Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

Set in the mid nineteen nineties, this fast moving thriller lifts the curtain on sex, sleaze and corruption in high places as the long reign of the government totters to an end, following the ousting of the iconic Margaret Thatcher. Downfall in Downing Street catches the mood of those times with a host of fictional characters who engage in political intrigue, sex, money laundering and murder, pursued by an Irish investigative journalist and his girlfriend, the daughter of a cabinet minister found dead in a hotel room after bondage sex.

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Supplying arms of any kind to Ukraine will only encourage it to keep fighting. The violence stems from Kiev refusing to accept that its right wing declarations and violent supporters frightened the life out of ethnic Russians to the point where independence and Russian backing seemed the only safe option. Had it recognised from the start that bad government from the inception of independence, long memories of WWII atrocities and different ethnicities and cultures, made a unitary state impossible and a federated structure the only viable option, then none of the killing and civilian suffering would have happened.

Negotiations for the setting up a method of governance which calmed the fears and met the aspirations of everyone would have been tough and with a good deal of posturing but not impossible. Instead Kiev sent in troops hoping to push NATO into supporting it. This has not happened and Kiev must now sit down and cut a deal with its Eastern rebels in a much worse atmosphere of hate brought on by killing. Giving it weapons will not enable it to win its war and get back its territory. It will only guarantee a long and bloody conflict which will go on, like in Syria, until most of everything lies in ruins.

Obama understands this. Boehner does not. The Republicans will have to make up their minds whether they want to have a policy to encourage peace or whether they just want to pick a fight.

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Kenneth Baker thinks there may have to be what the Germans call a grand coalition including both Labour and Conservatives, in order to combat a large contingent of Scottish nationalists elected to Westminster in May. Both are unionist parties and they campaigned together for No in the Scottish referendum. He fears a Labour/Scot Nat coalition would mean conceding further devolved powers north of the border. Meanwhile Milliband is to tell the Scots that if they vote for the nationalists they will end up with Cameron remaining in 10 Downing Street.

Both of these approaches are misguided and do not any longer have a sufficient resonance with voters to swing many of them to change their minds. The days when people were happy to vote against parties by voting for someone they did not actually support in order to keep the one they hated from winning have largely past. Modern voters are fed up with the old system and determined to vote for something they want, admire, trust or believe in. They are willing to include smaller parties in their list of possibilities. The reason that there in such an unprecedented surge in support for the Scottish Nationalists is that the majority of Scots now believe Salmond and co will fight Scotland’s corner in Westminster in a way no other party can or will. In other words they are voting for Scotland, a big idea a good deal larger than Cameron, Milliband, Clegg et al.