Ukraine? With an inward groan, I write again what I wrote about Saddam’s Iraq, about Gaddafi’s Libya and about Assad’s Syria. Intervention almost always makes things worse. Don’t start what you can’t follow through.

Yet here we go again, poking at a situation. President Putin, who knows us better than we know ourselves, knows we are not serious. So to help a tottering Ukrainian defence force Britain sends fewer military “advisers” than would fill a bus, with strict instructions to stay well clear of the fighting — presumably so we can recall them without loss of face if things get hot.

And via the IMF we “lend” Kiev not quite enough to keep their country from going bankrupt. And we mumble about intensifying sanctions against