Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 197
December 6, 2014
Free Downloads: Tor Raven
To launch my new Tor Raven brand four books are available for free download on Amazon Kindle worldwide for two days only. Download all four fast reading thrillers now for free.
New UK Base in Mid East: I Beg Your Pardon?
Of all the declarations made by this fag end coalition government, well past its sell by date and beset by confusion and muddle on all sides, none can be more unexpected that the announcement of a new permanent naval base in the most autocratic and human rights averse of the Gulf States. If we forget the money, much of which Bahrain will cough up, what is the purpose of this? Has the MOD and the inept Foreign Office not noticed that the more we project power and employ military assets, the more the terrorists multiply and the bigger the threat becomes? So far we have had a big hand in turning Iraq and Libya into failed states, fanning the civil war in Syria and inaugurating the very conditions which has enabled ISIS to set up a terrorist state.
At last we have withdrawn from Afghanistan and our military posture begins to resemble a more rational format, only to set off again. Meanwhile we read reports about poor morale among RAF personnel engaged in the so called fight against Islamic State, because the ageing aircraft being used in combat missions are so unreliable that the majority of those deployed to the mission are out of service for most of the time. So back to the money. We are cutting the size of the state. Swinging cuts are on the way, which will hit, if the Tories are anything to do with the next government, those already battered into falling living standards, yet we think we can afford grand gestures of power projection long after our time for that has passed.
This is a mistake. It needs to be stopped.
Free Download: Hitler’s First Lady
Another opportunity to download the Kindle edition of this compelling Nazi era historical drama for free in a short Christmas Promotion. Don’t miss out. Download today!
December 5, 2014
Free Downloads: Tor Raven
To launch my new Tor Raven brand four books are available for free download on Amazon Kindle worldwide for three days only. Be the first! Download all four now for free.
Hitler’s First Lady: Free Download
Another opportunity to download the Kindle edition of this compelling Nazi era historical drama for free in a short Christmas Promotion. Don’t miss out. Download today!
UK Politics: A New Kind of Crisis
Frank Field said something very important on the radio this morning. He said not a single MP standing for election in May 2015 has a clue how the twin problems of the structural deficit and the debt mountain are going to be dealt with, no matter who forms the new government. To this can be added the huge trade deficit and the acute housing shortage.
I can say with conviction that never before in my lifetime, which goes back to the premiership of Neville Chamberlain, has there been such a complete intellectual failure of the governing class. The Autumn Statement delivered with such confidence by Osborne is fast turning into another Tory omnishambles with serious questions be asked about the arithmetic which projects vast cuts in the size of the state to levels from the bad old days of the pre-war past. This will involve a major economic contraction which may not be balanced by growth in the private sector and if it is, it will be by more low wage jobs in the real economy and high reward bonanzas in the financial sector.
This critical and unacceptable imbalance where the element which produces nothing sucks all the resources out of the element which does, is producing not only social injustice and inequality not seen for generations, but is also unsustainable and will eventually lead to complete social and economic collapse. An ominous sign that such a dire prospect grows more real is the unexpected fall in tax receipts due to the erosion of the tax base.
The Tories are now badly rattled and blaming the BBC, Labour has spotted the problem but has yet to offer a convincing solution, the Lib Dems, with the exception of Vince Cable, have lost the plot, and UKIP are circling this embattled political wagon train, stoking up resentment and heaping the blame on immigrants and the EU.
Sooner or later somebody has to come up with a coherent plan or the term Big Bang will take on a whole new meaning.
New Brand: Free Book Download
To launch my new Tor Raven brand four books are available for free download on Amazon Kindle worldwide for three days only. Be the first! Download all four now for free.
Books Re-Branding: Important News
As my regular readers know I combine writing novels and occasional non-fiction with blogging on current affairs. My novels are divided between light or popular fiction and more substantial thought provoking work with a historical background. From now on I am using the pen name Tor Raven for popular fiction. Previous books have been re-branded and re-issued to reflect a more identifiable presentation for followers and a new title can be expected soon. Under the Malcolm Blair-Robinson name Hitler’s First Lady and Purple Killing are establishing themselves as important insights into state secrets from the past. A non fiction follow on to 2010 A Blueprint For Change is planned.
December 4, 2014
U.K. Economy: Trouble Ahead
Osborne gave a confident performance yesterday. But so did Ed Balls. After last time that must have been a relief for Labour. It should rattle the Tories. Not because of the better Commons performance of the Shadow Chancellor, but because of of what lies behind it. Labour’s economic team, having stuck rigidly to a pretty lacklustre economic mantra for most of this parliament which predicted endless flat lining, seemed wrong footed faced with record economic growth delivered by Osborne.
The powerful Balls performance yesterday suggests they have now twigged what is happening. Tax receipts are falling because productivity is at record lows, thus the deficit grows bigger; there is now a peculiar third world low wage economy emerging for the many; the welcome stamp duty rationalisation has not been correctly tabulated and may lead to a further rise in house prices and rents which will require extra government spending on housing benefit from a lower tax base increasing the deficit; the new Google tax is so obscure as to be probably uncollectable; and in order to pay for everything, reduce the deficit and fund the infrastructure programme announced in the previous few days, the Tories will, if elected, initiate the biggest cuts in public expenditure yet seen after the general election which will shrink the size of government to the recession bedeviled 1930s.
In the urban marginals up and down the country the Labour high command knows nobody is going to vote for that. That is why Balls is so chipper.
Or, as the infallible Robert Peston reminded listeners on this morning’s Radio 4 Today programme, the accumulated debt mountain is so gigantic that the present consumer led recovery cannot be sustained for long.
Or as this Blog warned at the very beginning of the recovery programme, the only economic plan the Tories know how to run is one led by a housing boom.
December 2, 2014
Cameron ‘Economy Under Control': Really?
When Cameron came to power and appointed Osborne they pledged economic recovery based on certain principles. The first was the economy would be re-balanced away from housing and the financial sector. Second it would be export led, third that government spending would be cut and the deficit eliminated over a parliament, and finally government borrowing would fall. None of this has happened. Yet yesterday he said that the economy was so under control that he could sanction loads of infrastructure renewal paid for my more borrowing.
Every time this coalition government mentions the economy it adds the prefix that it is clearing up Labour’s mess. Whether it is fair to do this does not matter, for this government has created new messes of its own. It has derided the notion that Labour, if given power again, would borrow more to boost growth. ‘Oh tut tut look where that got us!’
Yet this is exactly what Cameron and Osborne are now doing. They have cut and slashed and re-organised ( too much of the latter), but they have not managed to avoid a housing boom and the spiralling cost of benefits because they have inaugurated a low wage economy with high housing and energy costs requiring government subsidy to low earners who are actually working but rely on benefits and food banks to survive. So although structural expenditure has been cut, running costs have gone up. Moreover the tax base has narrowed because earnings are so low, cutting the government’s income stream and leaving the deficit reduction on hold. The Treasury is borrowing close on £100 billion per annum, yes per annum, because it has not got the income to pay for what it spends.
So what has happened to the Tory sniffiness about borrowing to invest to grow? It has been binned, because the only way to push up revenue is to stimulate growth. This is what Ed Balls told them to do in the first place. There can be no greater humiliation for the Tories than that.
