Britain must commit to Ukraine – or admit we don’t care enough

I have never been one of those late-middle-aged right-wing men who, at night, hunkers down over the computer to pleasure himself while staring at photographs of Vladimir Putin. He doesn’t do it for me – not even that picture of him riding a horse semi-naked through a river with a very resolute expression on his stern Asiatic face. This may put me in a minority among people of my age and gender, for I understand that Vlad has legions of admirers among my peers. It is an admiration which tends to speak its name only after a few drinks have been taken and stems largely from Putin’s commendable detestation of what the West, especially the USA and UK, has become.

There is also, I suspect, a hankering for Putin’s strength of leadership, which is both numinous and absolute – and a concomitant absence of western-style prevarication, dithering and decadence. It is not dissimilar, I reckon, to the usually closet but sometimes overt affection which British men of about the same age held for Benito Mussolini and even Herr Hitler in the middle of the 1930s. Hell, at least they get things done, these chaps, etc. Decisiveness, rigour and smart uniforms. Count me out. It is surely possible to concur with Putin that our present obsessions with gay pride marches and transgenderism are grotesquely absurd, without necessarily reaching for the box of Kleenex in the darkened room. Eddie or Loretta Izzard – whatever he is calling himself these days – is undoubtedly an irritant, as is the BBC, Caroline Nokes, Jeremy Hunt and that professor of ‘black studies’ from Birmingham who pops up every day or two on TV to deplore our history and is treated as a sage.