Has the UN hit rock bottom?

The word ‘surreal’ barely does justice to what’s been happening in recent weeks. Quite apart from the possible collapse of Nato and the US treating Canada as more of an enemy than Russia, there was the previously unthinkable sight last month of the US voting alongside North Korea, Belarus and, yes, Russia at the United Nations against most of its (former?) allies.

But while it was unprecedented for the US to cast such a vote, perhaps the best way to view it was as the US at last entering into the true spirit of the UN. Because for the UN, the surreal is the norm. Last week, for example, Saudi Arabia took its place as the chair – elected unopposed – of  the UN’s women’s rights body, the Commission on the Status of Women (UNCSW), for a session which sits until 21 March. Have a guess which country would be the single least appropriate nation on earth to chair such a body.