Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

As an ex-chancellor (quite a good one) and an elder statesman, Ken Clarke’s thoughts always have traction and his warnings about the effect on the middle class of next year’s cuts should be heeded. It is indeed true that it will not be just those on benefits who will fee the pinch. It is also true that the totality of our financial position is calamitous.

The middle class will suffer because so much of their expansion and rising wealth is property based and borrowing driven. An economy based on never ending increase in the value of housing assets is unsustainable, yet this is the only economic model that most people know and understand.

It is important to take another look at the U.S., because where it goes we go too. Property prices are falling again in America and foreclosures are again rising. In some areas of California, another overspent over borrowed economy, property prices are now down 67%  from their peak and still falling. 

Ken Clarke is right to warn. Age and experience give him a vision which does not rely on rose tinted glasses.  Maybe it’s time time we all took those illusory accessories off.

What is happening in Egypt is remarkable. It is remarkable for a load of reasons, but one is truly remarkable above all the others. This revolution has no leader. It is driven by spontaneous people power, working together through modern instant communication technology. The masses became one. Almost between one week and the next one of the most secure regimes among the autocracies of the middle east collapsed. The implications for the world are huge, though yet unmeasurable.

The first part of the revolution has been completed with the triumph of the people. The second part, the establishment of a pluralist democracy, has yet to happen. Nothing is in place, or ready to be put together, to facilitate this. For a people who can make a successful revolution in a fortnight this should not prove an obstacle.

Nevertheless the country is now under military rule which is definitely not democracy. The army, which occupies the kind of status and respect among the population as did the military in the old state of Prussia, has promised transition. The people have accepted this promise at face value. They expect the army to deliver. However it is a two way street. If the various groupings and individuals who will make up the new body politic of a democratic Egypt cannot agree a way forward and begin to fall out among themselves creating deadlock, the army may conclude the people have squandered their opportunity and re-establish an authoritarian regime.

Certainly the people can see the light, but they are not yet out of the wood. If they do finally emerge into the clear it will be a triumph indeed. One of the epic triumphs of history.