Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Israel and Iran

John Bolton, the Republican ultra neo-con in the U.S., who must be one of the most alarming politicians in the world today, is reported to be advocating an Israeli first strike nuclear attack on Iran if negotiations with the latter fail.

This must be one of the most preposterous public declarations since the end of the cold war. It is also insane. Were such a thing to happen there are  nuclear nations who might think it right to nuke Israel in retaliation. Even if restraint applied, and one must pray it would, the consequences for the world would be cataclysmic. No nation without nuclear weapons would feel safe  and none who had them would dare disarm.  President Obama’s attempts at nuclear disarmament would be grounded for a generation. Israel would become a shunned state and a wave of anti-semitism would sweep the world. The detonation of a nuclear bomb in the US by terrorists would become a certainty and there would be no shortage of those willing to help with secrets and know how.

Meanwhile the hawks in Iran will be even less willing to negotiate with the rest of us and will accelerate their programme, citing these ravings as just cause to prepare.

That this man gets air time beggars belief.

Immigration

Of all the issues this is the most sensitive and raises the rawest passions. Racial prejudice hovers menacingly at the edge of every argument. The subject gets high ratings in the league of things people worry about.

I accept there must be some orderly and fair quota of new immigrants because we are a small country with finite resources. I am very happy that we have a multi cultural society and I am blind to race and colour. I do, however, see real social problems building up in what used to be called working class areas where there are strains on services, resources and housing and where community cohesion is broken down because of a lack of traditional job opportunities in local factories and other important sources of employment. Wrongly those suffering from this deprivation turn to immigration as the cause of their plight. The root cause is the shape and social function of the post monetarist economic model. This model has demonstrated catastrophic flaws leading to crisis and recession, yet the policies of all the political parties appear designed to patch and mend and to keep it going.

There is a shocking degree of failure of the mainstream parties in all of this as we head towards what may become an even greater crisis ahead. This can explode into a frightening combination of financial crisis, ethnic violence and social breakdown unless heed is taken of the warning signs. If the BNP is anything, it is a wake up call. Baiting Nick Griffin is not an adequate response and sidelining his party will have no effect nor even be possible until action is taken to deal with the root. The precise conditions which allow extremist parties to flourish are the ones which the political class have failed properly to resolve.