"Why I Like Vladimir Putin"

Holly Jones writes:

A deliberately provocative title ensured Peter Hitchens’ talk, Why I Like Vladimir Putin, packed out a lecture theatre in the Queens building on Tuesday 15th October.  The event, organised by Bristol’s International Affairs society, had one of their best turn outs and they described it as ‘an utterly enthralling evening’.

The Mail on Sunday columnist delivered a short speech on what it is about Putin which impresses him so – chiefly, his respect for the principle of national sovereignty, as illustrated by the Russians’ diplomatic prowess in preventing a Western war in Syria. The seizure of Syria’s chemical weaponry serves, says Hitchens, as a badge of honour in international relations, and has been praised far and wide – not least by the British Labour peer Lord Truscott, who went as far as to nominate Putin for a Nobel Peace Prize.

The former foreign correspondent based in Soviet Moscow (‘a filthy slum of shortages and misery and corruption’), withstood a barrage of difficult questions regarding his outlook on Russia’s armed forces (“absolutely savage and horrible”) and the recently enacted homophobic laws (“I don’t really believe in boycotting the games…I don’t believe it achieves anything”), replying with the characteristic self-assurance Question Time audiences will have become accustomed to.

Hitchens also discussed foreign affairs more generally, from the Rose and Orange revolutions in Tbilisi and Kiev to the contested post-Cold War border-making in eastern Europe, dropping in wry additions to facts (“The Treaty of Westphalia 1648…which of course you’ll all be familiar with”) as dry-humoured digs at his audience of Bristol students. This and his curious use of Tony Blair’s full name - ‘Anthony’ – creates a sense of contrarianism not many other political commentators can command.

Many a gasp went around at the words: ‘The principle of leaving people to get on with their own affairs inside their sovereign borders is so important that you might have sometimes to stand by and let horrible things happen’.  It seems Bristol’s students value political conscience over absolutist political principles.

Despite this, the ‘Hated’ Peter Hitchens (a self-styled caricature) presided over a civil hour and a half. His talk of living in the same building as high-ranking Kremlin officials and having tanks rolling up outside his door shed a little light what made the man sick of the repeated ‘hypocrisy’ of ‘selfless’ nations: “selfish motives are the only ones you can rely on”.

It will take more than Peter Hitchens to persuade international actors that non-interventionism is the path to undertake, but this is why he likes Putin so much.