Written Articles

Article 50 – Prospect Magazine 15 March 2017

Prospect Magazine 15 march 2017

Oscar Wilde said “In a democracy, the minority is always right”. This thought has given me much comfort during nearly half a century fighting for liberalism.

But the post-Brexit debate has been different. A minority we still remain – but only slimly so and that has been wonderfully comforting.

I am fairly certain (Liberals don’t do certainties) that history will marvel at Brexit as the most bewildering act of national self-harm knowingly and willingly committed by an advanced nation in full possession of its faculties. And yet that is the decision we took and we must now enact – at least for the foreseeable future – unless and until the worm turns.

But the Brexit decision is only one of the puzzles we have had to deal with these last few months.

The other is why did Mrs May – again willingly and knowingly – choose to make a difficult path much, much more difficult?

Any good Prime Minister inheriting a country so at war with itself as we were after the Referendum would have placed healing national division as their first priority. But from her first unwise Conservative Conference speech with its demonization of the “liberal elite” and the assertion that those who see themselves as citizens of the world, are citizens of nowhere, Mrs May has, quite again deliberately, sought to widen the divisions between the 52% who said YES and the 48% who said NO. She followed this divisive rhetoric with divisive action, choosing a Brexit that puts the country as far away from Europe as it is possible to get (for which she has no mandate whatsoever), moving her Party onto policies indistinguishable from UKIP and attempting to bully her way to her chosen destination by steam-rollering a by-pass around Parliament – until the Supreme Court gave her a lesson in what it is to govern in a democratic country.

And so, our country launches itself down Mrs May’s Article 50 path to exit more divided even than it was during the Referendum. The public discourse is uglier, the entrenched positions are deeper, the level of vitriol is higher and the hate crimes grow and grow. For these divisions at such a difficult time, there will be a price to pay – including in the end, by Mrs May’s Government itself.

So what now?

As an exercise in whistling in the dark, the recent budget was about as good as you get. The Chancellor’s sepulchral style is not given to optimism. His speciality is calm. But even he could not hide the fact that this was a budget focussed, not on the sunlit uplands ahead, but on the monster of Brexit hard-times stirring beneath our feet. That’s why he’s not spending windfalls, but hoarding them. Big business, also awash with money, is doing the same thing for the same reasons. They both know that true pain of Brexit will increasingly be felt the further down Mrs May’s Article 50 track we go. If public opinion is to turn, watch what happens after inflation begins to bite around the turn of the year.

But the ambushes along Mrs May’s way are not just economic ones.

We are now facing the real possibility of the break up of the United Kingdom. Viewed from the moment, it does not seem likely that a Scottish referendum would succeed. But Mrs Sturgeon knows what most modern politicians have forgotten, that politics is dynamic. Snap-shot opinion polls tell you where things are, but not the direction in which they are heading. Status quo was yesterday’s dynamic. Fissipariousness is today’s.

For evidence, see Northern Ireland. Observers have long predicted that the time would come when the demographic balance in the Province would tip away from the Unionists, towards the Nationalists. Northern Ireland now teeters on this historic knife-edge after the recent Stormont elections. In part this is because some Unionist middle class voters now see a united Ireland inside the EU, less terrifying than a Northern Ireland forced to be outside it and isolated from its neighbours by a hard border. By the way, whisper it softly, some in Gibraltar are also beginning to view the competing claims of British and Spanish sovereignty through the same prism.

Mrs May’s ridiculous attempt to persuade us she is Mrs Thatcher reincarnated in kitten shoes has brought the country to the edge of a disastrous rift with the EU and given the nationalists in Scotland and Ireland cause and space to play fast and lose with our unity.

The problem with breaking things up, is that it’s easier to start than to stop.

Finally there is, as always, the famous devil in the detail. The complexities of the Brexit negotiations are as nothing to the whole roiling devil-fest waiting to break out when the Government launches the Great Repeal Act repatriating tens of thousand of EU laws to Westminster.

What does all this add up to? It may not be in Mrs May’s mind, or in her programme, or her agenda, or her intentions. But my guess is that as the next months tick by, the temptations of an early election will become almost irresistible.

PRESS NOTICE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

6 February 2017

Paddy Ashdown welcomes the Government’s promise, at last, to maintain and support Yeovil’s full capacity to manufacture and design helicopters.

Like many others I have become increasingly concerned about the risk that Leonardo’s Yeovil site would drift towards a maintenance and assembly facility only. For this reason I have been pressing the Government for six months now to make it clear that they are committed to maintaining and supporting the full range of skills at Yeovil, so that we can continue to design and manufacture the nation’s helicopters.

I therefore greatly welcome the answer I received today in the Lords from Government Minister, Lord Prior in which he promised:

“The capacity to manufacture helicopters in the UK is extremely important. The MoD is entirely committed to that. We will be publishing a refresh strategy later on in the year which … will make that clear”

Note to editors:

Paddy Ashdown asked:
“The Minster is aware that a Defence Industry Strategy.. paper will be published later this year. Is he aware that if, like the Industrial Strategy published last week, that document does not contain a clear commitment by the Government to maintain and preserve our national ability to design and manufacture helicopters… then that capability will be lost, along with hundreds of jobs in Yeovil and a key national aero-space industrial asset. Everyone else recognises that danger. Why is the Government blind to it?”

Lord Prior of Brampton is the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

For further details please contact Theo Whitaker – 07884145397 / organiser@yeovil-libdems.org.uk

Industrial Strategy – Statement by Paddy Ashdown

The Industrial Strategy

Paddy Ashdown voice concerns about the absence of any commitment to Yeovil and appeals to Marcus Fysh MP to join in a joint campaign to persuade the Government to change its mind

“Sometimes it is silence that speaks loudest.

This Industrial Strategy mentions Airbus, Rolls Royce, Boeing, Bombardier Aerospace, GE Aviation ,GKN, Loughborough and Solihull. But it mentions neither helicopters or Yeovil once. Given the worries about preserving the UK’s stand alone ability to manufacture helicopters and the integrity of the Yeovil site I have repeatedly lobbied the Government to use the opportunity of the Industrial Strategy to state clearly the Government’s commitment to maintaining the full capacity to manufacture helicopters on the Yeovil site, the UK’s only stand alone helicopter manufacturing facility and as such a key part of the country’s aerospace industrial base. No such commitment is contained in this strategy paper. To say that this is disappointing would be an understatement. Like many others in the Yeovil community I feel let down and angry about this omission.

I am now informed that this is paper is being published for consultation only. But bitter and long experience has taught me what that means. What we have been looking for is not consultation, but influence on the Government by our local MP. It is inconceivable that, under the coalition when David Laws was our MP, a national Industrial Strategy like this would have been published without a clear commitment to preserve the full range of capacities of the Yeovil site.

I have repeatedly asked our MP Marcus Fysh to put aside politics and work with all the other political voices in Yeovil, including the Unions, to lobby the Government on a joint basis to provide this vital commitment for the future. He has repeatedly declined to do so. Instead of action, we have had only repeated announcements of re-cycled news. The absence of a clear commitment to preserving of the full capacities of the Yeovil site is a very serious omission. I appeal to Mr Fysh again join us in a joint lobbying exercise to persuade the Government to change its mind.”

Liberalism in an age of Trump

The Times – Red Box

The Trump era and liberalism
19 January 2016

The lessons of history are clear.

There has never been a successful government, a prosperous era, or a peaceful world that has not been based on liberal values. The opposite is true as well. If the world loses touch with these values then what follows is conflict, division and tyranny.

So it ought to worry us all that liberal values are now more endangered and under attack than at any time in my adult life.

Liberals – small l please note– believe not in the strong state, but the powerful citizen; we oppose equally centralised power, and the socialist notion of the supremacy of the mass. We believe in the free market, but as our servant not our master. We are internationalist and stand against protectionism, isolationism and nationalism. We celebrate diversity, not uniformity. We understand that the individual’s responsibility extends further than ourselves and our country to others beyond our borders and to future generations. We value the habit of compromise and depend upon the qualities of tolerance, compassion and respect for others.

I am struck – horrified actually – by the similarities between this age and the 1930s.

Then, after a depression and the failures of politics and government, there was a catastrophic collapse of confidence in the establishment, a fear that democracy wasn’t working and a hunger for the Government of strong men. Multilateralism, gave way to nationalism and isolation. Vulgarity trumped (no pun intended) decency. The harsh, ugly, voices were followed, while the counsels of reason fell on deaf ears. Many found it convenient to blame all our ills on the foreigner over the border and the stranger in our midst. Politicians found the extravagant lie, more tempting than the boring old nuanced truth. The rule was if you lie, tell a big one and tell it as often as you can. Stick it on a bus perhaps and drive it round the country.

I do not say that we are bound for the same destination as the 1930s. I cannot bring myself to believe that possible.

Nor do I claim that none of this is our fault.

I am much less interested in who is to blame, than what to do next.

The forces of the progressive centre in the 1930s were broken fractured, scattered and divided – and never got their act together. And so it is today.

Not all liberals are in the Liberal Democrats. There are many in other Parties – and many, many more who are as worried about what is happening as I am, but who do not wish to belong to any Party.

This last year, British politics abandoned the centre ground and spun away to the extremes. The Tories have moved onto territory indistinguishable from UKIP. For the first time in my life the official Labour Party makes no attempt to occupy the centre left, but is now proudly, avowedly 1950s style hard-line Socialist.

So what about those in the middle, where the true political centre of gravity of our country lies?

Hilaire Belloc has it perfectly:

The people in between
Looked underdone and harassed
And out of place and mean
And horribly embarrassed.

And, he might have added, scattered, dejected, lost and voiceless too.

Spare a thought for the lost tribes of Tory and Labour. What should those from the great Conservative tradition of internationalism do, now that their Party has abandoned them? What should those in Labour do, who believe in the free market now that their Party has explicitly rejected it?

What interests me most, however, is not the liberals, large l or small, inside formal politics, but the millions outside it.

The voiceless who found their voice in the Brexit and Trump elections were the left out and the left behind. They now have their voice. And a powerful one it is, with Trump as US President.

The moderate, liberal progressive majority are now the new left out and left behind – the new voiceless.

The phenomenon that astonished us these last years is the way that the most powerful instrument for change has not been those inside politics, but outside it. It is people’s movements now, not political parties who bring down Governments, colonise old parties, invent new ones and elect Presidents.

But why do all the people’s movements have to be for the ugly things, rather than the good ones.

2016 was the year that terrified us all because of the destructive populist forces it unleashed. Could 2017 be the year which will amaze us because the moderate progressive liberal voice in our country makes itself heard at last?

On that question depends whether or not we can turn the tide of destructive populism that otherwise threatens to overwhelm us. It is now up to those in politics, whether small l or large L, to put aside their tribalism and work together to make that happen.

Yeovil Helicopters – Correspondence with MoD

Harriett Baldwin MP
Minister for Defence Procurement
Ministry of Defence,
Whitehall,
London,
SW1A 2HB

Wednesday, 19 January 2017

Thank you for your letter of yesterday.

I am glad that you have now agreed that the AW159 tools and jigs will not be allowed to leave the Yeovil site for Poland unless and until there is a full in-depth study of the comparative costs of production on the two sites and that this will involve all relevant factors, such as the impact on the overheads of Leonardo’s Yeovil site, the costs both of transporting the tools and jigs to Poland and of transporting the assembled AW159 airframes back from Poland back to Yeovil for fitting out.

I am grateful to you for finally giving this undertaking which will, I know be welcomed, not just by the Leonardo workforce, but also by the Yeovil community at large. I also welcome this change of policy in favour of a proper competitive process, rather than repeating the procedure which applied when the Government foolishly gave the recent Apache order to the United States without any kind of tendering process.

One simple question. Given how much locally and nationally depends on this decision (not least because of what happened over the Apache order) I am sure you will agree with me that the Government should be as transparent about its forthcoming decision on the tools and jigs as possible. Of course I realise that the details of the relative costs which are incorporated into your decision cannot not be made public as they will be commercially confidential. But I hope you will be able, at the very least, to agree that, when you announce the decision, you will also make public the broad list of the factors which have been taken into account.

I would be most grateful if you would provide me with confirmation that you have no difficulty with publishing such a list at the appropriate time.

I have finally to express my surprise (and concern) that you have not been able to be more specific about the inclusion of a commitment to maintain a UK stand-alone ability to make helicopters, in the forthcoming and long awaited Industrial strategy. Given that our ability to make helicopters is a vital part of the nation’s aerospace industrial base, I am bewildered that you seem unable to give a clear answer to this crucial question at this late stage in the publication of the forthcoming White Paper. I am sure you will understand that the absence of such a
commitment, when the White Paper is finally published, will be treated with shock, even anger, in the Yeovil area and far beyond.

I look forward to hearing from you.
Paddy Ashdown

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Mrs Mays speech 18 Jan 2017

Indy on-line
17 Jan 2017
Paddy Ashdown

So now at last we know what Mrs May has decided shall be our future in Europe – or rather out of it.

What she calls for is a fundamental break with our neighbours, our culture and our past of the kind which was never discussed during the referendum campaign.

Remember, when, time and again, the Brexiteers were asked what kind of Brexit they wanted? Time and again they couldn’t – or more accurately, wouldn’t – answer. Or, if they did, gave answers which were completely contradictory. Some said they wanted to stay in the Single Market; others demanded out; some proposed managed immigration; others insisted on none; some suggested a new trading relationship with the EU; others wanted to cut loose completely.

They would not tell us what we were voting for then; they should not be allowed to steal our votes for their prejudices now.

If ever there was a case for putting the deal that is finally made with the EU before the British people, Mrs May made it today.

Last week-end in Germany, Chancellor Hammond, blurted out the truth about the course Mrs May has chosen. Retain the closest economic links with the EU, he said, and Britain will remain a broadly European style nation. Cast off all our European moorings and head for the open sea, we risk having to turn ourselves into a low tax, no regulation, cheap labour, equivalent of Singapore. Then – among other things we have come to take for granted and enjoy in our country – we would say goodbye to work-place rights, the welfare state as we know it, policies to protect our environment and European style protections for our civil liberties. That Mrs May finds this prospect congenial should not come as surprise. As Home Secretary and Prime Minister it is she who has been the driving force behind the Snooper’s Charter, which the European Courts have rejected.

And to compensate for all this, we are offered in exchange a Michael Gove promise of a cosy relationship with Donald Trump and a TTIP style trade deal negotiated from a weak position.
Mr Trump is now limbering up for a trade war, not just with China, but with the EU as well. Presumably he will expect us to take his side against our old friends. Not the best climate to negotiate trade deals, you may think.

Maybe this is what the people of Britain want, too. But I doubt it.

Surely, before this Government is allowed to turn a narrow majority for leave into a swingeing mandate to re-name our country “Britapore” and paddle it out into the mid-Atlantic, we its poor benighted passengers, should be allowed a say?

Such a vote would not be to re-fight the in/out referendum. Those, like me, who campaigned for Remain must accept as gracefully as we can, that we lost. What we now have to decide, as a country, is what kind of relationship a Brexit Britain should retain with the European Union – in short, what kind of country we should now become. Mrs May has told us her vision. The question is do the people of Britain agree? Given the stark choices she has proposed at what she concedes is “a moment of great national change”, do they too not get the right to speak?
Brexiteers claim that “Leave” was a vote against an arrogant political elite; how ironic then that our country’s course is now to be determined by a leader who has not faced an election even in her own party, let alone the country. No second vote, no consultation, no detailed plan, no chance for Parliament amend or scrutinise, (unless the blessed Supreme Court Judges instruct otherwise). The people have spoken and are now to be dispensed with as “not wanted for the remainder of the voyage”. Conservative voters, along with the rest of us. What happened to the Tory manifesto promise of little more than eighteen months ago; “We say: yes to the Single Market”?

Sir Ivan Rogers’ recent resignation illuminated what many of us suspected – that Mrs May runs her Government like a Borgia court. All but her closest advisors are excluded (including the Civil Service); all voices that oppose her are unwelcome; the poisoners are sent out after any public dissenter; even the “hapless three” charged with the Ministerial responsibility for Brexit, are left squabbling outside the door. Are we really to leave the most important decision of our time to such a tiny, closed and venomous cabal?

What is at stake, following Mrs May’s speech, is nothing less than keeping Britain open, tolerant, united and planning a future based on engagement with our friends in Europe, rather than depending on the crumbs from Mr Trump’s table.

What started out as an act of democracy must not be allowed to end with a stitch-up for a plan we never voted for and a future we do not want.

860

Helicopter job losses in Yeovil

Yeovil Liberal Democrats

Tuesday 13 December 2016

PRESS NOTICE: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Paddy Ashdown pushes Government to answer question on the future of tooling equipment at GKN on first day back in the New Year

Lord Paddy Ashdown has secured the first question in the House of Lords for a Government Minster to answer the question:

“to ask Her Majesty’s Government whether they intend to retain the Government-owned tooling and jigs for the A159 Wildcat helicopter within the United Kingdom; and if so, whether these will be installed in the main Leonardo site.”

The Question will be answered on the first day the House of Lord returns from the New Year on Monday 9 January at 2.30pm.

ENDS.

Note to editors:

For further information, please contact Theo Whitaker – organiser@yeovil-libdems.org.uk / 07884145397

Western Gazette 275 years on 17 Nov 2012

Western Gazette 275 years on

1737 was a turbulent year. An earthquake near Japan set a Tsunami wave 200 feet high sweeping across the Pacific. A tropical cyclone in Bengal killed 300,000 people. The world’s first opera house was opened in Naples. Benjamin created the first police force in the US. Thomas Paine, the man who inspired both the French and American Revolutions with his ground breaking book “The Rights of Man”, was born. And what is claimed to be the world’s first daily English language newspaper, the Belfast Newsletter was founded.

Never comfortable with being behind the times, our local community saw its first local newspaper appear that year too. It was published by a Sherborne printer called Robert Goadsby and was called The Sherborne Mercury. Later it became The Sherborne and Yeovil Mercury – and later still The Western Flying Post (don’t you just love that title? – you can almost hear the post horn sounding as it’s delivered to Yeovil on the local coach galloping down Babylon Hill). Today it has become our own local and much loved (and just very occasionally, not) Western Gazette, whose 275^th birthday is this year.

Two Hundred and seventy five years! That’s a quarter of the time since the Norman invasion! There are very few newspapers who can trace their lineage back that far – and I suspect even fewer who can boast an equivalent record when it comes to keeping people informed about what is happening in their own community.

We have many things to be proud of in South Somerset and West Dorset. Our incomparable countryside; our strong communities; our remarkable people; our tough and resilient industries. But one of those local assets of which we should be proudest is a local newspaper which has, for so long, made such a remarkable contribution to our local life.

305 words

The Daily Mirror 4 March 2014

The Daily Mirror 4 March 2014

The Ukraine crisis is one of those rare occasions when the West should follow the immortal advice of Corporal Jones in Dad’s Army: “Don’t panic!”.

We so love to frighten ourselves rigid by the Russian bear that we are missing the key point.

Russia is not a strong state it is a weak one. Its population is plummeting – the life expectancy of the average Russian is just a little over 60. They cannot to populate their own space let alone undertake sustained military adventures outside it. Their system of Government depends upon corruption, not the rule of law. They failed to invest their oil wealth in modernising their industry, and now have a rust bucket economy. If a Chinese businessman makes a million he invests it in China. If a Russian oligarch makes a million he gets it out of Russia as fast as he can – usually into property in London. When Mr Putin invaded Georgia it looked as though he had won. But in the end that was a catastrophe for Russia. They lost massive international support and, as Western intelligence knows, exposed their army as inefficient and out of date both in technology and tactics.

At the heart of the Ukraine crisis lies a clash of cultures. We in the West understand that today the destiny of nations depends on the will of their people. But Mr Putin thinks he is still in the nineteenth century when big-powers subjugated small ones if they were considered within their “sphere of influence”. That was what got us into the mess of 1914 – and again 1939. When Mr Putin threatens to invade Ukraine if Ukrainians of Russian origin are in danger, he is precisely repeating Hitler’s Sudetenland argument for invading Czechoslovakia.

So, we used military force then, should we use it now?

No. This time there is a better way

Yesterday the Russian stock market collapsed. The economic, diplomatic and political pain which Russia would suffer if the West now acts decisively, strongly and with unity, could be unbearable.

I remember negotiating with the Russians in Bosnia – the plainer they get the message, the better they understand it.

So here’s what should happen.

Firstly, the West must speak with a single voice. Mr Hague was in Kiev yesterday. But the key voice Russia has to hear is that of Chancellor Merkel – for Germany has always been closest to Russia.

Secondly if diplomacy is our game, then it must be muscular diplomacy aimed at isolating Russia until she changes course – starting with boycotting the coming G8 meeting in Socchi.

Thirdly we should have a sliding scale of economic sanctions – starting with Western investment and moving on to targeted individual sanctions on travel and assets. Freezing the foreign assets of Putin supporting oligarchs would be a good place to start.

Russia failed to win the argument with the Ukrainian people. Now it’s trying to win the argument with force. That is not a measure of strength, but of weakness. There has to be a cost for this illegality. But it is better exacted through economic and diplomatic means than military ones.

Ukraine The Independent 8 Feb 2015

Ukraine The Independent 8 Feb 2015

The Chinese philosopher Sun Tze said “Strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.”

In the Ukraine crisis, Putin is playing strategy. We are playing tactics.

The West lost the greatest strategic opportunity of recent times when we reacted to the collapse of the Soviet Union, not with a long term plan to bring Russia in from the cold, but by treating Russia to a blast of Washington triumphalism and superiority. Instead of opening the doors to a strategic partnership to Moscow, we sent young men still wet behind the ears from Harvard business school to privatize their industries, and teach them the Western way of doing things. The result was a bonanza of corruption, the humiliation of the Yeltsin years and a clumsy attempt to enlarge our “Cold war victory” by seeking to expand NATO and Europe right up to the Russian border. There was always going to be a consequence of this folly and its name is Vladimir Putin.

The problem with Russia now is not its strength, but its weakness. The massive energy revenues of the good times were not invested in modernizing Russia, but either squandered at home or shipped abroad by the Oligarchs to buy yachts and London properties. The Russian economy now staggers under the effect of falling oil prices and Western sanctions. The population is plummeting. Male life expectancy, at 64, places Putin’s state amongst the lowest 50 countries in the world for population regeneration. The empty spaces of Putin’s eastern territories now increasingly depend economically, not on Russians, but on a gathering invasion of Chinese small businessman and traders. Add to all of this, Russia’s own home-grown struggle with Sunni Jihadism in the Islamic republics of Chechnya and Dagestan and it is little wonder that many in Moscow worry about the long term integrity of the Russian Federation.

And that’s the problem. A strong self-confident Russia would be easier to deal with. But for a weak one – and especially a weak one led by a muscular leader – the distractions of military adventurism are irresistible.

So now we face a very dangerous crisis. That this is, in part, of our own making provides an explanation for how we got here, but not a signpost for what we should do next. For Putin has chosen to challenge, not just the sovereignty of Ukraine, but the very basis on which the peace of Europe has been founded these last fifty years. When the Second World War ended, Europe determined that it would end a thousand years of warfare driven by the assertion that large powers have the right to subjugate the freedoms (even the existence) of smaller nations, if they believed them to be within their spheres of influence. Instead Europe’s peace would in future be based on the principles of co-operation, peaceful co-existence and the right of all nations, large and small to determine their future based exclusively on the will of their people. By denying that right to Ukraine on the grounds that it is Russia’s sphere of influence, Putin asks us to abandon those principles. We cannot do so.

So what should we do?

Our greatest lever still lies in economic means rather than military ones. The sanctions are having an effect. It may even be that Putin is bringing things to a head military in an attempt to foreshorten the economic pain. So the first strand of our strategy should be patiently to stay the course of economic sanctions.

The second is to continue what the West, through Chancellor Merkel and President Hollande have begun. Keep pushing for a peace based in a cease-fire and greater autonomy for eastern Ukraine.

Does this mean no direct military response? Unless NATO is threatened directly, it does.

Does it mean no military diplomacy? Not it doesn’t. The right reaction to Russian arming of the Ukrainian rebels is to make it clear that we are prepared to do the same for the Ukrainian Government. But not now, not quickly and not all at once. What we need is more a process, than an event. Start small, slow and un-aggressively – with communications and intelligence equipment for example. Expand by steps when we have to.

All these actions are necessary, but they are not sufficient. We still lack a broader diplomatic strategy. Yet one stares us in the face, if only we could see it.

The West is not succeeding against ISIL in the Middle East. The US led coalition is too small, too Sunni and lacks international legitimacy. This is one area where our problems are Russia’s problems too – we may be threatened by Jihadis returning from the battlefield. But Russia is part of the battlefield. ISIL will not be beaten by Western bombs and guns alone. But they can be beaten by a much wider international coalition including Turkey, Iran and – why not? – Russia too. This would add real diplomatic and military firepower to our cause. And offer Russia a partnership over an issue that threatens them arguably even more than us.

As we should have learnt by now, it is always unwise to paint Russia into a corner – even one of its own making. So balancing a hard line on Ukraine with an offer of partnership against the Jihadi threat, makes solid sense – and perhaps even the start of a strategic approach to the Ukraine crisis, rather than a purely tactical one.