Should England boycott the World Cup? I agree with the Daily Mail on this occasion. England fans won't be safe in Russia for one thing. For another thing a boycott of Putin's great PR exercise is probably the only way of landing any sort of punch on Russia, who now treat Britain with open contempt. The sight of Sepp Blatter sitting with Putin as his guest of honour will be particularly nauseating.
Strangely enough, I find myself agreeing with Boris on this one (at least what I think he was trying to say about a week ago in parliament); England should send their squad and absolute minimum coaching/support staff, but no officials or dignitaries whatsoever. - aside from possibly one communications bod so FIFA and the Russians have one point of contact. We should snub all the related World Cup functions, events, dinners etc. No hand-shaking, no diplomatic niceties, none of that rubbish. No presence in the director's boxes or VIP areas at games, Just the players and the coach - just playing football. And after the World Cup if this whole poisoning business has not been resolved (and it won't be) we should reduce our diplomatic staff in Russia to one Ambassador plus his/her secretary, and then kick out all the Russian diplomats and their embassy staff except their ambassador & one aide, to balance things up. We should also apply those tough laws they have in some other countries for freezing the assets of Russian crooks and mischief-makers.
Maybe we should take Kenny Everitt's (no relation) advice and "bomb Russia", advice which received rapturous applause, in the 1980's.
An ambitious plan, but I fear our military capability is now on a par with the Home Guard in Dad's Army. If memory serves, when the men were issued with live ammunition for their rifles they were advised that in the event of a battle with invading German troops each man should save the last round to use on himself. How many rounds were they each issued with? One.
I would suggest that the Government recalls the Ambassador and his staff from Moscow.... it should then tell any supporters who wish to go to Russia in the summer that they go at their own risk with no assistance from the UK Government if anything goes wrong.
