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Each day brings a new horror. Pictures of a child’s final moments caught in an air attack, the desperation of medics unable to save her, the anguish of her family.
Her blood-stained pink unicorn pyjamas, the cartoon crocodile on the doctor’s surgical hat. Heartbreaking details that only emphasise the soul-wrenching hopelessness of the situation.
The anguish of young women giving birth in makeshift wards as they try to escape the 40-mile-long convoy of Russian tanks and artillery reaching towards Kyiv like a creeping black shadow.
The sense of disbelief as, minute by minute, Putin tortures Ukraine before our very eyes.
‘Flee or die,’ was his message to the people of Kyiv. If only we could fast-forward to the part where he blows his brains out in a bunker.
Each day brings a new horror. Pictures of a child’s final moments caught in an air attack, the desperation of medics unable to save her, the anguish of her family
Pictured: A girl named Polina, who Kyiv officials say was shot and killed by the Russians while in a car with her parents
But this is no Hollywood blockbuster. This is the reality of war, in all its grinding desperation. The world watches as one man destroys a nation, child by child, mother by mother, father by father. And we seem powerless to stop him.
Worse than powerless, in fact. Because in a ghastly way we are complicit. It’s our money that’s fuelling this war. Ours and Europe’s: up to one billion dollars a day on Russian oil and gas, flowing from our pockets to his.
That’s an awful lot of hardware, boots and cluster bombs. What does he care if the rouble loses 30 per cent of its value. Each day brings another billion. This is exactly what dear, old Ronald Reagan predicted, back in the 1980s, when he tried to obstruct the construction of the pipelines. He failed, and 40 years on, here we are.
But it’s not too late. I’m no Greta Thunberg. But if I had to ditch my car, turn off my heating, shower every other day and never catch another plane to put an end to this man’s lunacy, I’d do it.
But this is no Hollywood blockbuster. This is the reality of war, in all its grinding desperation. The world watches as one man destroys a nation, child by child, mother by mother, father by father. And we seem powerless to stop him. Pictured: A child patient in treatment at Okhmadet Children’s Hospital, Kyiv
In a ghastly way we are complicit. It’s our money that’s fuelling this war. Ours and Europe’s: up to one billion dollars a day on Russian oil and gas, flowing from our pockets to his
I’d read by candlelight on a winter’s evening if I thought it meant the world could be a safe place, where little girls in unicorn pyjamas can sleep soundly at night.
My greatest hope is that we see Vladimir Putin in The Hague. My greatest fear is that this is only the start of it. But whatever transpires, if one good thing comes out of this nightmare it will be that we finally understand the need to be reliant on our own energy reserves: we must never again find ourselves in the perverse situation of indirectly financing a madman’s war.
Perhaps, as Kwasi Kwarteng says, re-starting fracking in Britain will not make much difference. Perhaps North Sea oil won’t get us as far as we’d like to think.
But we should not rule anything out. And however frightening nuclear power may seem, it’s a lot less scary than Putin. Provided, of course, we don’t get the Chinese to build it.
The pandemic showed us how reliant we, as a nation, are on other countries for many of our basic necessities.
Covid PPE was a case in point: there was a huge shortage, for the simple fact that Britain no longer has a solid manufacturing base.
I’m not saying that we need to build Fortress Britain and turn inwards on the world. But our Government has a duty to ensure we maintain a degree of independence in vital sectors such as manufacturing, fuel and, of course, food production.
Because, as we now see from the horrific events unfolding in Ukraine, you never know when you might need it.
Vladimir Putin is running short of friends in the world.
So he might be thankful for Kristina Rihanoff, the Russian-born former Strictly dancer who at the weekend posted a series of tweets in which she said she doesn’t ‘give a sh*t about the war’ and which some deemed to be supportive of the president.
Perhaps she’d like to take her perfectly sculpted rear and go and offer him support in person — as far from Britain as possible.
Eye-bulging: Russian former Strictly pro Kristina Rihanoff has claimed she is ‘deeply sorry’ for raging ‘I don’t give a s**t about the war’ in shocking tweet
Talking ourselves into trouble
Barely a week goes by without another report warning of the dire mental state of the nation’s children.
The latest, from a study of secondary school pupils, suggests that girls in particular are suffering due to their perfectionism.
I have no doubt young people are facing many difficulties. But I can’t help wondering if there’s something about the widespread debate around mental health issues that’s actually starting to contribute to the problem.
It almost feels as though the welcome destigmatisation of mental illness has had the side-effect of encouraging young people to categorise themselves as ill.
It’s important we distinguish between normal feelings of sadness and actual mental illness. Otherwise we’ll end up medicalising an entire generation for no reason.
This tiresome trend among showbiz mums
Well, there’s a surprise: Amanda Holden says her daughter Lexi, 16, has signed with Kate Moss’s modelling agency.
What is it about women like Holden and Victoria Beckham that the sum total of their ambitions for their children seems to be offering them up as fashion fodder?
Lexi is very pretty, but she should be working on her school exams, not being paid to prance around like a clothes horse.
Well, there’s a surprise: Amanda Holden says her daughter Lexi, 16, has signed with Kate Moss’s modelling agency
Labour’s Stella Creasy has lambasted early years tsar Andrea Leadsom for opposing moves to allow babies in the Commons.
She said Leadsom’s comments were ‘worrying’, since it’s her job to help give youngsters the best start in life.
Forgive me, but spending an afternoon listening to a bunch of MPs braying at one another doesn’t strike me as ‘the best possible start in life’.
It’s not the first time someone has made that Helen Mirren joke about the SAG showbiz awards — the 76-year-old said: ‘I hate to say the word sag at my age, it’s always S-A-G for me’ — but it is the first time a winner has done so.
Good on her. She may have acquired U.S. citizenship, but it’s refreshing to know that she still retains a self-deprecating British sense of humour.
Outbreak of sense
In a rare outbreak of sanity, the NHS has pushed back against demands to note patients’ preferred pronouns on their medical records.
A report had claimed that 70 per cent of trans people had experienced ‘discrimination’, ‘misgendering, micro-aggressions and misunderstanding’ from their primary care provider.
Seventy per cent? Can that really be true? In my experience, most medical professionals go out of their way to make patients feel at ease — but then I guess I’m not a trans woman.
Still, the last thing they need is more pointless paperwork. Common sense: 1; Wokery: 0.
Health Secretary Sajid Javid has outlined plans to introduce a licensing scheme for beauty salons providing Botox or fillers. The only remarkable thing about this is that it doesn’t exist already.
My 18-year-old daughter has recently started working in a bar. It’s been quite an eye-opener for her. She says the scariest customers are the middle-aged women who get blotto and then importune men who are half their age. Classy.
The mayor of London Sadiq Khan claims the capital is ‘well-prepared’ for a nuclear strike. What on earth is the man talking about? If only he could say the same about this week’s business-wrecking Tube strikes.
Can someone tell me the Richard Moore on Twitter who lists his pronouns as he/him and uses the war in Ukraine to remind everyone about the importance of LGBT rights is not the Richard Moore who is the head of MI6. Because if it is, then we’re in more trouble than I’d thought.
