Vladimir Putin has crushed opponents, judo-wrestled Olympians to the mat and, if the web is to be believed, even grappled with bears. However has he ever handled the terrifying prospect of Liz Truss at full drive?
Britain’s new Iron Girl marched purposefully into the Commons yesterday to ship an announcement on Russia. The Overseas Secretary was in critical mode.
Gone have been the gormless smiles, the giggly asides and the bizarre rants about British cheese.
As an alternative, she appeared all swishy-haired and power-suited, with a pussy-bow prime which screamed ‘Vamoose, Vlad!’
Britain’s new Iron Girl marched purposefully into the Commons yesterday to ship an announcement on Russia. The Overseas Secretary was in critical mode
Even her voice sounded a superb octave decrease than regular. One other carry from the Mrs T playbook. La Truss demanded Russia ‘de-escalate’ present tensions with the Ukraine. Any incursion there can be a ‘strategic mistake’, she added, and would come at ‘a extreme price’.
She stated this in a way that advised she would possibly properly flip up on the Ukrainian border herself, her little head poking out of a tank’s turret hatch. It was a supply designed to set teacups rattling over in Moscow.
Few, one suspects, have been watching over within the Kremlin. Not many have been right here both, it must be stated. Amongst these on her personal aspect who’d bothered to indicate up, she was heard in a spirit of approbation.
Even her voice sounded a superb octave decrease than regular. One other carry from the Mrs T playbook. La Truss demanded Russia ‘de-escalate’ present tensions with the Ukraine. Any incursion there can be a ‘strategic mistake’, she added, and would come at ‘a extreme price’
‘A robust assertion’ was the oft heard cry from the backbenches. Others resembling Tobias Ellwood (Con, Bournemouth E) – a former captain within the Royal Inexperienced Jackets – felt the Authorities must be threatening Russia with one thing slightly extra intimidating than yet one more vary of watery sanctions. As ever, Tom Tugendhat (Con, Tonbridge), handled us to considered one of his fascinating geo-political lectures. Opposition MPs have been much less impressed with Truss’s posturing. Chris Bryant (Lab, Rhondda) actually wasn’t having any of it.
Laborious man to impress, Bryant. The type of get together visitor who complains in regards to the meals and boos the after-dinner leisure. He stated the Authorities’s stance was ‘hypocritical’, what with all of the hooky Russian money swirling round London. Truss responded with one thing about anti-corruption legal guidelines being put to make use of.
Now that Truss was at loggerheads with Moscow, Kevan Jones (Lab, N Durham) advised it was in all probability time she stopped accepting any extra lunches with rich Russian donors.
This was a reference to Truss getting rumbled a few years in the past wining and eating Ruski banker Lubov Chernukhin, a gathering which solely got here to mild when Truss posted an image of their get-together on Instagram. With carelessness like that, who wants spies?
Earlier we had enterprise questions, hosted by Chief of the Home Jacob Rees-Mogg who’d made headlines that morning after letting or not it’s identified he was against the Authorities’s Nationwide Insurance coverage rise in April.
His reverse quantity Thangam Debbonaire advised that since Labour additionally opposed the hike he would possibly want to cross the ground.
The look of horror on Jacob’s face. Anybody would have thought the honourable member for the 18th century had been requested to pose for Penthouse in his underdrawers.