COMMENT

The best-laid plans of mice and men... and Putin and his gold.

— The unprecedented package of tough and coordinated sanctions against Russia after the Ukraine invasion shows that war chests are only as good as the purpose for which they’re used.

COMMENT

For Russia, it’s all alt... even its tsar.

— Russia is now in an alternate universe where Vladimir Putin recreates the Russian empire.

COMMENT

Royal finances – Our money and theirs.

— Some of Europe’s most progressive democracies have titular monarchs – mostly anonymous men and women, not the UK where the royal family takes the route to A-list celebrity.

COMMENT

Russia, Ukraine, Schrodinger’s cat and our interconnected world.

— Vladimir Putin may have deliberately created a crisis in Ukraine in which everything is possible at once, including global food supplies being affected.

COMMENT

‘All the world’s somewhat corrupt and men and women merely players.’

— The worry of Transparency International’s new Corruption Perception Index is that so much of the world scores so poorly.

COMMENT

Some surprising actors want the Yankees in their backyard.

— The Estonians want the Americans to stand guard in the Baltics. So too, it seems, do the Pakistanis.

COMMENT

21st century Britain: Still the ‘emancipated empire’?

— Is history best looked at once we have finished with the future, as UK Foreign Secretary Liz Truss seems to believe?

COMMENT

This Christmas we managed to frighten ourselves into deep gloom.

— It’s probably a sign of the times that the hottest, newest Netflix Christmas movie this year was ‘Don’t Look Up’.

COMMENT

A moral vacuum... on either side of the English Channel?

— On either side of the English Channel, the debate is about a moral vacuum.

COMMENT

85 minutes as president – Kamala Harris’ place in history.

— Kamala Harris became the first woman to formally assume the powers of the presidency... for 85 minutes, while Joe Biden underwent a routine examination.

COMMENT

The dictator returns — through his spawn.

— How countries sometimes strangely welcome the return of former dictators... or rather their children.

COMMENT

Trump-lite is flavour of the month.

— Can Trump-lite lead the Republican Party to a big win in the US 2022 midterms?