Mark Dolan: Putin is an evil monster - but one of our making

Vladimir Putin has given the arrogant, complacent West a right royal kick up the a***.

As President of Russia, an economically insignificant country, Vlad the mad, in two short weeks, is changing the world.

This pint size dictator’s appalling invasion of Ukraine has put our absurd two-year overreaction to a seasonal respiratory virus into perspective. In fact old Vlad has basically ended the pandemic single-handedly.

Have you heard a squeak about vaccines or case numbers or hospitalisations since he entered Ukraine? Nothing. Because for the last two years, the West didn't have anything better to do, than bankrupt itself, junk its own values and destroy its own societies, for a nasty virus yes, but one that largely threatens the very old and the ill. Like a good number of diseases, I think you’ll find.

We’ve had it too good in the West, for too long. We are spoiled brats and are now paying the price. We've been fussing over which pronouns to use, obsessing over our history, which is largely glorious, we’ve been living on a diet of borrowed public money, and we’ve been spending precious resources appointing diversity officers and painting rainbow pedestrian crossings everywhere – the only consequence of which I can find, is to confuse guide dogs. And we have walked blindly into this crisis, one of our own making.

Vladimir Putin, President Xi of China and the 2021 slimmer of the year North Korea’s Kim Jon Un - close to his target weight now – just needs to cut those carbs have been tooling up and boosting their military power. And you can be sure terror organisations like ISIS have done much the same. We’ve even given that hateful mob of gangsters the Taleban their own country – Afghanistan – and the colossal arsenal of weapons, tanks, planes, helicopters and ammunition that we left behind. And on the back of the billions Germany, Italy and others pay for Russian gas, old Vladimir has also been rearming and topping up his own nuclear arsenal, whilst we here in Britain have spent the last two years being paid to stay at home, getting even fatter on fast food, binge watching Netflix, tweeting about how unfair the world is, trying to get people sacked for having an opinion or telling a joke and announcing to anyone who cares, that we are he/him, she/her or them/they.

We’re buggered, is what we actually are.

China is the real story behind this of course, and they can’t wait to get their dirty mits on Taiwan and they won’t stop there. As China marches on to become the world’s predominant economic and military superpower, here in Britain we've been deleting problematic episodes of Fawlty Towers and sacking college professors for saying that men have testicles and women have a cervix. Well here in the west, we've got no balls. As we have allowed our collective national debts to spiral, accelerated of course during the pandemic, we have, for decades now, underinvested in the military. We thought we were so clever. We thought we'd won the argument, we thought we'd won the moral high ground and we thought we'd won the war. When in fact we’d won nothing. And we now, risk losing everything.

Putin is an evil monster, but one of our making – he is the monster we fed.

For too long, we underestimated him and enriched him, as a result of our own baffling green policies. Why drill for the coal, gas and shale beneath our feet, when we can buy it from dangerous dictators? Makes perfect sense. Putin has achieved a lot in the last two weeks, not least causing DFS to sell out of extra large dining tables.

You know what they say, big table, small ego.

We will have to get around the table with this awful man at some point I’m afraid. A negotiated settlement friendly to Russia is most likely our only way out of this.

Putin’s rise has exposed all western countries’ economic, diplomatic, strategic and military arrogance, short-sightedness and incompetence. Our bizarre obsession with so-called safety over the last two years will seem like a sick joke, when we confront the extraordinary peril of a global nuclear conflict, which could see all of us perish. That’s what danger looks like.

As Michael P Senger who’s written a book about China points out: "The response to Covid has cost the United States over sixteen trillion dollars."

Just half a trillion invested in Russia, perhaps with favourable trading terms or even investment, could've prevented the horrors we are now witnessing. The West rejected Russia's desire to enter NATO in the early 2000s at the start of Putin’s reign and we sent Russia running into the arms of China. That's the axis of evil, times 100. Putin’s appalling invasion of Ukraine changes everything and the world will not be the same again.

Boris is saved by the way, he's been brilliant so far, engaging with world leaders, supporting Ukraine and striking just the right tone. And that’s it for the pandemic. That’s all folks. The fat lady has sung and she’s on her way home in a cab. I don't want to hear a syllable about case rates or variants ever again. You can either worry about a nasty flu virus, or worry about a radioactive mushroom cloud, courtesy of Moscow, hanging over London, Birmingham, Cardiff, Belfast, Liverpool, Manchester or Edinburgh.

Britain and the West need to man up, tool up and grow a pair. And we must come together as one nation, Great Britain, irrespective of race, colour, creed or religion. Our diversity is our strength not our weakness, as long as cranks on social media and in our institutions, flogging dodgy ideology, don’t divide us, in the way that they seek. Ukrainians have taught us, that it's a strong sense of patriotism, nationhood and unity which are the ultimate weapon against an assault from the likes of Putin. He underestimated the good people of Ukraine, who have come together, and now fight for their country. I interviewed a woman in Kiev this week, who spoke to me from a cupboard and who had a Kalashnikov rifle by her side.

So what is the plan of action for the West, to see off this existential threat? Our economy must be the total priority for the foreseeable future. Because as well as schools, hospitals and the police, it's the economy that will pay for the colossal military investment that we now need. That means a massive army, navy and air force. And it means sophisticated nuclear weapons, tanks, helicopters and planes. That’s what “staying safe” looks like folks, not a rag on your mush, a squirt of hand sanitiser as you go into Morrisons, or a one way system of arrows in Boots.

We have to have energy independence. Net zero is gone. It's over too. Another thing that Putin has unwittingly put the kibosh on.

I want us to go green and we will, but right now we are at war, even if many haven’t realised it yet. We’ve got 500 years of coal beneath us - let's get digging. We've got at least two decades of North Sea oil - drill baby drill. And rather than concrete up shale gas sites in this country, let’s go fracking crazy.

The West can win folks. But only if we man up. And wake up too.