Michael Morpurgo recalls Putin encounter that made a ‘shiver go down my spine'

Independent

17-03-2025

Michael Morpurgo has opened up about feeling notably uneasy after attending a 'strange' event with the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin.
The author, 81, who's best known for his children's novels War Horse Private Peaceful, and The Butterfly Lion, made a trip to Russia – where his books were popular – in 2002.
During the visit, Morpurgo attended a party organised by Putin's first wife, now known as Lyudmila Ocheretnaya, as an international gathering of children's librarians.
Speaking to The Times, Morpurgo said: 'I was at the Kremlin at a huge party with 400 librarians. Can you imagine our country offering this to librarians?'
He recalled: 'Everything was gold, and there was vodka and caviar. All the first ladies, including Mrs [Cherie] Blair, made speeches and then there was a great roll of drums and in came Putin, striding down the carpet.
'I felt a shiver go down my spine because the manner of this reception was extraordinary and strange.'
Elsewhere, Morpurgo praised Britain's prime minister Keir Starmer for not having the same bolshie attitude as Putin or the United States president Donald Trump.
'He's not a shouter and he's not a show-off,' the author said of Starmer. 'I'm fed up with show-offs. I don't care if they're from Russia or America or here.
'I want people who really do have some experience of the world, and have developed a care for other people,' he said, explaining what bothers him about Trump and Putin is their open 'disrespect' for others.
'If you start talking about other people as if they are less important, that their culture is less important, then you're on a road to confrontation,' he added.
However, Morpurgo did admit he is angered by the Labour government's plans to drop the inheritance tax exemption for farmers. 'You don't have a go at the pensioners and the farmers,' he said.
'I know because I live in the middle of the farming culture. To threaten one particular group seems to me to be completely wrong.'
He continued: 'It's done by people who are fundamentally urban, who don't really understand what the countryside is about.'Morpurgo added that Britain is too fond of social and geographical divisions.
'We exploit them. And there is a massive division between town and country,' he said.
'It's understandable: it's part of having our industrial revolution earlier than other countries,' he claimed.
'If you go to Italy or France, where their industrial revolution came rather later, where they are more in contact with their food, with their farmers, it's different. When French farmers have a protest there is considerable support among urban people.'
It comes after the Labour Party was accused of 'holding farmers in contempt' after halting applications for a major post-Brexit payment scheme last week.
In what has been dubbed a 'warm on farmers' Labour announced it would cancel the sustainable farming incentive (SFI), just six weeks before farmers are set to file their tax returns.
Labour has already seen massive protests from farmers with hundreds of tractors descending on Westminster in recent weeks and the latest development threatens further action.