A North London-born comedy writer on the Isle of Man reads about Washington slowing Ukraine’s drones and wonders why governments always reach for the throttle
Saturday, 17 October 2026. Douglas, Isle of Man. A cafe on the promenade, a bacon roll, a gale off the Irish Sea trying to steal my napkin, 9.30am.
An Island With Opinions About Speed
I grew up in Finchley, moved to the Isle of Man three years ago for a job writing for a local comedy show nobody in London has heard of, and have since become the sort of woman who has strong views on the Mountain Road. If you do not know it, the Mountain Road is the stretch of the TT course over Snaefell, and large parts of it have no national speed limit at all. You can drive as fast as your car, your nerve and the sheep allow. On the mainland, this would be considered a war crime. Here, it is considered Tuesday.
So when I read the report on how Trump tried to stop Ukraine bombing Russian oil refineries by restricting its drones, my instinctive reaction was the island one. Somebody has imposed a speed limit. Of course they have. Governments of every stripe, left, right and whatever the Liberal Democrats are, cannot see a fast thing without wanting to slow it down. The report says Ukraine found limits on military satellite links for drones above a hundred miles an hour. A hundred. The milk float that delivers to my flat does seventy downhill.
I Am Right-Wing And This Still Annoys Me
I should say, for readers who do not know me, that I am right of centre. I voted Leave, I vote Reform when I am on the mainland and I think most public spending is a fire hose pointed at a candle. I have no love for big government. And I want to be very clear that this story annoys me, because a government on my side of the ocean appears to be restricting an ally’s ability to defend itself against an invader. That is not small-government conservatism. That is just government, being government, with a different hat on.
The report puts it well: Russia may bomb Ukraine’s electricity, but Ukraine must be careful not to interfere with anybody’s diesel prices. As a woman who pays one pound sixty-something a litre at the garage in Ramsey, I care about diesel. I do not care about it more than about a country being able to shoot down missiles aimed at its cities. Some trade-offs are not trade-offs.
The Customer Service Joke Writes Itself
The best lines in the piece are the ones about the war acquiring terms and conditions. A drone flies hundreds of miles, dodges air defences, finds its target and then gets a text from its internet provider asking whether it would like to upgrade to Premium. I laughed so loudly a man walking a Manx cat on a lead looked over. A Manx cat on a lead is, incidentally, the most Isle of Man sentence I will write this year.
The Isle of Man knows about remote control. We are a Crown Dependency, which means we run our own affairs, set our own taxes and have our own parliament, Tynwald, which claims to be the oldest continuous parliament in the world. But for some things, like defence and foreign affairs, the UK handles it. We are, in other words, a small country that understands perfectly how it feels when someone far away holds a switch you need. Tynwald has views about this. Tynwald has views about everything. It is a very old parliament. It has had time.
A Right-Wing Case For Not Slowing The Drones
Here is my conservative argument, delivered from a cafe with a bacon roll. If you believe in national sovereignty, and I do, then you believe a country under attack has the right to defend itself without asking permission from a fuel market. If you believe in free markets, and I do, then you know markets adjust to supply shocks; that is what they are for. And if you believe in keeping your word, then you do not announce a ceasefire that only one side is observing. Every principle I hold points the same way on this one, and it is not towards a throttle.
Meanwhile, On The Island
For anyone new, the humor.im home page is where I write about Manx life, British politics and the endless war between the island and the seagulls. The seagulls are winning. They have no speed limit either.
The Afternoon Plan
This afternoon I am driving the Mountain Road to Ramsey to see a friend, at a speed I will describe in this diary as reasonable and the sheep will describe as rude. On the way I will pass the Fairy Bridge, where by local tradition you must say hello to the fairies or suffer bad luck. I always say hello. I am a rational, conservative woman with a degree in economics. I am not taking chances with the fairies. Some superstitions are just risk management.
The gale has taken my napkin. A gull has taken my bacon. The Irish Sea is grey and furious. On the mainland, someone is drafting a regulation. In Washington, someone is adjusting a speed limit on a war. On the Isle of Man, I am going to drive over a mountain with no limit at all, say hello to some fairies, and wonder why the people with the most power always want everyone else to go slower.