DAILY MAIL COMMENT: Woke and dagger only boosts UK's enemies

It can be credibly argued that Britain’s security services have never faced a more serious array of threats than they do today.

Europe teetering on the brink of war as Russian tanks rumble into Ukraine. China menacingly flexing its muscles. Hostile regimes relentlessly engaged in espionage and cyber warfare. And terrorists planning atrocities on our streets.

No wonder the head of MI5 grimly told the Mail that our entire way of life is in peril.

National security adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove

Terrifyingly, not all our spymasters have a laser-like focus on defending the country.

While our enemies plot, national security adviser Sir Stephen Lovegrove is obsessed with Britain’s undercover agents raising their game on inclusivity and diversity.

This preposterous mandarin wants spies educated in dubious academic ideologies such as ‘white privilege’, while declaring their gender pronouns.

Equally bizarre, he says words such as ‘strong’ and ‘grip’ should be avoided, claiming they reinforce masculine stereotypes. Leave aside that such a view is profoundly chauvinistic itself (can a woman not be ‘strong’ or have ‘grip’?).

It is insane that at a time of grave international danger, with UK interests and lives at risk, some of our security chiefs are fixated on garbled wokery.

Such indulgent introspection only weakens Britain – and strengthens our enemies.

Lessons in hypocrisy

Has Boris Johnson pulled his punches by failing to impose the harshest sanctions against Russia over Ukraine?

Sir Keir Starmer is firm in his opinion: By targeting only five banks and three of Vladimir Putin’s oligarch cronies, the Prime Minister has been scandalously timid.

Only tougher measures will rein in the tyrant, says Labour’s leader.

Of course, his strategy has a glaring flaw. If there are no sanctions left in the locker, Putin has no incentive to halt his invasion until the Russian flag flies over Kiev.

But let’s not take lessons from Sir Keir. Lest we forget, he battled to get Kremlin apologist Jeremy Corbyn into No 10. In that horrific scenario, who would’ve bet against Britain sending weapons to Moscow!

Tellingly, he refuses to withdraw the whip from anti-Western Labour MPs who openly blame Nato, not Putin, for the aggression.

Just as bad, he hypocritically berated Mr Johnson for failing to take TV station Russia Today, the Kremlin mouthpiece, off air. Yet David Lammy, his shadow foreign secretary, lined his pockets by appearing on its shows.

Before piously condemning the PM over sanctions, shouldn’t Sir Keir first weed out the Putin sympathisers in his own party?

The joyful old normal

Today, after two nightmarish years, the nation joyfully waves good riddance to the loathed ‘new normal’ of the pandemic.

With all legal restrictions axed – including self-isolation – we can re-embrace our old, cherished, pre-Covid lives.

Even mask evangelist Sadiq Khan has lifted rules compelling travellers to wear face coverings on public transport (but only, we note, after he was photographed without one at a boxing match).

Now the country can move on. Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey is determined to get the economy going.

But wouldn’t people more readily heed his lectures if he got his own staff back into the office instead of working from home? 

• No one holds the Duchess of Cambridge in greater esteem than the Mail. While visiting Denmark, she showed exactly why. She enthusiastically chopped logs and took a woodland ramble with kindergarten pupils as part of her crusade to give children a better start in life. Always smiling, never stuffy, relishing duty. Kate is the perfect ambassador, a powerful force for good – and a credit to the country.