The Harrying of Ukraine.

In the winter of 1069-70, three years after his victory at Hastings, William I (the Conqueror) of England took his army on campaign to the northern shires. The purpose was to wreak a cruel revenge on the peasants following an unsuccessful revolt by the Saxon lords. His army pillaged and burned and slaughtered, leaving the common folk consigned to the terrible twin jaws of death by cold and starvation. And so the ordinary people were made to suffer to serve the lust for vengeance of one man’s power mania. The episode is recorded in the annals of history as The Harrying of the North.

That was nearly a thousand years ago and times have changed greatly, but now we see Mr Putin performing a similar act of vengeance – in principle at least – on the ordinary people of Ukraine. And so I suppose we should conclude, as I’ve long believed, that while the axioms of cultural imperative have grown very much more humane, human nature hasn’t changed at all.