Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

A lot has been happening but I have been very busy with a visit from my grandchildren, who have taken priority over everything. Will be posting normally from tomorrow, Tuesday June 14th.

Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution which can propel Labour back to government in 2020.

Check it out now. Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99     AMAZON UK

As the weekend battle raged between the two wings of the Tory party over Brexit Yes or No, the NHS was never far from the front line as the weapon of choice for both sides, who have now lost the entire plot of what this referendum ought to be about, and instead are in a fight to the end, regardless of the damage they do to each other, to their country, to their party and to their cause, whichever one it is.

That does not alter the fact that the NHS has major and growing problems. The money is too thinly spread and unable to deal with all the priorities at once, so things like mental healthcare fall by the wayside. The reason for the difficulties is the lack of proper funding. It is impossible to provide an infinite service, in other words one that has to deal with whatever arrives at its door, on a finite budget, or one which does not expand as demand expands. Add to that it is not realistic to provide the complete package of a modern and timely healthcare system on less than 10% of GDP. At the moment the NHS has to get by on about 7%. If that rose to the required level it would inject an additional £60 billion a year. This is a vast sum compared to the trivial promises being scattered across the political conversation. It is time to discuss how to raise it.

Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out.

Malcolm Blair-Robinson, writer and blogger,  has been a keen political observer for more than sixty years. Born a Tory, he became a founder member of the SDP, before gradually migrating left. In 2014 he published his idea of Dynamic Quantitative Easing which aroused interest in high places and this forms a core element of this powerful and compact analysis of Labour’s opportunity to regain power.

Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution. He is dismayed by the unfairness of the current economic model and is driven by the hope of a better future for the rising generation.

Get your copy now. Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99     AMAZON UK

There is passion and emotion in the Leave campaign but very little else. The economics are a fantasy and I think they know this. They hope a few catchy promises like bottles of watery Elixir sold by con men from the backs of wagons in the Wild West will be enough to convince the level headed. Probably not. Which is why they major on immigration. Fear and prejudice are the best friends of empty politics.

Now that the line up of economists, financial institutions, friendly nations, economic think tanks, international economic bodies of all kinds and almost everything with some capacity to think in numbers from the kindergarten upwards, warn of the costs of Brexit, the absence of any planning or ideas of how to take advantage of the new freedom if it is chosen, may well be the determining factor if it isn’t. The fallback cries of Leave are that it is the elite who want to stay and that they were wrong about the Euro.

First I had not previously recognised Gove, Boris and their friends as underclass, but this referendum experience is a learning curve. Second if we had gone into the Euro we would have enjoyed an economic rejuvenation like Germany, we would have trade  and budget surpluses,  we would be saving the equivalent of £30 billion per year now spent on housing and low wage benefits, we would not have excessive housing costs or house price inflation and, like Germany, we would be a considerably healthier economic power than is now the case. So it depends what you mean by wrong.

Turn Left To Power is an explosive dissertation in book form offering a fundamental redirection for Labour’s return to power, with bold ideas for a new economic and social settlement, including economic and taxation reform, restoration of responsibility in government and a renewal of democracy. Full of detailed information, hard facts and the results of thorough research and deep thinking, the narrative will grip you like a thriller and open your eyes to a brighter, fairer future in a mere 25000 words. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes In or Out.

Malcolm Blair-Robinson, writer and blogger,  has been a keen political observer for more than sixty years. Born a Tory, he became a founder member of the SDP, before gradually migrating left. In 2014 he published his idea of Dynamic Quantitative Easing which aroused interest in high places and this forms a core element of this powerful and compact analysis of Labour’s opportunity to regain power. Frank and at a times brutal, Turn Left To Power offers a collection of fundamental reforms which amount to a political revolution. He is dismayed by the unfairness of the current economic model and is driven by the hope of a better future for the rising generation.

Get your copy now. Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99     AMAZON UK

Jeremy Corbyn yesterday made a perfectly sensible speech setting out very good reasons why Labour voters and supporters should vote to remain in the EU. It was an intelligent speech, full a sensible analysis and opinion, which should attract widespread attention. But will it?

Perhaps not as much as it should because this Referendum is not being either conducted or reported at a sensible level. The media are understandably obsessed by the brutal civil war being waged by opposing wings of the Tory party, led by Boris for Out and Dave for In, which operates on sound-bites offering wild promises which cannot be delivered, while stoking ever more fear among voters who are ever more confused and of whom only a tiny handful wanted this contest in the first place. A rational and cerebral Corbyn stumping the country laying  out the very real advantages to working people of EU membership and very real risks to jobs and prosperity, at least in the short term, of leaving, is just not big news.

Where I think all the politicians fail is that the EU is not about trade or jobs. It is about bringing harmony, fellowship, open borders and freedom to live and work wherever you want, ending centuries of struggle and strife costing millions and millions of lives. The one time, during the very many acts of remembrance of the fallen, and especially during the centenary commemorations for WWI, it is possible to feel that all that suffering and sacrifice just might have been worth it, is when one marvels at the extraordinary achievement of reconciliation which is the EU. To vote to leave is to betray the sacrifice of those before us, who have given us such a much better deal than the one that cost them their lives.

 The latest edition of this ever popular psycho-thriller, now in its twentieth year, has a dramatic new cover and is offered for a limited period at the special price of £5.99 paperback and .99p  Download. A haunting tale of passion and the paranormal, written in the style of its setting in the 1920s.

A tiny English village slumbers on the Surrey/Sussex borders, but the pastoral exterior hides a number of nightmare secrets.
The return of a young man after a long absence stirs memories of the horrific murder of his mother and uncle years earlier and of an ancient curse delivered upon the family in Napoleonic times. The villagers’ unease grows as the young man embarks upon an affair with the local farmer’s daughter, and a series of mysterious deaths seem to follow in his wake. Full of authentic period detail, this is a tale which will haunt readers long after the last page has been turned.

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