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.