Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Labour’s Chances

So far Labour are running the better campaign. They are gaining ground while the Conservatives lose it. Brown has seized the initiative from Cameron. His ratings are going up. Cameron’s are going down. One muddle after another for David and too many of his own making; Ashcroft, the UUP and so forth. Brown meanwhile grapples with the big issues, head down into the storm. ‘I will not let you down’ This is good. Very good.

So does Labour have a chance? After all in 1987 it won the campaign and lost the election. In 1992 everybody thought it was winning, but it threw advantage away in a shadow budget and a victory rally held too early. It lost both the campaign and the election. In 1997, 2001 and 2005 the Conservatives were not in serious contention. This time after years in power Labour started as the underdogs but they have fought their way into near level pegging if the latest polls are right. Even the Tory default anthem ‘do you really want five more years of Brown?’ is devalued.  Now the answer is ‘we might’.

So what is in the locker? Labour has a problem. It has created an economy which favoured the City above all other sectors, led by consumer spending, fuelled by excessive personal borrowing (which pumps reservoirs of cash into the City in credit charges) and this economy has gone down the tubes. It lives with the irony that the economy which took money from the poor and gave it to the rich is a Labour creation. Moreover it all went wrong  and it is the poor who are paying with stifling domestic debt, short time working, pay cuts and redundancies. So how can Brown say ‘I will not let you down?’

To answer that we need need first to peep back into history. Churchill was the architect and in charge of, as First Lord of the Admiralty, the catastrophic muddle of the Narvik expedition which brought about the lightening German occupation of Norway and the first of the many flights of our armed forces in the early war years. The debacle brought down the Chamberlain government but it was Churchill who came to power. The next event he presided over was Dunkirk, when the Germans having kicked us out of Norway, kicked us out of France. The first was a military disaster. The second was a military calamity. Churchill’s stock rose and rose and when the blitz came and people were being bombed homeless and saw their loved ones blown to bits around them, it rose yet higher still. It did so because whatever the set backs, the people knew Winston was on their side and would not let them down. Was it not his  lone voice which had cried in the wilderness in those appeasement years that the Nazis were bent on evil conquest?

Back to today. Was it not the sale of council houses, the opening up of financial regulation, big bang, privatisations, the conversion of building societies into banks, was it not all of this that was at the heart of the economic crash? Yes and what is more they were Tory policies enacted into legislation by Tory governments. These ideas were embraced by New Labour. Who led New Labour? Of course Tony Blair! And who saw through him first and wanted to get rid of him? There’ s just been a book about it. Wow yes, our Gordon!

So it is just possible with a clever campaign Labour can finesse all the Tory strong cards and seize the game with its own weaker hand. It is doing pretty well. The first trick to fall was New Labour. It has vanished with its old disciples. It is all Labour now. Good old fashioned dependable Labour, with good old clunking Gordon. On our side.

If the Conservative party strategists are not in crisis meetings, burning midnight oil and taxing their brightest minds, they should be. Because a new threat is developing. Disappointed Tories are beginning to look to UKIP and the Lib Dems. That means safe Tory seats could become unstable. The moment when slick presentation was all that was needed has well and truly passed.

Yes, Labour has a chance. Not a big one, but it has the initiative, it is gaining ground and the chance is getting bigger.

Israeli Settlements

U.S. Vice President Joe Biden has been forthright in his condemnation, first yesterday and again today, of the Israeli announcement that permission has been given for a whole lot more illegal homes to be built in East Jerusalem. This is very welcome. For far too  long America has stood coyly to one side during Israel’s excesses and if there is to be any decent chance of progress in the single most important theatre of tension in the world, the Obama administration will have to get tough with its ally. Only when Israel can see it is going to lose more than it gains from theses dreadful and deluded policies will it reign back. Let us hope Biden and his boss have the stuff it takes to keep it up. They will have to talk very tough to the mega powerful Israel lobby in their own country as well.

Transfer of Powers

Well its done and what a blessing. As predicted the Ulster Unionists, these dodgy partners of the Conservative Party, voted against on the basis of an argument which was the usual self fulfilling Unionist obstructionism which has bedevilled the history of Ireland for generations.

The Conservative Party now looks foolish. It supported the transfer. Their allies did not. Cameron’s judgement in entering into the pact causes deep unease on both sides of the Atlantic and his inability to persuade these bigoted people to see reason has made him look weak. More and more people are having second thoughts.

There is a way ahead. Cameron said he could not tell the Unionists what do do. Maybe so. But he could have said the pact depended on following the policy of the senior partner in this cynical team up. Today he should tear up the pact. Otherwise the remaining chance that he might become Prime Minister will hazard the bi-partisan nature of the British Government’s even handedness in helping to navigate the rocky road ahead. Dublin needs an impartial ally. Otherwise it will look, with everybody else, to the United States. There have been some very bad  calls from Cameron. The Tories now need a good one. Without it, all his presentational skills and money raising bounty may well be wasted.

The Generals

The latest inquest into the deaths of four brave soldiers, including the first woman, has revealed weaknesses in training and poor equipment as well as a lack of technique in using what there was. This is not the fault of Ministers. Neither is it a shortage of money since we now know that these wars have so far cost £18 billion on top of the normal defence budget. This is a military inadequacy of planning and command for which Generals are to be blamed. We kowtow to them. We should not. Since the Cold War ended their record is mixed. Time to take a leaf out of Churchill’s book and sack a few.

Patient Records

It is reported that doctors are asking for the setting up of the much needed database of patient records which can then be accessed from any hospital anywhere to be slowed down because patients do not understand it. I disagree. The complete inadequacy of the transfer of key information between doctors and hospitals and the appalling opaqueness of the written notes was a major contributory factor leading doctors to take decisions leading to my daughter’s death.

This to me is a no brainer. It has nothing to do with patients’ wishes. If they wish to have the NHS on standby night and day 24/7 for all their lives in case they fall ill, have an accident or face some medical trauma they must allow the setting up of the necessary database of personal information as a condition of getting treatment. Not to agree ties doctors’ hands at a time when the patient may not even be conscious to give vital information. I would have no hesitation in making it a condition of the deal. Opt in to the data base or opt out of the NHS. Period.

Trade Deficit

This turned out to be bigger in January than anyone expected and the biggest for seventeen months. It may be the weather, but if not it is very bad news indeed. If there is no improvement in the next month for which figures will become due, it underscores the futility of trying to build economic recovery with the old model. It is here that Labour’s line of defence is thinnest.

By backing the Banks and caving into threats from the City that the overpaid gamblers would run away abroad unless they were given all they wanted, Labour has not only put proper recovery in jeopardy, but failed to tackle the serial imbalance of a medieval economy which sucks money up from those at the bottom of the pile and gives it to those at the top. Labour’s own disillusioned supporters strain to hear a message from other parties that help is coming but from the Tories they hear a vague and confusing babble.

Then today Ken Clarke said it in a single plain sentence.

‘We need to build a new economic model based on saving, investment and exports instead of the debt fuelled model of the last decade’

Well done Ken. This is what the Tory message needs to be about. Exports need industry. Industry needs workers. Investment creates jobs. Jobs empower neighbourhoods to better times. Tough times yes but with a bright light of hope for a better future. Voters will go for that. David needs to give you Osborne’s job. Come to think of it, the Tories would be walking it now if you were their Leader. Moreover there would be no Ashcroft crisis, no pact with the UUP and no cozying up to neo fascists  in the European Parliament. Altogether much more wholesome.

U.S Congress and Cameron

The all party Congressional leaders of the Irish American community have, it is reported, written to David Cameron expressing their hope that he will exercise all possible influence over his new dodgy friends in the Ulster Unionist Party to ensure that they vote for the transfer of police powers at Stormont tomorrow. The U.S., which is very disturbed by this electoral pact of Cameron’s, believes that it is imperative that the vote to proceed is unanimous to send an unambiguous message to extremists. They note the UUP has not yet made up its mind.

I have before said I cannot believe that the Tory high command can have committed such an error of judgement as to start a political affair with these provocative and blinkered throwbacks to sectarian intolerance, but having done so, it falls to it, on top of everything else, to make quite sure the UUP stand in line with Sinn Fein and the DUP.

We need to remember that without the Ulster Unionists, Ireland would be one country, there would have been no bombings and Catholics and Protestants would have been living happily side by side as they do everywhere else in the civilised world, including in England, Scotland and Wales. Heath dumped the Unionists when he saw they were beyond the pale, Thatcher kept her distance and Major broke free and began the dialogue with the IRA that led to the Peace Process, brought to fruition by Blair before he left the rails. The decent centre of British politics is repelled by bigotry and it is from this centre that the Tories need to gain votes to win.

If the UUP do out of pique because they are a spent force or out of spite or whatever, vote No tomorrow Cameron needs to call Sir Reg Empey, their leader, to tell him that the electoral pact with his party has been torn up and thrown in the bin.

Opinion Polls

Looking at these over the weekend and studying independent analysis of them, suggests that the big issues of last week, Ashcroft, Brown at Chilcot etc., have had little effect on voting intentions. The Conservatives remain ahead by as little as 2% to as much as 8% depending on the poll, Labour is holding its own and Lib Dems are trailing. This tells us voters are treading water for the moment waiting to see what comes up in the real campaign when the date is announced. The race has tightened in this preparation stage and the result is not a foregone conclusion.

An outright Labour victory was never really on the cards unless the Tories have so big a prang they cannot get their show back on the credibility road. Nevertheless their vehicle is scratched and dented. Labour have done much better than expected certainly, but this may be their high water mark. There is not a lot of good news scheduled between now and polling day.

Recovery figures for the First Quarter may show a stall because of the weather and the rise in VAT. Darling has to bring in a budget which is likely to please nobody. If it is a give away it will not be believed and the markets will go to pot. If it is draconian and really hammers the deficit Labour voters will recoil. If it does neither the one nor the other everyone will have a go. Vince Cable will shine whatever Darling does. This will be when the Lib Dems get back in the race. When those TV debates go out into every home and bar in the land the Lib Dems will be the big winners if Clegg keeps his cool.

To prepare for all this all three party leaders have to prepare themselves and their Parties have to prepare sharp and targeted campaigns. The Tories have most to lose. They have lost the most so far. Extra care is need here if expectations are to be fulfilled and the prangs and wobbles are to be seen as adventures on the road to power and not something more depressing. Cameron has announced a sort of war cabinet of key players, five I believe. None is from an ethnic minority nor is  even one a woman. This is not very good and  appears to reveal a rather narrow base of talent or, worse, endemic cronyism at the top. A clever move, worth a few marginals, would be to give Ken the Treasury brief ( he sounds as if he has got it already) and give George the Business brief to shadow Labour’s Blackadder, Mandleson. Ken is wasted on this portfolio an Mandleson will be more in the backroom during the campaign because he is not being elected and George is universally regarded as the weak link as Shadow Chancellor.

Gordon just has to keep his team in line and go on being indomitable. He should be kind to Darling, slap down Ed Balls, watch the sly Milliband (David) and keep Blackadder sweet. He cannot win outright but he can stop Cameron doing so. That is his best hope. As for the Lib Dems thay need to keep their powdwer dry, drill their troops and hide in the woods. Like the Prussians at Waterloo they can then burst out of the trees at the decisive moment and seize the critical balance. It is not called the balance of power for nothing.

Iraq Elections

It really is a dreadful thing that over thirty people have been killed in attacks on polling day, but it is also a wonderful thing that undeterred by the risk many millions of Iraqis have braved the violence to cast their votes. It is not right to celebrate this as some kind of justification for the war.

The problems now facing Iraq are much more to do with the gross failure to plan how to win the peace by the Bush administration and the supine weakness of the Blair Government to vigorously protest when they saw disaster looming. The vindictive decision to exclude Ba’ath Party from absolutely everything has left a legacy of disaffection among the Sunni minority, previously in the ascendant. Time will tell how things will progress, predictions are not easy in this ravaged environment.

There is however one. If the Shias and Sunnis do not reach an understanding that restores Sunni dignity and participation, civil war will break out when the Americans leave. Syria and Jordan will back the Sunnis. Iran will back the Shias, the majority. The Kurds will break away to the north and increase tension in the disputed border are with Turkey, which may then become destabilised. There could be a lot of trouble ahead.

The Ulster Unionists

I see these annoying people are trying to hold up the transfer of policing powers to Northern Ireland and Martin McGuinness has expressed irritation. No small wonder. Even the DUP  is signed up to it. Apparently Sir Reg Empey is trying to use the issue as a bargaining chip to get the eleven plus restored. What nonsense.

Nothing shows Cameron’s inexperience and PR approach to politics more than his idiotic decision to enter into an electoral pact with these obstructionist bigots. The UUP is in the political stone age. They have lost the argument and time has moved on. Fortunately nobody cares about them any more so the Tories are unlikely to lose mainland votes over it. Nevertheless with the UUP and Lord Ashcroft there are shadows in the Tory wings which many people do not like. The majority of down to earth, compassionate, one nation Tories need to let in some light.