The Russia report’s just one big joke

I AM afraid I chortled several times as I read the Parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee’s oh-so-serious report on Russia.

As well as being almost entirely free of new facts, it hilariously accused the Russians of being paranoid about us. Well, perhaps they are. Russia has been invaded so many times (even we have had a go) that it is entitled to be a bit over-defensive.

But if so, the British attitude towards Moscow is just as psychiatric, especially given our elite’s greed for Russian money and their readiness to consort with (and take donations from) Russian billionaires who are no better than they ought to be.

We have no border with Russia, nor any other territorial, naval or economic conflict, and long ago lost the Indian empire that lay at their back door. We hardly trade with them.

I am pretty sure that they spend very little time thinking about us, except as a minor hanger-on of the USA. Do they really seek to intervene in our politics? For what end? They are a poor, under-populated country nearly 2,000 miles away, in serious danger of being bought up by China. And if they mount cyber-attacks on us, as I am sure they do, are we not doing the same to them?

I learned from the report that we now have something called a National Offensive Cyber Programme, whose title suggests that its staff might possibly engage in a little bit of electronic aggression from time to time. And quite right too.

Countries that don’t prepare for battle lose wars. But it is a bit ridiculous to have an offensive cyber programme and then moan self-righteously when your target returns the favour.