Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

No matter whether you are pro or anti SNP, or whether you love her or hate her, in a somewhat long winded and lacklustre election campaign Nicola Sturgeon is the outstanding star who has come to dominate beyond any other party leader. This is especially remarkable since she herself is not standing for election to Westminster. Cameron and Milliband have to spend more time talking about her party than any of their other opponents. In Milliband’s case this makes sense because he faces a massacre, if the polls are right, on May 7th, north of the border. That will preclude a Labour majority government. But there is more. It is this. Sturgeon has a whole lot of admirers among Labour candidates for Westminster south of the border, who will lean on Milliband to listen to her. And she won’t even be there.

Her man in Westminster could very well be Alex Salmond. No wonder the Westminster establishment is in a tizz. But then again, think on this. There are loads of English voters who privately think that is a very good prospect. And a good deal less divisive and crude than Farage. Cameron needs to stop and think before he speaks. Constantly going on about the risk of SNP influence could backfire even more spectacularly than the disaster of the  programme to ridicule Milliband.

An idea to stimulate economic growth without further government borrowing. Written in plain English and very easy to follow, this is the only really fresh approach out there to the intractable problems of the UK economy, and it is just beginning to be noticed in important places. Buy! Download only .99p Paperback £2.99

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The dreadful loss of life of desperate migrants in the Mediterranean Sea is shockingly not unique or even unusual, but it is the worst so far and it has forced EU leaders to confront their own woeful performance in a crisis of their own making. In fact it is a crisis costing human life for which the cause can twice be traced back to both EU and Anglo-American foreign policy. First, the destruction by force of stable government in Iraq and Libya, the muddle in Afghanistan, the failure to insist to Israel than it finds a route to peace with the  Palestinians and the mishandling of the rise of Islamic militancy in the Middle East and Africa, have brought about murder, mayhem and destruction of innocents and their environment on a scale far exceeding any rational person’s worst nightmare.

Second the refusal by the EU to get together a proper naval force to patrol and rescue these victims of war  and trafficking, leaving the Italians and Maltese to struggle on their own beyond their resources, is both heartless and immoral. It is to be hoped that a joined up and realistic programme will now fast come into effect. It will need to accept that such are the blunders in foreign policy and strategic thinking of which all parties are guilty, but perhaps Britain and the US most guilty of all, that the diaspora of the desperate can be expected to grow to hundreds of thousands, even millions, and there will have to be a plan about where they are going to go.

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 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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The main parties are still dug into deadlock. A lead for the Tories in one poll is offset by a lead for Labour in another. The driver is the Scot Nats. Without their surge Labour would be on course for victory. What is interesting is that Labour has found a narrative; to restore the dynamic of working people in the economy and wrest control over everything from the financial sector. This is playing well on the doorsteps (less so with the media) and is supported by measures proposed to halt exploitation form zero hours contracts and migrant workers. Their campaign has strengthened at the same time as Milliband’s score rises. This means that Labour is no longer on the back foot and has become a powerful adversary to the Tories.

The effect on the Tories has been surprising. First came insults with the stabbing in the back debacle which misfired. Then came a new right to buy of social housing, attacked on all sides and which showed only a 25% approval rating. Now comes the flogging of bank shares. Surely in this day and age nobody is going to change their vote to buy shares, bank shares especially? It is as if the right wing eurosceptic Thatcherite minority has seized the tiller to steer a nostalgic course into the past. Maybe UKIP phobea is causing judgement to falter. Whatever it is, Thatcher is history. Whilst the top of the economy still enjoys all the wonders she brought them, the base of the economy, where most of the floating votes are, have not gained thus far much from the recovery. Their world is about low wages, long hours, poor job security, pressure on public services, unaffordable housing, exploitation by unscrupulous landlords; the list is a long one and in the worst cases includes foodbanks. There is no doubt that record numbers of jobs have been created, but too many are low paid, menial and dead end. This is why UK productivity per capita is the worst among the developed economies.

There is now no doubt that Labour has succeeded in preventing a Tory breakout. Unless new thinking is injected into the Tory campaign, Labour could even pull ahead.

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The narrow, ordered life of a gentle but almost reclusive artist, Jane Block, is disturbed when a bequest, intended for her dead mother, passes to her. Mystery surrounds the nature of the inheritance and Jane is led on a sinister trail to secrets of the past, forcing her to confront her own fears and inhibitions. She finds herself caught in a frightening quest to unravel a mysterious cover-up from World War Two, and in so doing finds intrigue, love and betrayal.

To answer that we need to look beneath the surface. The clues  are to be found with two women. Christine Lagarde of the IMF and Nicola Sturgeon of the SNP. Christine Lagarde’s intervention yesterday to endorse the economic plan followed by the Coalition and offer a helping hand to Osborne in the process will delight the Tories who will spin it everywhere, but it will not affect the outcome. This is because those voters who worry about the IMF’s opinions are going to vote Tory anyway and the rest either don’t even know what the organisation does or do not care what it says, or both.

The clash between Nicola Sturgeon and Ed Milliband was the highlight of last night’s debate and each gained the point they needed to make. In terms of snap polls Ed came out just ahead of Nicola. Ed gave an uncompromising performance rebuffing Nicola’s overtures to join up an anti Cameron coalition and in doing so destroyed the notion that he would be in the pocket of the SNP. Ridiculing (and insulting) Milliband was the central nasty theme of the Tory campaign put together by their Australian guru. It offended the British sense of fair play and ensured that Ed was seen as the underdog. Brits love underdogs. Ed’s stock is rising fast with every new poll. He is also a much tougher opponent than anyone expected and has energised the Labour campaign.

Nicola had a big success too. She has given the SNP a role outside Scotland as the cheerleader for an end to austerity in the UK as a whole. She is backed by most Labour voters in that role and has given substance to the idea of an anti austerity majority in the Commons. This would include  Plaid Cymru and the DUP as well as the LIB Dems who are gaining ground with their opposition to the Tory cuts programme and the halt in UKIP’s rise. Farage did not shine in the debate last night.

And the dynamic which is beginning to emerge in this peculiar election is that there is a majority in the country that is against more dogmatic austerity. Nicola’s performances in three debates have helped to bring that about. If tactical voting is used in its favour on May 7th, the Tories will lose. The maths is against them now. Their only hope is the  effect of the minor parties splitting the anti austerity vote in a first past the post electoral system. That is now their only hope and it may not be in vain.

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You will find good page turning thrillers, some with an historical  background drawn from the Nazi era. 

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Today we learn that the IMF is not entirely happy with the projections offered by the OBR and the Tory campaign for the future economic recovery. We must remember that this is an argument about assumptions and future projections of the results which would follow, if the assumptions were right and the projections accurate. Voters are nowadays a good deal more cautious than politicians in believing these things. Nevertheless this is a timely reminder that too much of the economic pie on offer, from all parties in this election, is in the sky and too little is actually real. Reality will dawn after the election and we must all brace ourselves that it may be very different from inducements to vote on offer now.

Meanwhile the the former head of the NHS has told the BBC that there are serious financial deficits soon to reveal themselves in the accounts of various different entities within the organisation, mainly hospitals, and that politicians are being far from straightforward about the need to review the scale of NHS funding needs in a realistic way. He pointed out that we spend less on health than France or Germany and although they are both insured systems, the insurance is compulsory, so it is equivalent to a tax. He is right. Our ‘free’ NHS takes two thirds of all income tax receipts and if care in the community is added the figure is higher still.  The problem, under the UK funding model, is an infinite service has to operate within a finite budget. This is becoming increasingly impossible as demand and complexities of treatment rise at a much faster pace than the willingness to pay for them. Ask politicians to talk more about that if you get the chance.