Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

News of riots and disturbances leading to the cancellation  of a Trump rally is not good news for his campaign, yet it may as he says reflect the pent up anger on both sides at what is perceived to be failure of governance in Washington. Both the Republican and Democrat establishments are in trouble, although the Trump effect is much the more dramatic. Yet Sanders, having apparently been overwhelmed by the Clinton juggernaut, has bounced back with a shock win in Michigan. He might just pull it off again in the rust belt states. There is even talk of Florida going his way. This is unlikely, although if it happened it would be a hit from which Clinton might not recover.

Back to Trump. A President who provokes riots in his own country is unlikely to be, when it comes down to the wire, the choice of Americans for the White House. Obama has called on all sides to stay calm. Trump’s lot need to cool it if they want to retain momentum. Riots are not political theatre.

We have heard little about the facts and analysis supporting staying or going  since this campaign began. Instead there is an endless refrain from both sides complaining about  some person somewhere  expressing a preference for the opposite view, when they are supposed to be impartial. This advances the cause of neither, while at the same time offering little practical information to enable undecided voters to make up their minds.

A referendum is not the same as an election when a contest takes place to establish who shall have a mandate to govern. A referendum is a national conversation to arrive at a conclusion about the future of the country. There are two sides, but there are not two opposing sides. Either option may work in the long term, but in different ways and with different advantages. Moreover in the short term one option may create more uncertainties and greater risks to national prosperity than the other.

What people need is hard facts, cool analysis, well argued opinions and measured judgements. Then they can themselves weigh up how they wish to vote. It is the duty of bankers, ministers, lawyers and business to expose the issues in their field of expertise. Some will highlight this and others that. But everybody engages because the outcome will affect us all. There will be no winning side in the party political sense.

So grumbling about apparent leanings this way and that are both pointless and unnecessary. They seem to come from Leave more than Remain. It is from Leave we still wait to hear of a single hard fact of what exactly their proposition offers. Nostalgic references to sovereignty and emotional acclamations of the Great in Britishness are simply not enough.

Harsh though this is, closing the borders and stopping the flow of migrants is an essential first step in helping those in need to find refuge, for to continue as before will eventually cause so much public anxiety and backlash that serious damage will be done the whole structure of Europe, asylum, human rights and decency.

When agreements were signed for the granting of political asylum, nobody imagined they would ever be dealing with more than dozens here and there, perhaps in a crisis hundreds and in extreme conditions thousands. But millions was not on the agenda. And the reason for that is the inability of any country to absorb huge numbers without significant planning and public consensus. The more so if there are language and cultural issues involved as well. This is not be be right wing or uncaring. It is in fact to care to plan and prepare, and as soon as the drift of rudderless boats began across the Mediterranean towards Italy form Libya, preparations should have begun, worst case scenarios tested, agreements should have been reached and resources supplied to make the resettlement of the victims of wars the West has either started or stoked, a coherent and effective process.

As it is the whole situation is within a whisker of getting entirely out of control with terrible human consequences. There must be assessment, acceptance or rejection, transport and placement into a welcoming environment, operated with the smooth efficiency which the West is supposed to have as its hallmark when dealing with souls in need. We are far from that situation at the moments with millions on the move, thousands massed at border fences and anger among host populations rising. This becoming as big a political failure as the wars which drive it. It started as a problem, became a crisis and  has begun to turn nasty. It must not be allowed to turn ugly.

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Following the latest contests it is realistically a fight between Trump and Cruz. Trump is ahead on delegates but by fewer than a hundred. Cruz is very right wing, against abortion etc. and would tear up the deal with Iran over nuclear weapons which is not only imbecile but would isolate America internationally without a single ally except Israel.

Trump says outrageous things, dies his hair and winds people up. But he cuts deals and has a shrewd judgement of the other side’s red lines and would do better than everybody thinks on the international stage, especially with the Russians. Domestically it is hard for me to judge. But what he says to get votes and what he does may be not quite the same. Again he would cut deals. His fortune is estimated at between $ 4 and 10 billion and you can’t get that kind of money if you are clueless.

I would sum up the difference between the two this way. Cruz is driven by ideology. Trump is driven by outcomes. Oh and Rubio? He has not yet learned how to drive.

The news that a top EDF  executive has resigned over this mess is hardly surprising. What is the more astonishing is that this project is still officially ongoing. The hardware is of an unreliable design, difficult to maintain and much more expensive to build and the electricity price guarantee given by the government to persuade them and their Chinese partners to proceed amounts to financial rape of consumers who will have to pay the bill.

This comedy of errors, wishful thinking and planning failures shines the spotlight on the continuing deterioration in the strategic security of UK energy generation, which even now causes consumers to face exorbitant energy bills by comparison to most other advanced countries and puts business at a severe cost disadvantage in international markets. Privatisation of power generation was a mistake. It has to be reversed. The Tories are ideologically unable to go there even if reduced to reading hard copy with candles. This is an opportunity for Labour. The public would vote for renationalisation in very large numbers.

Cabinet Ministers opposing the policy of the government of which they are members are complaining that scaremongering is rife and that there will be a price to pay when the referendum is over in the form of disunity both in the government and the Tory party. The truth is that the Tory party may well break up in the aftermath of the vote, which is only happening because for years it has been split on the fundamental issue of Europe. With the current political and economic problems facing the world and therefore the UK, a vote to leave Europe or stay is a wholly irrational political project. It is not in the national interest; it is to save the Tory party from its schism and driven by the threat to it from UKIP.

When Britain entered into the EU, or the common market as it was then known, China was a closed Communist country without an economy that had any impact on the world at all. The emerging markets did not exist. Germany was split in two and the Cold War was in full swing. Half the members of the current EU were Communist countries behind the Iron Curtain. There was no such thing as the internet, a PC, a tablet or a smart phone. The world was divided into segments and spheres of influence. Globalisation was unheard of.

This referendum is of greater historic significance than any ordinary election and will impact Britain and its future and the future of Europe more than any can accurately predict. It cannot be fought like a village cricket match on a summer afternoon. It has to be fought with purpose, passion, principle, energy and anger, as well as hope and inspiration. The nature of these things is that friends will fall out and enemies will embrace. It is entirely right to point out in the strongest possible terms that leaving would be a complicated and troublesome process, the impacts of which cannot be accurately predicted either for employment, economic growth, prosperity, travel, the free movement of capital or indeed anything. The world is a very different place in all respects to the one we left to join and we cannot turn the clock back.

Of course Great Britain is strong enough to prosper but let us not forget that although WWII lasted six years, rationing went on for thirteen and of all the post war economies in Europe ours was on most measures the least successful. We have the lowest productivity among the industrial nations even now. So what is required from the Leave people is a plan, carefully costed and explained, if not in detail, certainly in general terms of how it is we are going to unravel the European web in which we now live, and create a new international habitat in which we will prosper better. So far there is nothing of substance whatsoever except a lot of vague generalities which fail to define the opportunities and smack of wishful thinking.

Leave must stop grumbling and start producing some concrete plans to answer very real anxieties about a leap into the dark. If they cannot, voting with them will be just that.

QE in various forms is now very much part of the economic conversation, especially in connection with recent market turmoil. Dynamic Quantitative Easing (also called Peoples 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.

Download .99p  Paperback £2.99   

Calling US elections this far out is a mug’s game and this blog will not go that far. Nevertheless after sweeping victories in Super Tuesday contests both Donald Trump and Hilary Clinton are in commanding positions going forward. Mrs Clinton the more so because her field has narrowed to Bernie Sanders as the only contender whereas Trump is still winning in the high 30s and low 40s because there are still too many anti-Trump runners on the Republican side. If this is reduced to either Cruz or Rubio then it would be easier to judge Trump’s real strength in depth, but the smart money is on Trump to win. It is unlikely that Cruz or Rubio could beat Clinton in November, but Trump just might.

So while it is not yet necessary to burn midnight oil speculating on a Trump White House, some preparatory thoughts may be timely. The first thing to say is that those who know him and have done business with him see a very different trump to the barnstorming, headline grabbing sensationalist apparently sucking the life out of the Republican establishment. Walls, bombings, tax cuts on a heroic scale, increases in defense spending, carry a gun if you want to, are all good for getting out angry votes but they may fall short of an agenda for unifying government. For example you cannot cut taxes big time, get rid of the $18 trillion debt mountain and increase spending on armaments all at the same time, although Republicans have always believed you can. Which is why records show that Republican administrations under Reagan and the two Bushes ran much bigger deficits those of Clinton and Obama.

The word from the inside track is that if elected Trump will surprise. This blog believes he will for two reasons. The first is he is not a lawyer, he is a fixer and deal maker. Lawyers like Obama and the Clintons tend to see things through analysis, interpretation and possibilities. They also approach problems with an adversarial mindset and a box file full of red lines. Confrontation is their vocation and why people hire them. Trump is not interested in protocol or method. He is driven by outcome. He will meet, cut the bullshit then cut a deal. That’s why Putin wants Trump to win.  The last time the world laughed when America elected a funny was when they chose a B movie actor from Hollywood.  That turned out to be an historic turning point. Not at all what the rest of the world expected.

The big game changer with Trump is that he will have got to the White House on his own money. He will be beholden to nobody. At least that will be different.