Diplomatic Weight

Her Majesty's Government, whose concern for international law and humanitarian obligations blazes forth from Yemen to Calais to the British prison system, has summoned the Russian and Iranian ambassadors for a dressing down by the Imperial Haystack. Whether he carpeted them in limericks or iambic pentameter, both lackeys of foreign imperialism were no doubt thoroughly cowed by the diplomatic acuity of the man who insulted the Saudi head-choppers days before he was due for an official visit. Among other many un-American and un-Bahraini derelictions, Assad's backers have failed to facilitate the delivery of humanitarian aid; which is to say help in bombing civilians or presents for profiteering corporations, depending on whether one happens to agree with the Imperial Haystack or with Priti Patel. The Haystack expressed disturbance at reports which, since they support his case regardless of fripperies like truth or falsehood, cannot possibly be mistaken. The Haystack also declined to praise Iran and Russia for allowing some people to escape Aleppo, doubtless because one or two of them may now end up trying to come over here and steal NHS beds from the white working classes.