Peter Rhodes on crossbows, complacency and an MP who came close to Armageddon
“We've got to be incredibly careful." says Labour's new security minister, Dan Jarvis, referring to the latest escalation in the Ukraine war. Damn right.
Keir Starmer has told the Ukrainian president that British missiles can be used for "defensive strikes" against targets inside Russia. But how can we be sure that the unpredictable Putin will not see it as a British attack on Mother Russia? And then what?
Jarvis sounds like a safe pair of hands. This may be explained by his involvement, as a Parachute Regiment officer, in the 1999 Pristina Airport incident after the Kosovo War when American top brass ordered a British contingent to confront Russian troops. The British commander, General Mike Jackson famously told his US superior: “I'm not going to start the Third World War for you.”
