Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

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Nicola Sturgeon, the leader of the Scottish Nationalists, says something and it is headline national news. She is not even standing for the Westminster parliament. Yet everyone knows that her party, defeated in the independence referendum, rides now so high that it it is likely to be the third largest party in the House of Commons after the election in May. Whether their potential leader at Westminster, Alex Salmond, will or will not join a coalition with Labour is all Cameron now talks about and all Milliband tries not to talk about. Yet the talk may be premature.

Although the two main parties are running neck and neck in the polls, when translated to seats all agree that Cameron will have the most. He will therefore have first shot at forming a government. There is no other party which, on these projections, can do as the Lib Dems did in 2010 and give him a majority in a coalition, so it is likely that he will go for a minority administration held together on a wing and a prayer from issue to issue. To get anything through will require a hotch potch deal, so not much big will happen.

The significance of the Scot Nats is that if their potential Westminster strength had remained unchanged, Labour would be, on all the projections from whichever source, the largest party and it would be Milliband leading the government either in coalition or on a deal or some informal pact. Unfortunately for Ed on all these projections even if he joins up with a much enlarged Scot Nat contingent, whatever words are used to describe it, he still will not have a majority. Once again on the projections, and remember projections can be and are sometimes wrong, the only absolute majority combination between two parties is with Tory and Labour together. Like Churchill during the war.

Politicians do not like to talk about the fragile nature of the UK’s Economic Recovery. Yet it remains rooted in borrowing, asset inflation, housing costs which are out of control and a housing shortage which continues to grow. It is consumption based in a country which no longer makes things for shoppers to buy, so jobs are exported and things are imported. Wages are at near historic lows, requiring subsidy and support from the government, even for those in work. The list goes on and on and you know it well. If you are a politician you never talk about it because you cannot see any other way forward. If you are in the top 10% you have never had it so good. If you are young and unemployed you are close to despair.

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Yesterday in a little reported radio interview on BBC R4, the NATO Secretary General, in answer to a question, said there was no reason why countries like Georgia and Ukraine should not join NATO if their populations voted to do so and the other members accepted their applications, and once members they would be subject to the guarantee that their territory would be defended against aggression by another power. IE Russia. When asked by the interviewer whether that was not provocative, he said no it was democracy or words to that effect.

There are several things which are bang out of order here. First Mr. Stoltenberg does not make policy, he promotes the policies agreed by members. It is a condition of joining that there can be no outstanding territorial disputes; Georgia does not recognise the departure of South Ossetia and Ukraine is one big territorial dispute and simmering civil war. So neither would qualify.

But there is a wider issue. NATO is itself getting out of control and becoming the problem rather than the solution. It has no boundaries any more; there is no clear strategy; its involvement in wars well outside its original context have not been without problems and its analysis of the issues in the Ukraine region was deeply flawed and has contributed to the crisis there. NATO cannot just go on  all over the place canvassing for members with no limit on its expansion. It is not a tennis club. It is a nuclear armed military alliance. The purpose for which it was brought into being ended with the cold war, but it kept itself going. It has to now be reined in and given a proper defensive agenda within agreed theatres and boundaries. No part of its original purpose was to provoke and it is no part of its purpose now.

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It is rare for this blog to come to the rescue of politicians caught out, but Shapps is not Rifkind. It appears he kept an interest in his business when first elected to parliament in 2005 and wound it down before giving it up. He was self employed so it would be perfectly reasonable for time to be taken to financially unwind his own firm after finding himself winning a seat at the election, by no means a given until it happens. He made all the necessary disclosures and filled out all the registers. And remember the standards of 2005/6  were very different as it was before the expense scandal. Mr. Shapps was not a member of the government, not least because the Tories were not in power.

So when interviewed on the radio he says he has not had another job since becoming an MP. Strictly, if you are pedantic, that is not altogether true. ‘On becoming an MP I wound up my interest in my business, gradually playing a lesser role in until ending my association by whenever.’ That would have been better, yes. But it is a good deal more windy and radio interviews require the exploration of big events in small amounts of time. No words can be wasted. Mr. Shapps gave a quick answer. It was not quite correct. As Hilary Clinton would say, he misspoke.

Unless this is a prelude to something really meaty, after just a few hours in the media spotlight, it is time to move on. There is no mileage in the righteous indignation bit for Labour and it is doubtful whether the Guardian will sell a single additional copy.

As for demands for an enquiry; by whom, into what, at what cost, and who pays? Get real.