Departures all round? | The Spectator Australia

Shocking Chinese whispers came out yesterday that Vladimir Putin – supreme leader of Russia’s ‘totally not a dictatorship’ dictatorship – is poised to step down from his lifetime role as president. The surprise confused twitter, which treated it as #FakeNews for most of the afternoon when there simply wasn’t enough emotional bandwidth available with the US election dragging into its third day. 

There are fears the 68-year-old ruler really does have Parkinson’s disease, after conspiracy theories about his health circled public appearances. The deep state views weakness with the same lust as a shadow beneath a man who has cut his arm off with a fishing hook in the middle of the Pacific. Sensibly, the women in…