The United Nations spectacularly failed to prevent Russia invading Ukraine.
Since then Russia, as a member of the Security Council, has vetoed every attempt to hold it to account for its flagrant breach of the UN Charter.

Against this background – on a recent visit to the United Nations in New York – I raised the questions on the minds of many constituents as to whether the UN is now just an expensive, irrelevant talking shop or whether it still deserves our support.
The response to my question from the Secretary General of the General Assembly of the UN gives me some hope. He said that as Russia had betrayed the trust which all nations had given it when making Russia a member of the Security Council, it was the responsibility of all the members of the General Assembly to now take over the role of the Security Council which had been made impotent by Russia’s veto power.

The General Assembly has adapted to the new situation by passing several motions condemning Russia and now requiring any country exercising a veto in the Security Council to justify itself to the General Assembly.
The aim is to give the General Assembly renewed credibility as the international court of public opinion and thereby put pressure upon rogue states. Thankfully, the UN now seems to be trying to do something to uphold its values.

Many borrowers have been caught off guard by recent rapid rises in interest rates. The crippling burden which this places on so many with mortgages is unacceptable as are the consequences for everyone of inflation at 11%. This is more than five times the target given by the Government to the independent Bank of England.
The Bank’s failure to meet its target was caused by the Bank’s policy of driving down interest rates between March 2020 and the end of 2021.
It should have acted earlier to curb inflation.
It then panicked and decided to push interest rates higher.
On 19th September the Bank of England raised 10-year interest rates from 3.1%.
Two days later on the eve of Liz Truss’ mini-Budget the Bank announced its intention of selling £80billion of bonds over the next year, thereby forcing interest rates even higher and destabilising pension funds.
The 10-year interest rate hit 4.5%.
The Bank then had second thoughts and suspended bond sales and entered the market to buy bonds instead with the result that the rate fell back to 3.1%.
This illustrates how manipulating interest rates to the detriment of the economy enabled the Bank of England to achieve its aim of sabotaging the mandate given to Liz Truss for a low-tax, high-growth economy.