Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

I did not use the UK in the headline, because the problems facing Great Britain at the moment are England driven. The report is quite the reverse of the Cameron / Osborne spin. The economy has made a housing boom led, financial sector driven, import fed recovery. The exceptional rise in asset values driven by Quantitative Easing has made the rich richer and the poor poorer. Debt remains at record levels everywhere. Energy and utility prices are too high. No headway has been made to resolve the acute shortages of affordable housing. Exports are not growing as expected but imports are. There has been no rebalancing of the economy which has been rebuilt on the old failed model of borrow and consume rather than invest and make. Crisis is in the wind in parts of the NHS, care in the community and childcare. Cuts have been considerable, but so has the fall off in tax revenue, so the one has cancelled out the other and the deficit remains just shy of a hundred billion per year.

If that were not enough, there is now a quarrel brewing with the EU which may lead to Britain walking out, with unpredictable consequences, and no game plan for the future.  Nobody, repeat nobody, knows how the country is going to be governed, let alone by whom, with half baked proposals for constitutional reform ensuring only unfathomable confusion after May 2015, with a House of Commons full of MPs who have in many cases have been elected on less than 30% of the votes cast, who will be allowed to vote in the House for only this and not for that, whilst some can on that day vote for the other, but only if it is here and not there.

So that all adds up to the big success story that Cameron wants you to vote for. And what is Labour’s answer to this golden political opportunity? You may well ask! And who is going to step forward to fill the vacuum caused by the complete failure of a political class built entirely on spin doctors and special advisers?

You are right.  Alex Salmond and Nigel Farage, the political weather makers.

And who is that lurking in the shadows? Ah yes. Boris.

So voters could end up with a beguiling choice between proven fools, clever opportunists and a rather endearing clown. My money is on the clown to come through in the end. But a lot will happen first.

Happy Christmas!

There is nothing better for stocking fillers and e-gifts than good Christmas sale book bargains. Paperbacks from £4.99 or currency equivalent and Kindle downloads less than a £ or $. 

 From  TOR  RAVEN

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From MALCOLM  BLAIR-ROBINSON

These two mega thrillers are a must for those who love historical drama and political intrigue.

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The President was rather blowing the trumpet at his recent press conference and rightly so. The twin deficits, so long a major issue since the dawn of the Bush era are now falling, the country has once again become the worlds biggest energy producer and this has reduced energy costs and boosted the economy which is growing strongly. America has put on more new jobs than the whole of Europe put together. There is a lot more to do, especially in the area of rising inequality between rich and poor. But it is a developing story of confronting crisis, knuckling down and can do.

The divided politics of the current government set up will inhibit major new federal driven programmes for infrastructure renewal and social relief, but the Republicans have to be careful not to be seen as blockers and spoilers because if they do their twin majorities on Capitol Hill will be the engine of defeat in 2016, not the springboard to victory. The announcement the that the youngest Bush is thinking about running is interesting. Emotionally this blog is strong on States’ Rights and small federal government. But it is economically savvy and it knows that economics is the ultra weak link in the Bush political dynasty. And in today’s world economics is everything.

The new Tor Raven novel HESS ENIGMA is now available worldwide in paperback and on Kindle.

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and right hand man, flew to Scotland on a mysterious peace mission in 1941, which has never been convincingly explained, to meet unidentified politicians who wanted to end the war.  Who was plotting against Churchill? What were the peace terms on offer? What happened to Hess? Was he killed in the War? Was the prisoner in Spandau a double?

Taking place in the modern day but with flashback chapters which gradually unfold the hidden secrets, this tense thriller will draw you into a compelling read.

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The structure of our parliamentary system is that politicians make policy and take responsibility and civil servants provide the expertise and do the heavy lifting. In more recent times a new breed of political adviser has been developed. These young people, usually wet behind the ears, advise ministers how to gain political advantage from whatever they are doing and how to get out of trouble when they fall into it. They also give ministers advice about all sorts of things about which ministers know little, which is just about everything. These advisers go on to become candidates and MPs and then, if their party is in power, ministers themselves.

It is not a coincidence that the rise of the political adviser has been marked by a fall in the quality of ministers. Indeed ministers are less trusted than they ever have been and politics is now in disrepute. These advisers are costing over £8 million per year. There are more than a hundred of them. Cameron has twenty. This blog believes they should all be removed and the practice halted.

The civil service is capable of providing ministers with whatever on tap advice they need and expert opinion can be obtained from experts in whatever field it is required. People whose ignorance and uncertainty is on such a scale that this is just not enough to enable them to shine, should not be in politics at all. They should quit and go out into the real world and only return when they have learned something useful. As for the £8 million; enough to say that cuts are needed anyway and this is a painless and worthy saving.

There is nothing better for stocking fillers and e-gifts than good Christmas sale book bargains. Paperbacks from £4.99 or currency equivalent and Kindle downloads less than a £ or $. 

 From  TOR  RAVEN

Download all four fast reading thrillers now! Or buy paperbacks. Orders over £10 postage free.

AMAZON.COM                        AMAZON.UK

From MALCOLM  BLAIR-ROBINSON

These two mega thrillers are a must for those who love historical drama and political intrigue.

AMAZON.COM                     AMAZON.UK

The biggest lesson to learn from the North Korean cyber hack of Sony is the extraordinary power of modern hacking technology and the weakness of quite sophisticated platforms to withstand it. Clearly Sony’s security was not of sufficient standard but something must have been in place. This will come a another shock to America which has traditionally imagined itself immune from outside attack. This was why the response to 9/11 was so traumatic. Unlike Europe and Asia, America had never been bombed.

Yet now a quizzical world looks on as the figure of fun portrayed in the film gets it canned and all showings withdrawn, distributes across the internet most of Sony’s film archive for free and releases the script of the latest James bond movie. After that he finishes with lots of embarrassing emails sent by Sony executives. A wake up call certainly but to what it is difficult to tell. The rest of the world should take note too.

The new Tor Raven novel HESS ENIGMA is now available worldwide in paperback and on Kindle.

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and right hand man, flew to Scotland on a mysterious peace mission in 1941, which has never been convincingly explained, to meet unidentified politicians who wanted to end the war.  Who was plotting against Churchill? What were the peace terms on offer? What happened to Hess? Was he killed in the War? Was the prisoner in Spandau a double?

Taking place in the modern day but with flashback chapters which gradually unfold the hidden secrets, this tense thriller will draw you into a compelling read.

BUY NOW!

AMAZON.UK       AMAZON.COM

Nothing has perplexed America’s allies and the rest of the world more than the childish embargoes on trade or contact with Cuba spanning half a century. At last an American President has had the guts to defy his country’s looney right and start a process of normalisation. This will not only benefit America and help repair its tarnished world image, but it will bring great benefits to ordinary Cubans. Indeed re-joining the rest of the real world will do more than anything to put Cuba on a more open path.

Next ?

Guantanamo Bay.

The new Tor Raven novel HESS ENIGMA is now available worldwide in paperback and on Kindle.

Rudolf Hess, Hitler’s deputy and right hand man, flew to Scotland on a mysterious peace mission in 1941, which has never been convincingly explained, to meet unidentified politicians who wanted to end the war. The truth has been covered up for generations because to reveal it would somehow undermine the honour and constitutional fabric of the United Kingdom. Who was plotting against Churchill? What were the peace terms on offer? What happened to Hess? Was he killed in the War? Was the prisoner in Spandau a double?

Taking place in the modern day but with flashback chapters which gradually unfold the hidden secrets, the novel is a fast moving and compelling read.

BUY NOW!

AMAZON.UK       AMAZON.COM