Sanctions in the moral maze
Is waging economic war on Russia an appropriate response to its aggression?
On BBC Radio’s Moral Maze thus week, my colleagues and I discussed the issues around the use of sanctions over the war against Ukraine.
We may not want to commit our armed forces to help Ukraine, but we are hitting back at Vladimir Putin and hopefully deterring him (we tell ourselves) by punishing his wealthy oligarch friends and choking the Russian economy. The Home Secretary said the Economic Crime Bill which has just gone through the Commons proves she’s determined to “hobble Putin and his cronies”. But choking the Russian economy will hurt ordinary Russians who may themselves be the victims of Putin’s tyranny. And what about their “enablers” – the London-based accountants, lawyers and fixers who’ve helped the oligarchs to hide their money and muzzle their critics? Should we try to punish those people too, or does that cross a moral red line?
My co-panellists were Matthew Taylor, Tim Stanley and Ash Sarkar. Our witnesses were writer and broadcaster Isabel Hilton; Niko Vorobyov, author of: Dopeworld: Adventures in the Global Drug Trade; Atul Shah, professor of business ethics, finance and accounting at City University; and Julian Jessop, fellow of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
If you can access BBC Sounds, you can listen to the programme here.
Recent posts
My most recent exclusive post for my premium subscribers quotes some eye-poppingly silly things that people have been saying recently. This is how the piece begins:
And you can read my most recent post that’s available to everyone, on how after Ukraine Israel is on its own against a genocidal regime, by clicking here.
One more thing…
This is how my website works.
It has two subscription levels: my free service and the premium service.
Anyone can sign up to the free service on this website. You can of course unsubscribe at any time by clicking “unsubscribe” at the foot of each email.
Everyone on the free list will receive the full text of pieces I write for outlets such as the Jewish News Syndicate and the Jewish Chronicle, as well as other posts and links to my broadcasting work.
But why not subscribe to my premium service? For that you’ll also receive pieces that I write specially for my premium subscribers. Those articles will not be published elsewhere. They’ll arrive in your inbox as soon as I have written them.
There is a monthly fee of $6.99 for the premium service, or $70 for an annual subscription. Although the fee is charged in US dollars, you can sign up with any credit card. Just click on the “subscribe now” button below to see the available options for subscribing either to the premium or the free service.
A note on subscriptions
If you purchase a subscription to my site, you will be authorising a payment to my company Dirah Associates. In the past, that is the name that may have appeared on your credit card statement. In future, though, the charge should appear instead as Melanie Phillips.
And thank you for following my work.