see: Interview with Peter Hitchens¹

At 48.49 of the interview Kait Borsay says of Putin ‘Should he just be taken out?’ Peter Hitchens wisely responds:     ‘For what reason and by whom?’ and she responds: ‘Because he is a threat …’ To Hitchens demurrement she asks: ’where do we go with Vladimir Putin?’

This is quite appalling and quite worrying. Lets start with discussing murder  and whether that is  legitimate.  Would it be legitimate to ask ‘should we take out Boris Johnson?’ or would that alone be considered an incitement to murder? How would we feel if on another country’s television station we heard a discussion about whether they should ‘take out’ the British Prime Minister?

Words have implications. What might it mean to Russians in the evaluation of British attitudes if they heard Ms Borsay’s words  and took her speech to suggest a large swathe of British public opinion would be happy with the assassination of the Russian President by British agency? She did say ‘we’. 

Then again where are the regulators? Would it be acceptable for a minute for a public discussion to take place on ’should we take out’ the American President? What she has said has not been deleted or otherwise withdrawn from the public (as of 1 Jan 2024)  so it must be widely seen as acceptable speech among the British chattering classes.

Further, what about the grand hypocrisy here? Britain and the US chattering classes have railed against the Saudi assassination of Jamal Khashoggi. The US President can sign off on the official murder of selected citizens of any country including the US. John Bellinger states: ‘”It’s clearly an exercise of the president’s constitutional authority as commander in chief and chief executive to use force in the national interest.” to justify the killing of a senior Iranian commander on a peace mission.² Yet from the Saudi side Khashoggi was a US asset openly plotting against the State. Biden accuses Putin of being ‘a killer’ while happily signing off on drone assassinations and other murders.

So this is even more depressing if it reveals how the British chattering classes still think of themselves as an imperial power entitled to murder anyone who displeases them. The rest of the world has to either think the British chattering classes are pathetic or prepare for nuclear war. Lets go with pathetic.

Endnotes

1.  (Borsay, 2023)

2.   (Kennedy & Northam, 2020)

References:

Borsay, K. (Director). (2023, December 15). Peter Hitchens: It’s ‘frustrating’ knowing that everyone else is wrong. Times Radio. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIRy_SMLI24

Kennedy, M., & Northam, J. (2020, January 4). Was It Legal For The U.S. To Kill A Top Iranian Military Leader? NPR. https://www.npr.org/2020/01/04/793412105/was-it-legal-for-the-u-s-to-kill-a-top-iranian-military-leader