Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 172
April 29, 2015
Tory Tax Law Proposal: This Is Ridiculous
The Tory campaign has lost its wheels. There are certain controls that good governance requires remain at the disposal of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. This used to include interest rates, but it is now fashionable for central banks to control these, a development which history may show to have been a mistake. But to pass a law to tie the chancellor’s hands on income tax, VAT and and national insurance is madness. Nobody can know what the next five years will bring or what political or financial emergencies may arise. It can only mean, in view of the cascade of unfunded promises already made, even more cuts for people who can cope least. And suppose in a crisis he has to act to raise one or the other of these taxes and breaks this law. What are voters supposed to do then. Dial 999?
The truth is that the Tory leadership now believes that nobody believes them (or private polling has told them as much) and so they think a law to bind them to keep their promises is needed to give them a chance on May 7th. It is a cynical move by a bunch of clueless spin doctors which is unlikely to convince many. This is because should the chancellor wish to raise any or all of these taxes he would only have to repeal the law to do so. So the whole thing is meaningless as are all laws made by governments about government. Laws only work when the people subject to them cannot change them. That is what laws are. Dear me.
April 28, 2015
Growth Figures: Not Good
Ignoring the political implications of these latest figures, they reveal exactly what it is that is wrong with our economy. Construction and manufacturing are down as are exports; lower than expected growth is dependent on the service sector to stop it being negative and within that shopping and eating out are the drivers. Once again it is becoming clear that house price inflation has plaid a part in the windrow dressing of our allegedly fast growing economy. Perhaps most significant of all is a further fall in productivity.
This is not, and never has been, a rebalancing of the economy away from imports to exports, away from consumption to manufacturing, away from debt to investment, away from the financial sector to the real economy. In other words nothing of substance promised by the government five years ago in return for austerity has been delivered. This is no more than a makeover of the old failed economic model, with a few tweaks here and there. It is a bad model which increases the gap between rich and poor and multiplies billionaires and food banks in equal measure. It is by no rational measure outside the campaign rooms an economic recovery; it is but economic survival.
What effect, if any, it will have on the election remains to be seen. At least we do not have too long to wait.
April 27, 2015
Downfall In Downing Street
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.
A Plague On All Their Houses!
This blog is utterly dismayed by the demand side auction now engaging the main political parties to try and buy votes. All these rights, benefits and support for buying, without any coherent plan for a massive programme of affordable house building to rent, can only increase the shortage, inflate prices and increase the demand for taxation funded housing benefit to keep families from living on the streets.
No government of whatever party, grouping on combination, should get mixed up in the private property market. It should concentrate, as a matter of national emergency, on getting two million new houses built asap.by local authorites and housing associations to ensure a plentiful supply in all aprts of the country of decent affordable housing. This will settle the market and reduce housing costs to a proper affordable level and rebalance the economy away from borrowing and into saving.
It is quite impossible for politicians, and the Tories who think they are clever on the economy should know this, to talk of economic competence when they are feeding the very process which led to the financial crash in the first place.
April 25, 2015
Steamy Political Thriller
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. Downfall 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.
Election 2015: A Tory Edge?
In this never ending election campaign one can only say for sure that in two weeks time it will all be over. However we may be none the wiser about who is going to govern us. At present, although very close, it begins to look as if the Tories have a slight advantage. This will not give them a majority but it is likely to make them the largest party.
The Lib Dems have already said they will talk to the largest party in terms of seats, so we could be back to the same partnership. The problem is that this projection shows that together the two coalition parties will have lost enough seats between them to be unable this time to provide a majority by joining up. Labour will be very close in seat numbers to the Tories and if added to the Scot Nats on some kind of deal they may be able just to form a majority government, but it will be tight and they may not have enough.
This leaves two obvious possibilities. A Tory Lib Dem minority coalition where all the anti-austerity pro EU parties voting together can block any cuts or bring it down, or a Labour minority government with fewer seats than the Tories but kept in power by the Scot Nats, Plaid Cymru and the DUP. It is very difficult to see how either of these kinds of set ups can provide strong coherent government over a fixed five year term.
There is one other possibility that nobody dares even think about. A Grand coalition between Labour and the Tories to sort out the voting system, the House of Lords, how power can be devolved to the regions and the workings of an English element of a UK parliament. Having done that, dissolve parliament and have a fresh election with new rules, updated structures and a voting system which can produce a winner. That is the one option which is truly in the national interest, but it is fair to make the cynical observation that while in democratic politics political parties always proclaim subservience to the national interest, it is always the interests of their own party which come first.
April 24, 2015
The Economy: Ten Real Questions
The arguments between the parties about the economy , as the IFS pointed out yesterday, deal only in marginal handouts to entice voters and broad generalisations to hoodwink them. In the view of this blog here are ten questions which remain unanswered with clarity.
1 What are you going to cut and what effect will that have, not broad totals but specifics?
2 Are you going to borrow to invest and if so what is your target over what period?
3 How are you going to rebalance the economy away from financial services?
4 How are you going to increase manufacturing and exports?
5 How are you going to reduce imports and repatriate jobs?
6 How are you going to reduce the income gap?
7 What are you going to do about the low level of productivity in the UK?
8 What are you going to do to increase the revenue stream from taxation to the level needed to pay the running costs of the country?
9 What kind of taxation reform do you plan to a complicated and expensive system?
10 How are you going to increase the housing supply to make housing more affordable?
It is all very well to obsess about the deficit, but it is no good failing to tackle the reasons why it is there. Deal with these ten questions properly and the deficit will take care of itself.
April 22, 2015
Middle East, Ukraine: And UK?
Although the atrocities of Islamic State are never far from the news, the general level of media noise from both the Middle East and Ukraine is a good deal less than in the recent past. This is curious at one level because the situation in Eastern Ukraine remains dangerous and the Middle East has rarely been engulfed in such chaos of war and lawlessness. There is of course a general election campaign in force here and that always distorts the news. Indeed if you listen to the latest Tory onslaught, the greatest threat to the UK comes from Scotland.
There is however something much more important going on, which is historically significant and may be seen one day as a watershed moment. Britain and the US have stopped meddling where they do more harm than good, however well intentioned their activities. This may be a conscious decision because of past failures now so huge that they are beyond denial, or by default because of rising domestic pressures.
The result is that in the Mid East the various Arab powers are now beginning to act upon the threats that in many ways they have themselves fomented and now have to control; Iran, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are all active and it will be these three who will in the end resolve the schisms and faultlines in the various interpretations of Islam which, like Christianity in the past, are the source of conflict and forms of genocide. The surviving Assad regime has confirmed its protection of Christians where it is in a position to enforce it. America, Britain and some other European countries are continuing with air strikes on IS targets, but it is all relatively low key. Whilst the continuing suffering is a bad thing the fact that the region itself is now in the driving seat to solve its problems is a very good thing and that is the way it should be.
In Ukraine it is Germany, supported by France, but with the Russian speaking Merkel very much in the lead, where the initiatives to resolve the Ukraine crisis are being organised. Progress is being made. It looks as if the East will get most of the autonomy it wants and certainly Russia will never give up Crimea, not least because the vast majority of crimeans would not let them. Kiev will eventually see a settlement that leaves it with authority over a good less territory than when it started the crisis, but it will still be able to build a prosperous state on what remains. It should reflect on its reckless policies which have led it to where it is and debarred it from where it wanted to go.
Whether Russia will be brought back towards Europe or whether Russians have decided that they want to rebuild a less dependent state is not yet clear. A lot will depend on the chemistry between Putin and Merkel. What is clear is that Russia will be more assertive, but that does not have to mean she will not be constructive. Some things will depend on who is the next US President.
As for the UK now cowering under the dark cloud of a Scottish takeover (what piffle) a home truth needs to be confronted. By threatening to leave Europe and by fomenting false disharmony between Scotland and England, the UK has begun to look rather a shaky enterprise. No wonder we are already more or less excluded from all the discussions and ignored when we are included. Everyone will deny it, but that is how it is.
April 21, 2015
Political Thriller: Download or Paperback
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. Downfall 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.
