In a move that has sent shockwaves through the Kremlin's hangover cabinet and caused a collective spit-take at every gentlemen's club from St James's to Stoke-on-Trent, Britain has vowed to kick its Russian diesel and jet fuel habit by the turn of the year. Yes, you heard that right. We're going cold turkey on Vlad's viscous bounty, a decision that has all the hallmarks of a desperate, gin-soaked promise made at 3am on a political dance floor.
Let us pause to savour the delicious irony. For decades, we have warmed our homes and fuelled our getaway cars with the very stuff that lubricates the gears of the Putin machine. We have been, in effect, the world's most enthusiastic enablers, buying his oil while tutting at his politics. It is a bit like complaining about your neighbour's murderous hobby while asking to borrow his chainsaw. But now, at last, we have seen the light, or rather, we have seen the price at the pump and the shadow of a nuclear winter on the horizon.
This is not a policy, it is a pantomime. A grand gesture designed to make us feel morally robust while we continue to buy Russian gas through the back door, because let's be honest, the global energy market is a whorehouse with no locks. We will stop importing directly, but the cargo ships will simply reroute through Rotterdam, and we will buy the same molecules from a Dutch trader with a better haircut. But the government has drawn a line, a lovely, thick, meaningless line in the sand. They have declared, 'We are sovereign!' like a man shouting 'I am strong!' while being mugged.
The details are, as ever, buried in ministerial jargon. The Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy has announced that the ban will cover 'Russian origin' diesel and jet fuel, but only if it can be proved that it is Russian origin. And who will prove this? The same people who brought us the Test and Trace system. I have more faith in a Ouija board. I suspect a thriving new industry will emerge: the Russian Fuel Launderer. They will take a barrel of Siberian crude, rub it with a Union Jack, and sell it as 'North Sea Blend' with a certificate of authenticity signed by a man in a top hat.
But let us not be churlish. This is a grand gesture, and we Britons love a grand gesture. We love to stand on the cliffs of Dover and shake our fists at the continent, even as we wave goodbye to our cheap energy. We are a nation of stiff upper lips and warm scarves, and we will endure. We will switch off the heating and put on another jumper. We will drive less and walk more. We will become a nation of hikers and cyclists, freezing our bollocks off for the cause of freedom. Or we will simply burn more coal, because that is the British way: solve one problem by creating a worse one.
And what of the jet fuel? Our planes will have to fly on hope and leftover chip fat. The RAF will have to run on the righteous anger of its pilots. British Airways will have to admit that those flights to Tenerife were never really necessary. We will become a hermit kingdom, connected to the world only by the internet and the faint smell of paraffin. But at least we will be righteous.
The true tragedy, of course, is for the Russian economy. Putin will be devastated. He will have to sell his oil to China instead, and China will pay him in COVID-19 and human rights abuses. He will weep into his caviar, lamenting the loss of his most loyal customer. But we must be strong. We must break the addiction. And if that means a colder, darker, more expensive winter, then so be it. We will huddle together for warmth, drinking our gin and dreaming of a time when our fuel was not tainted by the blood of Ukrainians. Or perhaps we will just buy it from someone else and pretend. After all, that is the British way.
