To kick off the G20 meeting in St Petersburg, Col. Putin’s aide described Britain as “just a small island no one pays any attention to”.
He forgot to mention that the only reason people listen to Russia is that she’s both willing and able to blackmail them into rapt attention with either nuclear weapons or oil, or usually both.
Dave’s reaction? An indignant “I don’t accept that for a moment.”
Exactly what doesn’t he accept? Britain is undeniably an island, neither the smallest nor indeed the largest one.
Yet, as a British diplomat commented in response, our economy is still much larger than Russia’s. Moreover, our income, unlike Russia’s, doesn’t mostly come out of the ground. Nor does it then get laundered before being paid in.
And yet the Russians are right: not many countries listen to us any longer. The reason for this is that Britain lacks a sense of purpose and our ‘leaders’ a sense of dignity.
The problem isn’t, as Times pundits and other lefties clamour, that we’re alienated from the EU. It’s that we aren’t alienated enough.
Nor is Britain’s refusal to go along with yet another idiotic US adventure a factor in our diminished status. It’s that normally we’re too eager to play the dummy to America’s ventriloquist.
The world’s financial centre, fifth largest economy and one of the West’s three nuclear powers deserves respect. But first such a country has to respect herself.
This self-respect is manifestly lacking in our ‘leaders’, which is why they are prepared to swallow any insults assorted thugs throw in their faces.
When Ed’s brother Dave (not to be confused with Ed’s spiritual twin Dave who’s our prime minister) was Foreign Secretary, he once made some perfunctory remarks on human rights to the Russian foreign minister Lavrov. The latter’s response was predictably thuggish: “Who the f… are you to lecture me?”
Any minister who respects himself and the great country he represents would have walked out, banging the door behind him. HMG would then have issued a note demanding an abject official apology, barring which diplomatic relations would be severed.
Alternatively or additionally, no holders of Russian passports would be admitted into Britain, and those already there would be summarily deported. This would include the oligarchs who, according to the proud boast of Putin’s minion, have “bought up Chelsea”.
Instead, Dave Mark I went on as if nothing had happened. So has Dave Mark II this time in Petersburg.
He should have got up and left, firing a parting shot that no civilised discourse is possible with manifestly uncivilised louts. Unless Russia wants to find herself in a position of an even worse pariah than she is already, Putin had better paper-train his spokesmen (and himself) to keep a civil tongue in their heads.
But then Dave has form in being spineless. Shortly before he became prime minister he agreed to appear on the talk show hosted by the hideous vulgarian Jonathan Ross. No self-respecting statesman would have done so, but hey, it’s Dave we’re talking about.
In his inimitable style Ross then asked Dave if, as a youngster, he used to wank to a picture of Margaret Thatcher. At this point, not just any self-respecting statesman but indeed any self-respecting man would have got up and left without saying a word. Not our PR Dave – he just smiled and went on being a man of the (vulgar) people.
To be fair to Dave, he isn’t the only Western politician prepared to lap up Russian spit off his face. Commenting on John Kerry’s accusation that Russia had supplied poison-gas technology to Assad, Sergei Ivanov, Chief of Putin’s staff, accused the US State secretary of “lying through his teeth” (the Russian expression he used is actually ruder). The undiplomatic word ‘lie’ was also used by Putin himself.
Diplomats don’t talk that way; thugs do. A foreign minister of a respectable country doesn’t lie. He may misrepresent facts. Perhaps he may be misinformed. His information may not be quite accurate. His accusations may be groundless. But – read my lips, Messrs Ivanov and Putin – HE. NEVER. ‘LIES’.
Any diplomatic representative of his country would be completely within his rights to leave the meeting there and then, saying that no further conversation is possible with louts. Talking to the journalists he may then say something along the lines of “Yes, we all know that Syria has a thriving missile production of her own.” But his immediate reaction ought to be a mighty bang of the door.
Take it from someone who spent his youth being bullied by Putin’s and Ivanov’s KGB colleagues: neither meekness nor reasoning works. Russian – and for that matter any other – bullies pounce at any sign of weakness and recoil from any show of strength.
Perhaps Messrs Kerry and Cameron should consult the history books to see how their predecessors used to handle loutish foreigners. On second thoughts, perhaps they shouldn’t – it wouldn’t do them any good.