Putin got the upper hand in Anchorage. We have a great BBC radio reporting teem who have helped me with this word. It is the right word for Putin and . unlike our Prime Minister Nigel Starmer, the BBC Americast , were not pulling punches.
On Saturday, the prime minister praised Trump for having brought an end to the war in Ukraine “closer than ever before“, but warned that the “path to peace” could not be decided without Zelensky.
Starmer can’t say it as he might want but the truth cannot be pulled, Trump showed how shallow his immorality leaves him. I will say it for him, repeating the BBC,
I say “immorality” as a Christian but I could be of any religion. Killing innocent people to win power over them is an immoral use of power. Russia is immoral and most of all Putin is immoral and as soon as we roll out the red carpet to immorality we become complicit with it. Even Starmer risks immorality unless he is clear there is distance between us and Russia that cannot involve us rolling out that nation the red carpet.
Of course there is a lot of bullshit coming from Trump that will catch up with him. Saying that Russia is the second most economically powerful country in the world is going to go down like a lead balloon in his own financial centre – Wall Street. I could go on but that is not the point. If you have no morality then the truth is what you can get away with and Trump believes he can say anything and get away with it because he has become President while recently having been convicted of felonies by American courts.
But to the work “snicket“. The word found by the BBC radio team to describe Putin. This is not new, a Sleekit Scotsman had captured Putin’s essence in this video some time ago
🇺🇸🎨 Washington Smithsonian contains an easter egg pic of #putin
Noticed this on a visit November 2024#trump#krasnov#vladimirputin#faithringgold#smithsonianmuseum#washington#theflagisbleeding#hiddenportrait pic.twitter.com/8TlQiJJKMB— Sleekit Scotsman ☮️🏴 (@SleekitScotsman) March 23, 2025
I think the Sleekit Scotsman has got the President of Russia down to a tee. He is loved in Russia as Trump is loved in America and the two of them recognise in each other the phoney sleekit respect they each have.
Russia is a tyranny where Putin can get away with what he is doing in Ukraine because he has silenced all opposition. Trump is not in that situation in America and I suspect that there will come a time when the deep-rooted morality of his country will re-assert itself.
I doubt that the fate of Ukraine will be enough to worry most Americans but the sight of its Prime Minister losing the sleekit contest to Putin may have long-lasting implications for the respect he is held in by his country.
Backing Trump is a dangerous game for European and British leaders. The art for them will be to maintain a moral stance without alienating anyone, sadly that will require a degree of sleekit aptitude for the short-time. Churchill and Thatcher were very good at it, Starmer must deliver , so far he has done well. Thankfully we are a country where our journalists, even the BBC can say it as we see it and we see it as one, we cannot be immoral.
Take a step back Read Project 2025 understand the agenda
Project 2025 is a comprehensive political initiative published by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.
It is a blueprint for a potential future conservative presidential administration, not an official government document.
Key proposals outlined in the document include:
* Consolidating executive power by replacing a significant number of career civil service workers with individuals who are loyal to the president.
* Ending diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs and other policies related to gender equality.
* Implementing mass deportations and ending birthright citizenship.
* Restricting access to abortion, contraception, and IVF, and potentially reviving a 19th-century law to ban certain abortion medications.
* Rolling back environmental regulations and withdrawing from international climate agreements like the Paris Climate Accord.
* Reforming the Department of Justice and giving the president more control over government agencies.
* Making it harder for veterans to obtain disability benefits.
* Dismantling the National Labour Relations Board and making it more difficult for workers to form unions.
Sleekit also means sly or cunning, as featured in the famous Burns poem “To a Mouse”…. wee sleekit tim’rous beastie…
In “To a Mouse,” Robert Burns describes the mouse as “sleekit” to emphasise its smooth, glossy coat and vulnerable state.
While today “sleekit” often implies slyness or cunning, in Burns’ time, it referred more to the physical appearance of a mouse, highlighting its small, frightened demeanour after its nest was disturbed by the plough.
The two definitions are at the top of the article.
Are not both applicable here?
It is worthwhile reading the whole of Burns’ poem. Second stanza reads:
I’m truly sorry man’s dominion,
Has broken nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion,
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor, earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!
and the last two:
But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men
Gang aft agley,
An’ lea’e us nought but grief an’ pain,
For promis’d joy!
Still thou art blest, compar’d wi’ me
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e.
On prospects drear!
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,
I guess an’ fear!
Robert Burns should have spent more time like the mouse, living in the “now”. Worrying about the past and the future is a futile waste of time to the mouse. As for Putin and Trump, they should think of the Ukrainians and want they are going through right now.
Thanks for letting me read these splendid verses.
Starmer himself has been labelled “sleekit” north of the border by some before now.
This example, unfortunately, is behind a paywall:
http://www.scotsman.com/news/politics/snp-claim-labour-up-to-old-sleekit-tricks-after-reports-sir-keir-starmer-would-create-more-lords-4191390