Insulting Putin won't help anyone

On reflection the personal insults thrown at Putin by Boris Johnson and Ben Wallace, UK defence secretary, were unwise, a bit childish and inappropriate. Wallace went on about Putin suffering from small man syndrome and Boris accused him of toxic masculinity. War is too serious for people to make jokes and it was embarrassing when Boris and Justin Trudeau, the Canadian prime minister, laughed during the G7 summit about taking off their shirts to match Putin's liking for bare-chested photos of himself. It was all rather silly and gave Putin the opportunity to answer back with some cutting comments about Boris stripping down. The trouble is the off-the-cuff comments undermined the seriousness of what is going on in Ukraine. Hundreds of people are dying every week, possibly every day. So to see leaders of the western world laughing about Putin was a mistake.