Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 55
September 8, 2018
Chuka Umunna’s Speech
Chuka Ummuna is a polished and erudite communicator. He is a powerful politician. He is slightly left of centre. But he is not a socialist and he should not be in the Labour Party. He is, in fact, a left wing Tory. He wants Corbyn to call off ‘the dogs’. But dogs only bark at strangers in their midst.
There is really no such actual place as the centre unless there is a left and right. After the huge social revolution begun in 1945 and led by Labour, the centre shifted to the left and with it, after its shock defeat by Attlee, Churchill’s Conservative party. Eden, Macmillan, Home and Heath stayed there in a consensus which saw a huge rise in the standards of living of all the sub professional and working classes, as well as massive improvements in health, housing and education. Then came Thatcher.
For sound political reasons she swam with a tide of anxiety about the drift downwards in the competitive position of British manufacturing and appalling industrial relations, by far the worst in Europe. The state had become unwieldy and business people spent more time arguing with unions than innovating and investing. She took several steps to the right and the centre followed her. Blair scampered after her legacy and governed from what he called the centre, in reality it was Thatcher’s consensus, and in the process he and Gordon Brown lost the support over four elections of nearly 40% of Labour votes. On top of that all the worst features of market driven asset inflating capitalism flowered, leaving the most distorted economic model for many generations. Hardly surprisingly the tide has now changed. It flows strongly to the left.
Labour has returned to its founding purpose, discovered its true heritage, once again become the party of the socialist tradition and the dominant party of the left. Rightly it believes in democracy and most of its members want to have an opportunity to choose their parliamentary candidates; understandable as the party is not of the Establishment, is the voice of the people and invested with a strong democratic ideal. The fact that Chuka Umunna and some of his colleagues equate this to being harassed by ‘dogs’ shows that the Labour party is no place for them and they should leave it as soon as possible.
September 7, 2018
Tony Blair: Wrong Again
Tony Blair has come forward to make one of his big interventions, which excite Westminster but which the country largely ignores. This is because the myth of Tony Blair was busted long ago. But this time he argues that it may never be possible to recover the ‘Labour Party’ from Corbyn, who poses an existential threat from his leadership. This is such nonsense.
Under Tony Blair’s New Labour regime he won his first election with 13.5 million votes in 1997. In 2001 another victory with 10.4 million. Then a further win in 2005 with 9.5 million. Finally Brown lost in 2010 with 8.6 million. You can see that the New Labour experiment saw a hemorrhage of Labour voters , most of whom stayed at home. Labour won elections because the Lib Dems polled well and the moderate right split its vote between them and the Tories, making victory for either impossible.
But make no mistake. New Labour was a disaster and the traditional working class and the young abandoned it. Corbyn has won them back. In 2017 he polled 12.8 million votes. Moreover he now heads the largest political party in Europe with over 600,000 full members and with additional registered supporters, 800,000. This is more than all the other political parties in all parts of the UK put together.
Yes Tony, your hybrid type of Labour is gone. You kept alive all the unworkable nostrums of Thatcherism and prolonged an era when the rich became richer and the poor became poorer and as the gap between them grew, there matured the worst possible kind of economic model. One where the rich become richer at the expense of the poor.
It’s over Tony. Time to shut up.
September 6, 2018
New Crime Series: Introducing Zara Vine Book One
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Salisbury, Novichok and the GRU
The police investigations into the Salisbury poisonings has been remarkably successful and thorough, identifying, beyond reasonable doubt, the circumstances method and perpetrators of the original attack on the Skripals and the subsequent death and injury caused by the discarded perfume bottle used to deliver the poison to the Skripal door handle.
At a fairly early stage this blog expressed the view that the GRU were likely to be involved because while one of their agents Skripal had also been working for MI6. The GRU really does not forgive traitors. The government has expressed understandable outrage at these events and sought and received support from its allies around the world. Where this blog has a question it is this. The UK government has asserted that the operation was ‘almost certainly‘ approved by the Russian government, i.e Putin.
This blog thinks the opposite. Vladimir Putin is one of the most savvy operators and experienced leaders on the international stage. He is bold but cautious. When he moves it is to gain. He dealt with Chechnya and Georgia, has become perhaps the major player in the Middle East helping Assad to retain power against all the odds and defeat, militarily at least, the various rebel groupings, and in response to the toppling of the pro-Russian government in Ukraine has gained Crimea.
It suits the UK government to blame Putin personally as it wears appalling relations with Russia as a badge of honour. But for the government to be right requires Putin, who is the big loser of the Salisbury affair, to have blundered. That seems too much like wishful thinking. There remains more to this than we yet know.
Brexiteers: A Plan?
It is reported that the hard Brexit wing of the Tory party is, starting over the weekend, to come up with its own detailed Brexit proposals. That is to be welcomed. This blog, and absolutely everybody else, has noted that while quick to criticise every aspect of every other plan or view of Brexit, this gang of wreckers, which is what they have become, has never had anything other than ideology to offer as an alternative. Had they been level headed and with the interests of their country and its people truly at heart, they would have prepared for Brexit and announced a comprehensive, costed and legally sound set of proposals the day after the referendum. Because the referendum was called for them, they got the result they campaigned for and they were expected to know what to do next. Some even joined the new May government.
Now at last we are to learn how the easy negotiations and eye watering opportunities they promised us all, can actually, in the case of the former be brought to the desired conclusion and in the case of the latter, opened up.
September 5, 2018
Zara Vine: New Crime Series
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Labour Must Now Move Forward
This blog has not become involved in the antisemitism crisis that has engulfed the Labour party and does not now plan to do so. It s to be hoped that yesterday’s adoption of the full definition and all the examples from within it, will help everybody to move on.
This blog has virulently opposed, again and again, the settlement policies of the current and recent Israeli governments, as well as their treatment of Palestinians at every level. This blog supports the recognition of a Palestinian state without further delay and hopes an incoming Labour government will take steps to put the process in motion. Not for one moment can this be regarded as anti-Semitic because it is about state policy not about race. If the two sides were reversed and it was the Palestinians who had the upper hand repressing the Israelis, I would support the Israelis.
Racism is abhorrent at any level and all political parties in an open democracy should be free of it. Labour must be no exception. Neither must it be prevented from fulfilling its proper function as the official opposition at a critical moment in our country’s history, when so much affecting so many is at stake.
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