Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

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A Gift of Treason

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 one of the greatest cover-ups of World War Two, and in so doing finds intrigue, love and betrayal.

Stanislaw’s Crossing

St.John Whilloe is the black sheep member of a wealthy legal family, whose firm of solicitors looks after the affairs of many of the top families in the country. He is consulted by a young woman who claims to be frightened by her husband. Things are not as they seem and St.John finds himself drawn into a complex web of intrigue and murder. He is soon in a race against time to solve a mystery with roots in a tortured family history, with sinister paranormal undertones.

These can be summed up under four headings; Greece, migrants, the UK and a sluggish economy with high unemployment. It all looks manageable but at the moment none of it is being managed. It is being kicked about and argued over but little actual progress is being made. Why?

Largely because the peculiar multi-headed governance system which this blog has criticised so often, works for strategic expansion and writing treaties, but it does not work for the management of the consequences when the best laid plans go wrong. First there is no leadership structure which can be recognised, second the relationship between the Parliament, the Commission and the Council is too obscure to mean anything to the people of the EU and third there is no authority which can decide and whose decision rules.

So we have no agreement over Greece and anything now cobbled together will do no more than prepare the next Grexit crisis, there is disarray over what to do about the extraordinary migration of oppressed and poverty stricken people from the Middle East and Africa and there is no clear vision of how to re-energise the EU economy and reduce record levels of unemployment. It is not that these problems exist which is the worry. In the real world there are always problems. The inability to find or agree solutions is the issue. It is one of leadership. Germany could give it but is cautious because of its past, France would like to but is under Hollande a busted flush, and the UK, which usually shines in just this environment is caught up in arguing about whether it might leave and thus carries no weight at all.

And then there is the Ukraine. This was a very bad moment to pick a diplomatic confrontation with Putin. Rumour has it that he has had enough of sanctions and is about to strike back. We shall see. Watch Greece.