Sadakat Kadri

As a child of the Cold War – and a Finnish mother – I’m not surprised that anger towards Moscow is rising. Geopolitics weren’t high on my agenda during summer holidays in Helsinki in the 1980s, but even then, I sensed that Finland’s dutiful relationship with the bear next door was fraught. The only adult who convincingly described the tension was a lonely drunk I once met at a party. Gazing eastwards across Helsinki’s archipelago, he told me about his gun collection before demonstrating how he’d fire at the Soviets if they invaded. With one last imaginary bullet, he shot himself in the head. That, he said, was what Finlandisation meant.

On Sunday afternoon, Vladimir Putin warned that aggressive statements by ‘top officials in Nato’s leading countries’ had obliged him to put Russia’s ‘deterrence forces’ on high alert. The Kremlin press secretary blamed ‘various representatives at various levels’ and didn’t want to name names, ‘although it was the British foreign minister’. Liz Truss has denied responsibility.

My friend Nastassia recently returned to London from visiting her parents in Moscow. At a dumpling party, as guests kneaded dough at the table, a recently qualified ornithologist had told a weird story. Her new job involved feeding birds of prey, with mice she’d kill by swinging them against a wall – and that wasn’t the weird bit. Moscow Zoo wouldn’t take her on until she passed a lie detector test to show she wasn’t a thief or drug addict. ‘Unbelievable!’ Nastassia said.

Loyalty may yet save Boris Johnson. Plenty of Tory backbenchers hope he’s still the charismatic winner of yesteryear; others fear their re-election prospects are doomed without him. Even the optimists and lickspittles might pause before claiming he’s earned their trust, however. In search of personal advantage, the prime minister has normalised duplicity, weakened checks and balances, and left a trail of personal and professional relationships dead in his wake. Has he no shame?

Though I was born in Parsons Green, my father grew up in Pakistan, which acknowledges citizenship by descent. That means the home secretary could annul my Britishness, without even telling me, on the strength of a foreign entitlement I wouldn’t know what to do with. Apologists for executive discretion often argue that the innocent needn’t worry, but that complacent assumption misses the point. It isn’t only the notional risk of a despotic home secretary that’s disturbing. It’s the injustice of knowing that most citizens face no risk at all.