BULLET POINTS 2

The extraordinarily weak initial response by the EU to the Russian annexation of Ukraine has it seems created some considerable amusement in Moscow* along the lines, ‘so this is the best that they can throw at us. Of course they know that the EU is hopelessly split, with both London and Berlin in particular loath to damage their commercial interests by moving to full blown sanctions. William Hague talks tough but if you want to see why you should take some of this posturing with a pinch of salt you should read this article in the Moscow Times. www.themoscowtimes.com/business/article/wealthy-russians-prefer-british-visas-despite-possible-sanctions/496215.html

Sanctions against Serbia during the wars in former Yugoslavia were much more severe, though in that case the cost was not born by the big players in Europe but by the smaller countries in South Eastern Europe, particularly Bulgaria, then seeking to join the club. Bulgaria faithfully implemented sanctions at considerable cost to its citizens and got precious little in return. I have fears that any moves against Russian energy suppliers might similarly impact upon Bulgaria, almost solely reliant on Russia for the supply of its energy needs, whilst at the same time City institutions continue to prosper from the ill gotten gains of Russian oligarchs.

There was however one phone call that Putin took during the last week that he had no choice but to take seriously and that was from Recep Tayyip Erdogan the Turkish Prime Minister. 

Mr Erdogan, a man possibly as odious in his own inimitable way as Vladimir Putin, was calling to raise concerns about the Muslim Tatar community in Crimea. Should they face any problems in the newly incorporated region then Turkey would have no option but to close the Straits leading from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean.This would represent a very serious blow to Russian trade.

Vladimir quickly assured Recep that there would be no problems; Crimea’s Tatar community would be fully protected. I would have given a great deal to see his face when he was forced to give this assurance and swallow his football sized irritation, a shade one imagines just short of beetroot red. The Straits have been a Russian bugbear for over two centuries, and in his book 'The Russian Origins of The First World War' Sean McMeekin goes so far as to argue that the Anzac troops who died on the cliffs of Gallipoli did so seeking to serve the strategic aims of Russia.Once more the long shadow of history making itself felt during the current crisis.

I am not, you will be surprised to hear, an expert on political propaganda; indeed some slogans I have thought effective have been pooh poohed by people more knowledgeable about these things. Only a complete cretin however could have come up with the now infamous Beer and Bingo poster that emerged from the Conservative party after the budget. 

The Chancellor, [Finance minister] having just produced a budget that reduced duty on both beer and bingo, a popular form of gambling, Grant Shapps the Conservative Chairman thought this would be a good way to publicize these changes.

I admit when I first saw the poster I though it was a spoof. It seems I was not the only one and it has now spawned a plethora of satirical copies.

As I say surely only a cretin could have produced it. Then it made me think about the thought processes involved in producing such a tawdry specimen of patronising crap. It began to occur to me that at some subliminal level Mr Shapps was bursting to reveal the contempt with which the elite of the Conservative Party hold the working class community in this country. This is after all a party in which 5 of the six people drawing up their next manifesto were educated at the same elite private school, Eton. (The odd one out George Osborne,the Chancellor, was educated at the marginally less prestigious St Pauls, presumably the others think him a bit of a pleb).  

This morning I see that Yahoo is now relocating to Ireland, partly to escape from Britain’s draconian surveillance laws, (one is tempted to say ‘culture’). As a consequence senior Yahoo executives have been called in for talks with the Home Secretary, who is concerned at the implications for the governments mushrooming ability to snoop, pry and peer into the private lives of British citizens. If, as seems likely, this is only the first of a number of such re-locations for these reasons it will also have commercial implications for this country.

Privacy is now being established as a marketable commodity. Governments, indifferent to the campaigns of those fighting on grounds of civil liberties, are rarely so indifferent when it comes to the bottom line.  This has cheered me up a little.

*Not so the more recent American response, which it seems have produced fury in Putin and his inner circle. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/20/us-sanction-list-vladimir-putin-inner-circle

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