Brexit, StarmerForce, and the UK's Role in Ukraine: A peacekeeper's dilemma

A. Ask them politely to stop? 

B. Fire back? 

C. Run away? 

D. Call in the Americans?

The correct answer is any or all of the above. You might also question what you are doing there in the first place. 

It's the sort of thing you get happening when you allow politicians to dress up in military fatigues.

One of the consequences of Brexit was to deprive young Britons of the opportunity to serve in the European Union army which has long been on the table and is an entirely logical step for a pan-European superstate which aspires to have a common foreign policy.

However, all is not lost, because as part of his reset & rejoin project Sir Keir Starmer has stepped up to put the UK at the heart of Europe in a prospective military operation on the continent in which we would stand shoulder to shoulder with our European friends and partners - apart, that is, from those who won't touch the idea with a bargepole.

This peacekeeping mission would be a demonstration to Putin of Europe's strength through unity.

A lot of the details remain to be talked through and worked out, but Sir Keir has very sensibly said that in any plan the Americans must act as the backstop. 

Exactly what being a backstop means in this context is not entirely clear, but maybe it means that if things hit the fan we'll be able to call the US cavalry. Realistically though, a US backstop more likely means that America would organise the evacuation.

In drawing up the deployment of StarmerForce, Britain's military leaders will need to know whether it will be along the lines of Dixon of Dock Green, a peacekeeping police force which is lightly armed, smiley, and saying evenin' all to all and sundry to spread avuncular reassurance and commitment, or whether it will be a fully equipped battle group with tanks, artillery, air support, and so on, sending a message to Putin's army that they would mess with the UK at their peril.

That would be a stretch given that the British Army is "smaller now than at any time since the days of Napoleon" (source: Sir Keir Starmer).

With nearly 580,000 Russian troops involved in the military operation against Ukraine, a few thousand British peacekeeping troops would have their work cut out should things turn nasty, but remember that we would be alongside the French.

And when, for better or worse, it's all over, Sir Keir can announce in the Commons that he's going to give them all a medal.

.........

Meghan Markle gets a lot of stick but she did bring a bit of professional showbiz experience to the royal family.

The latest Meghan mockery is over her new brand logo which is very similar to the coat of arms of a Spanish town, where the mayor is threatening to sue, or at least was - she now says the local council can't afford it.

Whether they would win is open to question. Would you have heard of the Mallorcan town of Porreres if it wasn't for the dispute? They should cash in and start selling Meghan souvenir mugs and merchandise.

Readers with very long memories may recall that when Express Newspapers launched the Daily Star in 1978 the communist Morning Star sued for trademark infringement, making the improbable claim that readers might get the two papers mixed up. 

The Daily Star offered, in the reputed words of its editor Derek Jameson, “***s, bums, QPR and roll your own fags,” while readers of the Morning Star were treated to articles on class warfare and pictures of revolutionaries in military fatigues and berets.

The wording of Mr Justice Foster's judgment dismissing the case has passed into legal folklore.

"The two papers are so different in every way that only a moron in a hurry would be misled," he famously declared.

The "moron in a hurry" test has since become a way for courts to assess trademark infringement cases.