Johnson Gutting Our Defences to Meddle in Ukraine

If you thought your tax bill was already sky high, wait till you get the bill for Boris Johnson's efforts to distract attention from Partygate by meddling in the war in Ukraine.

The disgraced buffoon has announced a hair-brained scheme to send some of the British Army's most effective and expensive missile launchers to aid Kiev's forces, "within days".

The 13-tonne Stormer vehicles launch Starstreak missiles against jets and helicopters. The Stormer is described as "an extremely effective, highly mobile combat vehicle".

To lose even a few of these multi-million pound pieces of kit will hit our cash-strapped forces hard. And, like so many of Johnson's bombastic announcements, the showy gesture won't actually change anything.

The idea that such weapons can simply be handed over  to a stretched military, which is almost out of fuel and has lost almost its entire radar defence systems, is ludicrous. 

The complex system needs extensive training, for which there is no time. Further,  demoralised Ukrainian forces already having established a record for selling their equipment to the Russians for rubles.  The only really reliable troops that Kiev still had are the hardcore neo-Nazi Azov forces. Should our taxes really be used to equip actual Nazis  who openly shell civilia  targets and torture and murder prisoners?

On top of all that, while these weapons can take down aircraft, their have absolutely no defence against Russia's new hypersonic missile systems. Within minutes of going into action, the Stormers will be vaporised by counter-fire.

All that will be left is the bill for taxpayers, and a further stain on the reputation of our country for interfering in a far-off conflict which is none of our business.