Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 184
February 17, 2015
Young People: Benefits or Opportunity?
Cameron and Milliband are busy advertising the ways in which their own brand of politics will help young people into work. The Labour model looks more comprehensive. The Tory idea of community work is something of a cop out and unlikely to inspire young people to make better use of their educational opportunities.
At the heart of these difficulties is the shape of the economy as it is modelled in 2015. Because of the post socialist shrinking of the country’s manufacturing and industrial base there are now very few areas of the country where neighbourhood jobs are worthwhile and pay good money. The days when every community had a basic employer in the form of a works or factory have long gone. Yet to solve the UK’s problems of youth unemployment, debt overhang, budget deficit, housing costs et al, will require those days to be brought back in some form and with a modern platform. Unfortunately there is not a single political leader or indeed anyone presently with a plan to do that. They do not even mention it. Community work or apprenticeships paid for by bankers bonus’s hardly do more than scratch at the margins of the challenge.
On a lighter note if I were a banker I would vote Labour. Their tax on bonuses seems to be earmarked to pay for almost the entire election manifesto of Ed Milliband’s party. So clearly the bonus culture will be safe with Labour.
February 16, 2015
Egypt Strikes Back
There is reliable evidence that the Islamic State is suffering under continuous air strikes. Up till now these have been predominantly American. Recently Jordan launched a substantial number of attacks on its own initiative using what it described as dozens of aircraft in reprisal for the brutal killing of its young pilot. Now we learn that Egypt has immediately attacked from the air IS bases, following the execution of a number of its citizens, all coptic Christians. This is a very significant development because both Egypt and Jordan are predominantly Sunni, as is the Islamic State.
For a while IS was doing very well militarily and in the more subtle, but no less important, propaganda campaign. Now things look less good for them. It is impossible to win a modern military campaign without air power if the other side has it. IS had to secure the territory and the allegiance of Sunnis before enemies with air power became active. Not only has this not happened but now the Sunnis themselves are turning against it. It has always been the view of this blog that western intervention played against its own interests and to the IS tune and that it was the Arabs themselves who would need to sort things out. This is because it is an Arab war invoking a clash of different ideologies within the many threads of Islam.
There are signs that this is starting to happen.
February 15, 2015
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February 14, 2015
Relations with Russia: A New Era
There comes a time in the onward march of history when a page is turned. Such was the end of the cold war. Since then the United States, with the United Kingdom steadfast at its side, has bestrode the world as the only superpower. Its agenda was the example to follow. Its model of capitalism was the best. Democracy was the right method of government. Local problems could easily be solved with military intervention. Eventually everyone would fall in line because the American way is the best way.
As part of this global vision, some might call it an imperial vision although Americans are opposed to the notion of empire, China with its own form of state capitalism has been embraced by the US, in spite of the fact that it is not a democracy and is still run by its Communist party. A deal was struck. America would take China’s manufacturing output; China would take America’s money and also buy its debt as deficits began to yawn. This is why America’s Forex reserves are down to $126billion and why China’s stand at a fraction under $4trillion.
Russia has however been a different story. While China made a relatively seamless transition from Maoism to the real world, Russia floundered in chaos under Yeltsin and had to wait for Putin before it even looked as if it could stand up without falling over. America and Europe somehow failed to connect with Russia during those times. Yes there was contact and there were projects, but no real partnership. Whilst the eagle seemed able to measure, read and cope with the dragon, it appeared unable or unwilling to understand the bear. Britain did not help. Blame the Russians has been the default option of the foreign office since before the nineteenth century Crimean war.
Meanwhile instead of everything moving forward on a upward trajectory, things began to go wrong. There was 9/11, the calamity of the Iraq invasion, lack of real achievement in Afghanistan, disaster in Libya, slaughter in Syria and a global financial crash as well. Russia looked on and drew closer to China diplomatically. There was trouble for the inheritors of the old soviet empire in both Chechnya and Georgia, yet somehow these were managed by Russia as national rather than international difficulties. The west watched and let Russia get on with it. The blue smoke belching in clouds from elderly tanks revealed a military capability of severe limitations.
As regular readers know I am more sympathetic to Russia than most of my fellow countrymen. I think I understand that when you look west from east it is a different perspective. My ancestors on my mother’s side lived for over four hundred years on the same estate farming the same land near the Baltic coast in an area now known as Kaliningrad, which since 1945 has been part of Russia. Except for a short period of the failed Weimar republic they survived and prospered without any notion of democracy. Further to the east, Russia itself has only been a democracy since the fall of communism. What Russians want from their democracy is a strong state which will guard and protect them and a strong leader who will make it function properly. They like a Czar by whatever name. This is why they like Putin. They see a West which has much to commend it and an America which has much to envy, but Russia is unique, it is their motherland and they will defend it no matter what. Even if the Czar is a butcher like Stalin.
As Russians see it they have tried to be friends with the West, but mostly they got the brush off from people who look down upon them and see the worst in them. A West which has entirely forgotten that it would still be under Nazi rule were it not for the forty million Russians who died fighting Hitler’s Germany. For twenty years the West has had its way, and America has been unchallenged as the power on the earth. That is now over. From now on there will be another voice, account of which will have to be taken. A huge military upgrade is in progress, with new tanks, planes, missiles and nuclear weapons on the way. How much of this Russia will be able to afford and how much of the new technologies will be reliable is not yet clear. What is clear is the state of mind. In future Russia will not let the West have its way unchallenged. China will be its diplomatic ally and in extremis a military ally as well.
This does not mean a new cold war. But it does mean from now on the West will have to think before it acts. Russia remains one of the two nuclear superpowers. We may be re-entering an era when one wrong move means the end of the world. The younger generations will have to get used to that.
Downfall In Downing Street: Political Thriller
This steamy thriller from the post Thatcher era is proving surprisingly popular, so it has been given a new cover in line with my latest novels. With all the media noise of the long election campaign, it offers a compelling insight into power behind the scenes. Check it out on my Amazon pages.
February 13, 2015
Dresden Remembered
Today we rightly stop to consider the bombing of Dresden. A massive assault, creating a firestorm which destroyed thirteen square miles and killed at least 25000 civilians. This was not yet another act by an evil empire but a raid by Britain’s Bomber Command, supported by the US Army Air Force. It did not happen when we had our backs to the wall and our very survival was threatened. It happened when the war was all but over and the city was crowded with refugees in flight from the advance of the Red Army from the east. Such an attack could not possibly affect the certain and soon outcome of the war in our favour. It was a war crime, but because we were the victors, we never had to answer for this unnecessary and cruel attack.
It is right and proper that all in Britain pause and think, hang our heads and show that we know and we care.
February 12, 2015
Hitler’s First Lady
This interesting nazi era novel will reveal behind the scenes dramas still shrouded in secrecy because of their explosive potential. Kindle or paperback. Browse my Amazon pages and read the reviews. Then buy and enjoy your read!
Lise Bauer is born in Africa in 1906, brought to England by her parents from where she is expelled with them in 1914, because her father is an East Prussian. They settle in America and become Americans, but return to Europe in the 1920’s. Here Lise is involved in the rise of the Nazi party, marries one of Hitler’s closest associates and later has a relationship with Hitler himself, before divorcing her husband and marrying an English friend of Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess. She settles again in England with the consent of the security services and she and her husband establish a cell to act as a secret communication channel between Hitler and Churchill at the critical period of WWII.
The novel offers a new view of Hitler’s love life, a plot to overthrow Churchill and the flight to Scotland by Rudolf Hess.
Ukraine: Will the Fighting Stop?
The peace talks in Minsk appear to be at a crucial, perhaps fragile, stage. Agreement and collapse seem equally likely. One of the sticking points will be the border with Russia. Kiev will want to control this to prevent seepage of Russian weapons and volunteers to strengthen the separatist army and threaten further annexation of Ukrainian territory. The separatists will want control of the border themselves to keep open their lifeline and escape route, without which they are surrounded by hostile forces and cut off.
All of the problems in Ukraine are typical of the leftovers of the break up of an empire, in this case the Soviet. Countries previously part of one united entity find themselves separated and independent, but inhabited by populations of mixed origins and loyalties. Sometimes differences can be reconciled, sometimes not. Once fighting breaks out and thousands die reconciliation becomes even more difficult. It may be that two entities is the only way open, whatever the wishes to the contrary. Essentially it may be that those who see themselves as Russian will have to be closer to Moscow than Kiev. Kiev would not be entirely blameless in such an outcome.
This is the basis of the UK continuing to control a part of Ireland, Gibraltar and the Falklands. Examples of a more independent type of separation of one previous entity are India and Pakistan or the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The only thing that seems clear about Ukraine is that to return to its unitary status of before the uprising and violence will be impossible. Federation would be the next best thing but the bitterness in the eastern provinces may make even that unworkable. A frozen stand off with a buffer zone, with no more fighting and people able to return home and go about normal lives free of fear of bombardment and death from whatever quarter, may be the best that can be hoped for.
February 11, 2015
Downfall in Downing Street: New Cover
This steamy thriller from the post Thatcher era is proving surprisingly popular, so it has been given a new cover in line with my latest novels. With all the media noise of the long election campaign, it offers a compelling insight into power behind the scenes. Check it out on my Amazon pages.
February 10, 2015
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Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and right hand man, flew to Scotland on a mysterious peace mission in 1941, which has never been convincingly explained, to meet unidentified politicians who wanted to end the war. Who was plotting against Churchill? What were the peace terms on offer? What happened to Hess? Was he killed in the War? Was the prisoner in Spandau a double?
Taking place in the modern day but with flashback chapters which gradually unfold the hidden secrets, this tense thriller will draw you into a compelling read.
