Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 129

Boris Changes The Game

Boris Johnson in a flurry of rallies, interviews and speeches yesterday took command of the Leave campaign and injected a sense of passion, pride and self belief in Britain and its potential which has energised the whole debate over Europe. Never mind all these world figures he says; they all have an axe to grind as does the British establishment in keeping to the status quo. Obama was creamed in a withering dismissal as a hypocrite and Cameron, though unnamed was branded a Gerald Ratner, not just selling dodgy goods, but doing so knowing full well they were dodgy. So we have a political drama in two parts. The country torn by a decision about its future and the Tory party now in open civil war torn asunder and scattered, with the current prime minister leading the Union and the next or likely next one leading the Rebels.

Meanwhile the latest polls reveal Leave and Remain neck and neck with Leave advancing. This could be serious.

Brexit Thoughts 8: NHS Nonsense

So the day at last has come. What day? The day the EU Referendum Campaign officially ‘begins’. Yes, it has being going on for months, years even, but it is now official. The government is at odds with most of its party, the cabinet is split, Cameron is damaged, Boris is rampant and all sides are saying nasty things about each other. Words like care, warning and caution have been supplanted by the freakish fairytale sounding scaremongering. Labour has come to the rescue of Cameron in that most of its members and voters are for Remain and a lukewarm endorsement came from their leader Jeremy Corbyn yesterday. Essentially his message was there was much about the EU he did not like, but the outcome of leaving would be a good deal worse. World leaders and bankers are lining up to recite various disaster scenarios not just for GB but for half the world if we decide to go.

Leave launch themselves on a proposition of such mathematical gibberish as to make us wonder whether they have a clue what they are doing. Their deal is that if we leave the EU, the £300 million or so a week we send to it could be spent on the NHS. Bingo. Experts of every description and kind, from think tanks, universities and wherever, have lined up on the media to explain that although a gross sum flows out, it passes on its way a lot coming back. And if you take account of the investments made in the UK by the EU in all sorts of areas from environmental improvements to medical research, plus the revenue generated from the foreign direct investment in the UK especially because it is in the EU, you would end up at best with nothing more to spend on the NHS and very likely quite a bit less.

 

The Minister, The Sex Worker and Labour.

There is a lot of big important stuff going on in the world demanding the Labour Party’s attention. John Whittingdale’s dates are not part of it. Getting involved in this is a big own goal for Labour. The argument put forward by Maria Eagle is that what amounts to a perfectly legitimate relationship forged by Mr Whittingdale, before he was a minister,  through a dating website and afterwards ended when he found the lady’s day job was a bit specialized and in the sex industry, is that the episode for this divorced and single man somehow debars him from his statutory role of supervising the newspaper industry, now all but dead on its feet. Apparently somebody tried to sell the tabloids the story but they rejected it due to the fact there was no story.

There is a bit more to the rigmarole, but we need not bother. Ms Eagle thinks he should ‘recuse’ himself, a word not in the Oxford dictionary but perhaps an American term meaning standing to one side because of conflict of interest in some legal process.  It is not the plain English to which politicians, Labour ones especially, should always stick if they want to get their message across. The conflict of interest offered in this case thus far is so obscure that it is almost as bad as saying the Secretary of State for Industry should stand aside in the Tata negotiations due to the fact that he drives a car which is made of steel.

Ms Eagle is one of those (too many) New Labour stalwarts  Corbyn has to suffer in his shadow cabinet. This is  a pity, as nowadays they have a tendency to do more harm than good.

US Election: Trump Down, Sanders Up

With his win in Wyoming Bernie Sanders has now taken seven of the last eight primary contests, but Hilary remains in the lead by a margin. All eyes are now on New York. If Sanders can take that prize it would be a game changer. He would no longer look like the challenger. Instead he would look like a winner. Hilary would be badly damaged.

Meanwhile Trump took another beating at the hands of Ted Cruz in Colorado. Trump has not won anything since he said he would punish women. But only a fool would predict it is over for the billionaire whose shock tactics have propelled him to front runner, a position he still holds. Part of his elan was that he appeared unstoppable. Well that bit is over. He can be stopped, but the question now is, can he be stopped without the Republicans losing any chance in November to take the White House? Again New York looms large. Trump  should walk it. If he fails he is stopped for sure.

Still in the US but another subject, this Blog is appalled that North Carolina has passed laws that roll back protection for gay people and require transgenders to use the public restroom for the gender on their birth certificates. This is ignorant, cruel and hypocritical. It is prejudice of the very worst kind and looks backwards into a world long gone, thank goodness. It is a part of America’s psyche that the rest of the world hates.

The Archbishop’s Father

This extraordinary bolt from the blue has driven the UK news agenda today not so much because of the sensation but because it is a very human and touching story. Moreover proximity to Churchill is always newsworthy now, more so than when the national hero lived. Justin Welby has handled what he claims was a bombshell with great dignity and in so doing has affirmed his Christian faith. The general view is that this is an uplifting tale with a very happy ending.

Beneath it lies an important message to which the conservative right wing of the Anglican  church, a persuasion which like obsolete software no longer updated operates outside the frame of modern thinking and human generosity, must heed. The message is this. Nobody can be blamed for the circumstances of their birth. This includes parents, gender, sexual orientation, colour, the whole thing. So to discriminate against women or gays within the church or in the ministry to them is not only plain wrong, it is unchristian and cruel. The word is wicked.

Ukraine And EU: Dutch Vote No.

This Blog has been consistently against the western expansion of the EU and especially to any formal relationship with the Ukraine. So it is pleasing to see that the Dutch voted against the pre-applicant status that was proposed by one or other of the various opaque organs of governance which drive the EU wagon. This concession to the Ukraine has to be ratified by each member country. Although the vote was on a low turnout, it serves to emphasise that the EU public are more assertive than before. This is good for democracy.

The current Ukraine government has a lot wrong with it. It came to power as a consequence of the previous legitimately elected administration and its president being toppled by street protests and riots in which far right Nazi admirers played a major role. It then fomented conditions which led to civil war and the loss to separatists of large parts of its country for which it blames everybody else. Wherever this is going is hard to predict, but it cannot be into the EU. If and when GB is playing a constructive role in Europe again it needs to add its No to the whole Ukraine project.

Brexit Thoughts 7: Leaflet Rage

The government has decided to spend £9 million (to government the expenditure equivalent of an ice-cream) on leaflets to be sent to all of us, explaining why we are have having this absurd referendum, what the value of belonging to the EU is and what are the risks of leaving, organised into a simple factual format. Very good.

Leave have gone bananas. That’s just too bad. If it were not for their endless agitation we would not be wasting the £70 million plus it is costing to stage this drama to help them with their sovereignty phobias, nostalgia for a world long gone and pipe dreams about an idyllic future which is just not there.

The government is backing Britain in the EU. It is entirely right and proper that it should set out its case. At least the leaflet is not partisan, since most of the shrunken  Tory  membership, which is both at an historical low and well past middle age, are for Leave.

Tax Leak: The Artful Dodgers

The mayhem caused by the leak of documents spilling the beans on tax dodging, money laundering, wealth concealment and much else is only just beginning. More and more will spill. Heads of State, crooks, fraudsters and the mega rich are all there. Including the Cameron family.

The excuses coming out of Downing Street are that the prime minister’s late father was a businessman who complied with international law and did nothing wrong. Of course it is wrong to cheat your country out of revenue and to hide behind phantom shares so that nobody knows it is you. This is a truly shocking revelation which tells the country how the fees for Eaton were earned and how the Bullington Club binges were paid for.

Public opinion will not be forgiving. Cameron is already damaged. This is another hit which makes his future very uncertain. He will do well to end the year without having to move house.

The Economy: Markets or Management?

The steel crisis has revealed the inherent problems with the post Thatcher Tory party. It believes the state has no place in either business or markets. Unless state intervention drives up capital values or supports property prices and low wage costs. So billions are used to subsidise excessive rents and low wages or to support house purchase and billions more are printed to prop up a blown financial sector, but when a strategic industry like steel runs into crisis the initial reaction is to let the markets run their course. It then finds itself so far on the wrong side of public opinion that it has to react to stop a political crisis. The result is a rudderless muddle while the steel industry is left distraught and in limbo. Meanwhile the the balance of payments deficit, or current account deficit, reaches and all time record. UK exports are floundering. The march of the makers has become a joke.

Just as an untended garden where nature is left to take control unchecked becomes at first attractive and then a wilderness, so handing over control of the economy to the markets is at first  a breath of fresh air leading to healthy expansion, only to become a chaotic structure in which some countries have all the cash and the others have all the debt. Moreover this leads to those whose income relies on assets never having it so good and those whose labour drives the fabric of civilised living having it not good at all.

So our country finds itself indebted to the world at large as never before and faced with a mounting industrial and energy crisis as more and more resources are taken to fund and subsidise rising costs and falling real income, with little to no new wealth creation. To counter this there is a need for a bold new plan. Free of busted ideologies and nostrums which favour the few over the many, in which the state is a player, indeed a leader, and markets are organised to develop a contribution not just for their own benefit but also for the public good.

Gripping Reads: Value Downloads and Paperbacks

Here are three of my popular thrillers. Two are dramas played out today but founded in the Nazi era. One is a political thriller from the immediate post Thatcher era. Click on the links above each title. From £2.08 Download and £6.99 Paperback

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