the times | Wednesday February 23 2022 29
Leading articles
cellor, effectively pulled the plug on Nord Stream 2,
the pipeline built to carry gas directly from Russia
to Germany and thus bypass Ukraine. Many had
questioned whether Mr Scholz would act against
Germany’s economic interest, given its reliance on
Russian gas. But his willingness to do so for the
sake of European security stands in contrast to
Mr Johnson’s failure again to announce any new
measures to crack down on illicit finance. Britain’s
allies have pleaded with the government to take
action against kleptocratic wealth laundered via
the City of London and invested in British assets
that over decades has emboldened and enabled
the Putin regime.
While the EU and US are preparing to take
action immediately to prevent the Russian state
and related entities raising money in European
markets, ministers suggested these sanctions
would be reserved for any further escalation and
would require legislation. There was no increase
in funding for the National Crime Agency to
enable it to pursue unexplained wealth orders,
which are supposed to be the government’s flag-
ship weapon against illicit wealth but have proved
almost entirely unworkable. Not a single unex-
plained wealth order has been enforced against a
Russian since Mr Johnson became prime minister.
He said that Britain’s measures should be con-
sidered only a “first barrage” in what he insists will
be a heavy onslaught should Mr Putin escalate
this crisis. There is some merit to the idea of hold-
ing back the strictest sanctions as a deterrent
against further escalation. Nonetheless, Mr John-
son’s claim that tougher sanctions were not yet
merited because Russia had not invaded new terri-
tory was unconvincing. Russian troops may well
have been present in the Donbas since the original
2014 conflict. But until now they have done so
covertly, operating under a cloak of deniability.
Now that they openly present on Ukrainian terri-
tory as part of a bogus peacekeeping force, this un-
equivocally constitutes an invasion, as Jens Stol-
tenberg, the Nato secretary-general, has acknowl-
edged. Mr Putin’s move also kills the Minsk
agreement struck on eastern Ukraine in 2015,
blocking any diplomatic way out of the crisis.Nor does it seem likely that the threat of more
sanctions will deter Mr Putin. He has already
recognised the breakaway regions’ claims to the
entire territory of their original oblasts, creating a
pretext for deeper invasion of Ukrainian territory.
Besides, since he took office 22 years ago Mr Putin
has consistently sought to undermine Ukraine’s
sovereignty and independence, whether by inter-
fering in its politics to install Kremlin-backed
leaders or, when this failed, by occupying parts of
its territory. On Monday, in a rambling televised
address, he was clear that he did not consider
Ukraine to have any right to exist, considering its
breakaway from Russia as a historic wrong to be
righted. These were not the words of someone
ready to drop his ambition to restore the Russian
empire by bringing Ukraine back under Moscow’s
control.
Nor is Mr Putin a threat only to Ukraine. It was
clear from his rewriting of Russian history that it
is not just Ukraine’s independence he regards as a
historical mistake. He blamed Lenin and the
Bolsheviks for facilitating the break-up of the
Russian empire by establishing separate republics
that he considers to have harboured the destruc-
tive seeds of nationalism. Taken to its conclusion,
that raises questions about the security of the
Baltic states, the Balkans and even Finland.
Moscow announced last week that its troops
would be stationed indefinitely in Belarus, which
will hold a referendum this year on whether to
allow foreign nuclear weapons to be placed on its
territory. That can only add to the vulnerablility of
the Baltic states.
For all Mr Johnson’s fine words since the start of
this crisis, the response was a mis-step that risked
sending the wrong signal to Moscow. There can no
longer be any illusion about the danger that Mr
Putin presents to European security, western
democracies and the global rules-based order.
The time for deterrence has passed. The battle
against Mr Putin’s regime will require painful
sacrifices from all western countries, including
Britain. Mr Johnson should waste no time in
ensuring this first barrage is followed by others
that will send Moscow a much clearer message.government to organise testing, tracing, vaccina-
tion, furlough and business loans. That led to the
creation of 65,000 posts.
Mr Rees-Mogg is right that as a minimum the
government should be aiming to close those posts
as the demands of the pandemic fall away. But
demographic trends will continue to put new
demands on the state. In Britain, unlike America
and much of Asia, government carries most of the
responsibility for looking after older people, so an
ageing population tends to increase state spend-
ing. The NHS is already short of 94,000 staff,
according to the Health Foundation. The think
tank believes that Britain will need to recruit
another 1.1 million people in the health and social
care sectors over the next decade.
The government’s dilemma is that reducing the
size of the state while meeting demand for care
would mean spending cuts in other areas. That is
not what is required. In many areas, including
education and criminal justice, Britain needs
investment, not retrenchment. But Mr Rees-
Mogg’s instinct to push back against the state’s
expansionist tendencies is right. Government
grows through a ratchet effect. What the state
gets, it does not give up willingly. Politicians need
to be alive to opportunities to do more with less.One such opportunity is regulation, as Mr Rees-
Mogg correctly noted. Brexit does create some
potential to loosen the government’s controls over
the private sector, for instance in financial ser-
vices. But the benefits of divergence from Euro-
pean Union rules may not be huge and will often
come with costs. In many cases, the best way to
avoid red tape may be to maintain close alignment
with EU rules and accept its standards. As Mr
Rees-Mogg said: “There’s no point in us repeating
things that other organisations and countries do
to a perfectly competent standard.”
He is also right to raise the issue of quangos.
David Cameron announced a bonfire of them a
decade ago, but in recent years spending has risen,
not least on the inflated salaries paid to some of
their bosses. A further rationalisation of quangos
is needed.
Meanwhile, in his capacity as minister for gov-
ernment efficiency, Mr Rees-Mogg should look at
improving Whitehall’s use of information techno-
logy as a way of driving up productivity. Under the
coalition, the Government Digital Service was
recognised internationally as a model. It has since
lost political patronage and withered. The notion
of Mr Rees-Mogg launching a digital crusade may
stretch credulity, but it needs to be done.Hitting Putin
The government's ‘first barrage’ of sanctions against Russia for its latest invasion
of Ukraine was woefully inadequate. Just as well it’s pledged tougher action
The key to effective foreign policy, according to
Theodore Roosevelt, is to speak softly and carry a
big stick. Since the start of the Ukraine crisis Boris
Johnson has chosen to disregard the first part of
this advice. Far from speaking softly, he has had
one of the loudest voices among western leaders in
defence of Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial
integrity, demanding a robust response should
Russia invade its neighbour. Now it appears he has
ignored the second part of the former US presi-
dent’s adage too. In response to President Putin’s
decision on Monday to recognise the independ-
ence of Ukraine’s breakaway regions of Donetsk
and Luhansk and to send Russia troops into both
regions as “peacekeepers”, Mr Johnson said Brit-
ain would be imposing sanctions on only five
Russian banks and three Russian oligarchs. So
much for the big stick.
The timidity of these measures will have come
as a shock to all those who heard Mr Johnson
promising to “come down like a steel trap in the
event of the first Russian toecap crossing into
more sovereign Ukrainian territory”. Indeed MPs
from all parties lined up in parliament yesterday to
criticise the limited scope of the sanctions. Three
of the banks and all three of the individuals target-
ed by Britain have already been under US sanc-
tions for years and so are already largely excluded
from the global financial system. Only one of the
banks was among Russia’s top ten by assets. None
of the individuals implicated in Russia’s latest
assault on Ukraine has been sanctioned.
Britain’s limited measures stood in contrast to
the much tougher response by the European
Union, some of whose leaders British ministers
only ten days ago accused of exuding a “whiff of
Munich”. The EU will sanction 351 Russian Duma
members who voted to recognise the self-declared
republics of Donetsk and Luhansk in eastern
Ukraine, as well as 27 other people and legal enti-
ties. Last night President Biden announced a
tougher package of measures, sanctioning two
more Russian financial institutions and other
individuals with connections to the Kremlin, as
well as their families.
Meanwhile Olaf Scholz, the German chan-Shrinking Whitehall
Jacob Rees-Mogg is right to ask if we need so many civil servants
It is a bit rich for Jacob Rees-Mogg to sound a
warning about the growth of the state, as the new-
ly appointed minister for Brexit opportunities and
government efficiency did in his interview with
The Times on Saturday. After all, Brexit has, along
with coronavirus, been one of the main drivers of
a 23 per cent increase in the size of the civil service
since the referendum. The number of full-time
officials had shrunk from 470,000 in 2010 to
380,000 in 2016 as a result of reforms carried out
by the coalition government, but those cuts have
since been almost entirely reversed. “Do we make
[the lives of the British people] better by employing
large numbers of civil servants?” Mr Rees-Mogg
asked. “The answer is probably no because the
British public helps pay for them.”
His vigilance is welcome at a time when the role
of the state has been expanding and taxes have
been rising to pay for it. Nonetheless, it is impor-
tant to be realistic about what can be achieved.
The state’s recent growth is hardly surprising
given the heavy demands on it. The negotiations
that led up to Britain’s departure from the Euro-
pean Union required the creation of an entire
department; after Brexit, more civil servants were
needed to deal with border checks, immigration
issues and trade deals. The pandemic required theUK: Public accounts committee reports on
the cost of the national response to Covid.
Ukraine: Presidents of Ukraine, Poland and
Lithuania hold a press conference in Kyiv.
The skylark is
singing. Lifting
vertically from the
sodden fields, this
feathered firework
rises higher and
higher until it
disappears into the low, drizzling clouds.
Gone from view, the liquid notes continue to
cascade. Ornithologists describe the
skylark’s song as an “honest signal”. A
singing male can’t fake health, strength and
stamina — a listening female will judge that
for herself by the height, length and quality
of the song. It requires strength and
endurance to sing so loudly, and hold your
own against the wind when you weigh little
more than a shuttlecock. For its ability to
sing in the strongest of gusts, the poet
Gerard Manley Hopkins dubbed the skylark
the dare-gale. jonathan tulloch
In 1807 William Wilberforce, after 18 years
of promoting abolition, received a standing
ovation during a key debate of the Slave
Trade Abolition Bill in the House of
Commons. The ten-hour debate ended with
a vote in favour of the bill by 283 votes to 16.
Bernard Cornwell,
pictured, writer, author of
novels about the
Napoleonic Wars
rifleman Richard Sharpe,
78; Bill Alexander,
theatre director, artistic
director, Birmingham
Repertory Theatre (1993-2000), 74; Emily
Blunt, actress, The Devil Wears Prada (2006),
39; Sir George Buckley, chairman, Stanley
Black & Decker and Smiths Group, 75;
Michael Dell, entrepreneur, founder,
chairman and chief executive of Dell, 57;
Prof Dianne Edwards, palaeobotanist,
president, Linnean Society of London
(2012-15), 80; Dakota Fanning, actress, I Am
Sam (2001), 28; Baroness (Ilora) Finlay of
Llandaff, deputy speaker (Lords), president,
British Medical Association (2014-15), 73;
Sylvie Guillem, ballerina, principal guest
artist, Royal Ballet (1988-2007), 57; Frances
Hardinge, children’s author, The Lie Tree
(2015), 49; Emilia Jones, actress, CODA
(2021), 20; Howard Jones, singer, Things Can
Only Get Better (1985), 67; Sir Nicholas
Kenyon, managing director, Barbican
Centre (2007-21), 71; Courtney Lawes, rugby
union player, England, 33; Ian Liddell-
Grainger, Conservative MP for Bridgwater
and West Somerset, 63; Kelly Macdonald,
actress, Holmes & Watson (2018), 46; Prof
Dame Carrie MacEwen, consultant
ophthalmologist, chairwoman, Academy of
Medical Royal Colleges (2017-20), 64; Sir
Harvey McGrath, chairman, Big Society
Capital, Prudential (2009-12), 70; Anton
Mosimann, chef, 75; Emperor Naruhito, the
126th emperor of Japan, 62; Prof Didier
Queloz, astronomer, co-recipient, Nobel
prize for physics (2019), 56; General Tim
Radford, DSO, deputy supreme Allied
commander Europe, 59; Francesca Simon,
author, Horrid Henry children’s books, 67;
David Sylvian, musician, Japan, Ghosts
(1982), 64; Lord (Christopher) Tugendhat,
chairman, Abbey National (1991-2002), 85;
Viktor Yushchenko, president of Ukraine
(2005-10), 68.
“Integrity has no need of rules.” Albert
Camus, novelist, The Myth of Sisyphus (1942)
Nature notes
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