trump during the four years of his presidency.

Actually, and it pains me to say this, it’s the Democrat-voting luvvies who throw books out of libraries (if not yet into the fire), who bowdlerise classics in line with woke tyranny, who introduce woke censorship in every medium, who persecute – or prosecute – people for uttering words the luvvies declare as offensive. Really, what springs to mind is a thief running ahead of the pursuing crowd and screaming “Stop thief!” louder than everybody else.

Trump may believe in vesting perhaps more power into the executive branch than the Constitution encourages, but he isn’t the first such president. FDR, for example, was much more imperious and imperial – but he had the good fortune of being a Democrat and hence beyond criticism.

Trump isn’t to everyone’s liking, certainly not to mine, but portraying him as a threat to democracy is a bald-faced lie – especially when this is done by a party that defines freedom primarily as infanticide at will.

As to shutting down the Department of Education, that malformed child of Jimmy Carter’s loins, I do hope Trump gets elected and does just that. No other department of the US government is as responsible for perverting children’s minds by pumping them full of subversive, ignorant drivel, such as the Critical Race Theory.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, 34, a congresswoman protected from wearing a communist tag only by political semantics, endorsed Harris as a “woman who fights every single day to lift working people out from under the boots of greed trampling on our way of life.”

It hardly needs saying that for AOC (and Harris) it’s free enterprise that imposes such an intolerable burden on society. Putting an end to that abomination, or at least hamstringing it with socialist regulations and confiscatory taxes, is another aspect of freedom in its new, broadened meaning.

Hating Israel and supporting her terrorist enemies is another. To that end, explained AOC, Harris is “working tirelessly to secure a ceasefire in Gaza and bringing hostages home”. 

That’s the Democrats’ cant for selling Israel down the Jordan – just as ‘freedom’ is their buzz word for ‘liberal’ tyranny. They want their supporters to cry freedom, but all decent people must instead be crying for its demise. If this lot take over, it’s only abortions that will be free.

To use her own syntax, I. Have. Read. Her. Whole. Speech. Since I wasn’t paid for that Herculean effort, the least I expect is a thank-you note.

The speech isn’t very long, and normally I could breeze through it in a couple of minutes. What took more time and a greater effort was trying to find some meat in the puff pastry of her rhetoric.

And let me tell you: what little I’ve found is way past its sell-by date, not to say downright rancid. Kamala’s olfactory sense doesn’t seem to be acute enough to sense that. Let’s just hope that voters will have more sensitive noses.

For example, this is how Kamala sees her economic mission:

“That’s why we will create what I call an opportunity economy. An opportunity economy where everyone has a chance to compete and a chance to succeed.”

This is puffery, but do let’s look for a morsel of meat buried deep inside. Kamala clearly thinks that the president of the United States has the power to shape the economy according to his – or in this case her – liking.

To deliver on her promise of “an opportunity economy”, the executive branch would have to acquire the kind of power that would make a mockery of the Constitution.

In a free country, it’s businesses and not presidents who create opportunities to compete and succeed. The government can only ever affect this process negatively, by suffocating businesses with red tape and taxes. This is exactly what Kamala promises if you scrape the puff pastry off: an activist administration meddling in income generation to make sure that less income is generated.

“As President, I will bring together: Labor and workers, Small business owners and entrepreneurs, And American companies.”

The only message I can take out of this is that Kamala is planning to empower the trade unions to coerce even more employees into membership. If it’s something else, then I’d like her to explain the difference between “labor and workers”, and between “small business owners and entrepreneurs”. Both pairs sound to me like apples and apples, and oranges and oranges.

“To create jobs. Grow our economy. And lower the cost of everyday needs. Like health care. Housing. And groceries.”

And there I was, thinking that only God is omnipotent. Turns out Kamala is too. Put her in the White House and hey presto! – your rent will come down, so will your medical bills, so will the price of hamburger.

Sarcastic remarks aside, the only way a federal government can achieve such worthy outcomes is by introducing sweeping price controls. Kamala certainly may want to try, she has the temperament for it, but I can’t help thinking that getting such a bill through Congress would be a non-starter.

If Kamala is planning to divest Congress of its power to block hare-brained legislation, that would mean governing by decree, effectively turning America into a dictatorship.

Is that what she has in mind? It isn’t. Kamala is just regurgitating some bien pensant waffle, to go with the puff pastry of her general thought. But do let’s go on.

“We will: Provide access to capital for small business owners, entrepreneurs, and founders. We will end America’s housing shortage. And protect Social Security and Medicare.”

In theory, a president can try to deliver on that last premise. Since Social Security and Medicare are state-run programmes, I suppose the state can put a protective wall around them.

But what about providing access to capital? How can the federal government do that? Either by forcing taxpayers to shell out for a string of subsidies or by forcing banks to open their coffers.

Both solutions are constitutionally dubious and economically ruinous. Both would involve an inordinate growth in state power, which is the essence of socialism stripped of its eudaemonic cant. And Kamala is nothing if not a socialist.

She is also a fire-eating proponent of abortion on demand. Of course, had Mr and Mrs Harris resorted to that option 59 years ago, we wouldn’t have to listen to Kamala’s effluvia now. This may not be a strong argument in favour of abortion, but it’s stronger than anything Kamala has to offer:

“Donald Trump hand-picked members of the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom.”

Forgive me for being pedantic, but to this life-long student of English ‘reproductive freedom’ means ‘freedom to reproduce’, which is to have children. But that’s not what Kamala means, is it? She is talking about freedom not to reproduce, to kill a baby before it pops out.

“Over the past two years, I have traveled across our country. And women have told me their stories… Stories of: Women miscarrying in a parking lot… Getting sepsis… Losing the ability to ever have children again…”

How very awful. Then again, such misfortunes could have been avoided by simply having a baby. And miscarrying in a parking lot? Would a wire coat-hanger be involved by any chance? Surely, a woman can find a better place to miscarry.

“All – because doctors are afraid of going to jail for caring for their patients.” Killing a foetus is one way to describe patient care, but it’s not the best way.

“This is what is happening in our country. Because of Donald Trump.” Old Donald is thus held personally responsible for those coat-hangers in the parking lot.

Actually, all he did was exercise the constitutional power of any president to nominate candidates for vacancies in the Supreme Court. Left-leaning presidents nominate likeminded candidates, conservative presidents do the opposite — such is life.

Trump nominated and Congress approved three judges, which swung the Supreme Court balance towards sanity. Still, the newly conservative Court didn’t ban abortion. By repealing Roe vs. Wade, it removed from the federal government the right to lord it over the states.

Now the states can decide on their own abortion policy, and 14 out of 50 have decided to ban it – to the loud cheering of those who see something wrong with 600,000 babies being aborted every year. And it’s all Trump’s fault – that’s how Kamala sees it.

“And one must ask: Why exactly is it that they don’t trust women?

“Well. We. trust. women.

“And when Congress passes a bill to restore reproductive freedom, as President of the United States, I will proudly sign it into. Law.”

It’s a comforting thought that the US may end up with a president who can’t understand elementary concepts. The issue. Isn’t. About. Trusting. Or. Not trusting. Women.

It’s about the diminished power of the federal government to impose on the states legislation that disgusts every Christian, most other religious believers, and simply decent people who can argue logically that the difference between abortion and infanticide is purely semantic.

Such people may invoke Aristotle’s theory of potentiality or, if addressing an audience who don’t know Aristotle from third baseman, simply make a rational case that no valid difference exists between a baby a month after birth and a month before. That can be logically extrapolated to two months, three, four and eventually nine.

Without mentioning any religious ideas, conception is the only indisputable moment at which human life begins. Any other moment is open to doubt, and doubt should be interpreted in favour of preserving life, not destroying it.

I realise such rationale takes Kamala and the woke brigade she fronts out of their depth. But at least, as a lawyer, she should be able to consider the constitutional aspects of the drivel she is spouting.

Roe vs Wade was in force from 1973 to 2022, during which time even conservative presidents like Reagan could do nothing about it, however they felt about abortion. Separation of power into three branches is the fundamental principle of the American Constitution, not to be trifled with.

The Supreme Court decision of 1973 rendered the executive and legislative branches powerless to repeal Roe vs Wade. Likewise, the Supreme Court decision of 2024 means neither Kamala nor Congress can bring back federal fiat on abortion without playing fast and loose with the Constitution.

I hope for the sake of my American friends that there’s enough fortitude left in the nation to prevent such constitutional vandalism. Alas, the experience of my own country, Britain, shows that socialists treat the constitution the way a dog treats a tree. This stinks.   

The ancient principles of our jurisprudence, such as “innocent until proven guilty”, must now be followed with a disclaimer consonant with new morality. Take your pick out of “However, if…”, “Unless, of course,…” or “Except in cases involving…”.

Following the ellipses in each case will be any transgression that violates new morality taking precedence over old legality. For example, any suggestion that a man had sex with a woman without her explicit permission may invalidate presumption of innocence, whatever the evidence.

Even if the transgressor can’t be tried in a court of law, or has been tried and found not guilty, or has served some time in prison but was then exonerated, he is then submitted to another trial, that by woke mob. And such judges neither show any mercy nor recognise any extenuating circumstances.

Mason Greenwood, one of the most promising English footballers, has found that out the hard way. His case was first tried in social media, specifically the posts coming from his allegedly wronged girlfriend.

She uploaded an audio where she tells a man she calls Mason: “I don’t want to have sex”. Apparently, her partner is reluctant to take no for an answer. He replies: “I don’t give a f*** what you want … I’m going to f*** you, you t*** … I don’t care if you want to have sex with me … I asked you politely, and you wouldn’t do it, so what else do you want me to do?” After a long pause, the man says: “Push me again one more time and watch what happens to you.”

The girl cried foul, Greenwood was arrested and charged with rape, assault and controlling behaviour. He was immediately suspended by his club, Manchester United, and dropped by his principal sponsor, Nike.

However, the Crown Prosecution Service dismissed all charges against Greenwood a few months later, stating he had no legal case to answer because the “alleged victim requested the police to drop their investigation” and “new material came to light”.

Greenwood had been denying all charges anyway, although he did admit he had “made mistakes”. Neither the CPS nor the alleged victim nor Greenwood himself proffered any lurid details, but, assuming that the audio was authentic, Mason isn’t the kind of chap you’d want your daughter to have an unchaperoned date with.

He’s probably a nasty bit of work, and his powerful libido may indeed sometimes compel him to take shortcuts through the rigamarole of courtship. Personally, I don’t know whether he ever overstepped the line separating forceful wooing from rape. Maybe he did or maybe he didn’t.

Then again, I have no illusions about footballers, much as I like watching them work. Few of them are ever likely to be candidates for canonisation, and the last time I looked none of them had a pair of wings on his back.

Most of these young lads grew up in abject poverty, surrounded not by good books and Debrett’s etiquette manuals but by crushed beer cans and even discarded syringes. Those who make it as professional players manage to rise above all that and devote themselves full time to mastering their trade.

The best of them, such as Greenwood, become multi-millionaires in their teens, and not all of them can handle such windfalls with grace and dignity. When wealth isn’t accompanied by culture and refinement, it may become an invitation to loutish behaviour and all sorts of excesses.

I’ll spare you a long list of footballers who had brushes with the law or even went to prison, but take my word for it: the list is long. One player, ‘Drunken’ Duncan Ferguson, even served three months in the poky for what he did during a game. (He headbutted an opponent.)

But after Ferguson paid his debt to society, the case was closed and all was forgotten. He went on playing and subsequently coaching, basking in the warm glow of admiration emitted by his fans.

Greenwood, on the other hand, wasn’t tried and found guilty. On the contrary, all charges against him were dismissed. Whatever his character might be (I suspect it isn’t of sterling quality) or whatever pangs of conscience he may feel about his “mistakes” (I doubt he feels any), his case ought to be closed too. But it isn’t.

You see, Ferguson transgressed only against the man whose nose he smashed with what’s affectionately called a ‘Glasgow kiss’. Greenwood, on the other hand, trespassed against the whole ethos of woke rectitude. And to this crime no presumption of innocence applies.

Once the CPS dropped the case, Manchester United tried to reincorporate Greenwood into the squad. To no avail: women’s groups backed up by likeminded organisations screamed bloody murder, or rather bloody “sexual assaults occasioning actual bodily harm”. As far as they were concerned, Greenwood was guilty as no longer charged.

Manchester United had to send the player out on loan to mid-table Spanish club Getafe. The shrieks followed him there, but they were slightly less shrill. Greenwood managed to play until the end of the season, although another English footballer playing in Spain, Jude Bellingham, did call him a rapist during the match.

Now Manchester United has sold Greenwood to a top French club, Marseilles, where he scored twice in his first game. But the weeping and wailing and the gnashing of teeth have resumed with gusto – the French woke brigade must have more stringent standards of probity than the Spanish equivalent.

By all accounts, Greenwood will continue to play in France for a while, although he may have to plug up his ears permanently. But he has admitted ruefully that he’ll never play for England again. He also qualifies for Jamaica through his parents, but that’s not quite the same thing, is it?

Now let’s imagine for the sake of argument that, instead of the sex assault Greenwood is no longer charged with, he’d be no longer charged with another crime, say armed robbery or GBH. I’d venture a guess that, once the CPS dropped the case, it would be forgotten with a few weeks. Greenwood would continue to score for his club and country, with happiness all around.

We are looking at a dual classification of crimes, one put forth by the legally instituted authorities, the other by the mob. England’s ancient law has clearly defined standards of proof and, until these are met, the accused person is presumed innocent.

The woke mob has no such standards, and neither is it capable of showing mercy. Once a person – especially a man – is accused of any fashionable -ism or -phobia, he is guilty even if he can prove his innocence (which in the English Common Law he wouldn’t be required to do). If the mob can’t put him in prison, it’ll do all it can to destroy his career. No appeals are allowed.

This is worrying by itself, but the real problem is that it’s not going to stop here. Once the mob has gathered strength, and it’s getting bigger and stronger by the day, it’ll widen its reach. The very essence of the English Common Law will come under fire, with the mob constantly trying to make it irrelevant by overriding its verdicts.

When that happens, Britain will no longer be Britain. I’m assuming of course that she still is, which may not be a safe assumption.

Judging by his Telegraph article, Tory leadership candidate Robert Jenrick is a thoughtful and well-meaning young man.

He answered the question in the title above by listing 10 propositions circumscribing conservatism with its core values, and it’s hard to argue against a single one. Mr Jenrick enumerated all the good things in life, and I was mentally ticking each point as I read.

“The nation state is fundamental” – tick, with a few minor reservations mainly dealing with Britain’s past as an empire.

“Our people and Parliament are sovereign” – tick, this time with no reservations.

“Market economics drive growth” – couldn’t agree more, a big fat tick.

“The NHS is a public service. We must make it deliver” – tick, true on both counts.

Of course, one could argue that this bloated nationalised Leviathan, like any other such socialist concern, is bound to serve itself more than the public and hence can’t possibly “deliver”. But a young politician on the rise can’t afford to make such an argument if he hopes to remain any kind of politician, never mind one on the rise. The NHS has to remain sacrosanct, the British people will insist on it.

“Mass migration must end” – hear, hear. This tick spreads over half a page.

“We need a small state that works, not a big state that fails” – another enthusiastic tick. Abhorrence of a big omnipotent state is fundamental to conservatism.

“We are a national party, serving the whole country” – tick. If a party serves strictly parochial interests, it’ll never gain power.

“Prison works” – it most definitely does, so another tick goes on.

“Promote national unity” – certainly beats promoting either national disunity or vapid cultural globalism. Tick.  

“Peace comes through strength” – an argument for strong defence, and I almost broke my pencil putting yet another tick in.

When I got to the end of the article, I realised I’d happily put my own signature underneath it, even at the risk of being accused of plagiarism. And I’m sure I’m not the only one.

Any like-minded American would happily endorse every point, mutatis mutandis. So would any Frenchman. So would any Pole. So would any Finn. Mr Jenrick covered the ground perfectly, explaining what it means to be a conservative qua conservative. That’s the trouble.

Where he is woefully remiss is in failing to explain what it means to be a specifically British conservative. That makes his eloquent argument for the British nation state fall a bit flat. If such a state will be no different from the US, France, Poland or Finland, what’s so special about it?

If, however, Mr Jenrick insists on British national particularism, as he should, then we also have to expect that our conservatism must differ somewhat from other nations’. We may all share all those good things he mentions but, if there are no points of difference, one struggles to understand what it is that makes Britain unique.

And if she isn’t unique, then why can’t we just link arms with conservatives everywhere and create a sort of Conservative International sans frontières? Let’s call it the ECU or even the UCN, with the ‘C’ standing for ‘Conservative’?

Mr Jenrick is clearly and commendably opposed to post-Enlightenment universalism, whose ideals are encapsulated in the oxymoronic triad of liberté, égalité, fraternité (it’s oxymoronic because the middle element invalidates the other two). But British conservatism has its own triad, and its three elements are harmonically linked: God, king and country.

The problem with Mr Jenrick’s cogent and well-argued list is that it covers only the third element of the triad. Neither God nor King gets a mention. I had to read his piece twice, looking for words like ‘Christianity’ or ‘monarchy’ and not finding them.

That makes me wonder if Mr Jenrick is a closet republican or else an aspiring American – after all, every one of his 10 points would be just as valid in any republic, and certainly in the US (minus perhaps the NHS, but give Kamala time).

Any conservative is etymologically obligated to decide what it is that he’d like to conserve. This question can’t be answered without first understanding the country’s essence, its founding metaphysical – and hence constitutional – core.

This is what must be lovingly preserved come what may, whatever physical changes the country must undergo at any point in history. And unlike any republic, Britain is and has been for centuries a constitutional, anointed monarchy with an established religion.

Neither may mean much to today’s youngsters, but someone ought to explain to them that without this Britain wouldn’t be Britain in any other than the strictly geographical sense.

One doesn’t have to be a devout Christian or, for that matter, a fire-eating monarchist to identify this as the metaphysical core of the nation – and to be passionately committed to preserving this core, defending it against all faddish encroachments.

But one does have to be a British conservative to understand Britain this way. Conversely, no one whose idea of conservatism omits the country’s metaphysical essence can be legitimately described as a British conservative.

He can, however, be many other laudable things, such as a thoughtful and well-meaning young man that Mr Jenrick clearly is. He should perhaps devote a bit more thought to the meaning of British conservatism, but that may be no longer necessary for a hands-on politician.

On balance, the Tory Party could do a lot worse than elect him as its leader. In fact, it has been doing a lot worse for decades now.

But an old reactionary like me must be forgiven for grumbling that, even if the best candidates the Tories can put forth don’t really understand what British conservatism is, conservatism is dead. If so, I mourn its passage.

Following a review, the government will soon introduce a new law criminalising misogyny and treating it as a form of extremism.

Having read the announcement made to that effect by Home Secretary Yvette Cooper, I immediately went to my trusted dictionary to look for a tight definition of the new crime.

After all, the old legal principle states that “ignorantia juris non excusat”, meaning you can have your collar felt without realising you’ve broken the law. I found that out a few years ago when a French cop fined me for speeding.

He refused to accept my claim that I didn’t know the posted speed limit was in kilometres, not miles. Pull the other one, mate, he said in French, it has les cloches on. That’ll be 80 euros, merci beaucoup.

Hoping to avoid such embarrassments in the future, I read the definition of misogyny with extra care. Here it is: “dislike of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women”.

I instantly took stock of my feelings. Do I dislike women? No. Do I despise them? Far from it. Do I have ingrained prejudices against them? Not at all. I heaved a sigh of relief and wiped my brow.

In the process, however, I realised yet again that I dislike, despise and have an ingrained prejudice against tyrannical laws. Which this one is, in spades (before a chap in blue knocks on the door, I must disclaim that the last word has no racial allusions whatsoever).

If asked what the opposite of a tyrannical state is, most people will mention the rule of law. That’s not quite true.

Stalin’s Soviet Union had a law, Article 58 of the Penal Code, criminalising criticism of communism. That was the law cited in millions of indictments, with any punishment up to the death penalty providing the full stop. And Hitler’s Germany was ruled by the Nuremberg Laws, among others.

Looking at those two examples, we can refine our understanding of the opposite to tyranny. It’s the rule of just law, not any old one. If a law isn’t just, it’s a factor of despotism.

Having thus agreed on the terminology, let’s take a closer look at the proposed legislation. The dictionary identifies misogyny as something one feels, not does. And feelings and thoughts are only ever criminalised by despotic regimes like Stalin’s Russia or Hitler’s Germany.

One hopes that even a Labour government wouldn’t go so far as punishing people for what they feel. Hence the legal definition of misogyny Miss Cooper sees in her mind’s eye has to be different from the dictionary one.

Since she has manfully (womanfully?) resisted the temptation to divulge the specifics, we can be excused for indulging in conjecture.

Suppose a man does something nasty to a woman because he is a misogynist. Let’s say he beats her up and/or rapes her and/or kills her. If so, the full weight of the law should crush him to pulp, but which law? Putting it another way, would such a criminal go unpunished in the absence of a misogyny law?

No, he wouldn’t. We already have laws against violence, rape and murder. That makes the proposed law redundant, which is to say unnecessary, which is to say introduced for reasons other than legal ones.

So what’s Miss Cooper’s definition of misogyny? The only answer I can think of, and please feel free to make your own suggestions, is that her definition is open-ended. Misogyny is anything the government says it is.

A builder wolf-whistling at a passing woman, a man asking a woman not to trouble her pretty little head about something, a chap telling a dumb blonde joke in a pub, a pundit arguing that women shouldn’t be on active police duty – they may all be treated as criminals if such is Miss Cooper’s wont.

Not only is this law potentially tyrannical, but it’s also discriminatory. For the sake of equity, it ought to be counterbalanced with a law against misandry, hatred of men. Without conducting an extensive survey, I’d venture a guess that such feelings are at least as widespread as their opposite.

In fact, we are witnessing a growing feminisation of life and whole professions, such as medicine, football commentary and even policing. Masculine personal pronouns are being banned – any close examination of people who decry gender-specific pronouns will show that it’s mostly masculine pronouns that they abhor.

Traditional male virtues, such as physical strength, courage and steadfastness are dismissed as macho posturing designed to oppress women. Men are even denied exclusive ownership of their primary sex characteristics. How fair is that?

Miss Cooper explained that there has been a rise in extremism “both online and on our streets” that “frays the very fabric of our communities and our democracy”, and misogyny is one manifestation of that worrying trend.

Again, a precise definition is lacking. She then said that a review is required of the rise of Islamism and far-right extremism, which is fair enough.

Yet that statement is again woolly. ‘Islamism’ is a copout word used by those who fear that saying ‘Islam’ would be politically incorrect. Actually, when it comes to misogyny, the difference between the two seems to be imperceptible.

There are many passages in the Koran that advocate beating disobedient wives, or tell women to cover their faces, keep silent and lower their eyes in the presence of men, and so on. Polygamy is also allowed, while polyandry isn’t.

But never mind Islam. St Paul, the author of much of the very Christian New Testament can be construed as being a rank misogynist too.

To wit: “Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection. But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.” (1 Timothy 2: 11-15)

Should reading this passage as a lesson in church be criminalised or just cancelled? If the latter, let’s also cancel Alfred Lord Tennyson who wrote this subversive verse:

Man for the field and woman for the hearth:
Man for the sword and for the needle she:
Man with the head and woman with the heart:
Man to command and woman to obey;
All else confusion

Can Tennyson’s title of Poet Laureate be revoked posthumously? Should he be expunged from all libraries? Don’t ask me. Ask Yvette Cooper, she’ll tell you.

She’ll probably repeat what she has said already. The review, at the end of which the misogyny law beckons, will “identify any gaps in existing policy which need to be addressed to crack down on those pushing harmful and hateful beliefs and violence”.

That’s another telling illustration of the socialist take on legality. Miss Cooper lumps together “hateful beliefs” (that is, thoughts and feelings) and “violence” (that is, actions). This reminds me of her socialist ancestor, Lenin.

He was once pondering the draft criminal code submitted for his comments. One article specified the death penalty for those who “aid and abet the restoration of capitalism in Russia”. Lenin, who was educated as a lawyer, looked at the text and felt something was missing, though he wasn’t quite sure what. Then it struck him.

Lenin took out his blue pencil and wrote above “aid and abet” the words “or are capable of aiding and abetting”. And behold, it was very good. Now every Soviet citizen could be shot according to the new law.

Lenin didn’t edit that text for legal reasons. The law has no value in a despotic state other than being an instrument of its despotism. That’s why one distinguishing feature of many tyrannical laws is their vagueness and open-endedness.

They aren’t there to protect people against the depredations by man or state. They are there to enable the state to put its foot down whenever it feels like it.

When the law starts acting in that capacity, you know the rule of just law is no longer in force. In that respect, the difference between Lenin and Cooper is that of degree, not of kind. Actually, Lenin has one important advantage: he is dead, while Miss Cooper is still alive and very much active.

You don’t have to know Russian to read Kremlin propaganda. If you have the stomach for such emetic agitprop, all you have to do is read Peter Hitchens.

Sometimes he regurgitates Putin’s hysterical shrieks, at other times, such as today, he just repeats them straight as they come, word for word. That way there’s no risk of distorting the message on its way to the gullible Western public.

He starts out by bizarrely claiming that both Britain and the US would be police states if they weren’t protected by variously wide waterways. Taking similar subjunctive liberties, I can aver with equal justification that the two countries would be run by cannibalistic tribes.

If we leave the subjunctive territory, we’ll notice that Scandinavian countries haven’t become police states even in the absence of an ocean separating them from, say, Russia. So it’s not just about geography, is it? Let’s just note that this venerable columnist is mouthing arrant nonsense and move on.

Actually, Hitchens uses the time-dishonoured Russian trick of blaming geography for the country’s long history of tyrannical regimes. That poor nation simply had to become the scourge of the world and of its own people because she “has no natural defences of any kind.”

Having regaled us with this startling geographical discovery, Hitchens proceeds to explain its geopolitical ramifications. Or rather psychological ones: unprotected as they are by waterways, the Russians perpetually and rightfully feel insecure.

Oh, is that why Russia has been pouncing on all her neighbours throughout history? Why she voraciously gobbled up whole countries in the 18^th century, when Catherine II said: “If we didn’t have an ocean to the north, we’d run out of soldiers”? Why Russia was called ‘the gendarme of Europe’ and ‘the prison of nations’ in the 19^th century? Why she grabbed half of Europe after 1945?

Hitchens’s view of European history can only charitably be called misguided. More to the point, it’s precisely the excuse Russian rulers have always proffered for their own aggressive acquisitiveness. Serious historians laugh at such clumsy musings. But Hitchens isn’t any kind of historian. On this evidence, he isn’t even a journalist. He is a propagandist.  

Then comes his favourite trick of establishing his bona fides as a connoisseur of the innermost crevices of the Russian soul. Back in the 90s Hitchens spent a few months in Moscow, which experience is supposed to have given him a unique insight into the country’s people and language.

“The Russian word for ‘safety’ is quite unlike its English equivalent. That word is ‘bezopasnost’. It is wholly negative. It means ‘without danger’. Because, in Russia, danger is the normal default position. Western statesmen and media, mostly knowing nothing of Russia, fail to grasp this.”

Now we are into lexicology, that word also means ‘security’. It’s the ‘B’ in KGB/FSB, an organisation that, among other things, is charged with the responsibility of spreading disinformation. That word of Latin origin came into Western languages courtesy of Kremlin propagandists, among whom Hitchens can claim pride of place.

Having established his psycho-geopolitical premises, Hitchens smoothly links the past with the present. And at present, Putin is running scared because the Ukrainian army has launched a remarkable counteroffensive in the Kursk Region.

Putin’s (and Hitchens’s) line is that Russia’s monstrous assault on the Ukraine was merely a preventive strike designed to check NATO’s eastward expansion. And British Challenger 2 tanks rolling into Russia prove that Putin has been right all along.

This is something else NATO leaders fail to understand because they don’t listen to Hitchens (and Putin): “Don’t they grasp that this attack hands a gigantic long-term propaganda victory to the Moscow tyrant Putin? For years, he argued that eastward expansion of NATO would place a hostile alliance, armed by the Western powers, on Russia’s border, 500 miles from Moscow.”

And now he has been proved right: the presence of British-made armour on Russian soil is an act of NATO aggression. But what’s that about “the Moscow tyrant”? For years, Hitchens has been extolling Putin as the leader of “the most conservative and Christian country in Europe”. And now he’s a tyrant? Vlad must have given Peter a special dispensation to use that term for credibility’s sake.

Now, those British and American armoured vehicles aren’t being driven by Britons and Americans. The drivers and gunners are all Ukrainians who gratefully use imported kit. This point can’t be ignored, not in good faith that is. No NATO invasion of that hypersensitive country is taking place.

By the same token, in the 1960s thousands of American servicemen were killed by Soviet-made weapons. But because it wasn’t the Soviets who wielded them, the Americans didn’t see that as casus belli. Since then, Russian-made AKs and other weapons have been used by evildoers to murder thousands of Western citizens. Yet Russia hasn’t been held culpable for such crimes – and neither does she have any right to complain about those Challenger tanks.

Yet Hitchens has the gall to write about “Ukraine’s invasion of Russia – in which British-made tanks are trundling through Russian villages.” That’s repeating the line that even some Kremlin apologists are embarrassed to utter. After all these months of mass murder perpetrated by Russians, talking about “Ukraine’s invasion of Russia” in any context is worse than immoral. It’s indecent.

Having delivered the Kremlin message, Hitchens goes back to probing the Russian psyche and, while he’s at it, distorting history along the lines first laid down by Stalin. Kursk, he explains, is “a city that has huge emotional and historical significance in the Russian mind, especially thanks to the cruel, incredibly bloody fighting in and around it in the 1940s,” when the Soviet Union was “doing most of the actual fighting against Hitler”.

Reading that, I experienced a touch of nostalgia mixed with reflux. For that was the version of history that Soviet chieftains, from Stalin onwards, were drilling into millions of Soviet heads. Hence most of my classmates were sure that the USSR bore the whole brunt of the war – and unsure whether the Allies actually took part in the fighting and, if yes, on which side.

We weren’t told that Stalin entered the war as Hitler’s ally, and so he remained for almost two years, while Britain stood alone in opposing evil in Europe. We didn’t know that Soviet oil was powering Nazi tanks and Soviet-made bombs were raining on London. Nor did we ever hear such names as El Alamein or Midway. We knew what we were told, which was exactly what Hitchens is telling his readers now.

Instead of waffling on about the “huge emotional significance” the Russians attach to Kursk, he should be talking about the huge emotional significance Ukrainians attach to their cities demolished, their children killed, their civilians looted, raped and murdered, their sovereign country attacked without any provocation (other than ‘emotional’ and ‘psychological’, that is) by a vile aggressor… sorry, I mean “the most conservative and Christian country in Europe”.

At the end, Hitchens throws down the gauntlet to Boris Johnson: “I am still keen to debate this issue with you, at your earliest convenience.”

A few years ago, I wrote about the Russians poisoning the Skripals, after which Hitchens graced me with an e-mail. There’s no proof of Russian involvement, he insisted, again repeating the Kremlin line. In response, I issued to him the same challenge he is now issuing to Johnson.

That was 2018, and I’m still waiting for a reply. But the offer stands, and I’ll even leave the choice of venue to Hitchens – provided it’s not the Russian Embassy, where the audience would be much friendlier to him than to me.