Malcolm Blair-Robinson's Blog, page 93

NHS Cyber Crisis: The Scandal of Vista

There a has been a cyber attack world wide. But the impact on the UK is acute because it has disabled much of our health service, put staff under tremendous pressure and without doubt put lives at risk. This would be a challenge in itself, but the appalling fact is the NHS should not have been affected. It is because large parts of it are using an out of date unsupported operating system vulnerable to this kind of attack, from which more modern systems are protected. Since 2010 Tory led governments have borrowed more than ever before but have failed to boost economic output sufficient to balance the books.

The consequences are run down and creaking infrastructure vulnerable to failure, or in the case of the NHS, cyber attack. We do not know if power and water supplies are similarly at risk. What we do know is that time and again it has become clear that the NHS is underfunded and over stretched. Now we know that lives are threatened because the IT is clapped out. Vista gave good service on my first laptop, but now I have moved on. Supposing that a system unfit for private use can work safely in the NHS is at the very least reckless and not far short of criminal.

Turn Left To Power: Buy Now

Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes hard or soft. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution which can propel Labour back to government. Published in 2016 and circulated to the Labour leadership, Turn Left To Power was a trailblazer for the manifesto.

Click image to buy Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99  

Labour Leak : A Blessing In Disguise?

At last we have a game changer from Labour. For the first time in decades the philosophy, aspirations and needs of the left have been given form. No longer is the choice between a soft centre or a harder one; a sterile choice that has driven millions of working class voters into hibernation or extremes. At last there is to be a full blooded manifesto from the Labour party based on the realization that it has no purpose or function as a party of the centre. Indeed there is no centre without first there being a right and left. The Tories are, have been and always will be the party of the right. Likewise Labour can only exist as the party of the left.

The dynamics are simple. You campaign from left or right, but you move towards the centre to govern, because in the end you govern for all. But if you campaign with integrity you will govern with authority. We have had a procession of strong governments with weak mandates.  The current economic model is shot through and unfair. There are crises  brewing at every twist and turn and radical change is demanded to set the country on a quite different path. The good thing about the leak is that it gives more air time to what is a bombshell intervention into the political conversation.  Whether that is time enough to mobilize a radical revolution is open to question. At least there is now more to this election than the coronation of May.

 

Labour Can Win: Buy Now From .99p

You read my blogs and many of you are Remainers and also Corbyn supporters who want to see a Labour victory. Especially younger readers who own the future.

I have enjoyed a lifetime as a political observer and at times a participant. My first election memory is of 1945 and grown ups around me expressing disbelief at the rejection of Churchill and the scale of Attlee’s victory. My first general election, as a Tory activist,  was in 1959. Later I became a founder member of the SDP and as the inequalities and injustices of the Thatcher economic model began to emerge, I turned to the Left.

Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. If the Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo just some of the principles which I set out, Labour will spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages.

Click image to buy. Just 99p for download £4.50 paperback

Is Trump in Trouble?

By Trump standards, no. He does not play to the rules. He hires, but also fires and has no problem doing so. There was a widespread belief in Washington that Comey’s conduct and reasoning had become an issue undermining the credibility of the FBI, both in regard to the Clinton emails and the Russian alleged involvement in cyber supporting the Trump campaign. There is also the question of how much the campaign encouraged this, if at all. Yet the summary dismissal of this senior public official is almost without precedent and has caused even more uproar in Washington than we have come to expect from this Presidency. There are the usual demands for special prosecutors and loads of contributions from sanctimonious Democrats, whom few would trust on a good day.

Nevertheless, even if this is not that bad for Trump, it is not that good for America’s image. Not least because these dramas make the international headlines, whilst bread and butter stuff of running the country does not, creating a widespread impression that almost every presidency gets bogged down in scandal fomented by the opposition party, in order to disrupt the effectiveness of the Executive. This is surely not the prospectus which the United States wishes to promote, as an example for others to follow. Neither is it a joined up way to run its own affairs.

Meanwhile, in the midst of the drama, a smiling Lavrov arrives and is ushered into the Oval office, cameras rolling. A rare honour normally given only to heads of government. That is the real news.

Labour Can Win: Download or Paperback from .99p

You read my blogs and many of you are Remainers and also Corbyn supporters who want to see a Labour victory. Especially younger readers who own the future.

I have enjoyed a lifetime as a political observer and at times a participant. My first election memory is of 1945 and grown ups around me expressing disbelief at the rejection of Churchill and the scale of Attlee’s victory. My first general election, as a Tory activist,  was in 1959. Later I became a founder member of the SDP and as the inequalities and injustices of the Thatcher economic model began to emerge, I turned to the Left.

Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. If the Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo just some of the principles which I set out, Labour will spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages, 50 in the Kindle version.

Click image to buy. Just 99p for download £4.50 paperback

Macron Wins: What Does This Mean?

It is certainly good news for the EU in which Macron, unlike Le Pen, is a passionate believer. He is also an internationalist, not quite the same thing as a globalist, so expect more of France on the world stage. He has come from nowhere, forming his own party which he calls a movement, to challenge the establishment of both right and left and has defeated both.

He is the youngest French leader since Napoleon. He is 39 and his wife is 64. As a platform orator he has no equal in Europe. France is a seething cauldron of problems and tensions daily stirred by opposing forces, unable to reconcile and move forward. He has promised to deliver a new French dawn in which right and left join hands and march forward.

That this is no ordinary man cannot be doubted. Yet we really know so little and the hurdles are so high, that perhaps only two possible outcomes beckon. Either he will be the third giant leader of the Republic in its numerous manifestations, after Napoleon and de Gaulle, or it will all end in tears. This does not look like a President who will just let his term of office slip by unremarked.

Labour Can Win: Download or Paperback from 99p

You read my blogs and many of you are Remainers and also Corbyn supporters who want to see a Labour victory. Especially younger readers who own the future.

I have enjoyed a lifetime as a political observer and at times a participant. My first election memory is of 1945 and grown ups around me expressing disbelief at the rejection of Churchill and the scale of Attlee’s victory. My first general election, as a Tory activist,  was in 1959. Later I became a founder member of the SDP and as the inequalities and injustices of the Thatcher economic model began to emerge, I turned to the Left.

Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. If the Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo just some of the principles which I set out, Labour will spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages, 50 in the Kindle version.

Click image to buy. Just 99p for download or £4.50  paperback.

Tory Victory June 8th: Can The Lib Dems Spoil It?

It would be to defy realism not to predict that the Tories are on course for a thumping victory in the general election on June 8th. Not only have they been winning the local elections in England, but unusually in Wales and spectacularly in Scotland. There are two distinct reasons. In Scotland the SNP is in the final stages of reducing the Labour Party, which it has replaced as the core socialist party of Scotland, to the sidelines. Labour has become pointless north of the border. The effect on the Conservatives is dramatic. They have become the party of the Union and are opposed to another indy referendum. This is a winning brand unseen in Tory Scotland for more than a generation.

In England and Wales the UKIP vote has collapsed and broken mostly to the Tories, from where those votes originally migrated. In June this will, if repeated, give the Tories an extra three million votes taking them over the fourteen million mark. There is no way Labour, without Scotland and damaged in Wales, can match that. So apart from the voting and counting it is all over for Labour. Or is it? The turnout in the locals is appalling. Over 60% of people entitled to vote don’t. But in the general election at the very least the split is reversed. This is important because if Labour can produce a manifesto that motivates the five million of its voters who stay at home to vote this time, it too will reach fourteen million. It is down to the quality, boldness and relevance of the manifesto and mobilizing its huge membership to tramp the streets and pull out the punters as never before. But it can be done.

And now to the Lib Dems  If you delve deep you find something very surprising. It is this. In the local elections the Tories scored 38% of the vote, which is up a tiny 1.1% on their 2015 general election total. Labour at 27% is down 3%. So far so good. But here is the bombshell. The Lib Dems are up from 7.9% to 18%. Taking the exact same turnout as 2015 and the same total of votes cast, that pushes up the Lib Dem total from less than 2.5 million votes to 5.4 million. In what will be in England a three party race, that can do a lot of damage in apparently safe Tory seats. There will be more analysis of the trend as the campaign develops, but this hints that although the UKIP vote has broken to May, Tory Remainers are moving to the Lib Dems. That could prove devastating if accompanied by tactical voting in a three party race under first past the post.

The upside for the Tories if victorious, is that winning perhaps ten seats in Scotland will secure the Union and end the independence fest of the SNP. The upside for Corbyn if Labour loses big time, is that most of his tormentors will be out of parliament and he will still have the backing of his huge membership. He will then be able to rebuild the Labour Party from the Left, currently a vacant and fertile political space, as the SNP have demonstrated with such effect. Oddly enough he will be in greater danger if Labour nearly wins but misses. Then his enemies, back in parliament, will strike. Again.

A Rocky Road Ahead

Apparently EU politicians believe May should have called an election before triggering Article 50 to give herself a mandate. That is not necessary under the British system; Churchill only had a parliamentary mandate to fight WWII and May secured a vote in parliament to trigger Article 50. But they could be right in feeling that the timing of the contest is unwise. It all looked so good on the hiking break in the Welsh mountains. The Tory party was almost drunk on the certainty of a landslide after her surprise announcement which caught everybody off guard.

Now troubles are piling up. The EU has declared a unanimous position on the negotiating agenda. It is radically different to the story being peddled by the May government. Leaks abound in the form of briefings of top media correspondents suggesting that the UK government is in cloud cuckoo land over the possibilities before it. For the first time some polls are showing a majority now think Brexit a bad idea. The economy is slowing as problems in almost all public services have a slot on every news channel. The Tory lead, still impressive, is reducing in the polls and Labour is going up.

The Tory campaign has made Brexit and leadership, May’s, the core of the election. But if the campaign swings to issues affecting everyday life, the going could get tougher. And if the voters begin to get tired of May’s know all style and bossy demeanor, coupled with her refusal to answer a single question with anything beyond an evasive soundbite, it could happen that the country decides that, on reflection,  hers is not the type of leadership it favours.