FOLLOW THE MONEY
A REVIEW OF LUKE HARDING'S SHADOW STATE The perfect storm that is Putin, Trump, Johnson did not develop overnight, political disasters never do. It has taken decades to arrive where we are. Luke Harding in Shadow State describes with great clarity the variety of actors and actions, always devious and dishonest, often, very often, illegal, that helped get us here. Thus, even as Blair entered downing street or much later, we watched Bradley Wiggins or Mo Farah triumph at the London Olympics, the iceberg that was Brexit was already close to being fully formed and heading towards us. Though the story begins much earlier with the fall of the Berlin Wall and collapse of the Soviet Union. I was in Russia and travelling around a number of its constituent republics from Estonia to Georgia at the time. My memories of Estonia and Ukraine in particular are of a sense of exuberance and excitement as statues were torn down and newly created news sheets proclaimed independenc...