Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

If confidence and rhetoric were elements of GDP the UK would be flying high on Osborne’s Treasury regime. But at first sight today the chronic difficulty of over estimating growth and tax receipts and the under-estimate of costs of essential expenses remain problems unresolved. So, as predicted, his previous forecasts have again been proved wrong. Beyond that this blog has a policy of not commentating on Osborne’s budgets straight away. In takes a few days for the devil to emerge from the detail and for key figures to unravel.

There is no more difficult role than the Leader of the Opposition jumping up and replying to the Chancellor’s speech, without the ability to prepare any more than an outline in advance. For that reason few historically are worth remembering. Corbyn’s effort today was surprisingly robust and detailed. It will have done him no harm and while it will most likely not be remembered, it certainly won’t be remembered because he fluffed it. He actually did rather well.

For the West with its catastrophic record of foreign policy failures, especially in the Middle East and Afghanistan, the Russian engagement in Syria and now the surprise partial withdrawal is an object lesson to watch. Russia has had bases in Syria more or less since the end of WWII and when it looked on the cards that the Assad regime might crumble, opening the way for an Islamic State takeover, Russia decided to intervene directly rather than to just support Assad. Within six  months there has been a fundamental change in the dynamics of the war. Russia benefits from continuity of government in which three key players have worked together, surrounded by very competent staff, over  the years since Yeltsin; Putin, Lavrov and Medvedev.

First came the military intervention which turned the tide in favour of the regime and put pressure on the moderate opposition to begin talks. Next the talks are set up and a cease fire is agreed which holds better than expected under Russian supervision. Finally the surprise end to the air campaign and withdrawal of some forces, to encourage the talks to get under way. Within these actions lie certain key objectives. One is to make certain that the Syrian state does not collapse like Libya, Iraq and Afghanistan. This is important to secure the long standing Russian military foothold in the Mediterranean. The second is to warn Assad that if he digs his heels in too deep, Russia is willing to dump him. It already has a list of possible successors from within the regime.  The third is to reassert Russia as a player on the world stage in its own right after years of marginalisation by the West, which Russia accuses of a string of misjudgements and failures to learn lessons.

Russian caution in bombing Islamic State, in spite of the downing of the Russian airliner, is partly to avoid IS moving north into Chechnya and partly to leave a potent threat to Assad in place to stop him thinking he can manage alone. It has learned its own lessons from the abortive Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the ability of groups like the Mojahedin and Al-Qaeda to morph and move. But all this is designed to further its goal to become a voice on the world stage once more. Not in the Soviet ambition of world domination which it knows is a mirage of the past, but as a modern player which demonstrates that the USA is not the only kid on the block of whom note has to be taken.

The only cloud in the sky for the two front runners was over Trump with the loss to John Kasich, the no hope challenger who won his home state where he is governor. Clinton swept the board. Sanders battles on but it would take extraordinary events for him now to come through. Trump took Florida, until recently a cert for Rubio as his home state. In doing so he kicked glamorous establishment hope for stopping Trump out of the race. Missouri is too close to call between Trump and Cruz and also between Sanders and Clinton. Both underdogs need the win to keep going with credibility rather than bravado. On the face of it it looks a Clinton cert for the Democrats and an unstoppable Trump for the Republicans.

Yet there looms the brooding shadow of the Republican establishment, aged and out of touch with both its members and the country, who may just fix a brokered convention which does in the end stop Trump with a late night deal forged in smoke filled rooms by overwrought fixers who manage to shoe in a compromise whom nobody hates, a steady pair of hands that nobody really wants. If that happens they will have asserted their authority and got their fix, but the Presidency will be dead out of reach. Clinton will walk it.