Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 75

Bombardier: An Object Lesson?

Without going into the technicalities of why the US authorities have issued such a punitive tariff against the Canadian plane maker and its Belfast factory, it is important to make a general point about trading with the United States.

In spite of the Special Relationship with America and notwithstanding the enormous inter-connection between UK and US businesses and investors and the fact that we are both the largest foreign investors and employers in each other’s countries, we have never had a comprehensive trade deal together. The reason is that regulations, business practices and investment controls are very different in each country to the point where the gaps are unbridgeable. It has thus been the practice for both countries to expand the reach of their businesses by setting up subsidiaries in each other’s homeland, subject to compliance of all local rules.

When you compare the venomous attempt to bring a competitor of Boeing to its knees, with the sunny prospect of a tariff free trade deal with America to  replace some of the losses of Brexit, you see just how unrealistic an aspiration that is. If free trade were practical between the UK and US, we would have organised it a century ago.

Kurdish Independence: It Must Happen

Much of the current crisis in the Middle East can be traced back to the arbitrary drawing of national boundaries by colonial powers after WWI, following the collapse of the last vestiges of the Ottoman Empire. Tribe, nation and language were ignored as the new countries of Iraq and Syria were created, mixing Sunni and Shia. The Kurds were abandoned altogether and found themselves living in everywhere but without a homeland.

That is now and was then plain wrong. It can no longer work. Neither should it. The Kurds have been the toughest fighters and the best organised of all the militias involved in the fight against IS and have been reliable and essential partners of the US, UK and their allies. Independence is their right and must be their reward. Not straight away in the midst of the ongoing IS war, but not too long after its end, now in sight. This blog will always support the right of a people to independence if they seek it and a majority back it. It may not always be convenient for everybody else, but it is the first building block of democracy and the first principle upon which it is founded. It is the inspiration and foundation of the United States itself.

It is now the Kurd’s turn. They have earned it.

Labour: Conference Reading from .99p

                                       

 CLICK IMAGES FOR DETAILS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Is The UK Government Imploding?

In the strict sense of what a government is supposed to be, it already has. The show of cabinet unity for the Florence spectacular was carefully stage managed, but according to reports, rumour and briefings, there is still a war going on between hard ideological Brexiteers and those who want to put economic interests and political reality at the centre of policy. If there was nothing much going on, this would be fine. Perhaps.

But we are now engaged in a process unique in British history, which is already affecting almost every aspect of national life in a negative way, without having yet revealed a single tangible advantage of the course chosen. There are piling up a bewildering volume of treaties and commercial relationships which have to be renewed even to keep the lights on and the food shelves stocked. The status of the citizenship of every Brit is uncertain, as are their rights and future prospects, while not a single opportunity for advancement has yet been revealed by an increasingly frantic Brexit faction. Latest opinion polls show a re-run of the Brexit referendum would reverse it. In other words there is no longer a majority in favour of this suicidal adventure.

May struggled to get the draft of her speech, which might have offered something to break the deadlock with Brussels in its original form, past her cabinet and the watered down version, of which a gleeful Boris is claiming to be the author, while conciliatory in tone, failed once again to offer the detail of how all the unbridgeable contradictions of our negotiating posture are going to be resolved. So once again the EU is perplexed and wondering what the next round, due to start tomorrow, will bring.

What Britain now needs above all is a government united enough to govern. Without it disaster beckons.

More Hess Secrets

CLICK IMAGE FOR DETAILS

Click Here for Amazon.com

Hess Secrets Revealed: Download or Paperback

                               DOWNLOAD OR PAPERBACK

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. The truth has been covered up for generations because to reveal it would somehow undermine the honour and constitutional fabric of the United Kingdom. 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?

There are many questions to which in the modern day one man, Saul Benedict has all the answers, because his parents were players in the drama involving Churchill, Hitler, leading politicians and an important Royal. Saul is an author and declares his intention to write a book to reveal all, but he is shot dead, apparently accidentally by a poacher. But was it an accident? Rick Coleman, an investigative journalist, determines to find out and in doing so to uncover the mystery.

Taking place in the modern day but with flashback chapters which gradually unfold the hidden secrets, the novel is a fast moving and compelling read based on the family knowledge of the author whose parents had connections to both Hess and Hitler and to British Intelligence.  

                   Amazon UK           Amazon US

Uber Ban : Over The Top?

This is an extraordinary development. I cannot pretend to be at all knowledgeable about Uber but I do know its service has transformed the lives of millions of Londoners, making point to point travel safe, more convenient and a good deal cheaper. Because it uses an app and works via your smart phone, it is part of the structure through which busy people conduct their business, social and family lives.

The idea is part of the new style economy developing through the internet and smart phone, which has left many traditional service and retail industries in decline and fighting for survival. That prompts anger among black cab drivers and traditional mini-cabs which remain more or less with their old business model and declining sales. The Uber system of contract employment offers little in the way of employment rights and protections but a much more independent work pattern.

Clearly political pressures have built up and Uber clearly has work to do to satisfy the authorities that it can meet the required standards, but the decision of Transport for London to refuse Uber’s licence renewal is an extreme step which looks like a bad political miscalculation. The public across the whole world consider organisations like Twitter, Facebook and Uber theirs, not the product of politicians or authorities. A solution needs to be found fast. Or this will not end well.

Florence: A Game Changer? Well…..

This Blog will not comment in detail yet on May’s much trumpeted speech. Except to say this. Brexiteers regard Britain’s  relationship with the EU as primarily about trade. European politics, outside security issues, are something to be shot of. The problem is that EU sees the political union and its associated free movements as an absolute priority and trade as the icing on the cake. But the integrity of the union comes first. When you disentangle the purple rhetoric about shared values and stuff, these two positions are irreconcilable.

So long as May puts the unity of the Tory party above the interests of her country and keeps the hard Brexiteers in her cabinet, the danger of the cliff edge remains.

Brexit, May and Boris: A Government In Crisis

It is not possible to govern a country in easy times with a party split into two opposing forces so that it is both government and opposition, all sitting round the Cabinet table. Even if they are singing like birds. If times are critical, as they are now, to attempt it and place at risk the national interest, is potentially catastrophic. It is manifestly not ‘what is best for Britain.’

The EU is fed up with the inability of the UK to articulate what kind of Brexit it wants. The Brexit Department is in trouble, with its top man moved out to report directly to May. The economy is slowing while inflation is rising. Industry, commerce and business generally are becoming really agitated at the lack of clarity at the nature of the Brexit for which  they must plan. Mutterings about closing factories and moving plants to the EU are growing louder. Time is running out. Unrest in the public sector is building.

So on Thursday Theresa May must read the riot act to her Cabinet and make it clear that she will sack the Brexiteers if she has to, as they have to the last one, proved muddled, incoherent and incompetent, with not even the slightest idea how to bring their project to fruition without crashing the economy, splitting families and ruining people’s lives. They either fall in line behind her on a new conciliatory approach to the EU, based upon what is possible with the 27 and what is needed to set our country on a path to a sensible Brexit, or they go.

In the Commons there are about 150 ideological Brexiteers living in cuckoo land who think they can deliver on all the lies and falsehoods and wishful thinking they have, without conscience, pedalled fraudulently to the people, and 500 who will back a realistic and sensible Brexit settlement which will save our country. That is May’s majority.

Either she has the courage to put country above party and mobilise that majority to govern, or her government will implode. We will soon know. Time for the Tory quarrel over the decades has finally run out.

 

 

Trump’s UN Speech: More Timely Than People Think

On September 4th this Blog posted a piece on North Korea which ended with this:

Unless the United States manages to convince North Korea that the next time it fires a rocket or tests a nuclear bomb it will be attacked and wiped out. If that message sinks home, as in Kennedy at Cuba, talks can deliver an outcome which works for both sides. But so long as the US allows itself to be pushed just a little further down the road of talk and no action, while Kim Jon Un follows one provocation upon another, the road to calamity remains open. The lesson of the Cold War was that in order to prevent it you have to be ready and willing to fight. At a moment’s notice. Loaded and locked was a statement then of fact, not as now, a rhetorical flourish.

Yesterday Trump stunned the United Nations by making it clear that if America had to defend itself or its allies it would in response destroy North Korea. This was exactly the right thing to say. What now matters is whether North Korea believes him. If Pyongyang signals that it does, then America must move swiftly to start talking about a peace settlement for the Korean Peninsular and some kind of guarantee of the continued existence of North Korea. That is now, and always has been, the only rational way forward. China holds the key to many doors in this crisis and it should redouble its efforts to unlock the door to the conference room.

As for Trump’s speech to the UN which was listened to by a stunned and silent audience, this Blog heard good things and bad things. Less abuse of Iran would be welcome, but much of the rest of it needed to be said. There are times when the Citizen President is the most alarming person on the planet, but there are others when he is a breath of fresh air. Yesterday at the UN was one of those.  Let us hope some good will come of it. Because out there is a lot of very bad, much of it getting worse.