Risible x 3

 My somewhat  dated Pocket Oxford Dictionary (bought when I started teaching in 1959) defines "risible" as: "laughable, ludicrous."

1. Almost everyone in the "Wester World" will regard  Russia's claim that the Nord Stream 1  gas pipeline to Europe is closed solely for "urgent repairs" as risible.  Anyone who thinks otherwise must be wrong in the head (or just lying).

2.   Prime Minister Johnson's,claims that "no COVID rules were broken" a the Downing Street parties, and, in any case, he wasn't there, and if he was he didn't realise they were parties, are  risible.  Any one who believes them must be wrong in the head or want to preserve a political system where anything goes, provided that your lot can benefit from it. Or they're just lying.

3.  Strangely the most difficult to believe is the argument by David Pannick QC that if the Commons Committee on Privileges and Standards were to go ahead and sanction Johnson for misleading MPs that would "have a chilling effect on [future] ministerial comments in the House."  That too is risible.  Any minister who does "inadvertently" mislead the House can get herself/himself off the hook by merely going back to it, fessing up and apologising.  Johnson has had every opportunity and done no such thing.

I hope the Committee goes ahead, tells the truth, sanctions Johnson, preferably causing him to be expelled so that his continued political ambitions hit the buffers.

 Then what would truly be what a "New European " headline has called "The End of an Error"

Sadly, that may not be the end of Britain's political shame.  If Liz Truss is elected, as is widely predicted, then, as the Chief Priests and Pharisees explained to Pilate, "the last error shall be worse than the first. "  (Matthew 27 v 64). 

Something we thought impossible.