NEWS 5
7 May 2022 THE WEEK...and how they were covered
What next?
It’s time to start taking Russia’s nuclear threats seriously, said Peggy Noonan in The Wall Street
Journal. Shaken by his side’s losses – estimated at 15,000 troops killed and 60 aircraft lost –
Putin is using ever more alarming rhetoric. Last week, he described Russia’s test of its Sarmat II
nuclear missile as “food for thought”, warning of a “lightning fast” response if the West directly
intervenes in Ukraine. “We have all the tools for this,” he said. “We’ll use them, if needed.” Such
threats betray weakness, said Mark Galeotti in the New Statesman. Russia’s army is mired in a
disastrous war, its economy battered by sanctions, and its global standing irreparably damaged.
“Its nuclear weapons – or at least their threat – remains one card Moscow can still play.”
Conventional wisdom says a nuclear conflict is “unthinkable”, said Allister Heath in The Daily
Telegraph. What if that’s wrong? In the Cold War, there were several near-disasters: a Soviet
submarine officer, for instance, defied an order to fire a nuclear torpedo on US ships. Soviet
documents show the USSR was willing to use tactical (battlefield) nuclear weapons early in any
conflict with Nato. Is Moscow today? What if Russia launched an “accidental” strike – even a
conventional one – on a Nato ally such as Poland, or used tactical nuclear weapons in Ukraine?
A Russian attack on a Nato state is still highly unlikely, said Max Boot in The Washington Post.
“Putin isn’t suicidal, and he knows that the US response would be devastating.” Even a limited
nuclear strike on Ukraine could see Nato use non-nuclear weapons, to “sink the entire Russian
Black Sea fleet” and destroy much of its army. No, Putin is more likely to escalate with
conventional military power, and could use Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on 9 May to
announce “an expanded war effort”. Certainly, Russia’s chances of “a quick symbolic win” by
that date have vanished, said Anthony Loyd in The Times. That gives the West time to get more
military hardware into Donbas, eroding Russia’s advantage in heavy weaponry. In short, then, all
sides are now gearing up for “a long-term armed struggle likely to last months, possibly years”.
What the commentators said
Putin could use next
week’s Victory Day parade
to announce a “mass
mobilisation” of Russians
to fight the war, Defence
Secretary Ben Wallace has
warned. But Western officials
said such an announcement
would require Russia to
ditch its stance that it’s only
involved in a “special military
operation”, and to admit it’s
at war. The Kremlin also cast
doubt on the reports.Russia’s defence minister,
Sergei Shoigu, issued a
warning to Nato not to send
further military aid. Moscow
will view any Nato convoys
carrying weapons in Ukraine
as a “legitimate target”, he
said, raising the prospect
of a military confrontation
between Russia and Nato.What next?
“Parliament isn’t quite the rowdy boys’ club it was when I started as a lobby reporter in 1997,”
said Gaby Hinsliff in The Guardian. Remember how Tony Blair’s newly elected female MPs
were greeted in the Commons chamber by Tories “shouting ‘melons!’ and making breast-
juggling gestures”? But while such overt sexism may be less evident today, misogynistic
attitudes and untoward behaviour remain a significant problem – one that recent reforms
have failed adequately to address. Critics complain that the ICGS, set up in the wake of the
Pestminster row, is far too “slow and bureaucratic”. Nobody should want summary justice,
said Nick Timothy in The Daily Telegraph, but the rules do need to be toughened up. It’s
“ridiculous”, for instance, that voters lack the power to recall MPs such as Rob Roberts, who
was suspended from the Tory Party for 12 weeks last year after being found guilty of sexually
harassing a member of staff, or the formerly Labour, now independent, MP Claudia Webbe,
who was given a suspended sentence for threatening a female love rival with an acid attack.
Most MPs are of course neither bullies nor sex pests, said Paul Goodman on Conservative
Home. But the combination of lots of ambitious people, absent families, plentiful bars and
younger staff will always be a “volatile cocktail”. These sleaze scandals do tend to surface more
frequently when parties have been in power a long time, said Anne McElvoy in the London
Evening Standard. Administrations can grow “morally stale as well as politically tired”. Once
the fray of this week’s local elections is over, the Tories must work with other parties to make
“cultural change” in Westminster “more than just another glib pledge”. Changing the ingrained
habits of institutions is very hard, said former Tory minister Nicky Morgan in the Financial
Times, but the forthcoming restoration of the Palace of Westminster could help bring about
that process. “Perhaps everyone spending several years outside the building might finally break
the current culture and build a parliamentary workplace fit for the 21st century.”
What the commentators said
Tory chair Oliver Dowden
has pledged that half the
party’s MPs will be female
after the next election.Caroline Nokes, chair of
the Equalities Committee,
said the Tories could display
“real evidence of change”
by selecting a female
candidate for the Tiverton
and Honiton seat vacated
by Parish. Several Tories are
also understood to have
approached the former
Brexit minister, Lord Frost,
suggesting he quit the Lords
and put his name forward.
One ally described Frost to
the Daily Telegraph as “a
proper Conservative” with
“star quality”, who could
even be a potential
successor to Boris Johnson.As an illustration of the sheer complexity of government, consider
the news that, in dozens of areas, housebuilding projects have
been suspended because of rules designed to protect the
environment. Introduced by Natural England, these stipulate that developments in designated
locations can only go ahead if it can be shown that they won’t lead to an overall increase in the run-
off of nitrogen or phosphate into local rivers. A lot of people think more should be done to protect
our rivers, hence the rules. A lot of people think we need more housing, hence local authorities’
house-building targets. As things stand, two arguably laudable aims have ended up in conflict,
leaving councils, as Rosie Pearson of the Community Planning Alliance told The Guardian, “in a
complete mess”. One department is ordering them to “build build build”, at the same time as Natural
England and Defra are telling them to stop building. What is frustrating, says Pearson, is that the rules
don’t even address the real problem, which is the discharge into rivers of untreated sewage by water
companies. Here, there is also regulation. But the regulator, Ofwat, itself has two conflicting aims: to
stop water companies polluting the environment, but at the same time to prevent them going bust.
As the former FT journalist Jonathan Ford explained in his podcast A Long Time in Finance, water
companies seek to wriggle out of their responsibilities to the natural world by
citing the rigours of the financial world; and Ofwat finds it all too easy to let them.THE WEEK
Caroline LawSubscriptions: 0330-333 9494; [email protected] © Future PLC 2022. All rights reserved. The Week is a registered
trademark. Neither the whole of this publication nor any part of it may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in
any form or by any means without the written permission of the publishers
Future PLC, 121-
141 Westbourne Terrace, London
W2 6JR
Editorial office:020-3890 3787
[email protected]Production Manager:(Current Affairs): Lucy Davis Maaya Mistry Account Director/Marketing Director
Inserts:Account Director: Abdul Ahad Jonathan Claxton Classified: Henry Haselock
Advertising Director – Current Affairs: Kate Colgan
Managing Director, The Week: Richard Campbell
Senior VP Women’s, Homes and News: Sophie Wybrew-BondEditor-in-chief: Caroline Law
Editor: Theo Tait
Deputy editor: Consultant editor:Harry Nicolle Jenny McCartney
City editor: Jane Lewis Assistant editors: Robin de Peyer,
Leaf Arbuthnot Rob McLuhan, Catherine Heaney, Xandie Nutting, Contributing editors: Simon Wilson,
Digby Warde-Aldam, Tom Yarwood, William Skidelsky Editorial: Anoushka Petit, Tigger Ridgwell, Aine O’Connor,
Amrita GillArt director: Picture editor: Nathalie Fowler Annabelle Whitestone Sub-editor: Simmy Richman
Production editor: Alanna O’Connell
Editorial chairman and co-founder: Jeremy O’Grady