When it's another country using Russian gas, the rhetoric of condemnation is easy; when it's your country, there are invariably compelling reasons not to, not least of which is the wellbeing of your voters and their ability to heat their homes until other sources can be found.
Sanctions are meant to work asymmetrically - they should do the object of sanctions more harm than to do the entity performing the sanctions, else what's the point?
Like Norway, the UK benefits from North Sea gas for half its supply and isn't as reliant on imports as other European countries not having extensive coastal waters - Britain's position on gas (and hence its smugness in relation to Germany) is purely an accident of geography.
If we didn't so benefit, we would possibly be equally reliant on Russian gas, especially as China and India move from coal to gas and drive up demand for a dwindling resource with no more than a 30 year lifespan. China alone adds 15m households to the gas network each year, whereas the UK has only 25m households in total being heated by gas.
Becoming the laundromat for bent, Russian money, however, is not something foisted upon us by any external pressure - it was a simple choice. Roman Abramovich is a Non-Dom, as is Viscount Rothermere, the media tycoon who likes Brexit and places his media empire in a complex structure of offshore holdings and trusts. I bet the latter is playing down the Sunak Non-Dom story.
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