The long table at which Vladimir Putin likes to meet visitors is the perfect symbol of his increasing isolation.
With mounting losses, brave Ukrainian resistance, his country made a pariah and its economy wrecked, he has lost already.
Ordinary Russians will be realising that recklessly invading a neighbour was a catastrophic outrage by an ageing, deluded dictator.
With their billions threatened by sanctions, Vlad’s oligarch pals will be less and less enthusiastic in their support too.
This war, intended to demonstrate his power, may now prove Putin’s undoing.
The support shown for ordinary Ukrainians in Britain and elsewhere is inspiring.
We must applaud too the workers and students taking to the streets in Russia where they risk arrest, imprisonment and violence for daring to voice their opposition.
This is a conflict with Putin, not all Russians.
It’s out of line
Train fares accelerating at the fastest pace for nine years is another cost-of-living nightmare coming down the line.
The typical 3.8% increase is above pay rises for many, including the nurses the Prime Minister clapped so enthusiastically.
If the Conservatives cared about working people, they would have prevented this.
With petrol and fuel bills soaring and Russian sanctions adding to household costs, Chancellor Rishi Sunak must use this month’s mini-Budget to soften or cut the planned National Insurance increase. If he does not, the public backlash might derail his career.
You lip-ocrite
Matt Hancock says his toe-curling CCTV snog with aide Gina Coladangelo didn’t break the law but he is still a rule-maker who broke his own rules.
Maybe by that time the legal curbs had been replaced by “guidance” but Hancock, then the Secretary of State for Health, will never shed his reputation with the British public as a hypocrite of the highest order.
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