Ridiculous, of course. Rednev is no friend of Putin, any more than I am - the case of vodka in my garden shed has been there for years. The report, due to be released after the election on December 12, promises to be disturbing. For people of my generation, who grew up in the Cold War years, it is incredible how the Russian influence pendulum has swung from one extreme to another. In the 60s and 70s, it was the Labour Party that was being branded as pro-Communist stooges in the pay of Moscow. Now, we read in The Guardian:
"Allegations that Moscow money has flowed into the Conservative party via emigres living in the UK making high-profile donations, were also heard ... although the party has consistently denied receiving money improperly.
In 2014, Lubov Chernukhin – the wife of the former Russian deputy finance minister – paid £160,000 to play tennis with Johnson and David Cameron. The match was the star lot at a Conservative summer party auction. Another guest at the 2013 fundraiser was Vasily Shestakov, Vladimir Putin’s judo partner".
There have also been credible reports that the Brexit Party is in receipt of Russian cash. More details of this can be found HERE.
It would appear that Russian influence extends only to the political Right, but this would be a mistake. Jeremy Corbyn was accused of "a cross-eyed" response to the Skripal poisoning. Andrew Rawnsley said, again in The Guardian:
"In his first parliamentary performance, and in subsequent interventions, Mr Corbyn refused to blame the Putin regime while raising a spray of questions that undermine the case for coordinated western action. Was it really the Kremlin? Can the government prove that?"
George Galloway expressed much the same opinion at the time, as did others of his ilk. His "ilk", however, includes the brother of one of Galloway's many protagonists, Christopher Hitchens: Peter Hitchens, who is hardly a leftist militant.
Russian influence, it seems, is widespread and found across the political spectrum. This is a matter of concern, but we should remember that we British also have a name for interfering in other nations' political affairs, both historically and perhaps even now.
Perhaps we should focus upon why President Putin and his government feel the need to exert influence in other countries and to look at the character of Vladimir Putin himself.
During the Cold War years, the right-wing press were in a perpetual stew about the evils of Communism and the USSR. It was conveniently forgotten that during the 19th century, British politicians regarded Russia as "The Russian Bear" that kept trying to take over in India. It was portrayed (rightly, to an extent) as a backward serf-owning land-hungry "evil empire" - to coin a phrase. How times changed! From 1914 to 1917, Russia was our gallant ally - then times changed again. Josef Stalin became another Russian supremo, dressed up in ideological clothes - a "Red Tsar" and a hate figure for the West in the 1920s and 30s. All that changed of course; Stalin became "Uncle Joe", our gallant ally in WW2, but only after Hitler invaded the USSR in 1941. Things changed again in 1945, when Stalin became our enemy, after he acquired new nations for the Russian sphere of influence, and appeared, we were told, to be planning to spread even further westwards.
It was left to a Hungarian writer, Tibor Szamuely, to point out that the basic status quo in Russia during the Stalinist period was fundamentally the same as it was in the Tsarist era. This absolutist legacy, Szamuely argued, was "The Russian Tradition" - the title of his book. He had a point, and we must acknowledge that parliamentary democracy, such as it is now in Russia, is something very new. And, if Szamuely was right, Putin is a mutated form of a Tsar or Supreme Leader, with his own, modern version of Russian expansionism.
It was left to a Hungarian writer, Tibor Szamuely, to point out that the basic status quo in Russia during the Stalinist period was fundamentally the same as it was in the Tsarist era. This absolutist legacy, Szamuely argued, was "The Russian Tradition" - the title of his book. He had a point, and we must acknowledge that parliamentary democracy, such as it is now in Russia, is something very new. And, if Szamuely was right, Putin is a mutated form of a Tsar or Supreme Leader, with his own, modern version of Russian expansionism.
But I think we can discern something else, if we look a little deeper into Putin's background. As everyone knows, Putin was a senior KGB officer. He resigned as a Lieutenant-Colonel on 20 August, 1991.
What nobody says is that while he was indeed a KGB officer, he was not a particularly good one. He worked at first in counter-intelligence after joining in 1975. His lacklustre career then "blossomed" in 1985, when he was sent to Dresden for five years, posing as a translator. This would never do as a biography for a Bond villain. For that, he would have needed to be a KGB General, at least. If anything, his foreign policy is reminiscent of a man with an inferiority complex. He seethed with resentment after the drubbing Russian troops took in the First Chechen War (1994-96) and wasted no time in launching a war of revenge in 1999.
I don't know what will emerge when the report is released, post-General Election, but I wouldn't be surprised if clear evidence of Russian influence is readily uncovered. And this points to a real problem for President Putin: the fact that his secret service operatives, like he was, are not particularly successful or effective. The Skripal poisoning and the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko were hardly models of efficiency. In both cases, the culprits were quickly identified and displayed gross incompetence in their handling of poison and radioactive material. The FSB, successor organisation to the KGB, is of the same standard as that achieved by Vladimir Putin.
No wonder he looks like a man with a complex.
Vladimir in his KGB days - a rising star that didn't go far.
'Jeremy Corbyn was accused of "a cross-eyed" response to the Skripal poisoning.' All he was asking for was evidence which wasn't forthcoming. He wasn't prepared to accept uncritically the government's accusations at face value, and with this shower I don't blame him. Yes, it probably was the Russians but we've yet to see the evidence - and 'probably' isn't good enough in such situations.
ReplyDeleteAs for Russian money: if in the past a senior Labour Party member had been exposed as receiving Soviet gold, the Tories and the press would have crucified him or her, and the party as well.
Now that Russia is an ultra-capitalist country dominated by the mega-rich, no one seems to bat an eye that the Tories are receiving huge amounts of Russian dosh. It's okay, presumably because they're not communists, but ostensibly 'businessmen and women'.
Double standards - yet again.