Getting cosy with Putin has left us at whim of tyrant

KEIR STARMER

VLADIMIR Putin’s attack on Ukraine is an unprovoked and unjustifiable outrage.

The tragic consequences for Ukraine and its people are already horrifically clear.

The UK stands unequivocally with them – and Labour has backed the Government’s response.

But government sanctions of Putin’s associates must be harder, and faster.

It should not have taken an immoral invasion for them to tackle the rot of oligarch money in London.

The Prime Minister has been too slow to disentangle his party from Russian money. He has questions to answer about it.

It’s either incompetence or corruption. When they are the two possible answers, it’s clear Britain deserves better.

But this failure to act is a pattern. The panicked Afghanistan withdrawal last August that put British soldiers at risk. This week’s shambolic floundering on safe routes for Ukrainian refugees.

SLAPDASH

This Government is consistently lastminute, slapdash and heat of the moment.

Their scramble and smirk approach is not serious governance.

It also shouldn’t have taken Putin’s illegal war for the Tories to realise that energy security is national security.

Seizing the cash and assets of Putin’s cronies in Moscow and London is a start – but we need to prepare for the future.

We need to wean ourselves off relying on anyone else to heat our homes and power our businesses.

Twelve years of the Tories having no energy strategy has left us exposed.

Investing in renewable energy – wind, solar, nuclear – means more security for us all. We can keep families’ bills down. We can create high-skilled jobs.

We can create wealth in communities up and down the country.

By ensuring our energy security, we boost our national security.

OPPORTUNITIES

Serious government requires clear-eyed leadership willing to seize opportunities for the good of the country.

The Tories are time and again caught flat-footed by events.

On home-grown energy, and on tackling the skyrocketing energy bills.

Oil and gas producing companies have reaped record incomes. Labour has put forward a plan to cut people’s bills now.

A one-off windfall tax is fair and sensible. But the Government refuses to put people before company profit.

While the Tories lurch from crisis to crisis, Labour is looking to the future. National security takes many forms. Cosying up to Russian money isn’t the way to achieve it. Britain can never again be dependent on the demands of a tyrant just to heat our homes.

With Labour, it wont.