Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 16

Freedom of Movement: Ending It Will Be A Disaster

The freedom to move all across Europe is a modern human right on a continent awash with needless bloodshed, spilled over  the centuries since the fall of the Roman Empire. It is one of the greatest political achievements in recorded history.  My own citizenship of Europe is something I value above all other official recognitions which bind me to where I live and who I am. I am far from convinced that once acquired it can be taken away without cause, but I have to face that this is one of the facts of Brexit.

The Home Secretary, not one of my favourites, is triumphalist in her support of the legislation now before parliament which introduces the new muddle headed immigration system. Yet already there is an emergency to get in the fruit and vegetable harvest due to a shortage of gatherers. This kind of problem will become common all across the piece, once the hard Brexit we are embarked upon takes effect, as one issue after another, that the narrow minded nationalism of the Brexit junkies never thought of,  pops up to derail industrial, commercial, cultural and leisure activities at every level.

The missteps of the pandemic emergency which have cost hundreds, even thousands, of lives are but a foretaste of what is ahead as the economy, not the pandemic, begins to dominate the daily life of the nation. It is therefore critical that the takeover of the Tory party’s central direction by an incompetent cohort of nationalist politicians and their fanatical advisers, be reversed. And sooner rather than later.

Brexit: It Has Not Gone Away

That nobody in the population at large has a moment spare to think about the distraction of Brexit, in the midst of a double crisis, each segment of which is on a scale hitherto unseen, is likely to be an understatement. Yet Brexit is still there and, unless the government implodes, there will be no extension beyond December 31st for negotiations about a UK free trade agreement with the EU. The expectation in the EU is that the UK will cave in and sign up to some fudged deal which leaves it subject to key EU rules and behaviours. That seems most unlikely without astonishing U-Turns all over Whitehall.

So a hard Brexit is very much on the cards. As one who is opposed to Brexit hook line and sinker, I am nevertheless persuaded in the new post Covid 19 world, it may not be such a bad thing. The reason I am inclined to think this heresy is that we will face the massive task of rebooting the UK economy to climb out of the economic crater caused by the pandemic. The public mood will certainly no longer go with long hours, two jobs, low pay and a world ruled by estate agents. Instead it will want real jobs, bigger money, cheaper better housing, public services which can deliver because they are fully funded and an end to NHS waiting lists. All of that will require government investment in  infrastructure, communications, start-ups, home manufacturing, green industries and transport, on a scale which will violate every rule in the EU’s book.

But it will transform Britain and preserve the Union.

Think about it.

Sunday Blog15: May 17 2010: Is The Government Losing Support?

In the election sense no it is not. Opinion polls continue to show a comfortable lead for the Tories and Labour has a lot of work to do to establish itself as a potential alternative government. But there will be no general election for another four years, so these polls are of little importance.

However on specific questions of how well the government is handling the pandemic issues, too late to lock down, lack of PPE, arguments and confusion about lifting restrictions, polls show widespread dissatisfaction over the government’s performance. Any inquiry will reinforce that anxiety and connect to the outcome of more people dying as a result. Once confidence in a government is lost at a time of national crisis, its majority, however big, counts for nothing. Change has to be made. At the top. Neither of the two world wars ended with the same prime minister as they began it.

Boris bungled his address to the nation last Sunday, demonstrating, since it was recorded and therefore edited before transmission, systemic incompetence among his inner circle of Brexit junkies. Everybody was confused afterwards by a blizzard of contradictory statements and wild announcements like go back to work in the morning if you can.  Most of the political week has been occupied in cleaning up the mess, with the four nations embarked on separate programmes and the English regions, whose R rate is higher than London, up in arms.

Boris is a unique brand in modern UK politics.  A left wing Tory who connects to ordinary people, who feel he is on their side, including many habitual Labour voters. He wins elections and career politicians will follow any party leader who wins elections for them. Yet in spite of all these strengths, there are the issues of accuracy and detail. Winning elections, sadly, needs little of either. Running a pandemic crisis and orchestrating recovery from the biggest financial shock in 300 years, requires a mastery of both.

So Boris needs to get a grip, not only of the pandemic response, but especially of himself. His brand of blustering populism which tells everybody what they want to hear is fine while it lasts. But once it turns sour and people turn away, Boris  as prime minister will be over. Not for the first time in its vivid political history,  the nation has identified a likely replacement working next door.

 

C-Virus Special: Stay Alert: Has Boris Got It Wrong?

In the messaging yes, Boris created a lot of anxiety and confusion with his over generalised broadcast and his blustering enthusiasm. Covid 19 is not a war which can be ended when the enemy signs a surrender document. So stuff like ‘together we will beat it’ really is off target. Moreover there is a general theme that if you follow certain rules, habits and regulations, you can be ‘safe’. This is only true if you remain isolated and indoors.

Once you step outside, unless and until the virus either dies out or is controlled by universal vaccination, you cannot be absolutely safe. What you can do is assess the risk and mitigate it by actions and behaviours which take into account both your own vulnerability but also the environment and contacts with whom you engage.

To help you, extensive guidance has  been published, covering  every activity and every level of society. Some restrictions are being relaxed immediately, with more to come if the R number remains below one. A Road Map and various new and developing processes, including an alert system and extensive testing, are all part of the staged ending of the lock down.

From today some people can go back to work and everyone is free to exercise as much as they like out of doors. Most of this is clear and there is no point in criticising ministers. Maybe it could be done better, maybe not. But what is wrong for sure, is the over-riding message that somehow you and yours can be safe.

What the new regulations are designed to achieve, is to reduce the risk to acceptable levels so that a modified form of normal life can return. That is how Boris and his government should present their policy. Their priority now is to get their testing and tracing, PPE and other essential infrastructure fully functional and capable of  meeting the challenges of coming out of lock down. Continued fumbling and failure here is not an option.

 

Sunday Blog 14: Waiting For Boris

There is little point in commenting today until after Boris has delivered his address to the nation later, so expect a mid-week follow on as the situation becomes less confused. For confused it certainly is with briefings this way and that, messaging which says one thing and means another, cracks in the four nation unified approach, doubts about testing efficiency, questions about the vital new phone app and so much else that it is hard to know where to start. At this moment the government appears to be losing its touch and the public is showing signs of becoming less compliant to its leadership. Tonight at 7pm, Boris has to clear up a lot of muddles and misunderstandings. Only then will we know where we are headed and whether it is in the right direction.

What was a crisis of saving lives from being taken by Covid 19, is now that plus a crisis of economic damage on a scale unseen before in peacetime and collateral death and illness caused by the lock down and withdrawal of all but emergency services by the NHS. Boris knows that he has tonight to be at his best, because lurking in the corner is the early shape of a political crisis. That is the only thing he truly fears. The problem for him is that fighting a pandemic depends on a mastery of interlocking detail. And detail is the thing at which he is worst.

Sunday Blog 13: May 3 2020: Has The Government Learned A Lesson?: What About Labour?

The Government

Although it is steadfast in its insistence that it does the right things at the right time, it is now clear that ministers and the scientific advisers they listen to, accept that they got it wrong at the beginning of the crisis and have been playing frantic catch-up ever since. The initial plan to abandon testing and containment and go to what has become known as herd immunity, was based on off the shelf modelling around a flu pandemic which ignored raw data coming from the epidemic front lines. Covid 19 is very not seasonal flu.

When the realisation dawned it was already too late. Although the expansion of the NHS to cope with overwhelming numbers has indeed been a triumph, the failures in almost every other area, especially testing infrastructure and PPE supply, have been obvious.

The price has been a death toll way ahead of the worst fears, at least within the parameters of trying to limit the spread. We are about to become the highest death toll in Europe, perhaps even the second highest in the world. We are accepting daily fatalities in hundreds, comforted only by the fact they are slowly falling. Clearly not everything done was right nor was it timely.

Proof of that is the far more enlightened and comprehensive plan, subject to clear cut and logical conditions, for the gradual easing of the current lock down. The overriding priority is to prevent a second wave. Had these ideas been acted upon at the end of February or the beginning of March, after proper pandemic preparation based on front line data, the first wave would have been a good deal less devastating and the economic shock a lot more short term.

Labour

Labour supporters may be forgiven if they feel disappointment that the election of a new leader and the appointment of a talented shadow cabinet has not produced a bounce in the polls. The more so because Keir Starmer’s performance in both the media and parliament has been impressive. But this is a time of national emergency when the ruling party is constantly active across all media, national unity limits criticism and the general public has no time at all for adversarial party politics.

As the medical emergency eases, economics will come once again to the fore. People will learn to live with the fear of catching the c-virus, as during the war they learned to live under falling bombs. Take reasonable precautions and trust your luck. But money and how to earn it will become the bigger worry and the soul destroying experience of unemployment among those who never thought it would happen to them, will create a different political dynamic.

That should be Labour’s moment. However the problem will be that the Boris/Cummings government is economically far to the left of anything Labour has even dreamt of for decades. It would be so easy if an austerity style Tory government sough to pay for the huge cost of the eye watering cost of hibernating the economy to preserve the basis of revival, with another few years of cuts and a fetish about balancing ‘the books’. But no.

It will be a government hell bent on investing its way out of the problem by borrowing and printing whatever it takes, hundreds of billions upon hundreds of billions, in order to grow the economy on a scale generally associated with Asia rather than Europe or the US. And one which styles itself ‘the People’s Government’ and which sees a society dominated by the priorities and needs ordinary workers and public servants, who are currently risking their lives in the front line of the pandemic. If it does not turn its back entirely on the hedge fund managers, lawyers and bankers, they will most certainly no longer be the first in line. Nor will inflation of fixed assets be the mainstay of growth.

So Labour will have to show great maturity and much self discipline. It will have to show it can do all of it but do it better. That is easier said than done. But done it will have to be if Labour is ever again to form a majority government.

Sunday Blog12: April 26 2020

Many expected Boris to be on sick leave longer. The news that he is returning to work tomorrow will be welcome even by those critical of the government. First on a human level because he has been through an extremely challenging experience, not to mention the torment of his loved ones who will have lived his  three nights in intensive care minute by anguished minute. Second because a time of acute national crisis is not one when the absence of the nation’s political leader is appropriate.

But let us not forget that the terrible Covid UK death toll comes not because it is unavoidable, but because in the critical early days when it became clear that a pandemic was in the making, Boris, especially Boris, most of his ministers and much of Whitehall, were asleep at the wheel. Ever since there has been a race to catch up, with plans and promises in bewildering abundance but delivery of them uneven and fragmented. So we end up with fantastic and brilliant nightingale hospitals with no patients (they should be mothballed for future pandemics for dedicated use to avoid compromising regular NHS facilities) and increased testing capacity at last and very late in the day, but then without the infrastructure to deliver to those who need and want testing.

Boris will need to sort this out. He will also have to bring an end to the damaging mystery surrounding our exit strategy, which merely fuels the fear there isn’t one. He will have to open the nation’s eyes to a very different future too. One not dominated by bankers, hedge fund managers and lawyers, but one in which the forgotten millions become the vanguard. One in which a much bigger state is appreciated, valued and paid for. All of which is anathema to the Thatcherite tradition which has inspired the Tory party for over forty years, but one which by chance Boris, his chancellor and the sinister gang who advise them, are only to happy to dump.

For this Blog, that is the bright light up ahead.

C-Virus Special 2: A Pattern?

A pattern is beginning to emerge. However much it releases, repeats and proclaims its ‘right thing at the right time’ mantra, everybody now knows that, while focussed on the successful expansion of NHS capacity to cope, the government made a mess of the detail at the start of the pandemic in the UK.

Now it appears that while still trying to spin its way past a bad moment, the government is pinning its reputation on a great leap forward in vaccine development, alongside targeted testing for antibodies among a sample of the population.

This will  lead to focussed relaxation of some, but by no means all,  the restrictive measures now in force. Or so the government hints. It is now pulling out all the stops to become the world leader in bringing the virus under real control, sufficient to resume economic activity without the need to continue the kind of strict social distancing necessary at present and, in modified form, for  a long time ahead. Like so much of the Covid crisis, nobody can be sure.

Moreover until Boris returns as full time in charge and until we see what style of leadership he is able to offer after the trauma of his own illness, we cannot tell whether the present line up of ministers will remain unchanged, or whether, like everything else about our way of life, the way we are governed and by whom will have to change too.

Sunday Blog 11: April 19 2020: Pressure Building on Government

For a government that prides itself on doing the right things at the right time, there is a lot going wrong. There is an increasing disconnect between ministerial statements delivered in the familiar self congratulatory tone at the daily Downing Street briefings and the realities across the Covid 19 landscape, especially in England. Moreover lone voices hesitantly questioning,  have become something of a chorus and a good deal more strident. Of course it is not all bad news. The extraordinary response of the NHS and its ability to up its critical care capacity is already a legend. The admiration of the whole country for not just NHS workers, but all those essential people who keep the country running at all the basic levels involving care and services, is at an historic high.

The State, previously seen as a drain on taxpayers and the enemy of choice and  individual freedom, is suddenly the friend and critical supporter, one way or another, of every family in the land. Credit must be given to the government for driving the NHS expansion and for having no qualms whatever in building at breakneck speed the biggest expansion of the state since the post WWII era. Moreover when the question is asked by fiscal conservatives about paying for it all, the chancellor does not talk of austerity. No. He talks of massive government investment in industry, infrastructure and communications to invest our way out of the crisis and grow the economy to meet the need.

But there remains mounting evidence that a  failure of testing and procurement, with woolly science and muddled planning at the start, led to a lockdown much too late. It has also led to acute shortages of everything across the piece and significant logistical failures, many if not most still unresolved, in spite of eye catching promises made by a procession of ministers at the daily briefings in Downing Street. This in turn is leading to a longer peak, a bumpy curve and a much longer period of restrictive living than was envisaged or prepared for. Now the WHO tells us there is scant evidence of lasting immunity and that few people tested who have had the virus have much in the way of antibodies. That puts a question mark over the whole programme of antibody testing which was supposed to be a key part of the government’s elusive exit strategy.

Worst of all, these problems appear to be showing through in a grim death tally. Currently our total death rate, calculated as a percentage of the total of those infected, as reported in the daily statistics, is now running at 13.5%. This is higher than Italy 13.2,  France 12.6,  Spain 10.5,  USA 5.2. and Germany 3.2. It could be said that because we have not tested properly, we are understating the critical cases, but as everybody is using the WHO standard of hospitalised confirmed cases, this may not be a valid explanation. On the contrary many experts are now predicting we will head the table as the worst in Europe.

At the very least there are questions the government must now answer on a range of anxieties. Self-justification and fudge will no longer do. It has much to be pleased with, but the central issue of confronting the virus and resolving the threat, remains unanswered with sufficient conviction and enough evidence, to give the country the hope and confidence, upon which ultimate recovery will depend. Positive news of vaccine development at pace is certainly encouraging, but even if such vaccines work they are not for today, or even tomorrow but at least the days after that. The problem for the government seems to be that it has locked itself into a syndrome of planning for yesterday.

Sunday Blog 10: April 12 2020: Government Under Fire

The consensus backing the government is breaking up. Attacks are now focussed and telling. There is mounting irritation. It does not stem from government mistakes. Everyone accepts that in an unforeseen chain of events for which there is no template to work from people will, with the best of intentions, get it wrong.

It is the vulgar and unashamed self justification which is pedalled out, like cheap goods at boot sale, at every daily press briefing from Downing Street. There is a naivety that the news can be managed. It cannot. There is a national crisis of undreamed of proportions engulfing every facet of life, society and the economy. And people are communicating with each other as never before, so everyone knows when questions are not answered and plans are not working.

At the centre of it are two lies. The first is that the government is driven by the science. It is not. It is driven by the science that suits it. There is other science which it choses to ignore. The second is that it does the right thing at the right time. It does not. As well it knows.

The country, in other words the people, the ordinary people, have rallied as never before in peacetime, many laying their lives on the line, to save their fellow citizens and their communities. An NHS, managed through a bizarre amalgam of suffocating quangos and agencies, starved of resources over more than a decade, has answered the call on a scale which has stunned and gratified the nation. Every authority and service, each one of which is pared to the bone by cuts and efficiency savings, now responds at levels before unseen to go the extra mile, another one, then the mile after that.

They do this because the government, drunk on Brexit elixir, ignored the early signs of a growing threat, woke up suddenly to the stark fact that with pseudo science amounting to little more than invention, they were leading the country to a biblical scale catastrophe. They changed course. But too late to prevent thousands of unnecessary extra deaths and a cost to the economy almost beyond calculation. What they had to do was to lock down early and make testing the centrepiece of the defence. But no. They knew better. Herd immunity.

Yet still the insulting refrain is sung every single evening from that notorious press room in Downing Street. We are doing the right thing at the right time. With our 67 million we have  nearly as many cases and three times more deaths than China with its 1.4 billion. We are just reaching the peak. China is more or less at the end. So what did they do wrong?

We are now predicted to have one of the worst death tolls in Europe if not the worst. In the first two days of Easter nearly two thousand  people have died, the actual figure is 1819. We still have Sunday’s and Monday’s figures to come. It is okay for the government to come clean and say it made mistakes and it is working night and day do put things right.

But it is so very not okay to tell us that it is doing the right things at the right time.