In a development so astonishingly sensible it has left Fleet Street's finest sputtering into their flat whites, France has confirmed that the Royal Navy actually did something useful. Yes, you read that correctly. Our Gallic cousins, in a rare moment of cross-Channel camaraderie, have admitted that British naval support was instrumental in the seizure of a Russian oil tanker skulking through the Channel like a guilty oligarch at a Sotheby's auction.
Emmanuel Macron, a man who looks perpetually as though he's just swallowed a particularly aggressive wasp, graciously thanked Britain for its assistance. One can only imagine the internal struggle this caused: all that existential anguish about Anglo-Saxon perfidy temporarily set aside for the greater good of annoying Vladimir Putin. It must have hurt more than a baguette to the face.
The tanker, a rust-bucket of questionable provenance and certain mendacity, was allegedly attempting to sneak its cargo of crude schadenfreude past the prying eyes of the international community. But thanks to a joint operation involving French navy frogmen and our very own matelots (or whatever we call them now), the vessel was politely but firmly invited to dock somewhere more... constabulary.
Let us pause to savour the irony. For years, the chattering classes have moaned that Britain's naval power is a faded memory, a once-great fleet now reduced to ferrying minor royals to regattas. And yet here we are, proving that a handful of destroyers (or frigates, or whatever they are) can still spoil Putin's day. The Russian president, a man who builds his international relations on the faulty foundations of Soviet nostalgia and personal grudges, must be apoplectic. His oil, his precious oil, the lifeblood of his kleptocratic regime, is now sitting in a French port while lawyers sharpen their pencils and sanctions administrators salivate.
But wait, there is more. This seizure is not merely a tactical victory. It is a symbolic middle finger to the Kremlin's maritime pretensions. Every rusting tanker flying the Russian flag now knows that the Channel is no longer a safe passage for smuggled hydrocarbons. It is a gauntlet of international law and British-French cooperation, a terrifying prospect for any oil trader with a dodgy manifest.
Naturally, the usual suspects in the commentariat will whinge about provocation, about the risk of escalation, about how we should not poke the bear. To which I say: pish. The bear is already poking itself, stuck in a Ukrainian quagmire of its own making while its economy haemorrhages roubles. Seizing its oil tankers is not poking the bear. It is politely asking the bear to leave the premises before we call the wildlife authorities.
And so, I raise a glass of the finest duty-free gin (Bombay Sapphire, naturally) to the Royal Navy, to the French Navy, and to the beautiful absurdity of international cooperation. Here's to many more tankers seized, many more oligarchs inconvenienced, and many more moments where Britain remembers it still has teeth. Just try not to choke on your croissant, Monsieur Macron.
Now, if you will excuse me, I have a date with a typewriter and a bottle of Schweppes. The truth must be reported, even if it tastes faintly of juniper.
