I’ve always liked, and believed in, the phrase: follow the money.  Almost every good and bad thing that happens in geopolitics has a dollar sign behind it.  It isn’t always obvious but money, and people scheming how they can get it, or how to keep it, is usually lurking in the background.  Money is the…

Let’s suppose, fairly safely, that Putin is a thug, a megalomaniac even, as the Western media has it. In which case, calling him names will be water off a duck’s back. It might be cathartic but it won’t help Ukrainians. Will severe financial, commercial and trade sanctions on Russia help? Will seizing the assets of…

A week can be a long time in war. The Russian president cut a diminished figure as he met with the same National Security Council by video link from an undisclosed location on Thursday. There were dark patches beneath his eyes and he seemed to falter as he stood to honour the Russian dead. Away…

Cats – it had to happen – my favourite musical genre, featuring many of my favourite ever bands. By 1978, after Punk’s initial incendiary impact had waned, it was clear that “the Seventies” as we knew them, were over. Disco and various ponderous excruciating MOR dinosaurs had been condemned to the musical dustbin of history.…