Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 71

The Government Totters: Will It Fall?

The Foreign Secretary is a disaster in his job, widely regarded as the worst since WWII and a danger to our national interests. Fallon has gone in a storm of sexual accusations. Damian Green is under investigation. Priti Patel  may not last the day. The Brexit negotiations are in crisis, not because of the EU, but because the Cabinet is rent with discord over the type of Brexit it wants. The Chancellor and the Prime Minister are said to be at daggers drawn and can only meet with officials present to keep their rows from getting out of hand. The NHS is now demanding that the red bus Brexit promise about more funding be honoured.

What is required is that the gropers, sex pests, hard Brexit ideologues and complete incompetents are fired and a new government formed, either in coalition or with cross party support, to oraganise and negotiate a sensible, workable and realistic Brexit which will not damage the national economic interest. For a Brexit which puts the economy first, the majority in the Commons and the Lords is overwhelming. Either that or cancel the whole Brexit folly. It is not an option to carry on as we are. What the situation and the country cries out for is leadership. Strong leadership. This was the central theme of May’s offer to voters in June.

Now is her time to show it.

America Is Not Safe

One of the many Trump catch phrases, which have much more powerful resonance with the American people than his opponents realise, is ‘Keep America Safe’. Well, the mass slaughter in Texas, coming on top of Las Vegas, with an endless string of senseless mass murders queuing up behind, demonstrate that the United States is the most dangerous developed country for civilians to live in anywhere in the world and ten times more dangerous than Europe. That takes account of terrorism from external forces like IS.

Calls for gun control are pointless. The enshrined principle in the US Constitution that citizens have a birthright to carry arms is a fatal fault in the structure of the American State. It is impossible to take it away, because too many would see it as an assault on the freedom which defines their country. Yet when it was enshrined the weapons of those days and their power to kill  bore no relationship to the killing machines now available to be legally held in every hand.

On the present trajectory things can only get worse. They are approaching a point when the good people will have to be armed in the street to take down instantly the bad hell bent on killing. The cost of vast numbers of additional police will be beyond reason, so citizen deputies will be the last resort. The only thing that will reverse this unstoppable drift will be not regulation, but a sea change in social attitudes and a profound re-appraisal of what it is to be American and what freedom in fact means.

Americans must work this out for themselves.  There is hope. The birthright of whites to own and trade slaves was dealt with. Now it is time for the guns. All 300 million of them. Dealing with the slavery issue cost hundreds of thousands of lives in a bloody civil war. Fixing the guns has to be not about taking life but about saving it. It is perhaps the greatest challenge in America’s history thus far, because it invades the sanctity and rights of every American home. But in America everything is possible. THAT is what America is.

Parliament: Gripped By Revolution

Gradually over the decades social attitudes to women have advanced beyond all recognition and their true value as the equals, in many cases and circumstances the superiors, to men is now almost universally accepted. Of course there are entrenched pockets of resistance in all walks of life, Hollywood for example, but bit by bit the best practices of progressive thinkers are breaking down the barriers. Except in Parliament and the Westminster Village. Here there has for decades been a culture of misogyny, exploitation and abuse, at best laddish and at worst criminal. It has been entrenched, protected, denied, nurtured and seemingly in place forever. Until suddenly the lid of this cauldron of all that is worst of such a system, blew off.

Now there is little short of chaos. Impeccable figures of the political establishment have toppled form ‘steady and a safe pair of hands’ to ‘disgusting’ almost overnight. The Cabinet seems to be engaged in a war between male and female members to add to the other war between hard and soft Brexiteers, resignations and rumours come thick and fast, government is impaired, all parties are caught up and nobody knows what will happen next. Like all revolutions this one is unpredictable and out of control.

Setting down a sensible way forward would for this blog be a waste of time at this stage. But some warnings are due. First, now the lid has blown, we must let everything flow. Allegations, rumours, crimes, all have to be set out to clear the fetid atmosphere and allow reforms to be put in place. Now is not the time to try and shut the issues down.

Second there must be distinction between three levels of behaviour; the criminal, which is for the police, the exploitative or abusive which is for some form of parliamentary discipline; and the vulgar, laddish and inappropriate, which should be subject to destruction by publicity.

Above all there has to be an impartial system to listen, mend and protect victims, who must know beyond all doubt that a genuine complaint cannot prejudice or in any way adversely affect their status, their prospects or their ambitions.

 

Tor Raven: An International Blockbuster from £3.99

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.

Amazon.uk       Amazon.com

 

Trump: Is There a Moment of Truth Approaching?

Probably not yet. Maybe never. But the pressure is building for sure. This Blog has been scornful in the past as regular readers will know, of this whole Russia drama in the US, not least because I do not believe that Americans are easily deceived. There are a lot of reasons why Hilary lost and against a conventional Republican candidate with a united party behind him or her and a squeaky clean cupboard without skeletons, she most certainly would have. But against Trump? The world view, let alone that of the wisest commentators in the US, was that he could not possibly win. But he did. So there must be a reason.

There was. Just as in Brexit and Macron and the Far Right in Germany, there was in the US an anti-political surge which Trump the outsider rode with skill. He promised to repatriate jobs was enough to push him across the electoral college line through the rust belt path without any special help. But Clinton  won the popular vote by quite a good margin.  The Clinton campaign had paid some British ex-spy to construct a dossier purporting to prove that Trump had engaged in fetish sex in Moscow, while the Trump campaign continued, even after winning, to accuse ‘crooked Hilary’ of putting national security at risk by unauthorized use of a private server for government emails. So both sides were throwing mud.

We know all the rest. What is different now, and why this Blog is beginning to take developments more seriously, is the confirmation from Facebook and Twitter of the huge output of fake news and comment put through their sites during and in the lead up to the election, paid for by platforms in Russia connected to the Kremlin. This is not rumour but fact. Much of this commentary and fake news was favourable to the Trump campaign, but by no means all. So we know that Russia was active and we can imagine that this is the shape of things to come. It is more than likely that Western propaganda engines will be active in the upcoming Russian presidential election for example. Rather than a hysterical witch hunt, a healthy dose of cynicism at what we read on these social media sites might be the more mature streetwise response.

So here we are with an ongoing investigation, bolstered by real live indictments and people under house arrest or pleading guilty and actively helping investigators. They all have some kind of connection to Trump, but there is nothing to connect him to the misdemeanors for which they are charged. But this project now has legs. It could be a Watergate, which got rid of a president but it could also be an Iran Contra or Whitewater, neither of which did. What it turns out to be depends on the answer to this single question.

What exactly is Trump’s connection to Russia?

Watch this space.

New York Agony

It was perhaps inevitable that the kind of attack which has become all too common in Europe would spread to New York, the historical gateway to a new life for millions and a City no stranger to terrorist attack. We can only express our shock and sympathy to the injured and for the bereaved, once again innocents out having fun, then killed and mutilated for no valid reason, other than they were there at that place at that time.

Death In Denial: A Page Turner From £3.99

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.

Amazon.uk       Amazon.com

  

Parliament Needs an Upgrade: Not Just The Buildings.

Once again sleaze is the driver of reform. Why does it always have to get to this? Why do our national institutions like Church and State find it so difficult to keep up with modern life, in any age, but especially now in the age of mass connectivity?

Of course there needs to be an end to groping, innuendo, abuse and worse. Of course people of all ages and sexes, especially women who are the primary victims, need to have a structure to protect them and a means of complaint without personal or career damage. But it has to go much further.

Parliament was built on the lines of a gentleman’s club. Right for mid-Victorian times but no longer. Self-employed MPs, employing their own staff in a structure awash with bars, with insufficient space in the Chambers of either House to accommodate all the members, is not fit for the modern purpose of national leadership and governance.

MPs are not really self employed, they are paid by taxpayers and employed by Parliament, their staff should be employed and managed by Parliament with full modern HR facilities and pastoral care. Every MP should have a marked seat in the Commons Chamber, which would have to be subject to significant remodeling.There should be few if any bars and they should be subject to realistic licencing hours. Members are there to work, not for a piss up. The House of Lords should have only one hundred Peers allowed into the legislative process and facilities. That number should be elected by universal suffrage on a regional basis. I could go on and on, but you get the gist.

The present set up is way past its sell by date, moral code et al and an upgrade is long overdue. Tradition is good but it is not an excuse to live in the past. Otherwise we would still be living in caves.

Catalonia Crisis: Keep Calm and Carry On

As usual when some crisis bursts in Europe, political has-beens tour the media declaring the biggest crisis since WWII and in this case ‘a new Spanish Civil War’. Unfortunately these folk of yesteryear, often rather tarnished by mishaps of their own, cannot earn appearance fees by being sensible, because they are past their sell by date and worthless without the bloodthirsty angle.

Catalonia is indeed a problem but it is not by any means out of control. The Spanish government’s declaration that the ringleader of the independence theatricals can stand in the new elections in December shows confidence in democracy and a lack of vindictiveness. There may be a complication if the Madrid courts have locked him up for sedition meanwhile, but the spirit looks positive. It also reflects the fact that the vast majority of Spaniards and all the main political parties want Spain to remain whole. As does the rest of the world. But, and this is critical, so do most Catalans.

Catalonia is prosperous because it is part of Spain, part of the EU and a good place to do business on a global scale. If it became independent on a unilateral declaration it would be none of these things. It would be out of Europe, out of Spain, unrecognised by any other country, its economy crippled and the last place any meaningful corporation would put its headquarters. So it is clear than none of the separatists have thought the consequences of their dream through. The reason for that is their attachment to independence is an emotional experience rather than a practical state of being.

There may be some violence between now and the general election for a new Catalan parliament on Dec.21st or on that day, but everybody hopes not. Because this is not the 1930s. Then Europe was still mired in the aftermath of the great depression, backward socially and economically, with two powerful ideologies, armed to the teeth and competing for power. Fascism championed first by Italy and then by a resurgent Germany, and Communism championed by Stalin’s Soviet Russia. As war broke out between the rickety Republican government and an insurgency backed by most of the regular army and led by one of its Generals, Franco, the Nazis and the Soviets piled in with volunteers and weapons on an industrial scale. Hitler backed Franco and sent the Condor Legion, Stalin sent his best General with volunteers and the latest Soviet weapons to bolster the left wing Republic.

In the 1930s Europe was without unity or common purpose. America had its back turned. Britain was gorging on appeasement pie. But today Europe, of which Spain is a part, stands as one in the greatest political union since the fall of Rome, it enjoys a level of general prosperity previously unknown, there is no world power willing to arm a rebellion, Spain is a member of NATO and America has several military bases in the country.

So unless everybody loses their reason, this political crisis, brought on by hot headed idealism rather than ideological or ethnic conflict, will resolve itself by democratic means in due course. Meanwhile the message must be Keep Calm and Carry on.

Catalonia Crisis: Keep Calm

As usual when some crisis bursts in Europe, political has-beens tour the media declaring the biggest crisis since WWII and in this case ‘a new Spanish Civil War’. Unfortunately these folk of yesteryear, often rather tarnished by mishaps of their own, cannot earn appearance fees by being sensible, because they are past their sell by date and worthless without the bloodthirsty angle.

Catalonia is indeed a problem but it is not by any means out of control. The Spanish government’s declaration that the ringleader of the independence theatricals can stand in the new elections in December shows confidence in democracy and a lack of vindictiveness. There may be a complication if the Madrid courts have locked him up for sedition meanwhile, but the spirit looks positive. It also reflects the fact that the vast majority of Spaniards and all the main political parties want Spain to remain whole. As does the rest of the world. But, and this is critical, so do most Catalans.

Catalonia is prosperous because it is part of Spain, part of the EU and a good place to do business on a global scale. If it became independent on a unilateral declaration it would be none of these things. It would be out of Europe, out of Spain, unrecognised by any other country, its economy crippled and the last place any meaningful corporation would put its headquarters. So it is clear than none of the separatists have thought the consequences of their dream through. The reason for that is their attachment to independence is an emotional experience rather than a practical state of being.

There may be some violence between now and the general election for a new Catalan parliament on Dec.21st or on that day, but everybody hopes not. Because this is not the 1930s. Then Europe was still mired in the aftermath of the great depression, backward socially and economically, with two powerful ideologies, armed to the teeth and competing for power. Fascism championed first by Italy and then by a resurgent Germany, and Communism championed by Stalin’s Soviet Russia. As war broke out between the rickety Republican government and an insurgency backed by most of the regular army and led by one of its Generals, Franco, the Nazis and the Soviets piled in with volunteers and weapons on an industrial scale. Hitler backed Franco and sent the Condor Legion, Stalin sent his best General with volunteers and the latest Soviet weapons to bolster the left wing Republic.

In the 1930s Europe was without unity or common purpose. America had its back turned. Britain was gorging on appeasement pie. But today Europe, of which Spain is a part, stands as one in the greatest political union since the fall of Rome, it enjoys a level of general prosperity previously unknown, there is no world power willing to arm a rebellion, Spain is a member of NATO and America has several military bases in the country.

So unless everybody loses their reason, this political crisis, brought on by hot headed idealism rather than ideological or ethnic conflict, will resolve itself by democratic means in due course. Meanwhile the message must be Keep Calm and Carry on.