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There are alarming reports of trigger happy gunmen interfering with the attempts of investigators trying to discover the truth behind the destruction of MH17, together with surprising disrespect for the bodies scattered across the countryside of east Ukraine. This is appears to be in sharp contrast to the work of the emergency services and ordinary people in the locality of the crash, overwhelmed as they are by the scale of the disaster.
These reports are causing revulsion across the world and are severely damaging the cause of the separatists. The whole ghastly episode is a public relations disaster for the Kremlin, because of its supposed support for these armed units. Yet every independent expert commentator urges caution before apportioning blame. The prima face evidence is of a mistake by the separatists, but some, including Moscow, believe that Kiev has something to hide. This could be worrying as it is a matter of fact that the separatists have everything to lose from this disaster and cannot gain anything from it. On the other hand many at the centre of the Ukraine government are as keen as mustard to pull NATO in and this outrage, they wrongly calculate, may just do that. They may be innocent but they have a motive and their innocence needs to be properly tested.
Meanwhile it should be clear to everybody that blaming Russia for everything is pointless and counter productive. It is doubtful that Russia actually has as much control of the separatist militias as the West likes to assert. There are signs of Russian mercenaries with a pro Soviet agenda on the loose who want to turn the clock backwards. This cannot be welcome in the Kremlin. It is, however, clear that the crisis in Ukraine cannot be solved without Russian participation and that will work only if Russia and the West are in step. Otherwise loads more innocent people will be killed.
Instead of these repetitive phone calls from the White House and Downing Street to Putin issuing demands and threats, it could just be that a softer tone asking for his suggestions might be a more grown up approach, yielding better results. Respect for the nearly three hundred dead and concern for those they have left behind numb with grief, make settling differences among the powers in play an obligation. This blog detects that a cautious President Obama senses this. Prime Minister Cameron, as usual utterly clueless on foreign policy, does not.
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While shock and sympathy for the victims and their families of the terrible destruction of MH17 is worldwide and universal, the discovery of what actually happened is in danger of being lost in a confrontation of conflicting accusations.
Yesterday morning I posted my own analysis of the most likely chain of events in the tragedy, which was subsequently borne out by similar conclusions from Downing Street and the White House, to the effect that a separatist missile had been fired, mistaking the airliner for a Ukrainian transport. The performance of the pro Russian militia restricting access and carrying off evidence reinforces this conclusion. While I relied on news feeds, social media and eye witness interviews, Washington and London would be working from sophisticated communication and satellite intelligence gathering. Even so, doubts remain, because of difficulties which are bound to arise from disinformation, false intelligence and opposing forces with identical weapons systems.
That this terrible event is a diplomatic and public relations disaster for Moscow and the separatists cannot be denied.It is made worse by initial uncertainty on the Russian side about how to react and reports of drunken militia hindering inspectors. Nevertheless Russia has not disguised its shock and sympathy and large numbers of local people from miners to emergency teams have worked hard to gather bodies and body parts spread over miles of countryside; a horrific task stoically performed, of which the memory will never fade.
Yet there is not universal confidence that all is as it seems. Distrust of the Kiev government is widespread. From the very beginning it has been trying to prod NATO into some kind of military response to settle quarrels largely of its own making. Even if NATO was persuaded at some point, the public in the West would not be, and it is therefore not an option. It is important to say in clear and powerful tones to the Kiev government that Ukraine was an independent country under no threat from anybody, which since it broke from the disintegrating Soviet Union has made a complete mess of its governance and failed utterly in its primary responsibility to unite its people. Nobody else is willing to be dragged into their quagmire although financial and diplomatic help will be given to enable a fresh start.
If it turns out that Kiev was involved in any way in the events which ended in the deaths of nearly three hundred innocent travellers, they should know they will be abandoned to whatever fate destiny has in store and Western support will be entirely withdrawn. Russia has now mounted an alternative narrative for the shooting down, which demands answers to a number of valid questions about Kiev forces in the region and the routing of the plane in such a dangerous airspace.
It is absolutely critical for its continuing credibility that Kiev answers these convincingly. Bluster and counter accusations will not work. Either it has clean hands or it has something to hide.
One cannot imagine the anguish felt by the families who have lost loved ones in the downing of the Malaysian airliner. This time it is known what happened to the Malaysian plane; it did not vanish, it fell from the sky and the graphic images of the carnage of bodies and wreckage are everywhere on the media. There is disbelief that a civilian airliner has been shot down, (there is little doubt of that) not least because most people would not have thought that any airline would take the risk of flying over a war zone. Many had already diverted flights, but not all. The ill starred Malaysian carrier was one of those to judge the risk as acceptable. It has paid a heavy price, but that is as nothing to the price paid by its passengers. The international condemnation of the outrage is at maximum level, as are the accusations and counter claims as to who fired the rocket. Unlike past disasters of this kind, the advent of modern social media and the internet makes it possible to get the apparent facts together quite quickly through intercepts. The health warning comes that the same system provides an ideal medium for disinformation as well as truth. The most plausible explanation is that separatists launched the missile to shoot down what they believed to be a Russian built cargo plane operated by the Kiev government. There are intercepts which confirm this. If these are genuine, several questions arise. 1 Where did the separatists obtain the missile system able to hit the aircraft at such a height? Was it captured from the unstable Ukrainian army or was it covertly supplied by Russia or by separatist agents in Russia? 2 What part are Russian intelligence and special forces playing in support of the separatists and did this contribute to the disaster? 3 Why had Kiev not closed to civilian flights what it claims to be its airspace, if it (a) had lost control of a missile system or (b) believed the Russians had supplied one to what it calls terrorists? 4 Is the international aviation authority practice of issuing ‘advice’ to civil airlines concerning war zones fit for purpose or should this be changed to publicised directives? If this is not the general drift of what happened, there are only two other possibilities. One is a bomb on board (already discounted by most) and the other that it was a Ukrainian rocket battery which shot the plane down, believing it to be a Russian cargo plane bringing weapons to the insurgents. The problem is both sides are using the same Soviet era equipment and transport. In the literal and possibly even the legal sense, President Putin is right when he says that the responsibility for the disaster lies with the country in whose airspace this occurred. But he knows, as do we all, that it is not quite as simple as that. What is clear is the the style of confrontation with Russia, so favoured by the EU, NATO, the US and UK makes matters worse not better. Ukraine faces an insurgency which cannot be put down by force and which is leading to significant loss of life not only of those involved, but in a game changer calamity involving innocent travellers, huge numbers of whom were women and children. We all know what has happened in Ukraine since the Kiev riots began. Just suppose at that point the West had said to Russia ”this is your sphere of influence but our area of interest. Let us work together to resolve the difficulties in a peaceful and constructive way to the benefit of all sides.” We cannot say for sure where we would be now, but we can say for certain we would not be in mourning for three hundred innocents blown out of the sky. There are, in this moment of world history, lessons which are proving unnecessarily hard to learn.
Now that Dominic Grieve and Ken Clarke have left the government, the Tory Party had set out on its reformist agenda for Europe without resistance from the heart of its own grip on power. They are buoyed up by the knowledge that the public is irritated by the pontifications of the European Court of Human Rights and are happy with the notion of Britain pulling out and setting up its own Bill Of Rights. The argument behind this is that the UK Parliament should make all laws and that this parliament is sovereign.
In a democracy this is not quite true. The people are sovereign and exercise their sovereignty through parliament which they elect. Britain is one of only three democracies in the world without a formal written constitution. What such an instrument does is to limit the power of the legislature and government to enact laws or regulations which erode the agreed framework and limitations within which government must function. Because Britain has no such formal instrument of state, it relies on custom and practice and various statutes, any of which can be changed by any parliamentary majority at any time. Essentially the establishment can make up the constitution as it goes along.
Should government fall into malevolent or misguided hands, this could be calamitous for individual freedom, were it not for the Human Rights Act, which underpins not only nationally, but internationally, the rights and freedoms of every person in the land. If this is swept away, and even more so if Britain leaves Europe (and if Scotland leaves the UK), it seems to this blog that the need for a formal written constitution for whatever remains of the UK is an essential requirement not only for the inalienable protection of the rights and freedoms of British Citizens, but also to lay down a clear framework and set of limitations within which government must function.
The difference is that governments can change laws if they have a majority in parliament, without having an actual majority in the country. In a proper democracy the constitution can only be changed by a majority of the people.
This Blog has had more to say about the dangers of this cancer within our economy than almost any other subject. There is not a lot to add. Now running at an average of over 10% across the country, this is unsustainable and will lead to a very hard landing unless action is taken now. So far there have been tinkerings but no firm clear signal that enough is enough. The best would have been to create a Mortgage Rate running alongside Bank Rate, which could be moved up without affecting interest rates in the wider economy.
The present situation is not only fiscally suicidal, but it also sucks money out of all the key areas of economic regeneration in order to fund a binge in the financial sector. Too many modern politicians have a finger in that pie. The outcome is cuts on the one hand and excessive government borrowing on the other. The total interest bill as a first call on all income of both the government and households in the UK is now £100 billion per year. It is difficult enough to find that money now, which comes before a single nurse is paid or a single plate of food is put on the table.
Just think how hard it will be to pay when the next crash comes.
Cabinet reshuffles cause political excitement and in the Westminster village are high drama. Elsewhere they are boring, irrelevant or pointless. Small ones made necessary because of a minor scandal or an early retirement, cause just enough of a ripple to drive the ten o’clock news. Big ones and the one now in progress is as big as they get, raise many questions, especially if they occur in the last few months of a parliament. If the person was useless in this ministry, why can we expect them to shine in that one? If the previous line up was full of duffers, why not act earlier? Is this person really retiring, or walking out because they are pissed off with the direction of travel?
Inevitably a complete government revamp in the run up to a general election has something of a Titanic air. Nowadays particularly, politicians, unlike other celebrities, are interesting only to other politicians. They are mostly unknown to ordinary people, who have no interest in them at all. Changing the Cabinet around has much less effect than it once did. This is because most distrust politicians more than any other class and voting intention is driven by mood rather than personality or policy. Fewer people now use their vote that at any time before. Moreover the mood is now anti-establishment, which makes the next election hard to call.
Waiting in the wings is one figure who is anti-establishment and populist and ready to cause a political explosion. He is Nigel Farage. Behind him lurks Boris, ready to pick up the pieces. It is the spectre of these two which drives events in Downing Street today.
The Church of England has made a big advance in finally approving the notion that women can and should become Bishops. This has brought widespread rejoicing among its dwindling followers, who hope that this move into the real world may cause their numbers to expand. Meanwhile concessions have had to be made to the traditionalist wing, which include novelties such as male oversight and an ombudsman. This blog is unconvinced by arguments put forward to placate this bigoted group of theological zealots. Whatever they call themselves or think they are, I can tell them they are not Christian. Christianity is supposed to be all about love, compassion, tolerance and equality. The idea that men are superior and only males can perform certain rituals on behalf of God is to most preposterous and to many insulting.
