Vladimir Putin and Xi Jinping …the leaders for life of nations in chaos
WITH absolutely no sense of irony – brutal dictatorships don’t do irony – tomorrow they will celebrate Victory Day in Russia.
The jackboots will be gleaming. The lines of tanks will stretch to the horizon.
The Red Army will goose-step with the carefully choreographed precision of chorus girls. And a grateful population will honour the visionary wisdom of President Vladimir Putin.
And the derisive, mocking laughter will echo around the world.
Because this year Victory Day — when Russia remembers the end of what they call the Great Patriotic War, a day after we celebrate our own VE Day — will be a bit different.
After the unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, Russia’s armed forces stand revealed as a rabble of murderers, sadists, rapists, looters and cowards.
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Putin himself will be remembered as the Russian President who turned his country into the most despised nation on earth, a rogue state that sought to annihilate a brave nation that its incompetent armed forces could not — and will never — conquer.
This year’s Victory Day in Moscow marks a Russian failure of historic proportions. Almost six million Ukrainians forced from their homes. Peaceful cities reduced to smoking ruins.
And Russia’s insane violence has pushed the planet closer to nuclear conflict than it has been for a lifetime.
There will be no victory for Putin or Russia in Ukraine. No matter how many cities Russia destroys, or how many innocents are raped, tortured and killed.
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Russia — and Putin’s — abject failure is plain to see. Celebrate that, comrade.
And Mad Vlad is not the only all- powerful autocrat currently having a career blip. China’s President Xi Jinping has come out as a leader with feet of clay — and brains to match.
At exactly the moment that Putin is revealed as a weak, deluded dictator who has made the move that will finish him, Xi Jinping has led his country down a dead end which will crush China’s fantasy of world domination.
Xi’s “zero Covid” policy — attempting to eradicate coronavirus with brutally enforced lockdowns — has pushed China to economic, social and political breaking point.
As the free world learns to live with Covid, Shanghai — population 26million — has been in draconian lockdown for more than a month.
In nearly 50 sprawling cities across China, the scenes in Shanghai are being repeated, with an estimated 370million Chinese citizens currently under some form of lockdown.
Going hungry, going crazy. Not a great look for President Xi, who has warned darkly about “any slackening” from his lunatic policy of zero Covid.
At the start of the pandemic, China crowed that it was beating the virus it exported to the world. President Xi boasted, “the pandemic once again proves the superiority of the socialist system with Chinese characteristics.”
How’s that working out, oh mighty one? We know now lockdowns alone were never going to win the war against Covid.
And Xi’s national vanity will never admit it, but China’s domestic vaccinations are simply not as effective as the jabs produced in the decadent West. And millions of older Chinese have not been vaccinated, even with the local jabs.
Xi knows that ending the lockdowns would let the highly transmissible Omicron variant rip through a sparsely and poorly vaccinated population. The consequences would be horrific.
And so, China marches on zero Covid’s road to nowhere, with no way out in sight. All this is catastrophic news for Xi Jinping, who is still hoping that November’s 20th congress of the Chinese Communist Party will extend his term in office indefinitely.
Putin and Xi both seek to be their country’s leader for life, the only beloved Fuhrer their grateful people will ever need. But both Putin and Xi have made apocalyptic cock-ups.
And even the brainwashed population of China and Russia must one day see the damage that has been done to their country by the monstrous ego of one megalomaniacal.
As Putin smiles and waves at Russia’s goose-stepping thugs as they parade through Red Square tomorrow, the civilised world will be asking the big question. Who are the Nazis now?
Olivia shows flakes who wears the trousers
WHEN I was a spiky-haired lad, Grease was considered the height of anodyne, harmless entertainment. The very definition of MOR.
In our newly woke age, Grease is rather more controversial.
The last time the film was shown on the BBC, it was accused of sexism, racism, homophobia and slut-shaming.
The new West End production of Grease tugs its forelock to thin-skinned modern audiences with a diverse cast, same-sex dance couples and a brunette Sandy, which is allegedly going to make Grease’s leading lady more “empowered”.
Personally, I can’t think of a more empowered female character in film history than Olivia Newton-John’s defiantly blonde Sandy, at the end of the original film, resplendent in sprayed-on shiny trousers and making John Travolta bark at the moon.
Older readers will recall Greased Lightning, Grease’s homage to a car that was reportedly “a real p**** wagon”.
I imagine Greased Lightning is now an electric car with a driver who has taken a vow of chastity.
3 Lions is love letter
THE witless suits at the Football Association are desperately backtracking after giving every indication they wanted to prevent Three Lions from becoming England’s official anthem at the World Cup in Qatar.
“Too arrogant.” “Too partisan.” “Might offend other nations.”
Surely they’re thinking of the national anthem of Germany?
Although they are now gushing that they love nothing more than a good old “It’s coming home” singalong, the FA has clearly disappeared right up its own Wembley Way.
Three Lions is one of the great football songs, which all have a wistful, yearning quality about them.
Stand at Anfield as Liverpool fans sing You’ll Never Walk Alone and you will carry the memory to your grave.
Witness West Ham fans singing I’m Forever Blowing Bubbles.
All those hard men from Essex and the East End singing with touching vulnerability about their broken dreams. You will never forget it.
And to hear a stadium, or indeed a pub, full of England fans singing that hopeful, wistful chorus is to hear the story of our national game in words, music and a melody that rips your heart from your chest.
Deep in their blood and bones, any England fan understands the story told by Three Lions, which was co-written by comedians David Baddiel and Frank Skinner.
One afternoon of magic then a lifetime of disappointment, despair and botched penalty shootouts, with the dream that this time it will be different.
The FA is too stupid to see that Three Lions is a love song.
'Who is Lorraine?'
SUSANNA REID – fabulously fierce interviewing Boris in Downing Street – is dead right. Lorraine Kelly is a legend.
Boris got stick galore for blurting, “Who is Lorraine?” when Susanna was grilling him.
But can you imagine the stick that Boris would have got if he confessed that he never started work until he had watched Lorraine’s show?
Gala's wore games
IT was all on display at New York’s Met Gala on Monday. The glamour, the glitz, the Covid hypocrisy.
Riddle me this – if Hillary Clinton wasn’t obliged to wear a face mask on the red carpet, then why was the flunky who attended to the hem of her red frock?
Meanwhile, Kim Kardashian squeezed into the very dress made famous by Marilyn Monroe when she wore it to sing “Happy Birthday” to President John F Kennedy and made that innocent ditty sound like a dirty phone call.
Dubbed “the original naked dress”, Marilyn caused a sensation when she serenaded her President in 1962.
Kim wouldn’t even manage to wake Joe Biden from his afternoon nap.
Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame
A BUSY week at the Rock And Roll Hall Of Fame.
Dolly Parton, was “honoured and humbled” to be inducted, as were Eminem, Lionel Richie and Duran Duran.
Global treasures, each and every one.
But none of them has got a rock and roll bone in their body
Glad to be 'gay'
BORIS thinks that left-wing lawyers will derail the Government’s plan to ship illegal immigrants off to Rwanda. But the plan seems destined to stall before the liberal lawyers get their filthy briefs out.
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We are told that no gay illegal immigrants will be shipped to Rwanda because central Africa is not noted for its progressive attitude to LGBT rights.
So why would anyone clambering out of a leaky dinghy on Dover beach ever admit to being heterosexual?