Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

The Cabinet meets today and so it should. This busted government is still in office and needs to come up with a plan. The busted opposition with bits flying everywhere has to be put back into some kind of order. This is no time for a vacuum of leadership and political chaos.

Once again Osborne is in evidence and gave an assured performance at the Treasury before the market opened this morning. The point that the financial system was robust enough, with support measures in place and in action, to withstand the Brexit shock is valid and a lot of midnight oil has been burned behind the scenes to assure jittery markets. This is potentially worse, if things run out of control, than the crash of 2008, but not as instantly cataclysmic. Osborne’s statement that Banks are ten times stronger than at the start of the crash is hardly reassuring since at the start of the crash some were bust several times over. Ten times stronger than mega bust is quite weak, hence the midnight oil.

His statement that Britain’s economy is strong is open to interpretation, and one with which this blog profoundly disagrees. An economy based on house price inflation and shopping funded by borrowing is socially destructive, because it sucks resources from the industrial heartlands and pumps them into capital to buy more assets, which inflate. The result is a widening gap between those who do well on the merry-go-round and those who either cannot get on or fall off, leading to pockets of deprivation and exclusion which the lucky ignore. Eventually there is a political explosion. In our case it was the vote for Brexit.

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

We now have three crises running in tandem. The first is financial and economic, with short and long term threats. The second is political where both government and opposition are floundering and where no plan exists even in outline of what to try and achieve in negotiations with the EU and how we benefit from Brexit. The third is constitutional. There is no clarity on how a snap general election can be called since we passed a law to stop it when we tinkered with the constitution and introduced fixed term parliaments, or whether there would need to be another referendum to accept the quit deal offered by the EU and above all because the Union with Scotland is already breaking up.

Each of these is a show stopper. All three together is beyond the competence of any political leader now in sight. We must hope that one emerges or that all the Kings horses and all the King’s men can in fact put Humpty back together again. Because Humpty is our nation’s future and that means ours, and at the moment it is bust wide open.

In future new posts will try to deal with each crisis separately. Their only link is the Brexit vote. That has now happened, it cannot be either ignored or reversed and everyone has to set about picking up the peaces. Including this blog.