Theodore Roosevelt, the blur of energy who occupied the White House for the first years of the 20th century, famously advised statesmen: ‘Speak softly and carry a big stick.’ Sir Keir Starmer is increasingly performing a morbidly fascinating inversion of this, and pursuing a policy of speaking loudly (and piously), while having no stick at all.

Putin currently has little to fear from Starmer’s moralising bluster

Putin currently has little to fear from Starmer’s moralising bluster

At the end of March, 10 Downing Street proudly announced that the United Kingdom would ‘step up its pressure on Putin’ by giving permission for military and law enforcement personnel, including our still-vaunted Special Forces, to board vessels from Russia’s ‘shadow fleet’ if they passed through UK waters. These are the sanctioned, illegal and uninsured oil tankers which are sustaining oil exports from Russia and, in Downing Street’s words, ‘fuelling Putin’s barbaric war in Ukraine’.

This determination on the Prime Minister’s part may have been rather tardy, but his language was tough and uncompromising.

‘​​Putin is rubbing his hands at the war in the Middle East because he thinks higher oil prices will let him line his pockets. That’s why we’re going after his shadow fleet even harder, not just keeping Britain safe but starving Putin’s war machine of the dirty profits that fund his barbaric campaign in........

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