If we don’t start making stuff soon, we’re stuffed

THESE are long years, the 2020s.

Every year we seem to have at least one more major world crisis, plus all the usual domestic ones.

A couple of years back we all discovered that a city in China called Wuhan was able to change all of our lives. Who knew?

Then this year we discovered that Vladimir Putin’s mad and unjustified invasion of Ukraine could change our world.

Suddenly, the prices of everything soared.

European markets had relied too much on Russian gas.

Soon everything from the petrol pump to the trip to the supermarket felt like we’d just been hit in the gut as well as the wallet.

So the old thing of looking ahead is now something we do with worry. Will things get even worse?

There is only one main way in which that could happen.

And that is if something that was expected this year happens next.

When Putin invaded Ukraine it was thought by a lot of observers that the Chinese Communist Party would take the opportunity to steal Taiwan.

Just as Putin madly thinks Ukraine belongs to him, so the communists in Beijing think the sovereign island of Taiwan is theirs.

The fact that Putin’s plot did not go according to plan had a lot of benefits.

Obviously it stopped him in his tracks.

The Ukrainians showed that, with the West’s technical help, they could not only rebuff, but push back, Putin’s advance.

Last month in Ukraine I saw this with my own eyes, as I went into the cities recently liberated by Ukrainian forces from Russian occupation.

Putin’s failure also showed his own weakness, and the weakness of the Russian armed forces.

But best of all was that his invasion showed a massive unity in the West.

A unity which a lot of people had thought might not still be there.

Nato got together quickly and soon had countries queuing up to be new members.

The Western financial system also snapped down fast against Russia.

Our enemies thought we didn’t have any unity or will left in us.

They were wrong.

Certainly, China thought twice about its next move.

If Putin had got what he wanted in Ukraine perhaps the Chinese communists would have moved next.

Instead they waited.

They watched, certainly.

And doubtless they learned.

They learned what we could do and what we could not.

Catastrophic effects

If there is one thing to watch out for in 2023 it is going to be this move.

China deciding that they will indeed take Taiwan.

The signs are not good.

Over the weekend China sent a record number of military planes close to Taiwan.

They have been doing these little prods against Taiwan for some time.

But this was the most ballsy by far.

Now senior British government officials have said they believe that the results of such an invasion would be “catastrophic” for the UK.

They said a conflict in the South China Sea would cripple UK supply chains and lead to Covid-like problems with imports.

They aren’t wrong. In a way, of course, we have all got used to a bit of that.

Ever since Covid there are still signs in the shops and supermarkets saying there is a supply chain problem with this item or that.

And most of us can cope with it when the problem is — as it was again for me recently — just a drink (I’m not telling you which one!).

But imagine if it was more serious.

Medical supplies, semiconductors of the kind needed in phones.

Imagine how our lives would all go down if our phones stopped working.

Many of the technologies needed in battlefield weaponry are also sourced from Taiwan.

The world would be in real trouble.

Is there anything that can be done about this? Only two things.

But they are two major steps.

The first is to make sure that Beijing realises the catastrophic effects of any move against Taiwan.

That they may be able to keep going — as Russia has managed to keep going — but that the country would be a pariah and one which the rest of the world would seek to cripple.

We will make sure they make a great leap backwards as a country.

The second is an even more serious one. If there is any lesson we should have learned from recent years, from Covid to Ukraine, it is that countries like ours MUST be in charge of our own destiny.

We have to be in charge of our own supply chains.

We have to be making our own stuff.

The era of relying on cheap foreign imports has to be over.

It doesn’t matter whether you’re right wing or left wing, Conservative or Labour, or sick of all of the above.

It is time that Britain realised that we have to start making stuff for ourselves again.

We have the manpower.

We can give people the skills where they aren’t already there.

But we should have learned by now that the undercutting from cheap foreign labour is lethal for Britain and deadly for the world.

Real? Or Iz it fake?

Influencers are meant to use their time boasting about how beautiful their lives are.

The rest of us are meant to console ourselves by thinking that at least some – if not most – of it is fake.

Still, they baffle me slightly.

Take model Izabel Goulart in a Santa hat frolicking on the beach with her footballer boyfriend in the Caribbean.

Meanwhile, we can also have the joy of seeing Paris Hilton yachting around the world, or a Towie star posing in a Moroccan mansion.

Of course, this brings on a bit of jealousy as the rest of us throw on another jumper.

But I can’t help thinking that it also goes against what used to be two very basic rules.

The first was never to show off.

Well, that one went out the window a long time ago.

But the second is the old British idea that nobody minded anyone else having a good time so long as they had earned it.

Not sure that can be said about all of our influencers.

People need help in the land of the freeze

IF this had been a historically cold winter then we would have been in some serious trouble.

Far more power outages and people freezing to death would have happened.

Strangely, it is in America – which doesn’t have any of our energy problems – that the winter death figures are worst.

It is unbelievably cold in parts of the US at the moment, with historic levels of freezing.

So far 70 people have died, including a 22-year-old woman who froze to death while trying to get home from work in Buffalo.

There isn’t much you can do about the weather.

But there should be something a developed country like the US can do about people freezing to death in their cars while spending 18 hours driving home from work and with access to their phones.

Of all the busybodies employed in America – like our country – how about some of them actually dedicate themselves to people when they’re actually needed?

Piers is a Twitter hack

PIERS Morgan's Twitter account got hacked yesterday and was sending out nutty stuff about an independent Somalia.

It did occur to me for a moment that Piers might have been at the Christmas brandy.

But I realised it couldn’t be him.

He is a mate and I know that if he had some drunken personality change he wouldn’t be going on about an independent Somalia.

He’d probably reveal a shy and vulnerable side.

He’d be self-deprecating and say he’d never really met anyone important.

If that happened I really would know Piers was off his t*ts.