I was just watching “Hard Talk” – A BBC News Specialty Programme that airs on their international News Channel, and which I tend to watch in the early hours of the morning!
This morning there was a 20 minute interview with the Russian Foreign Minister, which covered the recent events in Syria, and the recent abhorrent attempt to kill an ex-Russian spy and his daughter with a nerve agent in the Cathedral Town of Salisbury.
Sergei Lavrov – The Russian Foreign Minister on Hard Talk
The awful thing about hearing what the ‘other side’ say, is that some of it makes sense! The Russian Foreign Minister is an intelligent man, who for his own reasons is as worried about what is happening to our world as we are.
He bemoans the fact that we are not talking to Russia, and that there are links that had been established for many years, that have now been severed. How did this situation get so far out of control that we can no longer talk to each other? (Jaw, Jaw, not War, War – as the old ‘hippie’ mantra used to say!)
I am not even going to try and write a well researched document about all the issues here, I just want to give an overall impression of what I glean from the recent events – none of which is particularly edifying!
Something ‘evil’ is stirring in our world – it’s not all that long ago that Russia came out of her isolation, and we were all amazed to find out that – really – the people of Russia were oddly – quite a lot like us. And lots of contact with them allowed us all to learn more about the country.
Yet, at the same time, some of the richest members of Russian society came to spend their vast fortunes in the UK – to such an extent that a they own quite a lot of London! Some would say, they are using us to launder their ill gotten gains.
Nevertheless – ‘Peace has Reigned’ for several decades. And all of a sudden, we are in the middle of a real war – the sad and totally confusing one in Syria – and the one of FAKE NEWS. It’s amazing for us, in the UK, to hear on “our news’, that the State Controlled Press in Russia is running stories like “British Intelligence were behind the attempted murders in Salisbury”, and even Sergei Lavrov seems to give that idea some credence!
And that the very people that are in Syria to help the ordinary people who are being bombed and killed by chlorine gas, were the ones who made up the story, and planted ‘false evidence’!
Dictators are suddenly the people in power – not only Vladimir Putin – but in his own way, Donald Trump is acting, where he can, like a dictator, and has by-passed his government by “tweeting” his messages personally to everyone around the world.
More leaders in South America, Africa, Turkey, and countries all over the world, are asking and getting the legal agreement of their country to stay in power for as long as they like – China being the most worrying, however ‘good’ these leaders might be.
The longer they are allowed to hold on to power, the less objective they become – that’s why wiser people than me, introduced the idea of democratic government with a definitive period for leaders to remain in power before they have to go to their country and review their plans, by the simple (and exceeding complicated) method of regular elections – FAIR ELECTIONS – not some of the jokes we have seen lately – where all the people who might have had the courage to stand against them have been killed or put in prison on ‘trumped up charges’.
Whilst Britain remains a democratic country, even Teresa May, our Conservative Prime Minister, didn’t wait for Parliament to re-convene after the Easter Holidays, to allow the elected representatives of the people a debate on the idea of joining the USA & France in the bombing of the Syrian sites ‘known’ to manufacturer nerve agents. And Jeremy Corbyn, the Opposition Labour Leader, who was insisting that the decision should be made by the Parliament, and not just by the leader – and that we should make sure that all the facts were known before we made any decisions, was made fun of in our own liberal press!
What next people – where an earth are we going? Nowhere good is my answer!
If you would like to try and watch the interview that started me off on this subject – this is the link to the BBC iPlayer – however, there is a note on the site that it is only available in the UK. If you are reading this from as many places around the world that I note in the stats, read my blogs – you may be able to find a station in your own country that takes the BBC International News. The HardTalk Programmes are always thought provoking, and cover many current affair topics, and they normally broadcast each interview several times during the day.
the spare 