After The First World War, Germany, the main aggressor of the war in Central and Western Europe, was punished severely by the victors and isolated. To oversimplify tremendously, that pushed Germany into a period of chaos from which it did not begin to recover until a decade later. At that time, the Wall Street crash of 1929 was not far away – causing the great depression and drove Germany into the arms of the National Socialists.

After The Second World War, the Allies did not repeat that mistake. The United States’ Marshall Plan sent vast amounts of cash from the US into Europe, to recover and rebuild. Then came the European Coal and Steel Community in 1951 and further developments into the union that it became. Germany (the Federal Republic of Germany at least) bloomed into the economic powerhouse at the centre of European politics that it is today. It is one of the dominant forces in the EU, leading that bloc as a second-tier world power. This is quite an accomplishment, coming from the ashes of two world wars. The economic benefits have been felt by the entire world, and the security that prosperity brought has increased cooperation and good relations across Europe.

The lesson of history therefore is to punish individuals, as the allies did in the Nuremberg trials, not entire nations.

I believe that the Putin regime has set itself on the path to political destruction, and that might take a decade to play out, though I think his regime will collapse far sooner than that. The die is cast, and the beginning of the end for Putin’s Kleptocracy has come.

I do not claim to know how this will come to pass, or what form of government will follow, but the answer from history is to pull in our former enemies, to tie them closely to us economically, and to forgive the mistakes of former regimes – allowing them to repent, rather than be punished.

In the case of Russia, the opportunity has arisen now for us to do what the West very sadly failed to do after the dissolution of the Soviet Union – to bring it into the West, to integrate Russia into our system, to give her both formal alliance and informal respect, that that great nation has always deserved – but which we rightly never gave to a gangster such as Putin.

We in the West should offer the Russian nation all the wealth that it desires and deserves, and which has been stolen from them for 20 years by oligarchs and brutes in their government. By offering them their rightful place in the world, as a second-tier nation and economic power such as Germany, they will have the ability to fulfil the aspiration that Putin (and Trump) often parroted, but never would allow: to be great again.

By doing this, Putin’s old lie of being held back by the West will be destroyed – Russia will return to be a core part of a Christian Europe, and of the West. Though Russia is more than Western, it is Asian too, and should be free to play a strong part in Asian governance/politics, and therefore world politics, as it geographically and culturally strides the world.

The Russian economy will have been desolated in a year’s time, under the current sanctions. Over the summer the Russian oil and gas on which Europe depends far too heavily, and from which Russian receives a vast proportion of its income, will be in far lower demand, and the Russian coffers will empty further. And even more, I’m certain that few creditors will be willing to take on Putin’s war debt.

The Rouble has hugely depreciated in value and an inflation spiral is highly likely. The cost of living crisis in the UK will seem insignificant compared to that of Russia, and this is on top of a 10% drop in living standards since 2014, due to the sanctions which followed Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

Already, the war chest in reserves that Putin smartly built up has been taken away from him by sanctions imposed on the Russian Central Bank. The base interest rate has risen to 20%, making mortgages and loans far less affordable, and many banks and businesses are being crippled by their exclusion from the SWIFT payment system.

Unemployment will only rise, Oligarchs will increasingly bemoan their loss of wealth, and their exclusion from using London and other European capitals as retail playgrounds and education farms for their children. Those 18 to 26-year-olds who have been conscripted, their parents, and the soldiers who genuinely thought they were on training exercises will all increasingly seek recompense for how they have been treated.

The Putin regime will fall in due course. The West must seize the moment and take the opportunity to free the Russian people by bringing them into Western institutions, treating them as European allies and as a competitor, and no longer as an enemy.

Russia is currently a pariah state because of Putin, and Belarus the same because of Lukashenko, but it must not always be so. Of course, democracy must only come to those countries through revolutions, and must never be imposed upon a nation if it is to be seen as legitimate. But when democracy comes to Russia and Belarus finally, we must pull them in tightly.

Would we rather have a Putin, or an Orban? Putin is an enemy to the West, and Orban difficulty tendencies, but he is limited by EU membership and his nation’s own sentiment. Orban makes EU wide agreements difficult and disagrees with some of its values. Putin would rather the EU were destroyed. I am reminded of the inside versus outside of the tent analogy.

The way to integrate both Belarus and Russia is to bring them into the European and Western system with an economic agreement with the EU, and a partnership or treaty between Russia and NATO. Having democracy, liberty, security, and prosperity will allow the Russian economy and government to iterate, to adjust, and to be brought back properly into Europe culturally.

The point is this; when Putin falls, what then becomes the goal for the West? I believe the objectives should be as follows: To restore the nation and government of Russia to freedom and democracy, to recover her economy to prosperity, and to bring Russia into the fold and identify the true enemy of the West: China.

Russia has meddled, been aggressive, thuggish, kleptocratic and antidemocratic for 20 years now, but China is different.

Make no mistake, President Xi wants to impose his values, and his rule, on the world. He and the Chinese Communist Party are prepared to do this over 50 and 100 years, though it looks like it might not take that long. The CCP does not seek confrontation, but it is growing rapidly in the shadows, and is now the second largest economy in the world and seriously challenging the US as the world power.

Frankly, the West needs Russia on our team if we are to stand up to Xi. That is the real challenge of this century, more than climate change, more than COVID-19, and certainly more than a terrible, horrific war of aggression by Putin into Ukraine.

The West should sagely consider this: Putin’s days are numbered. How do we in the West recover Russia into the European family of nations where it belongs, and properly confront the Chinese, with Russia on our side? If we have no answer to that, then we are lost.

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I knew Bristol was liberal; the city is famous for it. Me? I have traditional values, I am involved with the Conservative party, and I have been a Christian my whole life. But when I got an unconditional offer to study a course at the University of Bristol which ranked third in that subject, I accepted it without hesitation. Nine months into living here and I have seen advertisements for climate-crisis bake sales, intersectional feminist poetry slams, and students “occupying” the Wills Memorial Building (and subsequently whinging that their vegan Deliveroo wasn’t able to reach them) in solidarity with striking lecturers. However, having nonchalantly followed Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatres on Twitter to see if any shows piqued my interest, I saw something that one couldn’t just dismiss as liberal lefty nonsense – this was something truly horrifying.

Tobacco Factory Theatres retweets ThisEgg (a theatre company) promoting their new show, The Family Sex Show (also promoted by The Guardian) The title is possibly alluding to incest, to Red Light District sex shows, and is definitely intended to shock. Already feeling slightly disturbed, I read on. The age recommendation is 5+ and the show description reveals it is intended as “an alternative to porn”. I read on to learn that “there is nakedness, yes. At one point in the show, everyone on stage takes their clothes off…” This is ringing every alarm bell possible.

Posing as “sex education”, the adults involved (who were hastily cast via Twitter only a month ago) don’t seem to know the first thing about safe, age-appropriate sex education. What five-year-old needs an alternative to pornography? Exposure to pornography is often used as a desensitising tactic when grooming children. In defence of this horror show, the website claims that “sexual development and behaviour in children starts from birth”. This is an argument which I have only previously heard from a documentary about PIE (Paedophile Information Exchange) to justify removing the age of consent.

Speaking of consent, which this show claims to teach us all about, I have to question why the “actors” get to choose their level of comfort when stripping. A five-year-old child, however, cannot consent to seeing naked strangers. The only guidance for parents is that they can leave if they feel uncomfortable, yet the theatre manager has written extensively on how the actors will be supported if there was negative feedback. How, I ask, are the “actors” the victims in this situation? This show seems to be all about what the adults want to do in front of the children, convinced that they know best. Cyber-flashing has just become a crime, and yet the cast of The Family Sex Show feel it is their right to flash infant-school-aged children. Many Twitter commenters reminisced over days when “dirty flashers” would be chased off by police. Now, liberal parents pay them ten pounds a ticket to bare all on stage. These people do not deserve to be parents.

My sex education at school took place in Year Six. We were ten and eleven years old and were taught about sex and puberty in an age-appropriate, sensitive, non-embarrassing way. The teachers, surprisingly, didn’t find it necessary to strip naked and point to their genitals to get the message across. Most of my generation will have had a similar experience and don’t feel we have gaps in our knowledge. Of course, we have all witnessed the odd person getting changed at the beach rather indiscreetly – but this is contextual, and hopefully accidental. If children are taught that it is normal for strangers to want to show their genitals to them, then this completely undermines the preventative measures that parents, and trusted adults, take against grooming. And as for the argument that “children will encounter porn anyway, so why not teach them about it now?” I worked in Early Years education for four years and I didn’t meet a single five-year-old who could read, write or type well enough to access pornography. And if parents leave it accessible to children, someone needs to call CPS.

I am just thankful that the live show and tour was all suspended during the multiple lockdowns, or we could be two years into child-traumatising theatrical sex shows. The Twitter outrage has been huge, and the account, Libs of TikTok, made famous by Joe Rogan’s podcast, shared the story, at my request, to an audience of 591.3k angry followers. We also have riled up over 800 Bristolian mothers on Mumsnet who have taken this story to the Daily Mail, started a petition, and are boycotting the theatre. Grown adults are being paid to strip in front of little children, in UK theatres, funded by the National Lottery and Arts Council England. Bristol’s Tobacco Factory Theatres want your money! In return, you and your five-year-old can watch simulated sex acts followed by a stage full of strange adults exposing their genitals. I have never been more horrified.

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An unfortunate reality which I am determined to alter is the prevalence of economic arguments for The British Monarchy. Many in The Mallard have wrote fantastic pieces on the Monarchy, for example Xander West’s article exploring of the “Republican Option” was an excellently written and intellectually brilliant piece in its deconstruction of the abysmal yet ever prevalent republican argument.

My issue in this article is not so much the republican argument, but the royalist one. More specifically the economic argument for the Monarchy. This argument often relates to tourism, or other businesses which profit from the Royal Family, and while there are truths and falsities to these arguments in various manners, I believe they completely miss the mark on the advantages of The Monarchy. In fact, I find the inability to assert an effective non-economic argument for the Monarchy illustrates a lack of true respect and support for the most important institution in our Great Nation.  

Looking at the world through monetary value alone is a sad consequence of liberalism’s iron grip on society, and the Monarchy for the most part hasn’t escaped this sad reality. Many seek to promote the necessity of the Monarchy for financial reasons, and I believe that this can only be understood as arguing that the main advantage of a car is its paint colour while ignoring the true substance of the vehicle. The Monarchy was never intended to be a money maker, because it was never something crafted or forged to serve the people, rather it was the other way around. This flip of perspective has relegated the Monarchy to the post-metaphysical level, and thus removes it of its core value and its actual importance. In a sense, this switch of the Monarchy serving us as a monetary gain, over the joint relationship of service both ways for a stronger symbol of the nation and its values is in effect cutting the meat off the bone and throwing it all away.

Conservatives are passionately aware of the Monarchy’s true value, and standing, because more often than not we are metaphysical in our thought. We seek to attribute special value beyond materialism, and the monetary nature of our liberal society. The Monarchy is something which goes beyond money, it is a symbol of our nation itself. Not a reflection, an idea which is often asserted. The Monarchy is not a reflection, instead it is the ideal to strive towards. The Monarchy is a guiding force through the calamity of the postmodern world, and all of the consequences which come of it. Our Monarchy is steeped in the legitimacy of the centuries by which it has presided and led our Great Nation. Money is nothing in comparison to our rich history, and special traditions. When our Monarch sits to open Parliament in front of that grand gold display, enacting a tradition centuries old in a building which will soon reach 1000 years of age, something special is occurring. The fibre of goodness which is left in the liberal melting pot of modern Britain comes to the forefront, and when our armed forces march with determination and people fly their flags in pride of their Monarch and nation, the reality of our Monarchy shines brighter than the bleak alternative of a republic.

Tourism and money cannot match the respect, reverence and admiration of the world when they see our Royal Family. Money cannot reach the levels of symbolism and leadership our Monarchy provides. Simply put, our Monarchy is more than money, and to reduce it to such material levels is a shameful reminder and promotion of liberalism’s destructive presence in royalism today.  

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