Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

There are two big mistakes each side can now make. The Government would be in grave error if it did not acknowledge that Ed Balls has the power to land very damaging blows, especially as the cuts begin to bite. The Opposition would be in equally grave error if it did not recognise that it is now much more vulnerable from its economic and financial regulatory record, which in combination are a spectacular disaster, because the new shadow chancellor was the co- architect and chief draughtsman of all of it. This will make exchanges a lot more robust and a good deal more bitter.

Beneath this there are murky undertones. The Tories are in bed with the City and the banks, few of whose acolytes vote for any other party, instinctively, culturally or out of self interest. Labour was seduced by a burgeoning money factory which it did not understand and because of this, the potential collapse of which put it in mortal fear. Thus neither party really has the punch to do what has to be done to neutralise the source of a potential further and widely predicted crisis.

Only the Lib Dems are gung ho to deal with the banks and understand  the reality that the importance of these largely insolvent institutions, though significant, is much overplayed. When the Banking Commission reports it will bring all this to the fore. That could be a Lib Dem moment. Especially for Vince. If the Lib Dems can show that by being in the coalition they are driving banking reform, which the Tories on their own would fudge, it will play as well for them with voters as their outright opposition to the Iraq war.

Twice if not more, this blog has pointed out to Ed that his top team were all in the wrong jobs and he has now acted. Good for him. The new line up is much better and will make politics much more lively. Ed Balls is currently the best advocate for Labour’s economic policy, which is one, nevertheless, with which this blog is in profound disagreement.

Alan Johnson, who seemed an inspired choice at the time, disappointed in his role from the very beginning, by saying, then showing, that he knew nothing about economics. I suspect he disappointed himself. He is a good man. We hope, after a rest, he will be back. Yvette Cooper vanished into her Foreign Affairs shadow. She will be happier as shadow Home Secretary.  Her replacement, Douglas Alexander, will be jolly boring. But Labour’s record at foreign affairs, with its endless wars and military adventures half baked and ill equipped, is even worse than its no more boom and bust spectacular.

Having said those nasty things, we think this is a much more credible Opposition now.

David Cameron and the government are right to champion NHS reform. When there is a crisis emergency it is superb, when it goes about its daily business it is shambolic.

Shambolic in the way it wastes the full potential of the dedication and expertise of its medical and nursing staff; shambolic in its relationship with doctors at all levels, few of whom work for it full time; preposterous in its relationship with its patients who are lined up like skittles to wait hour after hour in over-running clinics where appointments are ignored; shambolic in the treatment offered after hours; shambolic in the quality and maintenance of its patient records; weighed down by barmy procedures and rituals and ground down by the weight of layer after layer of clerical bureaucracy. All of this is accepted and allegedly loved by the British people. In fact what they love is that it is actually there and it is free.

When it began is was a social revolution which defined post war society as inclusive and caring. It challenged Communist doctrine by showing that in a free democracy health-care was universal. It is the best thing that Labour ever did. Its nationalisation of everything turned to dust. Its health service went on and on and on. The problem is that so did everything else, yet faster and further. Other countries caught up and overtook. More and more treatments were developed. These cost more and more. People’s life expectancy extended, first by years, then decades.  More and more treatments are needed. More and more care.

What the government proposes is to put the GP back in charge and control of the patient and their care. This is utterly fundamental to proper health care. The Queen has her own doctor, whom she rings when in need. She does not queue up listening to music to be finally connected to a ‘duty doctor’, with whom she has no connection and has never met and who knows nothing about her. Nor does she find herself sent off to a clinic weeks later for an appointment at 10 a.m. to be seen at 12.30. Neither is she regaled with targets and delays, mission statements and complaints procedures.

Ah, you say, but Her Majesty pays. Indeed so. But so do we all. Over £100 billion a year and rising. There is absolutely no reason why everyone should not have the same deal as the Queen. To achieve that we have to change the relationship between the patient and the NHS, to the patient and their doctor. Next we have to change the NHS from a process to a facility. Third we have to change the way we pay for it, because the present method does not work as it should.

The Government has made a start. There is a long way to go. Whether we go there depends on how well the government handles this first element. No more cock-ups. All the goodwill has been spent on broken promises,  about turns and silly nostrums. Screw the NHS and the voters will not forgive. It has to be right. First time.

Scrapping this excellent benefit is one of the Coalition’s more serious mistakes. This claims to be a government with education at the heart of its programme (don’t they all!). Some of its tinkering with school structures are simply meddlesome and pander to minority pressure groups. Others, like making sense of a stressful and inefficient exam system and demanding recognition of the need to achieve in core subjects, rather than hobbies, to reverse the decline in our world education standing, are to be welcomed.

There was real value in giving an allowance to those who wanted to continue with their education but needed some help with fares and food. The EMA gave some independence and support at just the right moment and was fully in line with the government’s educational objectives. Scrapping it will do more harm than good. It also, not for the first time, makes the unfolding policies of this administration look muddled and contradictory.

Worst of all it attacks the education prospects of the children of the least well off in our society. That is, frankly, crass. There will be a political price to pay and deservedly so.

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This is very good news for BP and it is very good news for the U.K.

It is good news because it provides further enhancement of oil supplies, which, because of the rising demand for energy from emerging economies, will be needed until the age of nuclear electricity and electric cars, augmented by wind and sun, is upon us. That age is yet a few years ahead. It is also good news because it enhances a strategic partnership with Russia which is very much in the interests of our country as a whole. It is good news for investors and savers and pension funds, in whose portfolios B.P. is a major component. It is good news for the Treasury, because eventually rising profits will bring more tax revenue. It is good news for BP, after all the very bad news from the Gulf of Mexico. It is good news because the deal was sealed by the Chief executive of  BP, who is American. 

America will see it as bad news. It will see it as bad news because, since it broke away from British Empire, it has always been jealous of Britain’s world capacity in trade and finance, where we punch far above our weight. It will see it as bad news because its gut reaction is to find fault, or pick a quarrel with every initiative without an American stamp. This is in sharp contrast to the generosity, friendship and capacity for doing good of its individual people. At this time its people are divided among themselves in an old fissure which runs deep. In such times unity can be found against a common ogre beyond the border. There has been far too much BP bashing in the U.S., with a somewhat venomous use of the word British, when much of the fault lay with American  partners or employees as well as regulators and government agencies. It needs to stop.

On the face of it this by-election (I do prefer the more old fashioned spelling bye-election) has something for everyone. Labour had a good win so Ed is given a boost. If his party had scraped home or perhaps lost, he would have been in trouble. Nick would have even more problems on his plate if the Lib Dems had been beaten into third place. As it was he could claim some teeny weeny increase in the share of the vote. The Tories, who appeared to come off worst, were relaxed, because everyone knew they were happy for their supporters to vote for their coalition partner in need.

Look at the figures and it is a rather different story. Labour not only increased its share of the votes, but it increased its actual votes. On the other hand the coalition partners  polled together over 10,000 fewer votes than at the general election in May. Indeed whereas in May together they had 14186 votes more than Labour, yesterday the margin was down to 923. This is, therefore, a much better win for Ed than it first appears. It suggests his leadership plays better in the country than at Westminster. It also suggests that Labour’s core vote, shrinking for some years past, is returning. If Ed can sort out his top team so they can land some punches, things could start looking good.

David Cameron has work to do. His government is losing support before the cuts really start to bite. This is not because voters are against the cuts, but because there have been too many muddles of ministers’ own making and too many unfair outcomes for an outfit which made fairness its watchword. Not yet a red alert, but an orange one certainly.

Opinion is divided as to whether the MPC was right to leave interest rates at the present level. This Blog is of the persuasion that it has made a mistake.

The arguments for holding rates at this historic low are well known and well rehearsed. The problem is that our inflation rate is back to the old problem of the U.K. economy; we have a higher rate than our trading partners and our competitors. This means that our costs are rising faster than theirs and can only be resolved by further devaluation of the currency which in turn puts up the cost of raw materials and energy.

This is a bad place to be and sooner or later the Bank of England has to act, or risk losing the ability to control  the issue by the use of interest rates at all. For the last five years inflation has been ahead of its target. Whatever may be the risks of a slowdown, possibly overplayed anyway,  a signal that things will not be allowed to get out of control, by a quarter point rise now, would reassure that the Bank has the will and cohesion to act. The risks are considerable and growing, of a real inflationary surge, demanding much more punitive action. We have been there so many times before, I cannot think why it is we are drifting that way again.

There is a plus and a minus today for and againt the government. Michael Gove has introduced the new English Baccalaureate. This brings this country in line with countries in the world which have much higher educational standards than our own, for whom the idea of a core of academic skills which will  lift the human condition, sits very easily with the opportunity to pursue and practice vocational and artistic subjects which will lift the human spirit. It is perhaps a little tough to apply it retrospectively, but doing so reveals how much there is to be done.

On the minus side the death of a little girl from swine flu is a heart rending reminder that last year the whole vaccination business was so much better organised and so much more effective. It is clear to all but the government where the fault lies. It is with the Health Secretary. If Andrew Lansley is to successfully carry through his excellent and much needed reforms of the NHS he will have to do a lot better than this.

The Coalition needs to remember the people will respect and grudgingly support an efficient government with whose idealogy they disagree. Everyone walks away from an inefficient government whatever its stripe.

The President of the United States, in what may be remembered as the greatest speech of his Presidency thus far, spoke to and for all Americans. Cynics and opponents will find fault, but this President has demonstrated, again, that he ranks among the greatest and most poetic orators of his county’s political history. 

It an atmosphere charged with emotion, grief, anger and suffering he sought to comfort, uplift and heal. Barak Obama, the first black President, came to office at a time when the age old split in American political culture between North and South, urban and rural, big and small government, individual and state, was opening up again. The policies he pursued to bring the U.S. back from the financial brink served to exacerbate the rift and fire up the Tea Party. Hatred seeped into the polemic of political debate, righteousness was paraded as a vulgar adornment, not practiced as a gentle humility. Words like those used by the President yesterday can inspire and heal. Whether in this case they do, will depend on whether the United States yearns to be healed and is willing to be, once more, inspired by him.

This Blog wishes all Americans well.