Another Kinnock arises

TRANSNISTRIA. Remember the name. It sounds like somewhere invented by Evelyn Waugh but it's actually a tiny statelet between Moldova and Ukraine which broke away from Moldova 14 years ago. Transnistria would not matter in any way, were it not for this week's invitation from its foreign minister, the equally unlikely-sounding Nina Shtanski, for Russia to carry out a Crimea-style takeover. It may come to nothing. But if you want to sound well-informed, start dropping Transnistria into your conversation now.

ONE of the strangest aspects of the Ukraine crisis is the eagerness of civilians to die for their country and the reluctance of the armed forces to do the same. Dozens of civvies perished in the Kiev riots yet in Crimea the Ukrainian soldiers, sailors and airmen let their Russians seize their bases without firing a shot. Not exactly the Alamo, is it?

AS the row grows over the future of the TV licence, the BBC repeats the old argument that its unique method of funding enables it to be the best. So let us consider BBC Sport. This is an organisation so rich, so big and so stuffed with celebrity commentators that it famously sent 760 staff to the London Olympics, outnumbering the 550-strong Team GB. You might imagine that such an enormous outfit, floating on a sea of public money, would be first with all the great sporting scoops. Yet the report of alleged corruption over the 2022 World Cup in Qatar was dug up, like most great scoops, by a small team of newspaper hacks. So that's Daily Telegraph-1, BBC-0.

LORD Grade suggests that one solution might be to collect the TV licence as part of your council tax. Perfect. And can we put the rubbish in the wheelie bins?

AUTHOR Guy Walters wrote an excellent column for the Daily Telegraph a couple of days ago on the deep human need for closure. When a mystery arises, whether it is the Malaysian airliner disappearing or the French airship Dixmude vanishing in 1923, we need to know how it ends. Walters cleverly ends his piece by deliberately not telling us the full story of Dixmude, adding: "With a quick Google you can find out easily enough. But I challenge you not to. Hard, isn't it?" It is actually almost impossible. And if anyone expressly ordered you not to read anything about the Dixmude mystery, the temptation would be overwhelming - unless you are a very dull, downtrodden and apathetic person. Yet our court system is now based on judges ordering juries to suspend this powerful human thirst for information and not to do any research into the history of defendants and witnesses. A jury used to be described as "Twelve good men and true." It seems the ideal juror these days is the sort of person who can put down this column and not want to know what happened to the airship Dixmude. Twelve unenquiring thickos and true.

I HAVE just two words for whichever safe Tory seat gets Boris Johnson as their next MP – bad luck. A good constituency MP is a precious gift. An MP in a single-minded dash to become prime minister is a waste of space.

MEANWHILE, in the finest tradition of political dynasties, Stephen Kinnock, son of the Welsh Windbag, has been selected as parliamentary candidate for Aberavon. Kinnock junior is married to the Danish prime minister and his life experience so far includes jobs with the British Council, the European Parliament, the World Economic Forum and something modestly called the Global Leadership and Technology Exchange. Just the sort of bloke you need when the potholes want fixing.