Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 11

Trump Acquitted

Everybody knew this would happen because there never were enough Republican defectors to get a guilty verdict through. Impeachment, although a legal process under the US Constitution, is always a political event. Were the Democrats right to take this path? The answer in the broad sense is surely Yes. Were the Democrats wise to go this way? The answer is surely No.

This legitimizes Trump and turns the spotlight away from his antics and back onto his campaigns. America has to move on from the Trump era, but it will not do so until the Democrats themselves move on. As for the ‘Make America Great Again’ slogan. Surely America has not, for well over a century’ been so diminished as a world influence, as under the Trump Presidency.

Think about that.

Brexit: Harder Than Promised?

It is not frictionless trade and it is nothing like what it was declared by the government to be. Trade with the EU is free of tariffs providing all manner of conditions are met, especially rules of origin, forms are completed, certificates are in place. Delays are significant. Some trade with Northern Ireland has ground to a halt. Were it not for Covid, the government would have a lot of questions to answer.

In the end as the dust of Covid and Brexit settles, there will be one question only. Are we, or are we likely soon to become, better off? If that cannot be positively and unambiguously answered, another question will arise. Why did we do it? That will be when the game changes.

NHS Reforms: Boris Moves Further Left.

This Blog is not a Boris fan, but make no mistake the story is far from over. The Tories now have a small lead in every opinion poll but one. This is because Labour pulled ahead a while back, when Kier Starmer  looked the more credible PM, as Boris was all over the place on both the pandemic and Brexit. Not because Labour had a set of policies to inspire voters. This is okay in normal times. Oppositions should not develop policy platforms until an election is within sight.

However governments are developing policies all the time and two of them are now working in our  government’s favour. The vaccine roll out success and the EU Article 16 blunder. The roll out was not expected to work all that well and at first it didn’t. But now it is without doubt world leading and that reflects well on Number 10. And the problems with Brexit and they are many, can now be laid readily at the door of the intransigent and bureaucratic EU.

Moreover we are getting hints and leaks about infrastructure renewal, support for business post pandemic, NHS reforms, green industries and so on, which show a  left leaning government which, if it has not stolen most of Labour’s clothes, is very happy to wear them. Boris himself has become more measured, thoughtful and cautious, or put simply, less bumbling. For the moment therefore the majority of voters appear willing to back him. In England.

But in the other nations of the UK he is not anything like as popular. So a lot could go wrong for Boris, driving voters to Starmer. At the moment that seems less likely than it was three months ago.

America and Trump: What Now?

America has a choice before it. Not one half of the nation or the other half. But all of the United States. The choice is this. Either destroy Trump as a credible electoral force. Or Trump will destroy America as a credible modern democracy. The optimum requirement for a democracy to work, which defines it against fake democracies which are in fact either dictatorships or ungoverned spaces, is that the winner has, after winning, to govern for the nation as a whole, and the loser must accept they have lost.

Trump’s utterly preposterous assertions that widespread fraud had cost him the election, a mantra he still recites, rejected by over 60 courts in the US and every impartial observer across the world, for which he is unable to supply one piece of credible evidence, is perhaps the most ludicrous declaration by any politician in US history. It has massively damaged US credibility worldwide and empowered despots and dictators in equal measure. That he should be punished for this, together with his incitement of violence, leading to an assault on the Capitol in Washington, seems obvious.

Whether Impeachment is the way forward, it is up to America. But something has to be done. For decades America has offered the democratic model to follow. Not now. Restoring the integrity of the process is a priority.

Covid Realism: Stop Obsessing

Covid 19 is here to stay. Not till Easter, the summer or the autumn, but forever. The world cannot again be Covid free any more than it is ‘flu free. It is and will continue to be part of everyday life. And Death.

The combination of universal vaccination, wider understanding of the dangers posed by this type of virus informing simple counter-measures and better treatments for those struck down by it will, in the end, enable the world to move forward to a new, though different normal.

In the meanwhile we need to accept several things. Vaccination is a defence, it is not an immunity. It will reduce serious illness but it will neither eliminate the possibility, nor guarantee a free ride. The virus will mutate again and again. Vaccines will be adjusted to respond, causing the virus to mutate yet further. There will be different strains, here, there and everywhere. The world will be not be the same after this shared experience, as was the case after each of the world wars, the Black Death and other great historic events.  Indeed in many ways it might be a good deal better.

In the meanwhile we need to be measured, sensible and grown-up. We need to stop, the media needs to stop, the government needs to stop, obsessing about every detail of every Covid development, about every strain, about every opinion, about every statistic, almost to the exclusion of all else. There is other stuff out there, much of it not good and a lot of it deserving of attention which it is not getting.

There are gigantic piles of shattered lives, ruined businesses, lost jobs and social depravation, all of which are number one priorities for remedy.  This can only come from the biggest economic reconstruction in more than a hundred years and a level of national investment in housing, infrastructure and industrial regeneration, that right wing orthodoxy would in normal times regard as deranged. All of it has to be green and clean.

So if you want to obsess, you should start by obsessing about some of that.

NI Protocol Crisis.

The ramifications of this clumsy blunder rumble on at two levels. One is the difficulty associated with trade between NI and the rest of the UK which is far worse than promised. The other is the reputational damage to the EU itself, as a measured  international player and one on whom, in spite of having left it, the UK can rely.

The consequences are hard Brexiteers on steroids and a reinvigorated Democratic Unionist party in NI raging about the EU, complicated by the fact that this hard Brexit party leads the government in a Province which voted to Remain.

Blame flies through the air in all directions but in the end the root cause  is not the Protocol, or the EU blunder, or cross trade bureaucracy, but Brexit itself. A problem entirely of the UK’s making. An historic crime against enlightenment and unity at the scene of which the fingerprints of the Tory Party are everywhere to be found.

EU Blunder: Protocol Disaster

There is no more ardent supporter of the EU than I am, anywhere. But  it is abundantly clear that the European Commission has completely mismanaged the whole of the EU’s vaccine programme, with excessive bureaucracy, dithering and delay, leading to a failure to order enough of what they needed in timely fashion. Too many eggs in one basket when the sponsored vaccine and the biggest order failed to work.

Aware that European politicians would be after its blood, the decision was taken to blame others, rather than take responsibility. The UK would be the fall guy for hoarding vaccines for itself which were actually due for the EU. This proposition was based on fantasy. These disreputable bureaucrats, to cover their failings, then invoked rules to allow member states to ban vaccine exports from factories in their countries, even if bought and paid for.  If that was not enough, they added invoking Article 16 of the Northern Ireland Protocol, to close the border for vaccines between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland. Uproar.

Rescinded within hours, with various grovelings and excuses, the damage is immense. Brexiteers, somewhat on the back foot because of the trade disruption and extra costs associated with Boris’s so called trade deal, now have the wind in their sails. Europe is not to be trusted, look what a mess there are in, their true colours revealed,  we are so much better off out, what a success we have made of our vaccine programme, etc. etc..

Time for a  Merkel Moment. Nothing less will do.

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Education: England’s New Front Line

There is an old saying that England wins its wars by losing all battles but the last. There is an echo of this in Covid. So many mistakes, except with the vaccines. Here a world class performance is being achieved every day and, provided supplies are maintained, this will be the means by which Covid is brought under control, allowing the economy to be rebuilt.

Throughout the pandemic the political focus has been on protecting the NHS from being overwhelmed. This obvious priority was to avoid a complete collapse, with patients being refused admission, left untreated and spreading even more virus in the community, with a biblical level of deaths. But there was a political imperative too. The NHS is the jewel in the political crown. It is the nation’s proudest possession. To break it would be a political catastrophe for the Tory party, as it would reveal years of underfunding had left the NHS unfit for its core purpose, which is to be on hand to deliver, no matter what.

Yet there is a second front line, which now looms and which can have as great an influence on the future of the Tory party. Education. The weakest minister in the government is put in charge, presiding over a bewildering programme of U turns and muddles causing the lives of university and college students to be chaotic, at a time when they should be inspirational. Secondary schools and primary schools likewise have been subject to change and confusion, let down by inept leadership from government, leaving teachers and parents to pick up the pieces, while the students themselves  miss out on a year or more upon which the foundations of their future success were supposed to be built.

Even the terminology is confusing and grossly undersells the enormous effort and long hours which the situation demands of teachers and staff. Schools are not ‘closed’.  They are open, but to restricted admission, which can be as high as 40% or more. These students have to be taught in class face to face, while at the same time those at home have to be provided with on line learning. Covid protocols create all manner of extra challenges for schools, colleges and universities and increase the demands on staff. But it is not so much the fact of Covid, as the government’s educational response, which causes near universal anger among everyone involved in education at every level, either providers or receivers.

The political price for that will be long lasting. And it will be heavy.

Trump: Impeach or Not?

Never before has the United States had so dysfunctional an administration. But that is just a bad record and the incumbent was defeated in a Presidential election and denied a second term by a majority of voters, by a margin of six million. The outgoing President also lost in the Electoral College by a convincing margin. The two candidates each won 25 States. Each gained a record number of votes. So far, so good. Democracy is alive and well in the USA.

Then Trump starts declaring not only that he won, but by a landslide. He refuses to concede. He accuses the democrats of cheating with fraudulent votes. His lawyers mount sixty lawsuits all across America and lose every single one. The Supreme Court refuses to intervene. The reasons for this universal rejection of the legal challenges to the outcome of a meticulously observed and monitored national election are actually just one. Not a single scrap of credible evidence was presented to back up these wild claims, by anyone, anywhere.

But Trump continued and continues still, to pedal and promote preposterous lies which not only seek to undermine confidence in America’s democratic processes, they also cause incredulity across the world. It does not end there. No. He holds a rally of his supporters outside the White House and incites them to march on the Capitol when Congress is sitting and size it in an violent unprecedented in even America’s violent history. His defence is Free Speech.

If you believe in that absolute interpretation of this basic freedom, no matter the consequences,  you will want his Impeachment Trial to end in acquittal or not to happen at all. If you believe that with power comes responsibility, you will want Trump to be prosecuted by every means available and to be banished from holding public office for life.

Either way it was the whole event of this challenged election, which happened, is on the historical record and will never go away, which has done huge and lasting damage to the world standing of the United States. There is just too much that is not a road other democracies want to follow. The image is tarnished forever. It may be polished up and the ruptures  in the architecture of the Union may be repaired for the moment, but they are too fundamental to resolve.

Soon or later they will bust open again.