Measured Responses.

EU heads of state are meeting today to discuss further reprisals against Russia over the MH17 affair. The French are offering to delay delivery of a new warship, which should really set Russian spines tingling. Anguished cries will no doubt be heard all the way from St Petersburg to the Bering Sea:

‘Oh, no! We only have 3,798 warships (I’m guessing…) We really need another one and we must have it by Christmas!’

Meanwhile, the British Government has announced that a fresh inquiry will be held into the death of Alexander Litvinenko, the Russian dissident who was murdered in London in 2006 by lethal injection (radioactive plutonium in his case, and I imagine his constitutional rights were denied by not informing him of the chemical formula in advance.) Russian state complicity in the crime was suspected, but earlier inquiries proved ‘inconclusive.’

Well, it seems to me that the writing between the lines is apparent enough. What it says is:

‘We’ve known all along that Russian agents did it, but diplomatic exigencies required that we cover it up. But we don’t like you any more, Russia, so now we’re going to expose you to the world for the bounders you are. Stick that in your samovar and boil it!’