Time for joyous but restrained celebrations

As another pretty awful year comes to an end a lot of people will be giving the impression that the worst is over and that it's time to celebrate like the good old days. Here in the UK there will be pictures in all the newspapers tomorrow of wild carousing in the pubs and streets despite the attempts by Boris Johnson and others to caution people to celebrate the New Year with caution and common sense. I hope they do but I can't see it happening, not in England anyway where all pubs and night clubs and wine bars will be open for carousing business. There will, I am sure, be a large degree of madness and alcoholic excesses. If it's followed by a massive spread of the Omicron variant both the New Year drinking victims and Boris Johnson will live to regret the decision not to impose any new restrictions. If Omicron doesn't venture hungrily into every bar and night club then it will be the first sign that perhaps this virus has exhausted itself. I pray both for those planning a celebratory night out tonight and for all of us that this will be the case and that we can look forward to 2022 as the year when this pandemic leaves these shores.

Billionaires and their superyachts and the rest of us

Twas always thus I suppose, the filthy rich enjoying a totally different sort of world and the rest of the planet's human beings surviving life as best they can. During the two years of the covid pandemic, however, this incredible difference in lifestyles seems to have become even more apparent, grossly apparent I would say. There's a story in the Daily Mail about a congregation (if that's the right word) of billionaire superyachts currently moored in St Barts, the French-speaking Caribbean island. All the billionaires worth their salt are there. Perhaps they only feel comfortable in other billionaires' company. Some of the yachts are so huge they can't come anywhere near the harbour moorings but have to settle in the waters well beyond the white sands. I guess it's possible the owners never actually leave their superyacht homes, but just recline in the sunshine and have lobster fed to them without having to step foot on the island. This is not remotely about envy, it's just an expression of amazement that in this super-troubled world with the pandemic still raging, global warming now here to stay, and poverty and malnutrition reaching desperate levels in countries such as Yemen and Afghanistan, there are super rich people with ther superyachts having a super time without having to worry about any of this. Great for the St Barts economy no doubt but that's the only positive thing I can think of.

The phoney UK leadership contest

My prediction for 2022: Boris Johnson will still be prime minister by the time the year comes to an end in 12 months and two days. All this nonsense about his leading rivals for Number 10 Downing Street lining up and making moves is just that: nonsense. The two ahead in this phoney game are Liz Truss, the Foreign Secretary, and Rishi Sunak, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Liz Truss is said to be leading the field because of some obscure insider Conservative survey which showed more Tory MPs like Liz than they do Dishy Rishi. But this is all Whitehall bubble drivel to stir up poor old Boris and make him feel he is about to be ousted. If it was August it would be dismissed as a silly season story, but it's appearing most days in bold headlines and even the US press has cottoned on to the story and has joined the rumour foray. I suspect Truss is delighted and Sunak is embarrassed. I don't know Truss but have followed her career and she IS Foreign Secretary so presumably Boris thinks she has something going for her. But the other day she gave a speech about the UK building a "network of liberty" around the world. Did she write that or did some flunkey with nothing else to do come up with that dreadful phrase? It's the sort of phrase which means pretty much nothing. UK diplomats are supposed to spread abroad the values of freedom and democracy as part of their job. So what's with the Truss liberty doctrine? It's a phrase which people with ambitions to be leader of his or her party and the country produce out of a hat to sound grand. It fell flat. Just on appearances alone and ministerial achievement I would have thought Rishi Sunak would make a better prime minister. But, sorry, Rishi and Liz, Boris ain't going nowhere and if you are not careful you'll be going nowhere as well.

England facing an invasion of New Year visitors from Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland

Such is the disharmony over Covid restrictions between England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it's highly likely there is going to be a rush of night clubbers and drinkers to English bars and restaurants from the other three components of the United Kingdom on New Year's Eve. With heavy restrictions announced for every state bar England for the New Year period, England suddenly looks the place to be. Boris Johnson is the only leader in the UK to look at the same infections data and make the decision to go ahead with New Year's Eve celebrations as if there was nothing to worry about. The other three including the lugubrious Mark Drakeford, First Minister of Wales, have all taken the over-cautioous otion and gone for restrictions on New Year's Eve carousing. Boris, already castigated by about 100 of his own Tory MPs for previous Covid restrictions, decided to go the safe political path by imposing no new restrictions but getting one of his ministers to put out the message that New Year's Eve revellers should celebrate cautiously. It's a bit like the adverts for gambling that are doing the rounds which always end with the delightful entreaty to "gamble responsibly". So revellers in England please drink/dance/cavort kiss/cuddle/fall over with as much responsibility as you can muster. The Scots and Welsh will be heading across their borders to enjoy the delights of English night clubs and bars and no doubt the Irish will be on their way too. This might just be one in the eye for Nicola Sturgeon, Scotland's First Minister, and her plans to go for a vote once again on Scottish independence. Scottish voters might just say: "Sorry, Nicola, you closed our night clubs, we want to stick with the English thank you."

For Putin, it's decision time

Vladimir Putin who seems to be in his element these days, throwing the gauntlet down to the US, playing the energy game with Germany and the rest of Europe and plotting to emasculate the Nato alliance. I think he's enjoying himself. In his latest foray against the western world he has hinted that if Nato fails or refuses to agree to the demands he has made about troops and armour being pulled back from Russia's borders in eastern Europe he will consult his generals and come up with some military responses, presumbaly in addition to invading Ukraine. As a former lieutenant-colonel in the KGB Putin knows all about threats and lies and deception and guile. All these attributes come naturally to him and he is using all of them to scare the US and the rest of Nato. Over the weekend the Russian news agency Interfax put out a report saying that 10,000 Russian troops had been withdrawn from the Ukraine border and it was picked up by Reuters. But we've seen this sort of ploy in the past. Far from it being the first sign of Putin backing down and reducing the size of the putative invasion force it was actually nothing of the sort. It was far more likely that one of his combat units was just being rotated or, even more likely, it wasn't true at all and was just a story put out by the Kremlin to cause confusion. Putin is not in a mood to back down. He wants Nato to back down. I think we will see a lot of this sort of game-playing over the next few weeks and the West better watch out. For Putin it's decision time. He wants Ukraine under his wing one way or the other and we probably have less than a month before he acts. Biden and co will have to keep their eye on the ball like never before.

Taliban latest blow to women

The Taliban are marching backwards, as we all thought they would. Now women have been told they can't go anywhere further than 45 miles on their own. Anything beyond that they have to be accompanied by a male member of their family and of course be all hajibbed up. If I was an Afghan woman I would be screaming by now. The Taliban spokesman (joke) months ago said all would be different under the new 2021 regime, compared to that ghastly one in the 1990s when women were totally non-human beings. He said they would have rights and be treated with respect. Well that was all wallpaper to try and pretend that the Taliban would be freedom-loving males hoping that the international community would rush to their financial aid. But we all knew they were lying. And heyho here we are back to the old Taliban mysogenist ways. It's a dilemma for the international community. Afghanistan is in desperate need of help but unfreezing all their assets abroad and donating billions would be seen as rewarding the Taliban and while they are so anti-women and anti anything that smells of human rights and democracy, they don't deserve help of any kind. Some way must be found to help the Afghan people whose sense of hospitality and warmth to strangers is second to none in the world and still punish the Taliban regime. Meanwhile all those Afghan women who learned for the first time the joys of being as free as men in their communities are now being pushed further and further back into the shadows.

Trump and Biden are new mates

I loved the reaction by Donald Trump when he heard Joe Biden had praised his administration for what it did to create, develop and deliver vaccines to fight Covid-19. No one has thanked Trump for anything and for his successor to express his admiration for the Trump years appeared to gobsmack him. He even said it would be difficult for him to criticise Biden in future. So, a very smart move by Biden, although by the way it seems to me perfectly right and proper to acknowledge the work done by the Trump administration to find and distribute vaccines, even though the former president himself was initially very sceptical about the whole pandemic thing. All that nonsense, too, about swallowing disinfectant to get rid of the virus. Oh my God. That was outrageously irresponsible. But the fact is the Trump lot broke incredible ground and provided for the American people a whole series of vaccines which have saved hundreds of thousands of lives. Trump was amazed and astonished and delighted to hear Biden giving him praise. It was a special moment in his interview on Fox. So Trump and Biden are now mates, well sort of mates. So it will make the 2024 election a whole lot of fun if and when Biden and Trump go neck-and-neck for the presidency in 2024. Trump won't be able to resist it and Biden has declared that he will go for a second term provided his health holds up. It will be the Trump/Biden show all over again.