Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 101

Downfall In Downing Street: Enjoy Now

Set in the mid nineteen nineties, this fast moving thriller lifts the curtain on sex, sleaze and corruption in high places as the long reign of the government totters to an end, following the ousting of the iconic Margaret Thatcher. The novel catches the mood of those times with a host of fictional characters who engage in political intrigue, sex, money laundering and murder, pursued by an Irish investigative journalist and his girlfriend, the daughter of a cabinet minister found dead in a hotel room after bondage sex.

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Torture: No Because It Is Inhuman: No Because It Produces False Intelligence

There is no doubt that IS is a heartless enemy which blows up, beheads and shoots mostly innocent people who somehow violate its theology, often by no more than just existing. So there is a certain logic in saying we need to fall to its level to beat it. But this reasoning is wrong. First because any terrorist organisation is doomed to fail in its mission, because although all cause mayhem and suffering, none have succeeded in their aims. Second because to stoop to the terrorist agenda is in itself a victory for terror. Finally it produces false intelligence from half crazed victims, which in turn leads to wrong decisions and bigger disasters.

May made that clear to Trump. He showed some ingenuity by continuing to support water boarding, but deferring to his Secretary of Defense, James Mattis, who opposes it. But for how long? The UK government needs to keep an eye on this. For the British people of all political persuasions or none, it is a red line.

 

The Hastings Option: Download for 99p : USA $1.24

DOWNLOAD TODAY for 99p, this powerful retro thriller, written for women but enjoyed by men, in which raw innocence confronts darkest evil. The narrow, ordered life of a gentle but reclusive artist, Jane Block, is disturbed when a bequest, intended for her dead mother, passes to her. Mystery surrounds the nature of the inheritance and Jane is led on a sinister trail to secrets of the past, forcing her to confront her own fears and inhibitions. She finds herself caught in a frightening game of cat and mouse, laced with intrigue, love and betrayal.

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Foreign Policy Reversal: At Last!

The May government is suddenly coming to life. It began as if mesmerized by the aura of power, allowing drift and inaction in the country while engaging in rows within itself. Then came Trump. Somehow this energised the reformers to crush those who bumble their way through the glum political landscape of the status quo to the glory of a knighthood after many useless years of public service. Not only has it produced a coherent strategy for Brexit (with which this blog disagrees) although we await the detail, it has seen the wild card Trump as an opportunity to play a very different hand on the international stage. But most important of all, at last it has dumped the calamitous foreign policy of intervention against which this blog has for years campaigned. Armed interventions for regime change and nation building are out and Assad can stay if his people vote for him. This is not a change of direction. It is a reversal and it is to be applauded. Three cheers for Boris. Three cheers for Theresa.

There is still a blank spot over Russia. Russia did not illegally ‘annex’ Crimea. A Fascist mob, encouraged by the West, overthrew the legitimate, democratically elected government of the Ukraine and replaced it with one that announced it was hostile to Russia, to Russians who do and have always lived in eastern Ukraine and that Russian would cease to be an ‘official’ language. The terrified Russian Ukrainians, many families of centuries standing, took up arms to defend themselves and rang up Putin to ask for help. This came at a mobilisation speed which startled the West.  Crimea, which is almost entirely populated by Russians and was for centuries part of Russia, was ‘given’ to Ukraine by Khrushchev when he was Soviet leader to honour his birthplace and when everything was an integral part of the Soviet Union. Not surprisingly a referendum was held in Crimea asking the question would they like to rejoin the Russian Federation? 80%  of the population voted and 95% said Yes. That is democracy at work and it is silly to call it illegal.

Sooner or later we will have to accept that and end sanctions on Russia which have hurt the EU very badly. Indeed they have produced the economic stagnation which threatens the stability of the eurozone and with it the EU.  Moreover if we do accept the illegal claim, we are morally obliged to hand the Falklands back to Argentina, Northern Ireland to Dublin and Gibraltar to Spain.

But yesterday was a good day and it is the first step in making the world a safer place.

Labour’s Challenge: A Moment Of Truth for Corbyn.

Labour’s position in the polls is without modern precedent. A double digit Tory lead is only part of the problem. There is now a credible UKIP challenge in its heartlands, which depending on who lies second, could cause losses to the Tories, to the Lib Dems or to UKIP itself. In the two upcoming by-elections in its own seats, Labour is predicted to lose both.

Why is this? It is very simple. No political party can survive the impact of an attempted coup by its parliamentary arm against the membership’s choice of leader, fail in the attempt and retain credibility with the mass of voters outside its own bubble.Voters are now unable to fathom what it is Labour stands for. Is is for or against Brexit? What about immigration? What is its economic plan? Why is it backing all these disruptive strikes which make people late for work? How on earth has it managed to get itself into a double digit polling deficit?

It really does not matter what the answers are or indeed whether there are any. All that matters is that the era of tribal politics is over, the era of disruptive politics is upon us and the the unexpected champion of disruptive change in the UK is no longer, as it certainly once was, Jeremy Corbyn. It is Theresa May.

To recover its position, Labour needs to grasp,  through its ranks and across the breadth of the whole movement, that centre politics is over, new politics is coming and new politics will be of the Left. New economic models, new models of globalization, border controls, currency management, training, taxation, education, healthcare funding and international relations are all on their way. Corbyn has done an amazing job of re-energizing the Labour movement and hugely increasing the membership. But it now looks increasingly unlikely that he will be able to deliver power.

Yet were he now to resign matters would get worse not better, because there is no sign of a credible Labour leader who could take on the likes of May, Boris and Sturgeon. So the urgent priority is now to find one. For Labour’s time will come, but it will not wait. Labour will have to be ready with a narrative which inspires and gives hope, a clear set of radical policies which will deliver positive change and a charismatic leader who can communicate the message and lead it to power.

PS. This might be a good moment to read Turn Left To Power. (See previous post)

Labour’s Road To Recovery: Download or Paperback from £1.99

Turn Left To Power is a dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research , the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words.  Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution. 

Get your copy now. Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99     AMAZON UK

Book Of The Moment: Transatlantic Intrigue: Download and Papaerback

Dr. Rachael Benedict is an American historian and a best-selling author. Through the death of her estranged father she sets out to expose secrets from the Nazi era, which are so sensitive they have been subject to an extensive cover-up lasting seventy years.  This provokes a killing spree as parts of the security services of both Britain and the United States become engaged in the drama, with one side determined to get the secrets out and the other determined to keep them hidden.

Rachael battles forward to unearth the truth from intrigues of the past, but also within her own family, surviving three attempts on her life, before finally achieving her goal. Not only does she expose the truth from history and from her own roots, she has to delve deep into her own emotions to find the truth about hers elf.

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May’s Industrial Strategy

Sadly it is true that the outlines of thoughts, rather than a fully fledged plan, underpin a change of attitude from the May government towards a more interventionist approach to business. But there is nothing concrete and no evidence that more than small change will be on offer to kick start any programme to re-industrialize what was once the greatest industrial power on earth..

What is needed is this. Our problem is more to do with imports than exports. We have created a consumer economy based on acquisition and renewal of a range of items connected to lifestyle, information technology, entertainment and transport. We also spend a lot on services, including eating out. Our problem is all the hardware is imported. Even with cars, where we make a lot and export most of them, the success is offset by importing over 70% of the cars we actually buy for our own use.

So any industrial strategy has to repatriate the capacity to home produce a much higher percentage of the products consumers buy. This will involve gearing up the skills base of a workforce well behind our competitors and the building and tooling of factories initially to manufacture under licence and later to once again home grow our own ideas. Foreign manufacturers will have to be temped to open production facilities here and home start ups must have access to investment (not borrowing) to get them going. Huge infrastructure renewal has to be put in place now, as well as housing for rent and buy at a price ratio no higher than 3x a single income and 2.5 x joint incomes.

Probably the government would agree with most of this but will shrink from coming up with meaningful cash. However you try to configure the project, it cannot happen without printing at least as much money as has already been printed for the City, £425 billion thus far, to be  pumped into the base of the economy as direct investment without involving loans. You can play around with all the maths you want, argue all the economic theories in modern circulation, pour all the professional scorn you can muster onto an amateur, but believe you me, this is the only route out of an economy driven by house price inflation, shopping and record personal borrowing, yet still, after seven years, fettered by crippling austerity and a chronic inability to balance the books. That is where economic orthodoxy has got us.

Time for something new.

Free Download: Last Day

DOWNLOAD FREE TODAY this powerful retro thriller, written for women but enjoyed by men, in which raw innocence confronts darkest evil. 

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Supreme Court: The Verdict Predicted

The government lost its appeal to the Supreme Court as most legal opinion expected, but it was a good judgement. It has established a modern interpretation of where executive power ends and parliamentary sovereignty begins. This was by an 8/3 majority, which is a good thing because it demonstrates to those who claimed there would be a fix (ridiculous but claimed by many) that there was real debate among the judges, and not just a rubber stamp for the obvious. By unanimous verdict the Court ruled that the devolved assemblies do not have to be separately consulted over Article 50. That was pretty obvious because the home nations are all represented at Westminster and can make their case there.

Now we have to see how the government responds. We have to see also how Labour responds. If the government gets it wrong it could suffer delays to its Brexit timetable. If Labour gets it wrong it will suffer humiliating defeats in its two upcoming by-elections. That could spell the end for Corbyn and trigger more infighting in the parliamentary party, which would test the voters’ patience to the very limit. It might also inspire Momentum to seize control of the Corbyn revolution to become something more than just an activist group.

The plus out of it all is that parliament will become interesting again. That must be good.