Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

State Opening – The Aftermath

This should never have happened. It has further diminished the authority of Parliament. It has tainted the Crown with a process which is clearly tacky. There is one piece of legislation which would have been universally well received, or several pieces as some say are needed, to ensure that this unending saga of MPs’ expenses was finally sorted out. Yet not a peep.

I am already on record and reported as holding the well researched view that this whole process was unconstitutional. To begin with ignored as a nutter, I am surprised at the speed at which support for this theme has developed and the unexpected sources from which it has begun to spring.

In the strange process of our unwritten constitution, precedent is everything. We have now established the precedent that the Monarch can allow to remain in being a corrupt and rotten Parliament, so that next time even I will have no grounds to raise an alarm.

Some people are no doubt pleased with this. They do not serve their country well.

Dignity and Courage

It is impossible not to be moved and inspired by the dignity, courage and candour of Christina Schmid as she exhibits star quality in grief at the loss of her hero husband in Afghanistan. Like all the families caught in the sudden shattering of their lives, not just now, but through all those wars past,with their roll call of countless millions, comfort comes from that certainty of purpose, that the fight is a good fight, that sacrifice has meaning and after the tears, greater good will come for all to share.

Yet for me, as readers of my blogs will know, I am of the staunch view that this Afghan war is misconceived and is the cause, not the solution of the problems it seeks to quell. Therefore I am bound to see the deaths of brave young soldiers as wanton and unnecessary, even wicked, because those who divine that they should go into harms way, stay safe and cosy thousands of miles from the risk.

When I see a grieving widow, often clutching sobbing children, or watch the silent crowd lining that doleful highway through Wooton Bassett, united in tribute to these fallen heroes, I am tormented by the thought that this need not, should not, have happened. Yet I am removed from the core and intensity of this emotional turmoil. I am of the league of the cosy who are not a part of this. I have my views. I am sure I am right. 

But so are those who, as I write this now, risk their lives in the belief, and they do believe, that my freedom to blog in safety will be made more secure by the risks they run for me, for us all. That gives them a nobility of spirit which unites them with us, whatever we believe, so that in our respect for their dearest, no troubled thought shall dim the burnish of that golden thread that binds us as a nation.