Mr Blair will not be making any speeches in the near future about the cruel civil war in Chechnya being a scar on the conscience of the world. Mr Putin is a master of international affairs, the leader of a nation with an economy no larger than Belgium’s but whose arsenal of ageing nuclear weapons – allied to its leader’s personal political skills – allows it to punch way above the country’s post-Soviet economic weight.None of that is liable to change in the short run. Mr Bush has maintained a much warmer attitude towards him than he has displayed towards President Chirac.At the same time the French and Germans delude themselves that Russia is their dependable partner in a new anti-American bloc It is no such thing. For some reason, presumably Russia’s geo-political importance, Mr Putin got away with that particular piece of sharp diplomatic practice. That did not stop Mr Putin from allying himself at the UN with Germany and France in an effort to stymie the British-US invasion of Iraq. That, of course, is not going to happen and the Chechen people will continue to receive even less support from the international community than even the wretched Palestinians. The reason? Vladimir Putin.President Putin has proved a masterful manipulator of Western divisions and vanities.

In return for a blind eye over Afghanistan and Iraq, President Bush and Tony Blair acquiesced in Mr Putin’s Chechen policy. It should sponsor resolutions at the United Nations calling on all parties in the Chechen conflict to come to an agreed political settlement which can then be put to the Chechen people in internationally-supervised elections. That referendum was no model of electoral rectitude, and, like Mr Kadyrov’s hollow victory, settled nothing.It is easy to say what ought to happen now. The West, meaning the United States and the European Union, should make its collective displeasure known. The new constitution allows the Russian president to sack the Chechen one without giving a reason.

He is content with the result of the referendum on the constitutional status of Chechnya held in March, in which the Chechen voters supposedly voted to remain part of Russia. For the apparently impressive mandate he has received from the voters is nothing of the sort. Mr Kadyrov’s main rivals withdrew or were disqualified from running; the polling stations resembled Russian military camps, such was the heavy military presence, and human rights groups have dismissed the poll as a farce.
A free and fair election might – just – have become the first step in ending the agony of Chechnya This exercise, almost certainly, will not. Mr Kadyrov shows no sign of departing from President Putin’s well-rehearsed line that the civil war in Chechnya is an internal matter for the Russian Federation.

Not so in the case of Akhmad Kadyrov, the Moscow-approved candidate and clear winner in the presidential elections in Chechnya. For most politicians in most circumstances in most countries, an 85 per cent vote on an 80 per cent turnout should be regarded as a more than satisfactory result. Protests have raised the issue of high levels of council tax taking an unacceptable proportion of retirement incomes. And the perennial question of long-term care for the elderly remains unresolved, although the Scottish parliament seems to have found a solution. Mr Smith and his colleagues may mock the Tories and dismiss the Liberal Democrats, but they may find grey power a more formidable force.. But the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Andrew Smith, sounds even more android-like and complacent than usual when he tries to defend his poorly-run scheme.Pensioner grievances are growing.