So What Really Happened?

 Two incidents- unrelated except insofar as they involved the use of poison- are bigged up- mainly by British politicians and the British media- to induce the general public to hate Russia and Russia's client, the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

The first incident happens behind screens (so to speak.) Much of the information that is released turns out to be untrue. The official story keeps changing. Nobody dies.

The second incident happens in an enclave inaccessible to independent witnesses. 

The US President goes off the deep end- as is his wont, 

A response is hurried through. The British cabinet acts unilaterally, refusing to involve Parliament- which is quite possibly unconstitutional.

The response takes the form of missile attacks on what the attackers claim to have been chemical factories in Syria. Advance warning seems to have been given and a number of empty buildings are reduced to powder. 

We can only guess at what was going on behind the scenes. One can't help noticing that the drama followed on from visits by the Saudi crown prince (who has skin in the game) to Washington, London and Paris.  The two triggering incidents remain highly mysterious. Neither would appear to have served the interests of the supposed perpetrators- in fact rather the opposite. The missile attack seems like a costly face-saving gesture- designed to remind those who might have forgotten it that NATO rules, OK- but otherwise achieving nothing. The impression remains, hovering like dust in the air- of a complicated and highly dangerous plan that was bungled and had to be aborted.

A Generation Passing Away

Two giants of European cinema have recently died. 

Stephane Audran was magisterial. She had poise, she had authority, she had class- and she starred in some of the great movies of the 60s and 70s- including Chabrol's le Boucher and Bunuel's career-redefining masterpiece The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie.

Milos Forman made a number of Hollywood classics- including One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest and Amadeus- but the smaller, regime-bothering films he made as a young gun in Czechoslovakia may have been even better. I have particularly fond memory of The Fireman's Ball- a satire on the sort of people who like wearing uniform- which is like a Mid-European Dad's Army but with cinematic values. 

Not In The Name Of 78% Of Us

 It always grates on me when a journalist says "Britain did such a thing" or even "we did such a thing" when what they mean is that the Prime Minister or Foreign Secretary or some such panjandrum did whatever it was. Government has always floated at a distance above the people it governs- its ways mysterious to them and its actions often not at all what they want- and our present government bobs about on its snaking tether at a greater height than most. It lacks a parliamentary majority and is kept in power by an Irish party that holds values most British people find bewilderingly foreign. Oh, and it's leader is unelected. Does this render it cautious and humble? Not noticeably so. 

When Mrs May ordered the RAF into action over Syria she did it (according to a YouGov poll) with the backing of only 22% of the electorate. Is that Britain in action? Hardly.