It's the end of the world as we know it

 If, and it’s a bigger if than we might like, but if we all survive without being vaporised in a nuclear war, then Vlad Putin has done us all a favour.

The monstrous invasion of the Ukraine is the drastic wake-up call the West has needed for some time.

We have been sleepwalking into this disaster ever since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

We have complacently assumed Russia and China would more or less accept our liberal, capitalist, freedom-loving values and we could all live peacefully side by side.

Their true, sinister, aims have always been visible but we preferred to look the other way. 

We have allowed the Chinese to devastate our manufacturing industry and steal our technology.

We have encouraged ultra-rich Russian crooks, thieves and murderers to launder their money through London.

The disgusting sight of gold- and blood-dripping oligarchs, their vile women and entitled offspring flaunting their ill-gotten gains around our country has been one of the most appalling developments of recent years.

We enrich their dictators’ regimes by lapping up cheap goods made by slave labour in mega-cities like the one responsible for unleashing coronavirus on the world.

The Chinese and Russians between them are destroying civilisation, democracy and innocent lives – genocide or invasion, murder and incarceration, it’s all the same to their barbaric leaders.

What has the West being doing instead of recognising our enemies and dealing with their many threats?

We have spent our time banning free speech in universities in case some non-woke feminist might upset a bloke who wants to pretend he’s a woman.

We have been chucking statues in the sea because someone over 200 years ago did something reprehensible.

We have abandoned any idea of fuelling our own power needs in exchange for ineffectual windmills, Russian gas and Chinese-financed, French-owned nuclear power plants that may never be built.

Oh and we have saved money by giving up on the idea we might one day need to go to war again to defend ourselves. It’s far more important our soldiers and spies recognise their white privilege.

If we see the invasion of the Ukraine as an opportunity to get a grip, recognise what’s really important and realise our way of life is under constant threat from countries which would love to destroy us, some good may yet come out of this terrible war.

Tragically, I doubt if we have the strength of will to recognise just how ridiculously complacent we have become. Meanwhile, the destruction of our freedoms will continue apace.

I hope we recognise the urgent need to change before it really is too late.

Otherwise, the era of peace, freedom and democracy may be coming to an end. Do our leaders – and the rest of us – have the guts to hold back the tide of chaos, dictatorship and destruction? I doubt it.