This has been quite a week for warmongers. Moscow has been in flames and I suspect quite a lot of people have been muttering 'serve them right!' And two British oldsters, proudly sailing in the Nelson tradition, have pluckily confronted a sinister Russian warship in the English Channel. Surely it is time for war against Russia?

Or perhaps not. I'll come to that. Yet if I suggest that things are not that bad, or that calls for war are unwise, I am invariably attacked by upstanding patriots who accuse me of being in Kremlin pay, or perhaps of having been hired by Russian spooks during my years in Moscow, 36-odd years ago. Here we go again.

Actually, the KGB believed that I was a British spy. When I lived in the Soviet capital, they shadowed me on trains and on visits to the Soviet interior.

They bugged my flat and my car and installed agents in my home, who worked for me (rather well) as drivers, cleaners and interpreters.

My telephone would repeatedly go dead, as the listeners changed the spools on their clunky old Communist tape recorders. I hated them and still do. But believe what you want.

My concern, I state it once again, is for Britain, my own country. We are deluded about war in Britain because we have watched too many war films and too much Dad's Army.

We think war is a cosy affair in which, safe in our snug island, we drink strong tea and eat nice, thick bully-beef sandwiches as we stare out to sea next to a big gun, ready to repel the distant enemy. Not really.

War is rationing, shortages, power cuts, censorship, rising prices, travel restrictions, jobsworths checking your documents, relentless interference in your private life by authority, family separation – and all this in an atmosphere where complaining is disloyalty and there are no general elections. And that's before they start on conscription and the enemy begins to rocket-bomb our cities, while we bomb theirs, for year after dismal year.

Sure, there are times when you have to fight wars, when you are in genuine danger from a nearby enemy which desires to destroy or subjugate you. But Putin's scrap-metal state cares little about us. It's not that they like us or loathe us, just that they are indifferent to us.

So ponder a few things. Amid all this fuss about defence spending, what is it that we are supposed to be defending ourselves against?

If there is war, it will be like what Nato did to Moscow last week. And be sure it was Nato. Ukraine doesn't have the money, the military intelligence, the equipment, the skills or the ammunition to shower Russian cities with accurate attacks on key installations. Russia knows this. Do you think it possible Moscow might retaliate against Nato cities? I do. And if it does, it will come in the form of drones and missiles.

As the people of Tehran, Beirut, Tel Aviv, Kiev and Moscow can testify, this is the new face of war. If you want a war with Russia, drones and missiles are what you will get, and our cities could be scorched and terrorised with smoke and flame as Moscow was last week.

We are utterly unprepared for this. Why then do our leaders, and many in our media, apparently court and desire such a war? Are they in fact as stupid as I have long thought they were? Give Britain an Iron Dome first. Then, if you really want to, you can talk about war.

In the meantime, a bit of accuracy would be good. Many media have repeatedly stated that the Russian frigate fired at the English yacht. It categorically did not. The shots were aimed away from the yacht. On this, the Russians, the UK Ministry of Defence and the yachting couple are all agreed. So why keep saying something that is not true?

Also, you may patriotically call the place where this happened 'the English Channel' if you like – but it is in international waters where the Russians are legally allowed to be.

I wouldn't wander near anybody's warship in a small boat. All captains are trained to be touchy when this happens. Why? In October 2000 the US Navy destroyer USS Cole had a huge hole blown in its side by a suicide bomb packed into a small boat, which came alongside it in Aden. The bomb murdered 17 men and wounded nearly 40 more.

The people in the boat were making friendly gestures to the Cole's crew just before they touched off their explosives. See what I mean?

Calm down, and carry on, and build that Iron Dome.

Who'd miss the 'comics' on Radio 4?

A lot of people like to say that Radio 4 is so good they'd happily pay the BBC licence fee just for that. Some of it is. Not all of it.

I'm outraged at plans to get rid of intelligent (if annoyingly conformist) programmes such as The World Tonight and Crossing Continents.

But I really don't see why the whole embarrassing wasteland of tripe known rather misleadingly as 'Radio 4 Comedy' (which surely costs a fortune) couldn't be sacrificed to save them.

Our diet of Pot Noodle politics

How dispiriting that the empty figure of Andy Burnham, the man without qualities, has been enough to halt the forward march of Reform.

I'll tell you the trouble. Reform, like its leader Nigel Farage, offers no real understanding of all the damage done to our society since 1997 by Blair and Cameron, and people like them. And nobody really believes its promises. Faced with this cloudy prospect, voters prefer to wander back to the comforting usual, so well embodied by Mr Burnham, the Pot Noodle politics so many of us guiltily like, even if we're ashamed of it – being bribed with our own money.