Panic in Year Tory

Apparently, the UK is facing a perilous future, with all manner of threats to our security - but don't worry, Rishi Sunak is the safe pair of hands we need to guide us through them.. It's like that old gag isn't it?  'You're at death's door, but don't worry, I'll see you through it'.  The idea that the country's security is safe in Sunak's hands (or those pf any other Tory) is utterly ludicrous - they've trashed the economy, cut defence spending far more than any Labour government ever has and they've accepted huge wads of cash, both individually and collectively as a party, from Russia, the very entity they now identify as the main threat to the UK's future security.  Do they really think that we're that stupid?  (OK, I know, I know, people voted for Boris Johnson, not to mention Brexit, so clearly there are a lot of credulous idiots out there).  If nothing else, Sunak's ridiculous posturing does finally confirm just what all this 'World War Three' scaremongering in the right-wing press has been about.  In recent weeks it has reached ridiculous proportions and with stories speculating about what UK cities might be targeted in a Russian nuclear attack, utterly irresponsible.  Despite all of these scare stories, despite all the 'experts' and 'academics' they keep digging up to tell you otherwise, it is highly unlikely that the war in Ukraine will become some kind of nuclear flashpoint.  Let's not forget that Ukraine sits right next to Russia, so the fallout from any nuclear weapons the Russians might use there would just as likely blow back on them- remember how the fallout from the Chernobyl accident, (Chernobyl now, rather ironically being in Ukraine), drifted far and wide.

As for nuclear strikes on targets outside of Ukraine, well, unless the West gives Putin some kind of pretext by physically attacking Russian forces, or making incursions into Russian territory, this seems even less likely.  All the sabre rattling by Putin and his mouthpieces about using nuclear weapons simply reveals the position of military weakness he is actually in - the Ukraine campaign has revealed serious inadequacies in his military and conventional weapons systems.  Moreover, Russia is likely to come off second best in any hypothetical nuclear exchange.  But that, of course, isn't the point - it provides fodder for the right-wing media in the UK to try and whip up a panic aimed at reinforcing the position of their Tory friends.  'Oooh, it's so scary!  But don't worry, the party that has undermined our security by weakening the economy via Brexit and their corruption, resulting in defence cuts, is here to save us!'  Pathetic!  A fake crisis to try and sustain in power a government that has created a real crisis in the economy and public services.  But it isn't without recent precedent: let's not forget how Boris Johnson desperately wrapped himself in the Ukrainian flag and tried to convince us all that he was a wartime leader and therefore shouldn't be forced out of power, even if the war wasn't actually happening in the UK or even close to the UK and UK forces weren't directly involved.  His handling of one crisis, the pandemic, which did directly involve the UK had backfired on him, so he tried to seize on a distant one instead - one where he is incompetence could have no direct consequences.  But it didn't work for Johnson then and I doubt it will work for Sunak now, despite the press trying to inflate the magnitude of the current non-crisis.  (Of course, having said all that, the nuclear attack alert will now go off and Russian missiles will start falling on Europe...)