Vladimir Putin sat in the Kremlin with his underlings, working out how to deal with those pesky countries who have had the brass neck to support sanctions on his beloved Russia. “I know,” said Putin, rising from his armchair. “I’ll ban Nick Clegg! That will show them!”
If anything sums up the madness of Putin’s empire, this is it. The great man may not have noticed that Clegg is a bit of a joke figure in Britain. His job in the last five years has been solely to enable David Cameron’s Conservative Party to behave in a manner so extreme you would have thought Putin would be applauding him, not banning him from the country. I have not, so far, managed to work out the reason for Clegg’s ban and what it might seek to achieve. The dishonourable member for Sheffield Hallam is not even a political leader anymore, sitting on the back benches these days of the fourth largest party in the House of Commons.
I had thought in the past that it would be nice to ban Clegg from our own country for his actions in tripling student tuition fees after pledging to remove them but I concluded that we remain, despite Clegg’s efforts to the contrary, a relatively free country and saying and doing unpleasant things are not in themselves reasons for banning people. However, Putin doesn’t see things in quite the same way so Clegg, who actually has Russian blood, is being excluded for reasons of pure spite.
Those who have been banned are described as “outspoken critics of the Kremlin” which is a clear enough statement that only one opinion – Putin’s – is allowed in Russia. But are we that much better?
We don’t really have what is known as “a free press” because all the national dailies, bar one (The Guardian), are owned by corporations, non doms and oligarchs so it is rare to read more than one opinion. The BBC, terrified of being scrapped by a government that threatens its very being (look up Culture Secretary John Whittingdale’s attitude to Rupert Murdoch – he loves him – and to the BBC – he hates it – and you will soon see why), has all but given up on balanced news coverage, lurching unquestionably to a right of centre political standpoint. We rightly criticise Putin’s Russia, but how free are we?
If you work in the public sector, you cannot, dare not, speak out if you know things are wrong because you know you will be sacked and possibly imprisoned. In the private sector, you dare not speak out because you know you will be sacked and possibly even blacklisted. And we have some of the most oppressive libel laws in the western world. Apart from that, it’s great to live in a free country.
I suppose I should feel sorry for Nick Clegg, but I don’t. He’s a very rich man so I suspect whatever happens in politics or his ban from visiting Russia, he will be able to cope, dining out as ex political leaders do on the after dinner circuit or taking on lucrative directorships. He was right to speak out against Russia, mind you, but actually I find it quite funny that this pompous buffoon has now been banned, as if he was somehow important. The only importance in Clegg’s life is self-importance.
