Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Tributes to Raoul Moat

The Metropolitan Police Commissioner has expressed disappointment in the level, 17000 at the time of writing this, of supporters of a tribute website to Rauol Moat on Facebook and the flowers and other tributes outside his home and at the spot where he shot himself.

This raises profound issues which should be of great concern to the police across the country. They are these. There is something alarmingly aggressive and unfriendly about the way a modern police force, when fully mobilised, goes about its business. Huge areas are sealed off. People are either trapped in their homes or public places or cannot get to where they want to go. Armed police are not like the old style cop pulling a snub nosed revolver. They are kitted out in a quasi military ensemble with automatic weapons with authority to shoot to kill if needed to protect the innocent.

Here is the nub. Has the issue of safety first and public protection got out of hand? The police are supposed to be of the public, for the public, but the public, as in the war, have to accept some risk and use common sense. At what point do the police become a Militia? How much does all this cost? Does the public any longer see the police as on its side? At all levels and for different reasons, I sense major disquiet. Politicians will make supporting noises, but confidence is shaken, whether it is a murder hunt or crowd control. Reform is needed.

This is what sympathy for the sad and sorry figure of Raoul Moat is all about. He was armed and dangerous. He had killed and maimed the innocent. Yet too many felt he was fighting for a cause. We have to ask how we got here and where we go now.

Deeper Recession

New figures from the National Statistics office show that the recession in the U.K was worse than at first thought, going down from peak to trough 6.4%. This compares with 5.3% for Euroland and 3.8%  for the U.S. In other words we did worst.

When I was researching for my book 2010 A Blueprint For Change, the figure that struck me above many other alarming economic numbers, was the staggering level of the total debt of the U.K as a whole; in other words, business, households and the public sector combined. It is the second highest total in the world after America, but whereas there it is (June2009) 94% of GDP and $44000 per head of population, here it is a staggering 416% of GDP and $142000 for every head of our population, man woman and child.

I quoted this in the book to illustrate the extent of the crisis. I have since mentioned it in a blog at least once. John Humphries quoted it this morning on the Today programme to Ed Balls, who appeared not to know of it. Yet it is the key, for it tells that a very substantial part of the boom was unreal because it was borrowed and the actual level of economic activity was much lower.

As we struggle to pay off  both public and private debt and live within our means the economy will reveal its true level. I suspect this may be lower than we think it is today. I do not believe in a double dip recession simply because the spike upward has been through government expenditure from yet more borrowing. We have never really left recession.

There are signals to see. House prices are now falling again and so is inflation. In reality this is very good news, but I am not sure that the public is prepared for this. The catastrophic mis-reading by the Treasury (or its domination by Brown and Balls) during the years immediately prior to the crash is the main reason for their misplaced hope that we are well on the road to recovery. There is a long way yet to go. The new government, faced with numbers no amount of political dogma could ignore, has made a brave start. We must now hold our nerve. For those in the public sector caught in this phase of the storm, times are going to be very hard. We need to remember this is not just a recession brought about by the economic cycle. It is the collapse of an entire financial model.

The Marching Season

What a sorry sight to see riots in Belfast again. Let us not forget that at the root is the utterly preposterous ‘tradition’ of triumphalist Protestant marches passing through Catholic areas. This whole concept of celebrating a victory of centuries past by humiliating the losers, is the most distasteful and insulting aspect of the flawed political philosophy called Unionism. Why Cameron talks to these people goodness knows, unless it is to tell them that time is up, this has to stop. This strutting arrogance and show off culture flies in the face of every principle held dear by the rest of the U.K.

The price for maintaining the Union should be a stop to this spectacle once and for all.