Are There No Gentlemen in Minsk?

Although it stands with Russia and the master race in rejecting the Strasbrussels Diktat of the European Court of Human Rights, Belarus still has some way to go before attaining full moral Britishness. The president has found it necessary to adopt an unfortunately legalistic course in protecting the independence of elected governments from lawyers, judges and other intefering persons. While the law's provisions, including lifelong legal immunity for the president and prohibition of public office for non-patriots, are eminently moderate and sensible in themselves, of course no genuinely British system would resort to so cumbersome an arrangement. In our Mother of Democracies there has never been a need to dignify with illegality the idea of an opposition that opposes Government policy, let alone the idea of leaders being effectively held to account, because in a truly mature democracy such ideas are almost physically impossible to realise.