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May 1, 2022 · Issue No 10,312 · sundaytimes.co.uk £3 · only £2 to subscribers (based on 7 day Print Pack)
Sunday newspaper of the year
OUR VIRTUAL COMEBACK CULTURE
BEST
PLANTS
FOR
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HOME GARDEN
In the square by the People’s Cul-
tural House, two teenagers share a
cigarette under a statue of Lenin.
Children perform a traditional
Russian dance near by. Two
women in headscarves serve
beans and greying chicken
beneath a hammer-and-sickle flag
in a Soviet-style café.
Time seems to have stood still in
Transnistria since 1990, when the
tiny breakaway region declared
independence from Moldova dur-
ing the death throes of the USSR.
Appearances are deceptive,
though. In the past few days this
internationally unrecognised pro-
Russian territory of 400,000 peo-
ple in southeastern Europe has
become a focus of urgent global
scrutiny amid fears that the Krem-
lin is about to use it to expand its
war beyond Ukraine.
The alarm was sounded when asenior Russian commander stated
that Moscow’s “special operation”
aimed to create a land bridge from
Donbas to Transnistria, which
would strangle the economic life-
blood of Ukraine, cutting it off
from the sea, and pull Moldova
into the conflict. On cue, Russian
state media began publishing arti-
cles claiming Russian-speakers in
Moldova were being repressed — a
claim the Kremlin used to justify its
invasion of Ukraine in February.Then last week came mysterious
attacks inside Transnistria, target-
ing state security headquarters and
two Soviet-era radio towers. The
Transnistrians and the Russians
said Ukrainians were behind them.
The Ukrainians blamed the Rus-
sians, specifically the FSB, the secu-
rity agency that is the main succes-
sor to the KGB.
Moldova’s government, desper-
ately trying not to be pulled into a
war it has no capacity to fight, saidonly that factions in Transnistria
were behind the attacks.
Unlike Ukraine, Moldova has
made clear it has no interest in
joining Nato. In March, however,
the country began efforts to join
the European Union, and it has
accepted hundreds of thousands
of Ukrainian refugees since the war
began — more per capita than any
other nation.
The odds of maintaining stabil-
ity while staying neutral in thewider conflict are growing more
remote by the day.
“I think this delicate balance is
harder and harder to maintain,”
Natalia Gavrilita, the Moldovan
prime minister, said in an inter-
view in Chisinau, the capital. “And
there are risks, significant risks, for
Moldova’s security, for Moldova’s
economy, for social cohesion and
the stability of the government.”
As Moldova struggled to retain
control of the situation, Trans-nistria mobilised, announcing a
15-day state of emergency and ban-
ning tourists. On an undercover
visit last week we saw new check-
points at the entrances to Tiraspol,
the de facto capital, guarded by
men carrying Kalashnikovs. Con-
crete blocks and sandbags had
been piled up at road junctions.
A constant stream of groundless
Russian propaganda has left
residents terrified that hordes of‘I’m worried the Ukrainians will attack’: paranoia reigns in Transnistria
Continued on page 4→Louise Callaghan Transnistria
NEWMAN’S
VIEWmons. Parish, 65, who is the Con-
servative MP for Tiverton and
Honiton, said the first time he had
done so was accidental. The
former farmer had been looking at
tractors on his phone before stray-
ing onto a website with a “very sim-
ilar name”.
However, he conceded: “My big-
gest crime is that on another occa-
sion I went in a second time.”
Two female MPs, including a
minister, said last week that they
had seen Parish watching pornog-
raphy in the chamber. They were
speaking during a meeting con-
vened by the chief whip to addressINDEX
This week News 2
Weather News 29
Letters News 26
Sudoku News 28
TV & Radio Culture 29If you feel like chicken tonight,
tuck in quickly. You may soon have
to pay as much for it as for beef.
As the cost of poultry feed rises
rapidly, families face the prospect
of paying as much for chicken
supreme as for filet mignon — for
the first time since the 1950s.
Steve Murrells, chief executive
of Co-op supermarkets, said:
“Chicken could become as expen-
sive as beef ... Chicken, which was
great value for money, is rising
quicker than any other protein.”
Beef is usually at least three
times the price of chicken per kilo.
The gap has narrowed, however,
because chicken feed is often made
up of soya and wheat, both of
which are produced in large quan-
tities in Ukraine, where supplies
have been hit by the war. Egg
farmers may also be forced to raise
prices for consumers.
The 2 Sisters food group, the
UK’s largest chicken supplier, said
that annual food inflation of 15 per
cent “will be needed to even begin
to cover the increasing cost of pro-
duction”.
Full story, page 4Cheap
chicken
may have
had its chips
Louise Eccles
Consumer Affairs Editor‘Rid Commons
of cosy culture
of debauchery’
The Tory MP Neil Parish, 65, who has resigned after being caught watching pornography on his phone
in the Commons chamber, said he had been searching for a tractor website when he “accidentally”
came across porn. In “a moment of madness” he had returned to the site later Full story, page 6PORN MP QUITS, BLAMING TRACTORS
The Commons Speaker and a
female former leader of the House
are calling time on the hedonistic
culture dragging down the reputa-
tion of parliament.
Sir Lindsay Hoyle and Dame
Andrea Leadsom are demanding
an overhaul of working practices,
which often involve the consump-
tion of large amounts of alcohol,
following a spate of allegations of
sexual misconduct and bullying
against MPs.
Leadsom, who led the cross-
party panel that oversaw the crea-
tion of a whistleblowing service for
Commons staff in 2018, believes
the complaints process has not had
long enough to bed in and lead to a
change in culture.
She said: “Things haven’t
changed and that’s because there
aren’t enough cases coming
through and it’s taking too long for
investigations to come to an end.
“It’s only when you see people
getting done for being blind drunk
and subject to the appropriate
sanctions that people will start to
think twice about their behaviour.”
The development comes after
Neil Parish yesterday announced
he would resign as an MP after he
admitted he had twice watched
pornography in the House of Com-
Caroline Wheeler
and Harry Yorke
W Hoyle: Ban members employing own staff
W Leadsom: Shame MPs who get blind drunk
concerns about the latest #MeToo
scandal.
Hoyle, 64, is working with politi-
cal parties and the House of Com-
mons authorities to establish a
“Speaker’s conference” as part of
his efforts to bring MPs back into
line. The committee, which was
last convened in 2008 and is made
up of MPs, would examine the
structure whereby politicians
directly employ their staff.
Last week, it was revealed that
three cabinet ministers and two
shadow cabinet ministers were
among 56 MPs who are facing alle-
gations of sexual misconduct.
The most serious allegations
uncovered this week expose an
alcohol-fuelled culture that harks
back to a bygone age and would be
out of place in any other modern
work setting.
Lockdown and the closure of
bars on the parliamentary estate
for much of the past two years, as
well as an influx of a generation of
young MPs following the 2019 gen-
eral election, has contributed to
the problem.
A senior Westminster figure
said: “Some of the MPs from the
2019 intake are very wet behind
the ears and are barely out of
university. It seems they have
rather adopted a freshers’ week
mentality to socialising now the
Continued on page 2→BBC POLITICS SOUTH WEST/PA