Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Protests about the unfortunate and apparently very bad film made in America, but nobody seems to know by whom, which insults Islam, has led to an ever widening area of protest, which now goes beyond Arab counties right across the Islamic world. America is shocked by the death of its Ambassador to Libya. It is deeply hurt by the fact that it is being abused by the very people whose freedom to organise these protests is, in many cases, available only because America and its allies helped overthrow  repressive regimes, which kept order with an iron fist, supported by death squads and torture chambers.

Unfortunately maverick and unwelcome films can be the product of a free and open society and these episodes cannot be prevented with any certainty by any acceptable means in the modern world of total communications. A reclusive nutter now has the power to inflame a whole and distant continent without stepping from his lair. Unfortunately, too, western foreign policy, especially the use of NATO and taking sides in civil conflicts either directly as in Libya or indirectly as in Syria, fails to recognise just how unpredictable the forces at work in these developing societies are and how unwise it is to go beyond the humanitarian dimension of any form of aid.

We now have a post Iraq War (which the barmy neo-cons declared would herald the age of democracy in the Middle East and be a beacon of freedom) situation in which instability flares across the Arab world, through Afghanistan and into Pakistan, all because of a film, however offensive and insulting. If this does not underscore the fragility of the status quo, you are not paying attention. Meanwhile the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians remains unresolved and new tensions with Iran grow daily.

For the Western diplomatic community this is not a good report. At the very least it is time to start finding consensus with Russia and China. Without unity of purpose in the Security Council the chaos will grow. The West must learn that no longer will it be able always to get its own way. It owes far too much money to the rest of the world for that. The US and the UK owe the most of all.

It is very distressing for the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, multitudes think of them affectionately as Wills and Kate, to have to brave their own scandal of privacy invasion, while on an important overseas tour. Now it transpires that the decision to sue the publishers of the pictures in France has provoked an Italian magazine to jump on the bandwagon and print the pictures next week in a special issue. Driven by the backlash against the judgement of the Sun in publishing the Prince Harry photos, all the UK media have shown commendable restraint, perhaps because of the shadow of Levenson looming large everywhere in medialand.

This incident demonstrates an uncomfortable truth. Celebrity, including Royal celebrity, depends for its very existence on the media. Without the media nobody would know who almost all of them are. Yet, like a forest fire, when out of control, or set upon a hostile course, the media can consume and destroy. No laws will stop this nor regulation prevent it. It may very well be that you cannot have the one without the other. It may also be that when things go wrong, it is best to treat the crisis with dignified detachment and move on.

Markets have gone wild with the news that the Fed is going to pump new money, not once, but month by month, into the US economy, until it begins to grow convincingly under its own steam. Coming on top of the ECB decision to stand ready to do its own version of QE, this shows that, as indicated several times by this blog, the re-construction of the western economic model will have to be through new money, not more borrowing.

Iceland has achieved an extraordinary turnaround from national bankruptcy by another version of the same method. On the other hand the economies caught in the bind of cut and borrow, Greece, Italy Spain, Portugal, are in difficulty.

In the UK the authorities have used  cuts, cheap borrowing and QE, but so far growth has proved elusive, as has real reduction in government borrowing. This Blog believes the this is because QE is being used to strengthen banks and financial institutions and not to generate real wealth creating economic activity.  The authorities show a curious mix of willingness and hesitancy over QE which indicates how little is understood about the relationship of modern money to economic growth. Let us hope that this understanding grows and with it economic prospects grow as well. All eyes will now be on America.