No West – only the US, and the only other dependable country – the UK – powerlessly caught up in the short-sighted bureaucracy of France et al., aka the EU, an organisation that is only capable of delivering lowest-common denominator rhetoric. We can only hope that McCain’s old heart and his gun-toting deputy aren’t leading the world this christmas.

Meanwhile Sarkozy brokers utterly meaningless peace agreements while Putin makes it a point to remind us that his country inspired Animal Farm, by unzipping and taking a long one all over the dictation he gave the EU’s president to take back home in triumph. And we all write about the EU being ‘too dependent on Russian energy’ to do anything, as if sitting back in appeasement will improve the energy question.