Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

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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?
There are many questions to which in the modern day one man, Saul Benedict has all the answers, because his parents were players in the drama involving Churchill, Hitler, leading politicians and an important Royal. Saul is an author and declares his intention to write a book to reveal all, but he is shot dead, apparently accidentally by a poacher. But was it an accident? Rick Coleman an investigative journalist determines to find out and in doing so to uncover the mystery.
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 based on the family knowledge of the author whose parents had connections to both Hess and Hitler and to British Intelligence.  

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While the loved ones of the victims struggle to contain their grief, and one cannot imagine how dreadful that is, the rest of the world has to consider the consequences.

The first is that for IS, which in one form or another appears to be responsible, this is in their terms a spectacular success. They may well want to repeat it. Airline safety precautions will have to move up a notch. Next, it is a disaster for the Egyptian economy. The false dawn of the Arab Spring has left many scars on this ancient country, a key player in the maelstrom of Middle East discord. Most importantly Egypt is just about the only country which has good relations with the West, Russia, Israel and Saudi Arabia. In any negotiations for peace anywhere in the region it is and can continue to be a key player. It will need economic help and perhaps help with sophisticated security countermeasures to help tourists to return in safety.

There is no doubt the situation of flight chaos could have been avoided to a considerable extent if Russia and Egypt (and yes to a degree the US) had not clung for so long to the misleading notion of a technical fault. It was clear within three hours of the disaster hitting the media that no technical fault could cause a modern airliner to fall to pieces without warning in a clear sky. Indeed had such a prospect been credible, half the world’s passenger air fleet would have to be grounded for inspections. This wasted a good deal of time and heightened the impact, from an IS perspective, of a world thrown into confusion. Just what they hoped for.

Russia has now made amends by halting further flights to this beleaguered country until unambiguous confirmation of security upgrades at airports can be confirmed. But Russia and Iran can do more. Now they are engaged in Syria, they must ensure their air and ground campaign has enough punch to bring matters to a political head so that meaningful peace negotiations can start. They must not follow the example set by the West of military efforts which contain and annoy but get nowhere and go on forever. That is what gave rise to IS in the first place.

QE in various forms is now very much part of the economic conversation, especially in connection with a fresh approach to financial issues by the new leadership of the Labour party. Dynamic Quantitative Easing remains under government, not bank, control and targets specific investment projects without borrowing, interest or repayments. It can reboot the economy, boost manufacturing and exports and enable sustained growth of real national wealth shared by all, rather than just asset inflation which is the downside of ordinary QE. If you want to find out more you can enjoy a lucid explanation of the original idea from the link below.

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Economic growth is slowing. Inflation is historically low. House prices are rising at an unsustainable rate of 9.6%. Unsecured consumer debt is rising. Manufacturing is falling. Interest rates are to remain at tantamount to zero. Sterling is rising. The Bank Of England got its forecast, now given the smoochy term of ‘forward guidance’, wrong again. None of this is good news as all of it one way and another projects a slowdown in growth which will derail the Chancellor’s own forecasts.

Somehow over the years we have drifted from a position where government had some input into the direction of the economy, to one in which it is reduced to forecasting and distributing whatever turns up. Because the economy is driven by asset inflation and shopping with very little creation of new wealth, what turns up is never enough to pay the bills. Moreover central bankers themselves now admit that too much is expected of them; they are reluctant to use their powers to take what are essentially political decisions about the economy, so they do not take any.

In the case of the Bank of England, interest rates should have risen as soon as the initial financial emergency was contained, not least because savers need to earn. Additionally there was a clear case to treat personal borrowing differently to business borrowing, requiring a mortgage rate higher and separate to bank rate. As a consequence of all this silly forecasting and lack of action, the financial authorities are now stoking the problems rather than helping them.  It is imperative for sterling to fall and that would normally have been achieved by reducing interest rates, but there is nowhere meaningful to go when they are stuck at .5%. Moreover there would be no dangerous housing bubble in the South East if the cost of mortgages had risen earlier.

So here we are with inflation falling and house prices rising, unemployment rising and manufacturing falling, growth slowing and sterling rising. The Bank of England governor describes this state of economic affairs as robust. Really? Are you sure about that? Doubtless the Chancellor who appointed him will deliver another riveting parliamentary performance when he presents his Autumn Statement. We know already what the centrepiece will be. Another forecast.

Not really. He always said that he would not go to the Commons unless he knew there was a majority for a bombing campaign on IS targets in Syria. It is now abundantly clear that no such majority exists and is never likely to. The intervention of Russia and Iran has changed the game. To send more planes into a crowded theatre would do more harm than good and make no practical difference whatsoever. It would be another tokenist military gesture of the kind Cameron loves and comes in his general folder of ‘doing the right thing’. Well it’s the wrong thing and it’s stupid.

Russia and Iran have a strategy. It is to shore up the state structures of the Assad regime, reduce the immediate threats to its survival, then to negotiate a political settlement with all reasonable parties. They believe, rightly, that to allow another state collapse, on top of Iraq and Libya, would ensure a quick take over by IS in Damascus, most likely followed in fairly short order by their arrival in Tripoli. Whatever anybody thinks of Assad, his is the only functioning government in the neighbourhood.  Iraq is paralysed by internal discord and Libya has at least two, with additional warlords and bandits. Russia insists that Assad stays until there is a viable political settlement but are happy to see him go at that point. They see the uber enemy as IS. So does the West see IS as enemy no 1.

Unfortunately everything after that in the West’s muddled thinking is either impractical, impossible, based on wishful thinking or a fantasy. It has learned not one single lesson from Afghanistan, Iraq or Libya. It has no strategy or end game. It is buffeted by its Arab allies, some of whom push it in one direction while they themselves arm and fund another. It has not learned that you cannot replace a government led by a strong man, however big an ogre, by a coalition of nonentities who fall out among themselves the instant their common foe is vanquished. Until the West can grow up and produce a coherent strategy which looks workable and likely to deliver, it needs to avoid inflaming the problems by piecemeal campaigns and pointless bombings.

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Malcolm Blair-Robinson U.S        

Malcolm Blair-Robinson UK

From the very beginning the notion that a ‘technical problem’ could cause a modern airliner to fall from the sky in pieces seemed the least likely of potential causes of the horrific and tragic Russian air disaster. One cannot imagine the anguish of relatives whose loved ones are suddenly gone. One can see why both the Russians and the Egyptians were so reluctant to admit that terrorism could be the cause. The Egyptian tourism industry is in enough trouble from the fear of terrorist attacks; an aircraft brought down flying from a supposed safe area still frequented by tourists would be very difficult to cope with. The Russians are now engaged in Syria and President Putin has widespread support at home for his policy, but terrorist outrages which kill innocent civilians in retaliation may weaken that.

Nevertheless there are now only two likely causes.  Terrorism via a bomb on board or a missile fired from the ground. Or an exploding engine which ripped the fuselage and caused the plane to break up; even with that a systems failure really does seem unlikely, although not impossible. An engine might have been sabotaged, which could be an easier terror option than getting a bomb aboard. We should not have long to wait for the answer.

Whatever it is can little help the grief for those whose lives have been lost. But it will have wide implications. It no longer seems right to allow civilian airliners to fly over conflict zones and regions bordered by failed states. There is this theory that at a certain height the plane is safe from ground to air missiles, but that is no longer certain and the risk is too great.