From: slider@anashram.com   
      
   “Still no evidence of any interest in the war”, George Orwell complains,   
   in a diary entry from May 1940, days before the Dunkirk evacuation began.   
   “Last night, Eileen and I went to the pub to hear the 9 o’clock news. The   
   barmaid was not going to have turned it on if we had not asked her, and to   
   all appearances nobody listened.”   
      
   As the Ukraine war heads into its sixth month, that’s how it feels here.   
   When it was all air strikes, manoeuvres and newly-discovered execution   
   cells, the media were – rightly –  in the thick of the action. Now,   
   although Russia’s tortures, rapes and executions continue, Europe’s first   
   major conventional war since 1945 has become, in British public   
   consciousness, like a chronic condition – to be checked on occasionally   
   and “managed”.   
      
   Russia is methodically “rubblising” cities in the Donbas; Ukraine, in   
   response is using the long-range rockets donated by the US to torch ammo   
   dumps and command posts deep behind Russian lines. The momentum on both   
   sides appears to be dwindling.   
      
   But at the strategic level the conflict has only begun. This week Russia   
   shut down Nord Stream 1, its vital gas pipeline to Germany, for what it   
   says is a routine maintenance operation. The German government fears the   
   supply will never restart. Even if it does, the high price and   
   deliberately choked supply of Russian gas to Europe would leave the   
   continent’s most gas-dependent economies in deep trouble.   
      
   In the run-up to the war, many European countries saw their domestically   
   held gas reserves depleted – by a mixture of reluctance to buy at inflated   
   prices and the refusal of states to act strategically on energy security.   
      
   Today, Russia-dependent utility companies in Germany are under severe   
   financial stress. Uniper, the biggest buyer of Russian gas, has applied   
   for a government bailout of up to €9bn in return for an equity stake. It   
   is being forced to buy Russian gas on the open market but prevented by a   
   price cap from passing the inflation on to consumers.   
      
   And it’s not just the energy companies. Much of German heavy industry is   
   dependent on gas for production and while major players such as BASF  have   
   diversified supplies and reserves, industry leaders say it is smaller   
   companies, sometimes critical nodes in the supply network, who will feel   
   the stress first.   
      
   The German Green politician, Robert Habeck, who is the country’s   
   vice-chancellor, warned in June that a sudden gas shortage, combined with   
   the financial collapse of gas-dependent firms, could create a Lehman   
   Brothers-style moment where the whole energy market falls. On Tuesday he   
   told reporters: “The situation on the gas market is tense and   
   unfortunately we can’t guarantee that it will not get worse. We have to be   
   prepared for the situation to become critical.”   
      
   So both industry and the public sector are facing self-imposed gas   
   rationing. One big housing rental group in Germany has cut the temperature   
   of its residents’ central heating to 17 degrees. A town council in Saxony   
   has rationed hot running water for public housing tenants to three time   
   slots per day.   
      
   But all this is being treated in Britain like the rumblings of a distant   
   thunderstorm. Almost none of the Tory leadership candidates want to talk   
   about the strategic conflict Europe is embroiled in. Or the impact on   
   Britain if a Russian gas shutdown throws Germany  – along with   
   gas-dependent Italy, Romania and Hungary – into a simultaneous political   
   and financial crisis.   
      
   British politics has successfully compartmentalised the cost-of-living   
   crisis as a domestic issue – seemingly unconnected to the war in Ukraine.   
   While it’s true there are multiple factors driving inflation – the   
   post-Brexit skills shortage, the post-Covid recovery, the deglobalisation   
   of supply chains – the price of Russian gas is the one factor that is   
   weaponised, and capable of weaponising all the others.   
      
   As household finance experts warn of energy bills topping the £3,000 mark   
   by 2023, it is time for politicians to level with the people, just as they   
   have done in Germany – and to contemplate radical action. If central   
   European countries are forced to switch the lights off, and introduce   
   compulsory rationing of heating and light this winter, and bail out   
   private companies with tens of billions of euros, that’s not just an   
   energy crisis, or a financial crisis. It will be a strategic blow in a   
   conflict between systems, initiated by Vladimir Putin.   
      
   People will go on the streets, rightly, to demand lower prices and   
   priority supply for households and public services, not non-essential   
   corporations and luxury consumption. Some, spurred by the conservative   
   right, will demand an end to decarbonisation targets, the energy taxes   
   that promote them and to bans on coal and fracking. And they will ask: who   
   is to blame?   
      
   Across Europe, there are political movements ready to blame Western   
   governments for supporting Ukraine, with arms and sanctions. In Germany   
   this includes the far-right Alternative for Germany (AfD), a vocal section   
   of the Left Party and – tacitly – Putin-sympathetic voters among both the   
   social democratic and conservative electorates.   
      
   In Britain it will be the usual suspects: Nigel Farage, Reform UK and, on   
   the far left, the likes of George Galloway and Chris Williamson. But the   
   real British weak point – if an energy crisis does engulf Europe –  will   
   be the Conservative electorate. They’ve been sold one lie – Brexit. A more   
   subtle lie was the story woven by Boris Johnson – that Britain could   
   shovel arms, ammunition and money into Ukraine without any domestic   
   consequences. Our support for the war was framed as a free hit against   
   totalitarianism, delivered by other people’s children and enhancing   
   Britain’s reputation as the unilateral tough guy of Europe.   
      
   With the emergence of the first fuel price protests, and renewed pledges   
   to abandon the net-zero target from Conservative leadership candidates,   
   we’re at the point where the UK, like the rest of Europe, has to face the   
   connectedness of the crises we are living through.   
      
   Russia fights strategically. Its strategic aim is to split Nato, shatter   
   the EU, blow apart Western democracies and install a Putin-friendly   
   politician in the White House. Its invasion of Ukraine, its dark   
   manoeuvrings with Lithuania over rail access, its shutdown of Nord Stream   
   1, and its blockade of grain exports to the Global South: each of these   
   events are “operations”. So is the disinformation war it is fighting: the   
   perpetual threats of nuclear armageddon mouthed by Putin’s acolytes on   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)