Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Baroness Tonge

The Lib Dem Health spokeswoman in the House of Lords, Baroness Tonge, has been sacked by Nick Clegg for suggesting that  the Israeli Army has been accused of trafficking in organs from bodies in Haiti and that the Israeli authorities should investigate to refute the allegations. Whether the allegation is true or not I have no idea, but it needs investigating if only to reassure that it is groundless. Lady Tonge was right to raise the issue. Although she is a known supporter of the Palestinian cause (for which she is to be admired) it is no more anti-Jewish to refer to these issues than it is anti-British to call for investigations into torture complicity by MI5.

I had thought that Nick Clegg was doing rather well. Well he has just blown a lot of chips. It is a very bad thing when in a free democracy politicians are sacked for raising uncomfortable issues or supporting minorities. It is also very un- liberal. This is a serious mistake which diminishes Clegg’s leadership rating. The trouble with all the parties at the moment is that none has a decent leader, but the more Cameron and Clegg fumble the better it is for Gordon.

Archbishop Nichols

The new Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Nichols, has spoken out courageously and wisely about the culture behind treatment paths in various parts of the NHS. He is so right. I have direct experience to confirm and reinforce every word he says.

It is so refreshing to hear wise words about every day experience coming from any branch of the Christian Church. This is its proper Mission. It is so much more useful and so much more a power for good than introverted arguments about condoms, sexual orientation and gender.

Euro Zone

The Euro has been much more successful than many supposed and it has, in a relatively benign economic period established itself as a credible currency. Now, however times have changed. There are serious problems looming. These are not just economic. If they were solutions to Greece and shortly Spain, Portugal and maybe Italy would be tough but obvious. They are structural and social.

Yesterday there was a first aid type statement from the Euro leaders about firm intentions, but no plan, no cash and no action. Germany kept its cheque book firmly closed as news came through that its output growth had stalled, threatening the optimism that the worst of the recession is over. Meanwhile Greece has not asked for money in the hope that when it goes into the markets to refinance maturing debt in March, the cheque books of Asia will open obligingly. Much depends on Beijing. Much will now always depend on Beijing. If Asia says no, or puts the price up too much, default will loom.

This will most likely force Germany to stump up, since the cost to it will be the greater if the whole of Euroland finds the cost of borrowing rising. It is not the other counties are not in debt. It is that some have gone way over the top. But Germany is determined that the spendthrift countries of the sunshine belt shall learn a lesson. Merkel knows that German taxpayers will be very angry if they have to pay for the financial indiscipline of weak governments in other counties. It will force draconian measures like Ireland has adopted (to Germany’s warm approval) on Greece which will cause social unrest and bring down its government. It will go on demanding fiscal austerity until even the volatile Greek population sees no alternative. That will serve as a warning to the others to get a grip and do it fast.

All of this or something like it will make it clear that, in the end, it was the actual adoption of the Euro which assured the inevitable transfer of financial soveriegnty and budget control to a Federal Europe, not any number of negotiations and treaties argued over in the early years after its launch.

Because in the end that eternal truth will out. You cannot have a currency without a Government.  Especially not in troubled times.

Care for the Elderly

Gordon Brown has made a horlicks of this potential vote winner. Labour have been doing better than people expected but there is little room for mistakes. Cameron was able to score points at PMQs yesterday, but once again the Tories messed it by issuing a silly poster claiming that an option was a fact. People just do not believe anything politicians say about figures any more because they do not trust them. When a party takes something out of context or embellishes it into something else, people no longer buy into it. The voting population is far more sophisticated and better informed than at any previous election.

Gordon needs to make sure there are no more slip ups and David needs to fire the people in charge of those posters. They both need to remember it is Nick who gains from their mistakes and what is more he has Vince.

Constitutional Reform

I happen to think this is the fundamental issue on the political agenda, although in economic uncertainty this issue does not rank high in voters concerns.

Labour’s record on Constitutional issues is quite good. It has given us devolution and City Mayors. Of course it has overdone big government and is wedded to the idea that for every problem only a new law or regulation is needed. It has been slow to roll back the excesses of the market economy, especially in energy distribution and power generation. But it senses that the old way is past and that fundamental changes will have to come about over the way we are governed. This will mean a new voting system which ensures, at the very least, that those elected can only be so with a majority of the votes. This will almost certainly mean the end of single party government for most of the time, with coaltion concensus, common elsewhere, much more common here.

Above all we need a written Constitution. Many in the Establishment oppose this because it would remove from it the vast power and patronage it presently enjoys, by manipulating things behind the scenes and making up rules to fit the objective. A written Constitution empowers the People and is a basic requirement of Freedom under the Law. Again Labour says it is in favour of this, but whether its massive bureaucratic consultative machinery would ever be able to produce a timely draft remains to be seen.

In this context the vote in the House of Commons last night, though maybe no more than symbolic because of the approaching General Election, was a first step in the right direction which will have widespread support in the country, although as already stated, it is not a priority for most voters now. The Government majority of over a hundred and seventy demonstrates cross party appeal. Except the Conservatives.

This is another reason not to vote for them. To suppose we can carry on being governed by parties with a Commons majority based on a minority of votes somewhere in the mid to upper thirties leaving the choice of sixty per cent plus of the voters in opposition is not only undemocratic and unfair, but it is also the cause of a good deal of the bad government we have experienced over decades. This brings home the truth that just as Labour is the party of the Unions, the Tories are the party of the Establishment. The is peculiar feature of our ruling system is against change. Thatcher’s genius was that she detached the Tories from the establishment and made them radical. She then had a coalition of the liberal establishment and the aspirational classes. After the Lady came the wilderness years of many leaders and little headway. Now Cameron, a quintessential establishment figure, looks set to lead the party once more into government. Or does he?

So far in this campaign the Tories began laps ahead, but have since been steadily losing ground, part through blunders and muddles but part through a lack of clarity of what it is they stand for or what it is they actually intend to do. Early winning messages of robust fiscal management and re balancing the economy have been contradicted and diluted.There is a gowing feeling that these people are not up to it. Even the City is spooked. 

Although thus far much has been lost, all is not yet lost. But there can be no more errors of judgement. However unrealistic the prospect of legislation, the Bill to offer some reform of the way we vote is in tune with public sentiment. To vote against it was not only a mistake but shows the Tories to be in touch only with each other and out of touch with everybody else. For Cameron to make a speech on Monday about restoring trust in politics and then on Tuesday to vote against a Bill giving the public a choice of choosing a fairer voting system, shows him to be either a cynic or an imbecile. Neither are ideal qualities for an aspiring Prime Minister.

Euro Problems

I remember when the Euro came into being an American economist was reported as saying that you could not have a currency without a government. I thought about this and as time went on came to the conclusion that this may not be so. Well now I am sure he was right after all. Yesterday another distinguished economist with one of the banks was reported as saying monetary union could not work without political union.

I think this provides a lot of answers. We know already that many in Europe believe in a Federal Europe, whilst others believe in a confederation of independent states. The outcome has been rather fudgy treaties leading to the existence of three different kinds of President at once, none of whom has any meaningful authority.

We must not lose sight of the fact that the European Union is the greatest political success story in several hundred years and has brought peace to an area of the world previously over many centuries racked by war. I am for it one hundred per cent. It has succeeded and it must endure.

For that to happen it may, after all, require two levels of membership. Those in the Euro  will have to cede all financial sovereignty to a Federal Government, which at the very least would be master of financial policy in all states within the single currency.This would demand a notable transfer of sovereignty.

The other group would retain their own currency and their financial sovereignty. They would be able to get out of trouble in the short term by devaluations or running to a different fiscal model, but if they let their currencies go to pot they would find the cost of raw materials and anything not made at home increasingly expensive. The upside would be home manufactures and services like tourism would be attractively cheap to their richer neighbours.

It would , however, resolve the political argument. In the Euro would mean in the political union, an independent currency would be outside the inner Union. This may well suit us with our transatlantic ties and the close connection with business in the UK to business in the US. In many respects we are closer to the dollar than the Euro.

If Spain, Portugal, Ireland and Greece will not, or politically cannot, impose the strictures necessary to get back to the fiscal standard required by membership of the Euro (Ireland looks as if it can), they would have to go back to their old currencies. These would become more and more rubbish as the years went by until their populations saw a better future as part of the full Union. That would leave us alone and with a choice. Either go with the euro or go with the dollar. Either way London would cease to be the centre of our financial universe. This may not be as bad as it sounds. The mega decisions will be taken in Beijing anyway.

Cameron

Today he was having a go at Brown for being soft on expenses or doing u-turns or something. There really is no mileage in this. Voters regard all parties equally to blame and equally guilty. The voters will not buy into an idea that the Tories are better than Labour on expenses, although because Labour is in power, it has de facto more to defend. This is useful to the Tories but to raise a campaign issue of it makes Cameron look rather tacky. This is what you call a silent advantage; make a noise and it plays against you. 

The Tory High Command, beginning to look ever more mud splattered and out of its depth, needs to understand that the public pay little account of the fact that the money is being paid back. As far as voters are concerned when MPs of all parties had the opportunity to get their hands in the till unseen, they took the cash. They remember also that the outlandish moats and duck houses were Tory must haves at public expense. Oh and that wisteria too.

Emotion

Alastair Campbell was overcome and had to take a moment on the Andrew Marr show, when pressed on whether his boss Tony Blair, for whom he was chief scriptwriter, mislead Parliament over weapons of mass destruction. It was all getting too  much apparently, with people ‘settling old scores’.

Yes well… The nation is angry to discover just how little of the truth it was told and just how much of certainty was speculation. And remember this was not a trivial matter. It was about invading another country and going to war. It was about people getting killed, our own brave troops and lots and lots of  innocent civilians. I am sorry it is getting a bit much for the master spin doctor. He will have to get used to it. There is more to come. Much more.

Storm Cloud

So the markets have woken up the the huge indebtedness of certain Euro countries, with crisis torn Greece to the fore, but Ireland, Portugal and Spain moving into the frame. At the moment we escape because we have the pound which has been heavily devalued to help us along, a false dawn because eventually everything costs us more. Meanwhile recovery suddenly looks unstable. The voices of distinguished economists who know what they are talking about (a few do) grow more resigned to trouble ahead, while the voices of politicians grow more shrill with fear. There has never before been a currency without a single government (except gold) and nobody is sure what is going to happen.

Neither is anyone sure of how a debt crisis in Euroland will affect everybody else. The coming week is one to watch the numbers.

Education

The Tory high command has to get a grip. Just weeks ago it was considered a certainty that David Cameron would lead his party to victory in the spring. He was treated virtually as a Prime Minister in Waiting. But all that has changed. There have been blunders and muddles and even Tories I talk to are wondering whether this army of management consultants, researchers and marketing advisers are really up to the job. There is more and more talk of a hung parliament, when so little time ago the buzz-word was landslide.

This blog remains impartial but reserves the right to point out fault where it finds it. The latest fiasco is a leaked policy which would evidently take planning permission for new schools away from local authorities and allow schools to be set up anywhere subject only to a yes from the Secretary of State for Education. This is ridiculous. Local democratic institutions must have primacy on such critical matters as where to site schools. We do not want Whitehall’s meddling fingers and barmy initiatives encroaching into every neighbourhood. The idea is to reduce the power of central government, not increase it.

This is very worrying. The Tories under Thatcher had a weakness for bypassing Local Government and centralising decisions. This part of their policy was not a success and the country suffered years of neighbourhood decline as a result. It is beginning to look as if the lesson has not been learned. Whilst in the election campaign so far I have not noticed many new reasons for voting Labour, there seem to be an alarming number piling up for not voting Tory.

I read somewhere that Gordon Brown believed that the Conservatives would come apart at the seams under the pressure of an election campaign. I am beginning to wonder if this time he is right.