Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 162
June 28, 2015
Tunisia Deserves Support
The shocking news from Tunisia has stunned the country. One can only imagine the torment of those who cannot yet establish the fate of loved ones, or the anguish of those bereaved. The emotional scars of those who escaped will be long lasting. For Tunisia this is a disaster because it will frighten tourists away. This is the IS plan. A single gunmen can cause a ruined economy. If it does not work the first time, do it again. So few will dare go back and if they do they will run a risk which may not be worth taking.
I recall going to Mexico at a time when guerrillas were on the rampage taking hostages and committing atrocities. The hotel grounds were patrolled by the military and all along the beach were tall watch towers manned by security forces with machine guns. We felt safe and there were not then and never were in future any outrages in that area. There may be a lesson her for Tunisia.
All the interventions thus far made by the UK and its allies have failed and done more harm than good. Yet Tunisia is the only Arab Spring country apart from Egypt with a functioning government and the only one which fully embraces democracy. It may be possible with the aid of UK Special forces and even some ground troops to create safe areas where the tourist industry can still operate in defiance of the IS threat. That would help the Tunisian economy and encourage its people to press forward. It is at least worth looking at.
There is something else too. IS is not the kind of organisation which can be destroyed in battle. It will morph into something else if it loses its power base and suffers a major reverse. The diplomatic reality, as this blog has pointed out before, is that our main allies in confronting it are Iran and Russia. We need to bring the nuclear negotiations with Iran along a realistic path to an acceptable compromise and conclusion. We need also to start mending fences with Russia. Europe is no longer in any condition to pick fights and withstand the effect of its own sanctions; it is has far too many problems of its own making to cope with. Sooner or later we will have to start talking to IS. In secret of course.
June 27, 2015
Greece: Patience Snaps
So the Greeks themselves are to be given the chance to approve or reject the bailout terms. The flabbergasted combination of the ECB, the Euro group and Greece’s creditors have overplayed their hand. This blog has repeatedly warned in various posts that there is a social limit to how much financial authorities can impose solutions upon populations before the people turn against them. Essentially this is now what has happened in Greece. Elected on a mandate to bring an end to the worst elements of austerity the Tsipras government expected some significant movement by Eurozone leaders to cut a better deal in the negotiations, so as to give them something to keep the Greek people on side. They did not bend and were dismissive of the proposals put by the Greeks; Christine Lagarde of the IMF was insulting in her comments and called for grown ups to be in the room.
Well now it has gone pear shaped and the end cannot be predicted. The euro in its present form and its process of governance are now in deadly peril because events are now out of control, like a ship in a storm which loses its engine power. Nobody even knows whether the Greek economy can survive the week. Repayment of its loans are now a pipe dream unless the Euro group come up with something acceptable and do it fast. Merkel has been anxious to protect the money of German taxpayers. It is now on the cards she will have to tell them she has lost the lot.
June 26, 2015
Europe: How is Cameron Doing?
Cameron’s position on Europe is interesting. It is reported that he now accepts there will be no treaty changes until after the in out referendum and that those treaty changes will have to be agreed by all the other national parliaments and by referenda in three countries as well. How on earth anybody can be certain that everything will go through after we have voted to stay in makes a Yes campaign on such terms ridiculous, and if we vote No and leave the whole project will be abandoned anyway.
So what is available? Let us first get rid of a false hope. ‘Legally binding’ undertakings to change treaties later are pointless because nobody has the authority to do it. As stated above treaty changes would be subject to both parliamentary and referendum processes and only one country has to stall to wreck the project.
So Cameron has to work within existing treaties and the flexibility to adjust at their margins, to achieve cast iron proposals which he can put to the country. To satisfy the No campaign these would have to be dramatic; but to bolster the Yes vote to victory would require a good deal less. Stopping benefit tourism, improving governance and separating the very necessary ever closer union of the Eurozone from the working of the wider EU would be enough. Countries within the EU using national currencies would enjoy a good deal more authority in their national parliaments than those bound to the common currency. These countries would be lead by Britain, whereas Euroland would bow to Germany.
The fact that the latest meeting of Heads of Government went on till 3 am with furious rows over migration unresolved (a formula which is voluntary and only covers 40,000 is meaningless and was a device to allow people to get to bed), Greece and the Euro still in the air, and a speech by Cameron merely formalizing what he had already explained to all of them individually hailed as progress, is confirmation in spades that not only the Euro, but the EU itself has a doubtful future if it carries on like this. The heads of government are not fools, although there are times when one wonders, and they see that change is needed. Indeed most are supportive of change in principle, but nobody agrees on the substance.
And this is the problem of the dysfunction of the EU. Everybody agrees the principles, nobody agrees the details and no one is authorised to decide. All of this can be made much better within the existing frameworks without treaty changes, although greater improvements can be incorporated into new treaties which will be needed to draw the eurozone into closer union. If nothing is done there is now a much stronger possibility, because of the mounting intray of unresolved issues which are kicked like a can down a road to nowhere, that Britain, in spite of Cameron’s efforts, will vote No. If that happens France will be next.
June 25, 2015
Spooky Holiday Reading
For Paperback or Kindle Click Image
A Gift of Treason
The narrow, ordered life of a gentle but almost 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 quest to unravel one of the greatest cover-ups of World War Two, and in so doing finds intrigue, love and betrayal.
Stanislaw’s Crossing
St.John Whilloe is the black sheep member of a wealthy legal family, whose firm of solicitors looks after the affairs of many of the top families in the country. He is consulted by a young woman who claims to be frightened by her husband. Things are not as they seem and St.John finds himself drawn into a complex web of intrigue and murder. He is soon in a race against time to solve a mystery with roots in a tortured family history, with sinister paranormal undertones.
Europe’s Troubles.
These can be summed up under four headings; Greece, migrants, the UK and a sluggish economy with high unemployment. It all looks manageable but at the moment none of it is being managed. It is being kicked about and argued over but little actual progress is being made. Why?
Largely because the peculiar multi-headed governance system which this blog has criticised so often, works for strategic expansion and writing treaties, but it does not work for the management of the consequences when the best laid plans go wrong. First there is no leadership structure which can be recognised, second the relationship between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council is too obscure to mean anything to the people of the EU and third there is no authority which can decide and whose decision rules.
So we have no agreement over Greece and anything now cobbled together will do no more than prepare the next Grexit crisis, there is disarray over what to do about the extraordinary migration of oppressed and poverty stricken people from the Middle East and Africa and there is no clear vision of how to re-energise the EU economy and reduce record levels of unemployment. It is not that these problems exist which is the worry. In the real world there are always problems. The inability to find or agree solutions is the issue. It is one of leadership. Germany could give it but is cautious because of its past, France would like to but is under Hollande a busted flush, and the UK, which usually shines in just this environment is caught up in arguing about whether it might leave and thus carries no weight at all.
And then there is the Ukraine. This was a very bad moment to pick a diplomatic confrontation with Putin. Rumour has it that he has had enough of sanctions and is about to strike back. We shall see. Watch Greece.
June 24, 2015
Downfall In Downing Street: Book Of The Day
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.
Royal Pay Increase: NO NO NO!
The news that the Royal set up is to be given a 6.7% pay increase for the coming year, based on some formula connected to the crown estates, is both preposterous and insulting and should not under any circumstances proceed. Shortly George Osborne is to get to his feet in the Commons and announce how he is going to axe £12 billion from the welfare budget, by its very definition an axe which will cut through the daily lives of the weakest is society and the poorest in the land. It is absolutely out of order and morally indefensible for the Royal Family, who live in luxury beyond the imaginings of the majority, surrounded by armies of servants and flunkies from a bygone age, to accept a lavish helping of public cash when up to a million of their subjects rely on foodbanks, while public servants lower down in the pecking order have to make do with a 1% pay rise.
This blog supports the monarchy, but not at any price and certainly not with this degree of public insensitivity. As for the plaintive whine that the Queen might have to move out of Buckingham Palace while it is refurbished, because it has not been redecorated since 1952? Well they had the money every year and it was their responsibility to maintain their property. Cameron needs to put a stop to this.
June 23, 2015
Flying The Confederate Flag
It is good news that the governor of South Carolina has indicated that the Confederate Flag should not fly outside the State Capitol. The Confederate States of America is a country defeated in war which no longer exists. It is right that its symbolic battle flag should not be flown from official buildings, other than museums and commemorative sites where the US flag should fly beside it.
Symbolism is powerful and emotive but the same symbol can be different things to different groups of people. To some this flag recalls deeds of valour by ancestors upon fields of battle where heroes fought with their lives for the independence of their country. To others it recalls the fallen dream of a different kind of North America; a nostalgia for something which might have been. But to another group this flag became the symbol of white supremacy and the rallying totem for a culture of segregation, cruelty and repression and because of that every African American in the South looks upon it as an evil emblem flown to evoke a dark past and an an attempt stamp it on the present.
This blog has often pointed out in the modern context that armed conflict rarely solves ethnic or cultural divisions. Having become the world’s most enlightened democracy it was completely wrong in 1861 for democracy to be cast aside in favour of conflict, killing and conquest. Had slavery ended by democratic agreement as it did in the British Empire in the 1830s, its legacy would have been far less toxic and the emancipation of African Americans far more complete and inclusive. The war was not about slavery, it was about the right of people to choose a different path to independence; the ending of slavery became the cause to justify the slaughter, but the fight would have happened if no such thing had existed.
America had fought for and won its independence from an all powerful state, Great Britain. There were many who held that the Union had simply replaced Britain as an all powerful overlord which failed to recognise the sovereignty of individual states within the American family. That alternative vision was subjugated by force of arms, but it did not die. Because of the war all sorts of bitterness, prejudice, repression and fear became a consequence unforeseen at Appomattox. These scars are still not fully healed. America is one country but it remains two nations. If Charleston’s tragedy can pull good from the evil of that deed, it will be to ignite a drive that at last it is time to become one.
