Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 41

Government Crisis: Is May Losing It?

We are no longer in just a Brexit crisis. We now have a government crisis, because the Tory party and cabinet are fractured and unable to agree the fundamentals, let alone the details. But it is even worse than that. It has become a crisis of governance, because parliament, not just any parliament, but the Mother of Parliaments, has become entirely dysfunctional over the great issue of the day, Brexit. So consumed is it by the splits and divisions within it about Brexit, it has no time or capacity for anything else. The damage to Britain’s credibility across the world will take a long time to repair.

Having won her leadership contest by what in the circumstances was a considerable margin, May has thrown herself into delivering something which might not be there. Some form of legal binding escape from the backstop. She was rebuffed by the EU in Strasbourg, lost her temper with Junker (not difficult) and now has rounded on Tony Blair for ‘demeaning’ the office he once held, i.e that of prime minister. All because he talked a good deal of sense when he appeared on Today and put the case for a People’s Vote.

That is ridiculous. Blair can say whatever he likes about anything, we do not have to listen, but we do live in a democracy. That he demeans the office of head of government by arguing that a deadlocked parliament may have to go back to the people, is a proposition so idiotic that it verges on the unhinged. It is a clear sign that the strain on May is beginning to tell.

One can only wonder what on earth will happen next. Stay tuned.

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USA Healthcare: More Court Drama

Trump is gleeful that a Texas judge has ruled Obamacare unconstitutional. It remains to be seen whether this gets to the Supreme Court and whether its new conservative majority decides to prolong the shameful fact that the USA is the only developed country not to have a universal and affordable healthcare system.

But this is fantastic campaign fodder for the Democrats. If the Republicans in the Senate or the White House block any democratic attempt to introduce some kind of affordable care in the House, or if the Republicans do not come up with a viable plan of their own, they will lose in 2020.

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Zara Vine is a modern detective with a troubled history. Dubbed the She Wolf, she drives all before her in the search for answers and uncovers crimes of world class horror in Book One. As the youngest Detective Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police she is forced to resign because of an armed response in which an innocent is shot. Her career in tatters, her marriage over and worst of all, the death of her only child, she decides to leap to oblivion from a famous cliff top. Saved by a Samaritan, she self-drives a rebirth and joins the smallest UK Police Force. Initially tasked with Cold Cases, she is called in to solve a series of murders with sinister undertones and national implications.

But who exactly is she? Who are her real masters? What is her agenda? Compelling, taut with emotion, passion and fear, Zara Vine will draw you in and grip you right through to the stunning conclusion. 

 

May Rebuffed: Europe Perplexed: Brexit On Death Row.

May probably knew she would get little from Europe. She appears to have got next to nothing. Her problem, indeed the UK’s problem, is that the EU’s institutions are working smoothly and coherently and all the 27 states are in agreement, whereas the UK’ structure of government is chaotic to the point of collapse and no faction in a bitterly divided parliament has a majority. So whatever plan comes forward whether it is May’s, Norway, Canada, Crash, none can command a majority in a deadlocked parliament so high on its own arguments that it lives in a dream world of its own. There was once a simple solution to such a crisis. Dissolve it.

Indeed the threat of that happening prevented the constitutional collapse now in progress occurring in past national challenges, or the ability to actually do it brought about change and renewal. But now parliament has the power to decide whether to dissolve itself, so that remedy is lost and mayhem, not May, rules. But she does have the eerie power of one who has absolutely nothing to lose, a power unusual in live politics, and she should now use it to follow the only credible path to extricate our country from international ridicule and self-harm. She should put her plan, plus Norway, Canada, Crash and any combination acceptable to the EU, to the House of Commons. Each will be defeated. She and Parliament will then have no choice but to put the issue to the people.

And that will be the end of Brexit.

May Wins: And Bigger Than it Looks

May won. And she won convincingly. The Brexiteers were beaten. Two thirds of the parliamentary Tory party backed May. Had the same margin been required before effecting major constitutional change in the referendum in 2016, which should have been the case, the whole Brexit project would have failed. The hard Brexiteers, led by that odious Mogg creature, are busy running around telling everybody May is damaged and should go. In normal times perhaps. But these are not normal times and as we have seen over and over, normal political rules and conventions do not apply for now.

Moreover the Tory party is, and has been for years, two parties masquerading as one. One bit is divisive, right wing nationalist and nasty. The other is one nation, international, pluralist and compassionate. The right care about themselves and their blinkered ideology. The other, the biggest part by far, cares about people, their lives and their well being. May leads that part and for the task in hand she is made the stronger by the contest.

For the glaring truth is now there for all to see. Those Brexiteers are noisy, arrogant and assertive. They are troublemakers, big on fantasy and short on reality. They have no plan other than to wreck the plans of others. But for them the stark fact now glares blindingly before them. They are a failed minority and they can never win.

As for May, her strength lies in her weakness. Having declared she will not lead the party into the next election, she has taken full ownership of delivering a Brexit based on sanity and the national interest. All right thinking people will hope she can succeed. But because Brexit is the greatest folly in all of Britain’s peacetime history, which will inflict damage beyond anything its long procession of enemies ever got near, whoever owns Brexit will be politically destroyed. May knows that. But she has put  duty above her political survival. That is how history will remember her, long after the baying rabble at her heals are forgotten.

 

 

May’s Fight

Even fools can see that not only is it ridiculous, self indulgent and counter productive to trigger a leadership election, but also demeaning to the notion that Great Britain retains its ability to govern itself coherently. Not only are the Tory hard Brexiteers who are driving this plunge into farce of historic proportions indeed fools, but they are the biggest fools of all.

The Tory party is riven with discord over fundamentals like the future of our country. There are splits and splits within splits. Even if they appoint a new leader it will make no difference, because the House of Commons has no majority for any conceivable permutation of Brexit. Moreover those challenging May have no agreement among themselves on who should replace her, nor what plan to follow, or how to implement it.

The country is fed up with this. It will not forgive. The Tory party will pay the price. The rising generation will turn its back, because they know where their best future lies. They know too that this is not about leaders. It is about leadership. A question burns among them brighter than a star.

Where is it?

Whatever the outcome of the contest tonight that question will go on burning.

 

 

 

Death In Denial: Download, Paperback or Read Free

At the heart of the British State lies a secret to keep which a cabal of shadowy establishment figures is authorised to kill. At the centre of the drama is a family with baggage from the past which has access to the truth and determines to expose it. That provokes a battle of wits among security services on both sides of the Atlantic, with links into Russia, Germany, France and Africa. A gripping narrative taking place in the modern day with a cast of ruthless characters determined to kill their way to victory. Male and female, old and young, engaging yet sinister, none quite what they seem. A sophisticated thriller of unusual pace and power written in an edgy modern style. Over 400 pages.

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Brexit Crisis: Coming to the Boil

At what is clearly a critical and historic moment it is right for this blog to re-state my position.

The EU is the greatest political achievement since the fall of Rome, uniting the whole European family and civilization into a single economic and political entity, sharing sovereignty, whilst at the same time preserving independent nation states. I am proud of my EU citizenship and I value the four freedoms.

Whatever terms are agreed, if any, and however we leave if we do, will be nothing like as good at any level and for anyone, as staying in. For those reasons, if we do actually Brexit, no longer a certainty, within less than two decades we will go back in, reversing the greatest folly in our long and worthy history.

No ambiguities or nuanced double speak here.

Nazi Era Drama: Download, Paperback or Read Free.

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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 sexual relationships, a plot to overthrow Churchill and the flight to Scotland by Rudolf Hess. Using historical characters often portrayed in a new light, this dramatic account challenges the accepted view of recorded history. 

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