Not Mid Morning Matters

JD in the Morning, off air…

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Video | October 22, 2014

It’s gonna cost you being ill

In the last few weeks, doing my day job, I have talked with those who are living with dementia and cancer. They have told me about how these dreadful diseases have touched their lives. I have also heard how dementia and cancer has changed their lives and how their lives have never been the same since they found out they have these two potentially devastating illnesses in their lives.

A generation ago you couldn’t even say the word cancer on hospital ward, let alone at home. Nobody talked about it and if you actually, eventually got ‘the diagnosis’ that was pretty much it. Get your affairs in order if you can, the clock is ticking and you can’t wind it up any more. A generation on and cancer is not the killer it once was. Some cancers are still not treatable and are fatal but most are livable, most are treatable. Today you can have a life and do something while you live with cancer. Linda Bellingham proved this beautifully, with great style and great humour too.

Dementia today is where cancer was a generation ago. We are still in denial over it, there are very few treatments for it and there is currently no cure for it. Cancer and our success in tackling it means that dementia has now been exposed for the illness it is. It’s not inevitable it will get you as you get older but, like cancer, you have a one in three chance of ‘the diagnosis’ and those odds are not good enough for you and me.

The principle problem with dementia and all its various types is getting the actual diagnosis. We know there are no treatments or cure and because of this we don’t want to face having to be assessed to see if we have it. As it stands the medical profession is currently not equipped or skilled enough to recognise the signs of dementia, treat it or cure it, much in the same way they were with cancer 30 years ago.

So giving GP’s £55 to diagnose dementia is ridiculous and it’s abhorrent. GP’s shouldn’t be paid a fee to do something that they should already be doing. If it’s a training need for GPs then train them but paying per diagnosis of dementia is just wrong. What next? £10 per cold and a £5 for ‘it’s a virus’?

The reality is that doctors already earn good money and they have to commit to a profession that takes their all. That is the deal. I used to be married to one and I am in awe of all she has done and still has to do every single day. All doctors constantly learn and train. It’s what they do. Adding dementia to their continued professional development should not be a problem. Dementia is fast becoming the health issue of our time and every doctor would benefit from this specific focus in their training.

The other issue we all have to face is that healthcare costs far more than we are all paying at the moment. Like or not every drug used costs millions to develop, prescribe and that has to be paid for. Every doctor, nurse, care assistant has to be trained, developed and rewarded and that has to be paid for. Every bit of the NHS has to be paid for. And the NHS needs to be managed and that has to be paid for too. 113 billion pounds is not enough to run the NHS you and I want. We are just going to have to more for it to use it.

The NHS is not free. It was never set up as ‘free’ and now, with health challenges like dementia, unknowns like Ebola, further advances in cancer care and its treatment we, you and me, are going to have to pay for it. Maybe we will not be paying for ourselves but for others, our loved ones to be treated and cared for. One thing is certain we are not paying enough today.

Here is THE question. Would you pay what you could to save your partner, your child, your parent? I would. I would give all I could. It’s about time we all faced up to that reality.

Another reality is that the NHS is not a political football to be kicked between the political parties claiming they can make it better. They have both made a mess of it, through under investment, PFI, miss management and perpetual reorganisation starting back with Enoch Powell in 1962 and every government of every colour since. They one thing politicians have not be fundamentally honest with us about the NHS is its cost. A NHS set up in 1947 is not equipped for 500,000 people living over the age of 90 and all the medical advances to today. Our healthcare success is the NHS financial failure.

If you and me want the NHS, to save the NHS, use the NHS you and me are going to have to pay for the NHS, if we can. Dementia proves it and the political parties need to stop prancing about saying they can do better and be honest about our healthcare.

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Quote | October 10, 2014

Do you buy the bi election result?

UKIP win a bi election and come a very close second in another. What does it all mean? Who really knows? All the claims of a new ear of four party or even five party politics are a bit far-fetched as one Green MP and one UKIP MP doesn’t really change anything for you and me. It does mean they can do stuff in the House of Commons and for their constituents but it’s a bit like being a one-legged man at an arse kicking party; thanks for the invite but I can’t really join in.

History shows us that fringe parties are mostly parties of protest. There are a chance to give the main parties a bloody nose and tell them to listen and to stop being what they think they should be. This time it may be different, especially if the Rochester bi election or as it should be known the Reckless bi election goes UKIPs way too. The Reckless bi election; how apt.

What is surprising is that the main parties didn’t see this coming, much like they didn’t see the SDP coming, they failed to see the financial crisis, prepare for the recession and actually deal with deficit that we are all living with and will continue to suffer from for many years to come. Why? Simple. Short termisum.

Our current leaders are short-term opportunists, hoping that the next year will be better than the last by tinkering around the edges but seldom planning much beyond the next electoral cycle. Even when they try with deficit reduction plans or fixing energy prices we don’t believe them and, in reality, they can’t actually do it because big P politics always gets in the way of achievement. The drastic public spending cuts and/or tax rises required to reduce the deficit will never happen as they would be political suicide. Other ‘vote winners’ such as the freezing of energy prices in a global market are, frankly, nuts. It’s the stuff of Canute and tides. If this had been done last year you would have lost out on the falling oil prices of the last 12 months and be paying well over the odds. Today the oil price is at a four-year low. Short termisum defined.

Our leaders, or managers (see earlier blog) do not get it. We need vision, leadership, statesmanship plus the ability, ambition and drive to see it through. We need do-ers not talkers who say they are ‘listening’ or have had ‘a wake up call’ or say ‘I want to tell you this’. Any politician who says ‘I want to tell you this’ should have the microphone removed from him or her, be sent home and they do something else, where nobody will be really listening either.

We need actual, real leaders and those who actually do. We need those who say they are going to do something and then actually do it. We need our faith restored and, until we have that, we will give anything a punt because our hope is the most powerful aspiration we have. The trouble is that hope is killed by failure and our hopes have been dashed a fair bit by all the political colours and their successive failures in the last two decades.

On my recent BBC trip to Bordeaux I saw a French city through the eyes of its governance not through the eyes of a tourist. It was fascinating. In two decades and with a lot of pain for those who live in Bordeaux the Mayor and the council have transformed the city with integrated public transport and bold policies to claim the city back for the people. It’s not all sunshine and lollipops but I didn’t meet anyone who didn’t see the city today as better than it was twenty years ago. The Mayor of Bordeaux has been elected three times and is about to run to be the President of France. Alain Juppe is a man who gets things done.

The vision, the action, the result is what we vote for in a true liberal democracy not words, more words and sniping at the other lot. UKIP have clearly demonstrated that if you fill the green leather benches of parliament with managers and sound bites voters will look for leaders who apparently stand for something. UKIP a have cleverly combined Europe and immigration into policy with a simple solution, leaving the rest of the political class to flap about like fish out of water, still gagging at the word immigration.

The next seven months will be very interesting as we may see the emergence of two types of politics and politician. Those who get it and those who lose their seat.

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September 27, 2014

War BUT is there something more to believe in?

So the UK is at war, notionally and actually. It was a decisive vote for the Prime Minster. Our Parliament, our MP’s and our democracy showed us and showed the world how the United Kingdom does business and means business. You may not like the outcome but democracy was served.

We have joined the 40 or so other countries who are completing air strikes against Islamic State, I S or ISAL. Two things on this. They are not Islamic as any scholar of Islam will tell you if you ask and listen and they are not a state, nation or country. They are an idea, a belief.

This is THE issue. How do you bomb an idea, a belief, a version of a religion? ISAL do have a flag, always something that has been fought over throughout history. You take the flag and you win. With the flag comes the castle, the country and the spoils but there is none of this to win. If ISAL are bombed to oblivion Iraq is still as failed state that the west created and Assad is still president of Syria, spported by Iran, China and Russia. This is going to be a long process and it will cost many lives. It has already been a long process from the birth of Islam and its divisions into its various forms and the conflict resolution by the hands of the British and the French at end of the First World War. The Sykes Picot agreement at the fall of the Ottoman empire created the division of the Middle East regardless of tribe or creed. The division of the Middle East then are the lines on the map we know today. Division; never has a single word meant more as the world lines up to fight the idea and belief that is ISAL.

Wars based on ideas or beliefs and their execution are flawed. History is replete with those failures, the most recent of which being the War On Terror. You can’t win against an idea because it is not a castle to be won any more than you can wage a war against a belief because you can never kill every believer. It is just not possible. You have to marginalise the belief and give those who harbour the ideals of their belief something better to believe in. Nor can you just tell believers they are wrong, that you are right and bomb them into agreement.

Here is reality. Bombing ISAL is right because the Gulf States are part of it. It is they who can show ISAL they are wrong in thier ideas and beliefs. They can show them that there is something better to believe in, the real Islam and not some crack pot, nutty, vile version of a faith that has no place in a modern world. The Gulf States, these Muslim states have a duty to their faith, their God, their Prophet and what they believe in, especially this week with the Hajj beginning on Wednesday. The greatest enemy to Islam is ISAL.

The beliefs of the Gulf States, the ones we like, the ones we do’t like and the ones that don’t like us need to get through to those who have chosen ISAL. ISAL can’t seem to see any other way than their warped version of Islam, which we in the west find abhorrent. It is vital the Gulf States make this clear having got ISAL’s attention through force, with our help.

Islamic State bares no resemblance to any decent Shia, Sunni or Sufi. This needs to be as clear and loud as the bombs we drop, for all our sakes and for Muhammad, peace be upon him and on us too.

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September 22, 2014

The United Kingdom? Why the majority needs a say NOW

We are still a United Kingdom, or Queendom if you prefer, as the vote in Scotland has given the whole of the UK a real chance to consider its political future. But will it? Not as I write. It seems that big P politics is set to get in the way, again.

The result from Thursdays referendum in Scotland was decisive, if not slightly born out of Westminster panic based on one Sunday Times poll. The real winner was democracy and the Scottish people with a voter turn out of 86%. The engagement of 16 and 17-year-old voters must mean that they are enfranchised on all future votes but the total turn out proves that when it really matters ‘we the people’ will get involved, listen to the arguments on both sides and vote. Politics in the UK could learn a lot from the experience of Scotland. This vote may also finally kill the ‘centre ground’, which has done more to damage democracy than anything else in a generation.

Yet as one question is answered many others are posed and one of those questions is very big. What of the rest of the UK and its governance? Scotland has it’s parliament, Wales and Northern Ireland have their Assemblies but England has, err nothing. That is not entirely true. England has councils, lots and lots of councils. There are parish, town, district and county councils plus unitary authorities and there are local enterprise partnerships, MPs and lets not forget MEPs too. The South West has six of those. All those people, elected and doing what? We are not short of governance or politicians to do it. They all cost you money and they all have their agendas.

If you have ever watched a council meeting or been part of this level governance at any level you can see why so little actually gets done. It’s a miracle that anything ever gets done. So does England need is own Assembly or Parliament as well as councils various or does it need to look at all the layers of government it currently has and make it more effective?

First question. Do we really need all the various councils we have? It is hard to get good Councillors, even harder to get people to vote for Councillors. Local government and governance is the one that actually affects us more day-to-day than anything else. Why not have one single level of local government rather than three or four? And why not pay those who do it too? No amateurs, part timers, parish pump types but local politicians dedicated to public service and paid properly for it.

Second question. Does England need a parliament too? The simple population statistic is that 85% of the United Kingdom … phew … Is English, in that they live in England. Minorities have their voices heard and constantly championed through assemblies, parliaments or pressure groups who are often shouting about how hard done by they are and why the need more money/representation/say/rights. The English majority have nothing. There is real need for an English parliament for English governance.

This would lead to an English and Scottish parliament, a Welsh and Northern Ireland assembly. Add to this a single tear of regional assemblies, and a House of Lords replaced by an elected Senate for UK wide issues and governance and Robert’s your father’s brother, it’s a new way of doing politics and running the UK.

The single tear regional assemblies plus a Welsh and a Northern Ireland assembly would deal with the day-to-day services we all use including education and health. An English and Scottish parliament would deal with law making, Police, Crime, Defence etc, oversight of regional assemblies and would have the ability to set and raise taxes. An elected Senate would deal with international policy, with oversight over parliament, National parliaments and assemblies and regional assemblies, and all this would be held in check and balance by select and scrutiny committees, both regionally and nationally.

This means you only have to vote three times; locally, nationally and for the senate. It might also arrest the real danger that government by consent of the majority is slowly heading for government created from the apathy of the majority and narrow politics of the minority. Change is needed as we are increasingly getting the Councillors, MPs, party leaders and government we deserve.

One last thing. We need to teach democracy in schools.

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We may be asking the wrong questions

This could be the last time it write and publish a blog as British citizen. I am English but as I tap on the keyboard I am British too but after 18th September I could just be English, diminished in my identity and I have no say over it. Yet this is not the issue that drives the last week.

In the last week a Police and Crime Commissioner still refuses to resign despite a no confidence vote from the very body that holds him to account. South Yorkshire PCC Shaun Wright was charged with looking after children for five years at Rotherham Council, before being elected as Commissioner. Over fourteen hundred girls were abused when he was running the council department who were supposed to protect them. Wright claims he knew nothing about the abuse and South Yorkshire police are trying to explain why they DID nothing about it. There are now similar claims of police negligence and inaction in Manchester. Nothing else has happened.

Manchester is the city where this week a dog’s home was burnt down. The response? Over a million pounds was raised in 24 hours to help the dogs that survived. Do we care more about dogs, dead or not, than we do young girls who have been abused and raped? If those who gave money instead gave a home to the dogs wouldn’t that actually solve the problem? Yet this is not the issue that drives the last week.

Saturday night, as I closed my eyes to sleep, my phone pinged and the news that a third hostage had been ‘executed’ by Islamic State, now being called ISAL, the third name change in as many months. We can’t even get naming them right. The third victim is 44-year-old British Aid worker and father of two David Haines. Another British hostage was shown in the now familiar video as the probable next victim.

Those who are doing this hide behind their ‘religion’, a coward’s mask, the name of a Prophet and their warped version of ‘truth’ that is beyond any reasonable or intelligent understanding. The world and this country faces a real and present threat and what we need to hear are Muslim leaders, Imams, Islamic voices shouting from the rooftops ‘Not in my name’ ‘Not in my god’s name’ ‘Not in Mohammed’s name’. We all need to hear this now, loudly and clearly. ISAL, I S or whatever they want to call themselves need to hear this too.

This week we could all be diminished by a skewed nationalist ideal that has no real idea what a yes vote will actually mean. ‘Yes’ voters certainly won’t be more Scottish any more that I will be more English in seven days time. Yet there are bigger stakes to play for than this, real matters of identity and consequences beyond oil, shortbread and kilts. What is needed is a loud, clear, world wide Muslim voice condemning the actions of ISAL. This would be a good NO we all want to hear.

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September 7, 2014

The Rivers that should flow through us all

This week Joan Rivers died. At 81 she had made generations laugh and the consensus is that she always spoke her mind, said what she felt and she has been widely praised for it. Her last book was Mad Diva and her previous book I Hate Everyone Starting With Me gives you a real insight into her world, just by the titles. Celebrities, Gaza, Jews, Presidents, her husband’s suicide all became her material and through the laughter she made us think about what they are, what we stand for and what they should be. Her comedy was honest, challenging comedy and it is style of comedy that allows us to laugh and come to terms with so many things, especially at their darkest.

We should really value someone who says what they feel and we should mourn their passing. The dichotomy is that we all claim to value free speech yet condemn anyone who dares to step off the safe speaking path for fear of offending anyone. Maybe we should also be mourning the rise of a world where we can’t say what we feel or express our opinion, for fear of upsetting someone as it or we might be considered an ‘ist’ by anyone in earshot. I have written about this and about ‘ists’ in an earlier blog but one thing we could all learn from Joan Rivers is that speaking our mind and letting others know what were are really thinking is not a bad thing, and those who don’t like it are the ones with a problem, not you. Any ‘ist’ be they racist, feminist, fundamentalist… the list of ‘ists’ goes on … who does not listen and believes they are right and you are wrong, they are dangerous. The one thing we can all know is that we don’t all know.

Maybe we could apply a Joan Rivers freedom of free speech test to our world leaders or managers (see earlier blog) who were recently sent to Newport in Wales to talk and come up with the odd plan or two. Quite why 60 world leaders were being punished by being sent to Newport is unknown but one thing is for certain that if you think Newport has problems, they are nothing compared to our world at the moment. Leaders who speak freely could say a lot to those who seem hell-bent on our destruction. They don’t and it was yet another lost opportunity. Joan Rivers would have told Islamic State, Putin and NATO what she thought and that may have made NATO bounce into actual action, or at the very least laugh and think.

NATO was set up in 1949 as an American lead answer to the perceived Soviet threat after the Second World War. How quickly second world war allies become enemies and, as President al-Assad of Syria may find very soon, the reverse can happen too. From the formation of NATO to the fall of the Berlin Wall, the world broadly knew what to do. It was like a school playground with two adversaries, one on the east side the other on the one west side of the playground, looking at each other with a ‘come and have a go if you think your hard enough’ attitude. There may have been a bit of shuffling of feet and even the odd flexing of muscles but each side understood the other and each knew what could happen if they did actually fight, so they didn’t.

Communism fails, the Soviet Union breaks up and the Berlin Wall falls. NATO struggles with what to do next. And so does Russia. Twenty-five years on the purpose is back on both sides and, again, each side knows the rules. It may be scary but at least it is territory they and we know. Threats, cease-fires, negotiations, claim and counter-claim but the East versus West game is back on in the global playground.

Islamic State is a totally different situation. There are no rules and they don’t have any rules apart from their own warped view of the Koran. These Muslim extremists or fundamentalists are to Islam what the Klu Klux Klan is to Christianity. They now have their caliphate incorporating large parts of Syria and Iraq so what next? They seem bent on widening their expansion and influence while having no regard to or for anyone who is NOT them. Islamic State and its ‘success’ must be a real kick in the prophets for Al Qaeda. So how do you deal with I S? Simply, you don’t. Bombing them acts as their recruiting sergeant and the West must stay out. It is for Syria and Iraq, Iran, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to sort out this mess. It is a Muslim and tribal issue and the West must stay out, including aid workers and journalists. Turn off the cameras, turn off the lights and let them all get on with it and they can let us know when it’s sorted.

The one thing that would help us all in the East and West and Middle East would be that the leaders of those countries, together with ALL Muslim leaders in Britain, condemn with out conditions or ambiguity Islamic State. The world needs to hear from Muslims that Islamic State is ‘NOT in my name’, that Muslims do not support I S and their intentions. Only then can we all start to face those who are a real threat and not treat those who may look like a threat as one.

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August 23, 2014

Islamic State and the state of social media

A British born jihadist beheads an American journalist in a self-declared Islamic State to affirm a caliphate by posting it on social media.

Those who use social media, and include myself in this, are wondering what these platforms are all about this week. The use of social media by Islamic State, IS as they are now called, is quite brilliant. Many companies and celebrities would love the attention and ‘penetration’ that IS are achieving in getting their message and methods out to the world. This is a world IS want to destroy or at the very least return to their 14th Century version of Islam. The juxtaposition of using the very apex of the 21st century communication to tell the world they are wrong and IS is right cannot be lost on them, or us.

This is the biggest issue with social media and, as has already been proven by the internet, social media is fast becoming out of control as it is being used for purposes unimagined and is now beyond the control of its creators. As fast as IS have an account closed they open another; its like a cyber version of wack-a-mole. Advocates of Twitter and Facebook, who are public companies with shareholders and business models and bottom lines to achieve, have been and are being duped. I include the BBC in this.

It would seem implausible that any BBC presenter, paid from the public purse on a network that does not advertise at all, would be allowed to say ”call me on your Blackberry or Apple mobile ‘phone, using your Vodafone provider or you can use your BT landline and your Currys ‘phone to make that call, or you can even use Royal Mail to write to me using your Parker pen and Basildon Bond paper”? They are all businesses looking for custom and profit, just like Facebook and Twitter yet social media is exempt.

Television viewers and radio listeners are regularly invited to tweet, post or like on Twitter and Facebook. It seems okay for everyone in the media to freely advertise social media providers, encourage their use, to create and enhance the platform of millions of connected users and, by endorsement, imply it’s a good thing.

Here is the reality from this weeks shocking news. A simple click of a link on social media can take you to a video of a kitten in an oversized wine glass looking cute, a drunk Russian trying to stand up in the snow or an innocent man, a son, a journalist being murdered by someone whose twisted view of his faith makes him ‘believe’ his actions are just. You are a click away from the worst of humanity, faith, belief, and what you may know or feel is right or wrong. You have no control over this unless you opt out completely. Social Media has no control either and IS know this.

Sharing views, keeping followers or friends informed is one thing but social media is fast becoming something more and it has now contributed to the murder of James Foley. Social Media gives IS a platform and that platform allows them to ‘share’ their message, ‘post’ their actions, their followers to ‘retweet’ it and there is nothing we can do about it. There is nothing social media providers, these listed companies with shareholders and profits to make can do about it.

So the question is ‘would James Foley still be alive if social media didn’t exist?’. If the act of his brutal murder couldn’t be ‘shared’ or ‘tweeted’ or ‘retweeted’ would IS have done it?

The conclusion could be to beware the advocates of social media, those who claim it is the future and we must embrace it, do more on it, make it part of our every day lives, plead for tweets or posts. Most of all beware of those who have the need for ‘followers’ and ‘friends’. These are some of the many lessons of this week.

One last thing. The bravery of James Foley shown in his face against the masked face of ‘Jihadi John’ who was unwilling to show the world his face by hiding in the cowardice of non identity and clearly lacking in any confidence that his ‘god’ believes in him tells us much about this version of Islam and IS.

N.B

I am aware I have used Social Media to publish this blog. That irony is not lost too.

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August 16, 2014

Fear; it’s a cover up and it’s wrapped up.

Fear; it's a cover up and it's wrapped up..

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Fear; it’s a cover up and it’s wrapped up.

Be safe, feel safe. This is the mantra of Avon and Somerset Police, it’s part of the nine crime plans across the West of England and the Police and Crime Commissioner believes the phrase encapsulates all she is trying to achieve. The reality is that overall crime rates are falling by every measure and, despite less police officers being on the streets, you are safer now than you have ever been. Yes, certain crimes are on the rise, cyber crime seeing the biggest increase of all, but you are safer than you have been for many years. Yes you really are. You don’t feel it though do you? The fear of crime is significantly greater than the reality of crime.

There is a whole industry out there playing to your fears and hoping to make you feel safer. It preys on your fears, creates and magnifies your fears and uses the odd incident or accident to make you more fearful it could happen to you too. Nothing makes this more clear than the industry that makes covers for mobile phones. Every phone designed is made as a complete object. It’s not made to fail, to fall apart or not to withstand the odd accidental drop so why would you buy a cover for a phone? Fear. You buy the mobile phone cover fearful that if you don’t have one you might damage your phone. Do you honestly think that the brains at Apple or Samsung created their cutting edge technology, starting selling it and then thought ‘bugger, I wish we’d made a cover for it.’

Other examples of fear being turned into a business include wrapping your suitcase in cling wrap to protect it. Think about this. Shrink wrapping your suitcase; that’s putting a cover on a case, which is already a cover. If your suitcase needs to be wrapped in cling film buy a better case.

The cycle helmet is another product of fear. July this year saw all children who ride a bike aged under 14 on the Channel Island of Jersey without a helmet risk a £50 fine for their parents. The debate rages in the UK over the compulsory wearing of cycle helmets but I’ve yet to find any empirical evidence that they work. Maybe you can point me to it? I’ve heard of accidents that might have been different if a cycle helmet was worn but the key word there is ‘might’. There may be lots of reasons to wear a cycle helmet, feeling safer being one of them but there is little real evidence or research to prove you ARE safer wearing a cycle helmet. And where wearing cycle helmets has become compulsory, like Australia, rates of cycling have fallen. The reality seems to be that a bit of polystyrene perched on your head makes you feel safe with out a doubt, but will it make you be safe?

Some media and certainly some newspapers trade on your fears and who is to blame for it. The more fears they create the better and, as we get older, we become more fearful. My own recent experiences of cycling to work and riding water slides on holiday have proved this to me, until I found my inner ‘child’ again.

So the next time some tries to sell you a cover for a phone, wrap your case in cling film or make you wear a protective anything please, at the very least, question it and don’t be afraid to do so.

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August 10, 2014

Oh, those Russians…

Summer holidays are about the sun, the sea, getting away from it all or, in the case of Russians, getting away with it. This year I have spent two weeks with my family in the hot African sun, surrounded by Russians both big and small, but very Russian. The following became quite clear from being with them, closely watching them and talking with them.

1. They are locked into the 1980s like a Hazel Dean Greatest Hits collection. (There would be only five songs on that album and if you can name two you win a prize.)

2. They really can drink a lot.

3. They like to take pictures and pose in those pictures, a lot. The sort of poses that would grace the catalogues of the very companies that would sell you the clothes you used to buy in the 1980s.

4. They have money. A lot of money.

The Russians I shared the sun with were not oligarchs who were handed a state-run monopolies by a pissed president to do with what they willed. These are Russians who work for these oligarchs. They are middle class Russians mainly and they are happy, not just because they were on holiday.

When you probed a little deeper, they were happy because they love and are proud of their country and their leader, one V Putin.

The world, geopolitics and the media love a bogie man. Nothing sells a news bulletin or a newspaper more than a bad guy to point at and say ‘it’s his fault’, or ‘her fault’ for that matter. Think of the names that have been used for that very purpose over the last few years; Saddam Hussein, Col Gaddafi, Mohammed Morsi, Jimmy Saville, Sharon Mathews, Maxine Carr, Angela Merkel. The media love the binary world of the old Hollywood Western where the good guys wear the white hats and support their gun slinger against the black hats and their gun slinger.

Vladimir Putin has a very big black hat. He would not be out-of-place in a hollowed out volcano lair, sitting in a high back, black swivel chair. You can picture Putin stroking a white cat while surrounded by Ninjas in orange boiler suits turning nobs and flicking switches, tapping on computers and watching security screens. But it’s not as simple as this Bond image and the media in general is doing a disservice for making it so, much like the coverage of Gaza and the continuing ripples and waves of Sykes-Picot a century on from the fall of the Ottoman Empire.

Take Crimea. Putin has. Bad joke. But Crimea is more Russian that Ukrainian, indeed if you look at the history of the region Crimea is more Russian than Moscow. Is it wrong to cede to the will of the people and take control of what actually wants to be yours? Putin did not seek a war, conflicts or even a spat with the west, but it has done him no harm. Quite the contrary. Putin needs us to be his black hats and we need him and his people to be ours. Putin also needs the west to be strong too in turn make him look and be stronger and he needs the West, especially the EU to buy Russian gas, oil, coal, wheat.

History is replete with lines drawn on a map as a result of war, dividing lands and people. The effects of this from the First World War are still being felt today thanks to the afore-mentioned Sykes-Picot plan for the Middle East.

Putin is a leader, not a manager and the world needs leaders as it does have too many managers. Look at Barrack Obama. The world thought they were getting a leader but they got a manager. Margret Thatcher was a leader, John Major was a manager. Tony Blair was a leader, Gordon Brown was an unmitigated disaster. The jury is out on David Cameron but I think we all know what Ed Miliband will be, and so do his party.

So what has this all go to do with my holiday in the company of Russians? Well they are happy, they have a sense of nation and purpose and, even with their economy going into recession, they are bound together and even if they struggle they will struggle together and be stronger for it. History should teach us that a strong leader, who knows the people and their history needs watching very closely. That leader also needs our respect, our admiration and our caution.

One last thing. Can you think of any other flag of the world that could be turned into a bikini without it causing offence? Well the Union flag and the Stars and Stripes makes an excellent two piece swim wear ensemble. Maybe the flag of Saudi Arabia could be next? Maybe not.

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