Returning to the thread of the unannounced war with Russia, it appears Putin’s strategy also addresses America’s ally Great Britain, as noted by Jackson Diehl of WaPo. First he addresses the out of power Labor Party:
When confronted with his government’s conclusion that Russia was responsible for what amounted to a military attack on his country, the opposition Labour Party leader [Jeremy Corbyn] and his spokesman (a) refused to accept that the Kremlin was responsible, (b) cast doubt on British intelligence, (c) complained that Moscow had not been accorded due process and (d) said the right response was “robust dialogue.” In other words, Corbyn echoed almost exactly the line advanced by Putin’s own propagandists.
But the Conservatives are hard as nails, right?
[Prime Minister Theresa] May’s government is indeed handicapped by its impending departure from the European Union, which has isolated it. But there is much more her government could do, if it chose. There are billions of dollars of Russian money laundered into London real estate — a good part of it connected to Putin’s circle. Senior Russian officials send their children to English private schools. Russian companies and banks raise money in London markets.
May was vague about targeting that money in her speech to Parliament. It was hard not to be reminded of what might have been Corbyn’s only legitimate point: Russian oligarchs, he claimed, have contributed more than $1.1 million to the ruling Conservative Party.
While I’m not particularly impressed at a mere $1.1 million, who’s to know if that’s an accurate accounting – or a number on the low side? The suggestion that Conservative politicians have been soaking up foreign money suggests they’re just as avid for power as is the GOP.
But Corbyn, along with his bizarre retro-ideas of how to run Great Britain, also appears to share the soft-on-Russia ‘tudes of some of his predecessors, but without the excuse that it’s Marxism! Ah, forgive me, as an independent I’ve always been a little confused by those who found the Soviet Union so charming in the face of its brutality and, worse, built-in instability. A political structure built on nothing more than who can be the most brutal and unethical is a frightening thing, and not only did we see the final results, but the ongoing progress reports were, at best, vaguely encouraging, before the mask was taken off. The best one could say is that it was better than the monarchy which preceded it, but not by much.
