When V. Putin launched his ‘special military operation’ three years ago, the Commons swelled with MPs proclaiming blood-brother support for the violated Ukraine.
Different Parliament, different time. Back then we had a prime minister with a concept of liberty and the vocabulary to express it.
Now: a Parliament of shrivellers. Few MPs turned out yesterday when a middle-ranking defence minister, Maria Eagle, waddled to the despatch box to report on Donald Trump’s peace overtures to the Kremlin.
Did this urgent question from the Tories not merit a more senior minister? But on a morning that echoed with talk of appeasement, the Foreign Secretary, David Lammy, was busy. Meeting the Chinese.
Maria Eagle! In Moscow there will have been wheezy laughter and treble Stolichnayas all round that the British should now have this specimen as a defence minister.
An atonal voice. A bleak drabness. The despatch box nearly came up to her chin. Hair unlaundered, possibly for weeks. In a century we’ve gone from George Nathaniel Curzon to Nora Batty.
On the Labour benches: tumbleweed. Plenty of them would pitch up later at business questions to make parochial points, but this discussion of life and freedom, of European peace versus Russian tyranny, did not tickle their interest.
How about the Reform UK contingent? They admire Mr Trump and seem reluctant to criticise Putin, after all. Maybe they’d be on parade to defend their heroes. But no.
Minister for Defence Procurement and Industry, Maria Eagle MP
President Donald Trump speaks to reporters after signing an executive order in the Oval Office on Thursday
How about Dame Emily Thornberry (Lab, Islington S), who chairs the Commons foreign affairs committee? This session demanded her presence. Absent. Maybe she is keeping low in the hope that Lord Hermer will soon be sacked as Attorney General and she can reclaim the job she thought was hers.
At least former PM Rishi Sunak was there, saying he would support British troops being mobilised in post-war Ukraine. Lib Dem Alistair Carmichael (Orkney & Shetland) said that if you give in to Putin ‘he will always want more’.
Johanna Baxter (Lab, Paisley) went up in one’s estimation for saying the Trump gambit felt ‘less the art of the deal and more a charter for appeasement’.
Sir John Whittingdale (Con, Maldon) asked why Kyiv should believe a word Putin said, given how he broke the 1994 Budapest Memorandum under which Russia promised not to attack Ukraine.
A woman from the Greens struck a bellicose pose but, given that her party wants to dismantle our nuclear weapons, she was possibly not an entirely serious proposition.
John Cooper (Con, Dumfries & Galloway) was preparing for another war – I think with Ireland. He noted that the navy of the ‘cash-rich’ Irish had set sail with gunboats that had no guns and ships that lacked sufficient matelots.
What could be done to ‘encourage Ireland to play a full role’ in defending the western approaches? It sounded as if Mr Cooper was proposing the annexation of Eire. Don’t give Putin ideas, please.
Ms Eagle, admitting that her knowledge of any peace initiative was pretty much limited to what she had heard on the wireless, kept saying Ukraine must be involved in the negotiations.
Vladimir Putin attends a meeting with the governor of the Bryansk Region on Thursday
Well, of course. It would be remarkable for that astonishingly brave nation, having defended herself during three years of rape and pillage, not to be involved in the negotiations.
When one looks at what Putin has failed to achieve – he set out to seize the entire country – it seems mad we are not hailing the Ukrainians for a remarkable feat of arms.
Ben Spencer (Con, Runnymede & Weybridge) suggested that the billions of pounds the Government is proposing to give Mauritius might be better spent on military supplies.
And John Lamont (Con, Berwickshire) wondered if Ukraine needed legal help prosecuting war crimes. Ms Eagle said it might well be an idea to offer it some of our legal professionals.
One’s head swims with images of Lord Hermer taking a sabbatical and leading a crack regiment of his mercenary friends – Private Shiner, Maj Maugham, Col Sands and Brigadier Hale – to Kyiv.
Good grief, has Ukraine not suffered enough?
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