WHAT MADNESS IS THIS?
Murderous Putin is back on the world stage thanks to an orange idiot in the White House
By one of those curious juxtapositions, last Friday had two events of great significance. VJ Day commemorating victory over Japan, a war marked by such cruelty and brutality but remembered most for its terrible, epoch-changing ending, and the meeting in Alaska notable for the victory of a criminal dictator responsible for more than 1.5 million deaths.
Let's look at VJ Day first because I suspect that most people of my generation, born a year after the end of WW2, know much more about the fight against Hitler's wickedness than the 'Forgotten War' in the Far East. I was in my teens when I first encountered the true horror of that particular theatre; the father of a schoolfriend had been a senior officer under Orde Wingate in the Chindits and he told us about the conditions of fighting in Burma. For a mollycoddled kid who found my CCF uniform too bloody scratchy, reports of the humidity, the lack of food and water, the day and night marches through the thickest jungle, and the sheer barbarity of the Japanese ware almost unbearable just to hear.
It explains why I have never owned a Japanese car, yet thought nothing of owning two VWs, three Audis and a Porsche, all three the brainchild of Hitler's greatest engineer, Ferdinand Porsche. But never a Toyota, Datsun or Lexus. Well, I never pretended to be logical.
Friday's moving service at the National Memorial Arboretum brought together, probably for the last time, the few survivors of the Death Railway, 250 miles of track through mountains and forest, all cut down by the hands of starving captured locals and PoWs. More than 100,000 died in the attempt, including 12,000 Allied prisoners, mostly from malaria, dysentery and sheer exhaustion. It was as terrible as Jewish and other prisoners dropping dead from starvation and beatings and disease inflicted on them by the Nazis. Though the numbers in the concentration camps were greater.
Among the prisoners working on the Thai-Burma Death Railway was the cartoonist Ronald Searle, creator of St Trinian's, who painted sketches of his fellow prisoners using human hair for a brush. He was determined to provide a legacy of the horror they were all enduring and hid the drawings under his bunk hoping that, if he died, they would be found by liberators. When the war was over Searle was alive, barely, weighing little more than six stones. Happily for us he lived to the age of 91 but said that the experiences in Burma dictated the course of the rest of his life.
Those of us who never had to fight are the lucky ones. My mother's father and three brothers all died either in or as a result of the First World War, one of them being awarded the Military Cross for gallantry. My stepfather endured the worst non-prisoner conditions imaginable on the Russian Convoys and was finally given his medal by the Russian ambassador shortly before he died, aged 90.
My father volunteered from school aged 18 when the last war broke out. He was one of four boys barely out of the Sixth Form who were sent for training with the North Irish Horse regiment. By chance, Dad was recalled because he had told the recruitment people he was about to be articled as a surveyor. He was immediately diverted to building latrines on the Antrim coast and, though he didn't think so at the time, he was lucky. All three of his school friends were dead within three months.
We all know war is dreadful which is why the sight of Putin being given the red-carpet treatment in Alaska on Friday, the glad-handing and arms on his shoulder by Donald Trump whose only motive in bringing the war in Ukraine is personal gain, was so grotesque. All the empty threats of bad consequences if Putin doesn't cease and desist were just that - empty. He's like a drunk, played-out cowboy who is full of talk but couldn't hit a bullseye from 10 paces. Completely outplayed by a war criminal. For once I am forced to agree with Boris Johnson who said it was a vomit-inducing spectacle.
And now Putin is back on the world stage, in from the cold thanks to an idiot with no understanding of history who thought he could get the better of him. The war in Ukraine will likely end in humiliation for poor, brave Zelensky. By being forced to give his attackers the land they have captured with its rare earth minerals, and forgetting any idea of Joining NATO.
That is Donald Trump's idea of peace. Might is always right which is why he supports Putin and that other dreadful war criminal, Netanyahu. And sadly he has a cheerleader in Downing Street.
One thing is sure; whatever the final communique following current negotiations involving Ukraine, the US and Europe says, Putin will be back. Maybe not in Ukraine but certainly in other parts of the old Soviet Union. And Agent Orange will sit in admiration.
*****
The launch party for Andrew Lownie's biography of the Yorks was a splendid affair, not because of its inevitable sprinkling of hacks* but for the people we didn't know, the diplomats and spooks who had come forward to give their accounts of the oafish prince. One delightful and rather grand woman, a former First Secretary in various of our embassies, was succinct in her summary: "Andrew is thick, charmless and without a single grace".
The bad news for the Yorks, as if it could get worse, is that dozens of people who originally felt they couldn't talk to Lownie are now having second thoughts and are ensuring that a revised edition will be even more damaging. Lownie is a monarchist, but a sort of Establishment anarchist if you like. He agrees with me, and I suspect the vast majority of the population, that it is time to review the whole issue of the Royal Family.
Why do they not have to pay inheritance tax like their poor bloody subjects; why does the Freedom of Information Act not apply to the Sovereign, the first and second in line to the throne and, would you believe, their households? And how come neither MPs nor peers sitting in the Lords are allowed to ask questions about the Royals when it comes to misbehaviour or abuse of their positions?
The latest news is that Prince William has decided on a 'forever home', Forest Lodge in Windsor Great Park. He says that even when he is King he will live there and not in Buckingham Palace. So what will become of that vast edifice at the end of The Mall? Step forward Sir Tim Martin, visionary founder of the Wetherspoons pub and hotel chain who has made a great job of turning unused and unloved historic buildings into pubs serving half decent food and booze very cheaply.
He's done it with the Royal Victoria Pavilion in Ramsgate, his biggest outlet and very good it is says my hard-to-please spy. So maybe future hordes of tourists can look forward to the Wetherspoon's Buck House Pub With Rooms. Complete with soggy carpets.
* Some of the hacks at the party included Robert Hardman, Neil Mackwood, Valentine Low, Ingrid Seward and Richard Kay (who clearly reads the Drone with extra care), and the fragrant Georgie Campbell or as she would have it, Lady Colin Campbell.
*****
My old friend Rick McNeill has come up with some excellent suggestions to replace the daft 'slept with' (see Letters) I particularly like 'lain with (for vicars)' except that it would rule out knee tremblers against the wall. And the unordained. My crisp oncer is still locked away in my pocket.
*****
AND FINALLY
Heatherdown Prep School which once attempted to educate Prince Andrew had three loos for visitors. They were clearly marked LADIES, GENTS and CHAUFFEURS.
ALAN FRAME
19 August 2025
