Peter sez:

Now, I have no difficulty understanding why ITUC leaders should want to meet around the table with Russian semi-dictator Putin. This is because a meeting with any member of the Great and the (Not-Necessarily) Good provides a photo-opportunity and enhances their sense of self-importance. But there are two things I really, really do not understand:

1) How can they dare to not so much shame-facedly admit under pressure that 'the unions need the President’s support' but proudly proclaim this? I thought that unions needed their members' and perhaps civil society's support - globally as well as nationally and locally.

2) What's in this meeting for Putin? I would have thought he had his work cut out wearing a false nose and leading lost geese in his microlight airplane. Or is that what thinks he is doing here? I mean of getting the ITUC to support his agenda. Or at least to polish up his tarnished human-rights image.

Other suggestions welcome.

PS. Isn't this kind of Suck-Up to Authoritarian Statesmen the kind of thing that the Western unions used to condemn the Communist WFTU for doing?

Now read on...