Ukraine. vladimir putin

Portrait of the week: British Steel seized, army sent to Birmingham and slim told to stay home in Beijing

Home Parliament was recalled from its Easter recess to sit on a Saturday for the first time since the Falklands War of 1982 to pass a bill to take control of British Steel, which amounts to no more than the works at Scunthorpe owned by the Chinese company Jingye since 2020. Scunthorpe, which employs 2,700 directly and thousands indirectly, is the last plant in Britain capable of making virgin steel. The bill, passing through the Commons and Lords, received the Royal Assent on the same day. The race against time was to supply the blast furnaces with coal before they were ruined by going cold; supplies from the United States

The folly of Nato enlargement

If western universities were not brimming with leftist professors, the present situation in Ukraine would surprise no one. History would have taught us that the complete defeat of Nazi Germany was bound to clear the way for Soviet Russia’s domination of the Eurasian continent, although not going for total victory would hardly have been a vote-getter back in 1945. Gen. George Patton, for one, wanted to fight the bear right there and then, but cooler heads prevailed. The H-bomb, needless to say, has encouraged aggressive types to wage war knowing full well that opponents might feel reluctant to commit suicide. In fact, the bomb has increased limited wars, as they