Yesterday we awoke to a temperature of -1° but an intimation that it would rise to as much as 10° which means that we are starting to see the start of spring-like weather. As we had bad weather in the autumn and Meg was ill around the time of New Year, this has seemed a long and hard winter for us both and I am relieved that its end is in sight. It used to be that Meg and I had a winter break with the Saga holiday chain in late January but that was so long ago that we had forgotten how we used to draw the sting of a British winter. Yesterday was St David's Day in Wales. This time last year, we actually did attend a St David's Day in our local Methodist church but as I remember there were more Welsh hymns than anything else - but there again the little musical festival was being performed by the Methodist church's own organist so this is hardly a surprise. When Meg and I first went to Leicester, we were quite used to what must have been the migration of the Welsh eastwards into the English Midlands during the depression years. The head of the school of Business and Management was a very cultured Welshman (Emrys John) whilst his deputy was the most delightful man, Langley Lewis. I have very fond memories of Lang because he came along to see me after the injuries I sustained when I had both legs broken by a runaway car in 1973. He developed the habit, which I think was an excellent one, of making sure that he had no real work to be done on a Friday afternoon and encouraged anybody who wanted to drop in on him and to have a moan about life in general and work in particular. He provided a sympathetic ear and one always felt better after such conversations. In fact, Meg and I had the good fortune of once meeting up with the Chief Executive of Pretoria in South Africa when we were attending a conference in Toluca, Mexico. This man, who I think was called Hans was somewhat unusual as a very liberal Afrikaner with a very strong accent - a liberal Afrikaner rather sounds like an oxymoron (contradictory ideas in the same phrase such as 'bitter-sweet' or the French expression 'jolie-laird') This executive had developed the practice of always having an 'open house' from about 6.00pm to 7.00pm each day in a suite liberally supplied with drink and anybody could drop in for a drink and a chat about anything at all.In these days of cost efficiency and 'working from home' such practices as these would be very rare these days but I suspect that they are enormously beneficial in helping organisations to function effectively. In fact, there is always something a little special about Friday afternoons when the week's work is largely done unless, of course, you are desperately trying to fulfil a deadline which is sometimes the case.
The more I have reflected upon and seen re-runs of the massive row in the White House where the Ukrainian leader was addressed as though he was a recalcitrant schoolboy, I am convinced that this was to some extent a trap into which Zelenskyy walked. The principal 'attack dog' was J D Vance, the American Vice President who has form in this respect by coming to the Munich security conference and telling the UK that the biggest security threat in the UK was not Russia but the diminution of the right to 'free speech' in the UK (the basis for this extraordinary outburst was an American citizen who had fallen foul of the exclusion order around abortion clinics and the fact that the UK was demanding that Apple, as an American corporation, should not allow those of criminal intent to hide behind Apple's security policies) The meeting in the White House was tense but not bad natured for 25 minutes until the point at which J D Vance accessed Zelenskyy of 'disrespect' because he tried to educate Vance that diplomacy was not always the answer. An agreement had apparently once been made with Putin over Crimea which Putin had reneged upon and could well do so again unless there was an American backdrop. Zelenskyy did not make matters better for himself when he told Trump that the USA did not how it 'felt' (to be a country in conflict) as the USA was separated by huge oceans. Zelenskyy was reflecting a natural European view that the Ukraine is a small landlocked country surrounded by a big, powerful and aggressive neighbour in Russia and the USA could not conceptualise this situation nor was it ever part of their mindset. The fact that Zelenskyy was speaking in his second language did not help, either, and Trump seized the opportunity like a playground bully to put the boot in. But I think that Vance, as a long term critic of the Ukraine conflict, had been itching for an opportunity to start a fight and only had ten minutes left in which to do it. In the meanwhile, the Europeans are doing their best both to support Ukraine and also to act as a bridge to the USA but whether Starmer will succeed is too early to say at this point. Trump himself evidently wishes to normalise relations with Russia and had steadfastly refused to criticise an evident aggressor. Matthew Syed writing in 'The Sunday Times' is almost a lone voice saying that the Europeans and the UK in particular should stop paying obeisance to Trump. But the only consequence of this would be at the wrong end of economic relationships with the USA and to be prepared to fill the gap completely if the Americans decided to withdraw all of their support for the Ukraine completely. Even if the money could be raised, the hardware would have to be bought from the USA which could simply refuse to supply us. Perhaps the best to be hoped for is to desperately play for time as the Russian economy is not in a good place and the ability to sustain the conflict for years to come is itself questionable.
© Mike Hart [2025]