Who is using spies and lies to grab power in Kiev? We are

What would you think if Russia’s spy chief had been discovered last week, roaming round Ukraine?

The British media would have been raging and howling about sinister Kremlin meddling.

Well, as far as I know, no such visit took place. But something just as astonishing did happen. John Brennan, Director of the CIA, was, in fact, in Kiev last week, and I do not think he was there for the nightlife.

About three- quarters of what Russia is now doing in Ukraine is a bitter joke at the expense of the 'West', writes Peter Hitchens

It is, by any measure, a hugely interesting fact that such a person, who seldom ventures out at all, was in Ukraine at a moment of great tension. Yet the information was buried by British news media.

Last week, I asked several colleagues whom I know to be assiduous newspaper readers, interested in the world, savvy and alert, if they knew Mr Brennan had been in Kiev. Not one of them did.

Well, what else don’t we know? Here’s a hint. About three- quarters of what Russia is now doing in Ukraine is a bitter joke at the expense of the ‘West’. What we attack them for doing is what we have also done, in Yugoslavia and Ukraine.

We snatched Kosovo from Serbia. They have snatched Crimea from Ukraine. We like referendums which confirm what we wanted to do all along. So do they. So far, even they haven’t had the nerve to copy the EU habit of rerunning any votes that give the wrong result.

We unleashed armed mobs in Kiev, to overthrow the lawful authority. They have done the same in Donetsk.

Just as I have no doubt that Russian secret services and front organisations have helped, encouraged and equipped the crowds in Donetsk, I have no doubt that the ‘Maidan’ protests in Kiev had what I shall politely call help from outside.

I write as a former Marxist revolutionary who has organized demonstrations and knows how hard it is to mobilise and sustain them.

I think both sides have also shut down broadcasts they do not like.

The simple conclusion we might draw from this, this Eastertide, is that it would be wise to stop being so lofty about what the Russians are doing, and pretending that our side are the nice, law-abiding freedom-lovers.

We should ask instead what this conflict is really about. I will tell you. It is an old-style territorial clash over a very valuable piece of territory, in which the EU, as Germany used to do, seeks to expand its power and influence into areas long dominated by Moscow. This can only be resolved through compromise. Yet, on the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the Great War that almost ended civilisation, I am amazed by the partisan enthusiasm for conflict and confrontation that has infected so many politicians and journalists.

Why wait for future historians to tell you that you were rushed into a stupid, ruinous war by crude, one-sided propaganda?

Tell these people now that you want no such thing.

Squawking hypocrites who ignore reality

I am puzzled by the fuss over Muslim activists taking over schools. You might as well deal with a burst pipe by changing into dry socks and shoes, and walking straight back into the water.

Muslims, many of them very serious and devout, now live in this country in large numbers.



They do so because our elite for years pursued a liberal policy of wide-open borders.

A report by inspectors sent into Park View School in Birmingham reveals forced segregation between male and female pupils, a ban on sex education in some classes and discrimination against Christian pupils

Among those who support this policy are the very same neo-conservative types (also keen warmongers, seldom happier than when Western bombs are falling on Muslim cities) who now shout and squawk about Islamists taking over schools.



They are having it both ways. If we hadn’t wanted Islam to flourish in this country, we shouldn’t have encouraged Muslims to live here. Now we have done so, we are just going to have to get used to it.

How Pollyanna turned into an evil, deceitful little monster

Creep: Hayley Mills as Pollyanna in the 1960s

Meet Pollyanna Creep. She sounds awful, doesn’t she? The name calls up a picture of a gap-toothed, lisping little girl in a frilly dress who is never ever bad.

Some of you will recall (as I can) Hayley Mills’s portrayal of the original Pollyanna, that dangerously optimistic heroine, in 1960.



The character seemed to have been made entirely out of artificial sweeteners.

But Pollyanna Creep is far, far worse. She was invented by an American economist, John Williams, to describe the US government’s habit of, er, modifying its figures to give a good impression to voters.

Now she’s moved across the Atlantic, and is very busy in the Treasury (where she has successfully concealed the fact that the Government’s debt is actually still rising).

And do you know anyone who seriously believes the Government’s inflation measure, the CPI, another part of Pollyanna Creep’s duties?

Two groups of people know for certain that it’s a lie – young couples trying to find somewhere to live; and savers, who are being legally burgled by the banks, with their joke interest rates.

Of course Miss Creep is working hard in the Ministry of Injustice too.

I still actually meet people, seemingly in possession of all their wits, who rather sweetly believe official crime figures.

They should listen to Judge Richard Bray, who said on his retirement last week: ‘The figures have been massaged. Robbery is now classified as theft from a person. Burglary is downgraded to criminal damage. Cautions and reprimands are used to save police time. But you ask the people who walk about the towns and cities at night if crime has gone down.’

Have we yet even begun to realise what a huge change may overtake us in September if Scotland votes for independence and Britain ceases to exist?

Silly threats about the pound, the economy and defence simply don’t work. I hope they wouldn’t work on us either. They actually increase the pro-independence vote. So why do we keep making them?

I for one am sure that the High Command of the Tory Party actively wants Scotland to leave. It is the only way the Conservatives, who like office above all things, will ever get a majority at Westminster again. You don’t think they are that cynical? Why ever not?

How odd, when BBC Radio 4’s Today programme discussed the introduction of horse racing on Good Friday, that it was all about time off for jockeys, and money. Nobody mentioned the fact that it is the most solemn day in the Christian calendar. Once nobody knows, nobody cares. In the same way, people will one day forget that such a country as Britain ever existed. It’s the speed of it that amazes me.