Conscience Claws

In February, I had hoped that neoliberal and neoconservative opinion of Alexei "Cockroaches" Navalny might have been shifting towards reality. That was when Amnesty International revoked its Prisoner of Conscience status from him. He had had no more claim to that than "Tommy Robinson" would have had.

But no. We are expected to gush over really quite small demonstrations in favour of this thoroughly nasty man whose electoral unpopularity is mercifully well-established, and of whom most people in Russia are lucky enough never to have heard.

The only thing worth saying about those demonstrations, such as they are, is that anything like them will soon be illegal in Britain. The BBC seems to think that they are already illegal in Russia, but it would no doubt show us any baton-wielding, or mounted charges, or use of the sides of shields as weapons, or groups of policemen stripping young women naked in the street, or indeed any Police presence whatever. For that kind of thing, you already need to come here, even before the Statute Book is graced by the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act.