Tony Blair on Russia’s ‘illiberal interventionism’

The former prime minister was at King’s College London today, taking questions from students on the courses that I teach with Dr Michelle Clement, Dr Jack Brown and Professor Jon Davis.

The first question was about what Ukraine meant for “liberal intervention”. Blair said: “If we’re not doing things in the world, it is not as if no one else is. Because they are, and in the end if you want to defend your values you’ve got to be prepared to stand up for yourselves.”

The alternative to liberal interventionism was “illiberal interventionism”, he said. “I think Ukraine has brought that home.”

The students asked good questions on a range of subjects, which I shall write more about later.

Quiz question: Who was never foreign secretary? Winston Churchill; Alec Douglas-Home; Harold Macmillan; Anthony Eden. (The million-pound question on Who Wants to be a Millionaire? 4 March 2019.) Answer at the bottom of today’s email

Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe is free. Just rejoice at that news. The sky in London turned overcast pink in celebration, as red Saharan dust arrived
Boris Johnson is in the Gulf asking oil producers to turn on the taps
Angela Rayner is usually a draw when standing in for Keir Starmer at Prime Minister’s Questions, but couldn’t find her groove today. I wrote about it (link below)
We are still catching up with David Frost’s remarkable speech yesterday, in which he said that Brexit had caused problems of mobility

Rentoul’s reading list

Holly Baxter on Volodymyr Zelensky’s address to Congress
Daniel Finkelstein defends economic engagement with Russia because it now gives us leverage
Andrew Grice quotes a Whitehall source: “Ministers are still fighting like rats in a sack; there is no overall plan; they are competing for headlines”
Harriet Williamson: “I’d love to open my house to a refugee, but I can’t”

And finally

“Going cap in hand from dictator to dictator is not an energy strategy.” Keir Starmer

Quiz answer: Churchill

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