A RUSSKI sub has been prowling around in British waters. It was there to map our gas pipelines.
The reason for mapping our gas pipelines is so that they can blow them up.
Not today. Probably not tomorrow. But maybe the day after tomorrow.
Never in history has our position in the world changed more sharply than in the last 12 months.
And most of that is down to Donald Trump winning the US election.
Before he returned to power, we were able to convince ourselves that the USA was our most valuable, unstinting, ally.
If we ever got into trouble, the Yanks would come sailing to our assistance.
Perhaps a little late in the day — 1917 and 1941 serve as examples. But they would come, in the end. They were on our side. The side of democracy and freedom.
Not any more. We have to unlearn all that stuff and do so very quickly indeed.
Trump has made absolutely clear his profound dislike of Europe. He is sick of Americans bailing out our continent. Sick of subsidising our defences.
He also has no time for the woke idiocies which have taken root in Europe.
He finds he has little in common with us.
And he’s got a point.
Europe has been a sponger. Expecting the USA to foot the bill for our defence against tyranny.
And he’s right, too, that the European Union and its political programme is a tyranny all of its own.
But that’s not all. If there is one thing Trump cannot stand, it is weakness. He is, in short, a bit of a bully.
Let’s face facts – Trump rather likes dictators
Rod
If there is a David and Goliath fight going on, you can bet that Donald Trump will be cheering for the big guy.
He has shown that in his humiliations of the Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelensky.
And in his courting of the world’s most dangerous man right now, Vladimir Putin.
He has one or two things in common with Putin. A dislike of western Europe, for one. A loathing of wokeness. But he also admires his power.
Let’s face facts — Trump rather likes dictators.
And the more powerful they are, the more he likes them.
In the negotiations over the war in Ukraine, Trump has failed to get the Russians to cede a single inch of land.
Or ‘fess up that their invasion was illegal and a war crime. He has rolled out the red carpet for Putin and received nothing in return.
And he wonders why he should bother any further when this whole dispute is about an insignificant country much smaller than Texas and 4,000 miles away.
Nor is he keen on Nato and has considered pulling out altogether.
That may well happen. And where, then, will that leave us?
That Russian sub mapping our pipelines is nowhere near the first such incursion.
Putin’s jet fighters test our defence on a weekly basis. He is building up his number of ships in the Arctic.
We are in the same situation now as we were in 1938
Rod
His troops hold manoeuvres on the border of Poland, one of the few European countries possessed of a spine.
And don’t forget the attacks on people in our own country, all direct from Putin.
In 2006, he had the dissident Alexander Litvinenko murdered with radioactive polonium in London.
In 2018, his agents used nerve gas against another dissident, Sergei Skripal, killing an innocent British woman, Dawn Sturgess, in the process.
And all the while, acts of sabotage against our country have taken place.
Hacks into the computer systems of our largest corporations, which have cost billions of pounds.
And every time an outrage happens, we say strong things. And do nothing.
We have to be clear that an overt attack by Russia might come at any time. It might be a direct assault on our allies in Poland or Lithuania or Estonia.
Or it might be more hybrid warfare against our interests.
Either way, we are nowhere near prepared to counter it.
Our entire armed forces have been run down to the point of dereliction.
And that’s largely because we have put faith in the USA.
Can’t do that any more.
Sir Keir Starmer has promised we will spend 2.6 per cent of GDP on defence by 2027.
Nowhere near enough.
We have to wake up and smell the coffee, you know? We are in the same situation now as we were in 1938.
As Nato chiefs, intelligence bosses and the leaders of the more sensible European countries keep telling us, we are either on the very cusp of war, or we are actually at war.
But we have been cosseted by 80 years of peace and the idea that the USA will always be there for us.
We need to reinvest in our armed forces, take a leaf out of the French book and reintroduce military service.
There is nothing like a display of strength to deter a bully
Rod
We also need to modernise our defensive capabilities. Learn from the Russian war in Ukraine. Invest in intelligent drones, in cybertechnology.
Start paying Putin back for some of the sabotage some of his agents have wreaked in this country already.
This is not scaremongering. The threat is absolutely real and it is increasing by the month.
And a Putin who wins a peace deal in Ukraine and keeps all the land he has stolen will be even more difficult to deal with, more aggressive.
Who will be next? Poor Moldova? Or the Baltic states?
If we stand up to Putin now and commit ourselves to overhauling and expanding our Armed Forces, then maybe — just maybe — we won’t need to use them.
There is nothing like a display of strength to deter a bully. And that’s what we need to remember in 2026.
A HUGE triumph for Sir Keir Starmer.
He has managed to get a man called Alaa Abd El-Fattah released from an Egyptian prison.
And returned to Britain.
Yay! Sir Keir said: ‘I’m delighted that Alaa Abd El-Fattah is back in the UK and has been reunited with his loved ones, who must be feeling profound relief.”
Yes – and such a joy for the rest of us.
Because who is El-Fattah?
He is an Islamist extremist who has described British people as “monkeys” and “dogs”.
He has also said: “I consider killing any colonialists and especially Zionists heroic. We need to kill more of them.”
He also denied the Holocaust and has said: “Dear Zionists, please don’t ever talk to me, I’m a violent person who advocated the killing of all Zionists including civilians, so f*** off.”
And finally: “Police are not human, they don’t have rights, we should just kill them all.”
So well done, Starmer. What a victory for the British people.
I suspect we’ll be hearing a lot more about this Islamist scumbag in the not too distant future.
ICON GONE
VERY sad to hear of the death of Brigitte Bardot at the age of 91.
Along with Nastassja Kinski she was probably the most beautiful actress in the history of film.
And she created the template of the blonde, pouting, half-dressed sex kitten.
All terribly un-PC, I suppose, and not the sort of thing one could countenance now. Sadly.
She also ended up being very right-wing indeed, and was a supporter of the National Rally.
A very different breed to today’s luvvie actresses, no?
