Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

By comparison to the Tories, Labour is a rough house, but it is much more open, a good deal more emotional, far less politically astute and very much more driven by a sense of mission. Mission trumps ambition. So when things leave the rails, the pile up is a big one and it takes a long time to sort out. That is what is happening now.

The problem is quite simple. Labour supporters who have for generations regarded the party as their champion and protector have for years felt abandoned and neglected as an economic model based on primacy of capital over labour has eroded their standards of living, job security, skills base, housing quality and life chances in a way which would have seemed inconceivable in the post war baby boomer period. They see a Westminster elite which is disconnected from their lives and oblivious to their problems, an Oxbridge educated tribe of consultants and spinners who are focused on a quite different agenda to the one they were elected to deliver.

Corbyn appeals to them as much as a popular hero as a leader because he talks their language, feels their pain, shares their hopes and wants to do something about it. The PLP are horrified because they have more in common with the Tory left than the left of their own party, which dominates the membership in the country. Had the NEC voted to keep Corbyn off the ballot the party would have exploded. The PLP now has to find a candidate who can beat Corbyn in a straight fight. If it fails in that endeavor and most believe it will, it will by this ill timed and self centered rebellion have inaugurated its own destruction. Because 500,000 plus members cannot be ignored or replaced, but 174 AWOL MPs can be and will be.

In the end Labour are just as deadly as the Tories, but on a different scale and in a different way. The Tories are about preservation. Labour is about change. New Labour was, like the Tories, too much about preservation of things that were wrong. So now old Labour is returning to change it.

As the referendum campaign advanced there were four Tory leadership contenders striding the field of battle.  Johnson, Gove, the up and coming Leadsom and Cameron.  All are gone or going. The two giants among them were  Boris and Cameron. Everyone thought that Boris would soon be Prime Minister especially camp Boris. First Cameron went down, followed by Johnson the mega shock, then the others. In the shadows lurked May. Pro Remain but with reservations, she was invisible during the campaign and the Tory civil war. Tomorrow she will be Prime Minister. The forensic efficiency of the self styled natural party of government, with its cunning system of daggers wielded without compassion and a ruthless will to hold onto power, astonishes not only the country, but the world. Even the most autocratic dictatorships with their terrifying security apparatus watch gobsmacked and in awe.

It looks to any casual observer as if the Leadsom campaign for the Tory leadership has gone up in smoke. It is certainly on fire, but fires can be put out before too much damage is done, if there are other powerful forces in play. And there is one force which knows no party boundary, nor is it gripped by a common ideology, but it is spreading like a virus all across the world. It is a rebellion against the political establishment, globalisation, the accepted order of things, faces we know and are bored with; the list is almost endless and grows by the day.

We saw it first in a new anti-political left movement in Greece, but in France it is the Far right which is strident, led by Marine Le Pen. In America, more internally traumatised than for decades, it has given rise to Sanders and Trump. Here it gave us Corbyn, then it drove Brexit. It may now just give us Leadsom. Because May is very political establishment, very sure and very safe. Leadsom is none of those things. That is why the smart money may be on her.

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

New Labour, which remains dominant only in the Parliamentary Labour Party, is the stubborn element of this tragic drama. There is talk of a split. In fact the split happened a long time ago, but the dominance of the PLP concealed it. Out in the country the working class vote either stayed at home or  voted  first Lib Dem and later, in England UKIP and as we know so well in Scotland SNP, where Labour has been wiped out as a political force. UKIP estimate that their intervention cost Labour 30 seats in May 2015 it would otherwise have won from the Conservatives. The voting pattern of Brexit confirms this. What Corbyn’s leadership has done is to bring back to Labour not only droves of past supporters, but hundreds of thousands of younger people who are cut out of this idea of booming Britain. I am sure there are young people who do not back Corbyn, but I have not met one and I live in the Tory south.

It is possible for splits to be healed, but not in the way Labour is now engaged. If Corbyn remains on the ballot he will almost certainly win. If he is left off  the ballot, the party will shatter. There will be nothing for the Pyrrhic winner to lead except a cavalcade of misguided MPs to their slaughter at the next general election. Some new force of the left will emerge, but for Labour in England it will be over. The only thing that could change the game would be for Corbyn to lose the leadership election by as bigger margin as he won last time. That seems the least likely prospect of all.

There are two women candidates for prime minister fighting it out to gain the votes of an ageing Tory membership, which we know largely voted for Brexit. One candidate, May, was for lukewarm Remain, the other, Leadsom, for enthusiastic Brexit.  Tory MPs, the majority of whom backed Remain,  have expressed overwhelming preference for Theresa May and she should now be forming her cabinet. Instead the country has to hang about in a power vacuum while the campaign teams of these two candidates trade insults in order to satisfy the rules of the Tory party. This constitutional vandalism is permitted only because we have no formal codes by which we are governed, so governments, or the governing party, can make them up as they go along.

Mrs. Leadsom has made some perfectly valid points about the value of motherhood in shaping her experience which helped her form the priorities with which many will identify. Unfortunately she appears to have at the same time tried to assert that the childless Mrs. May somehow fell short. The Times thought this nasty dig good weekend news. Mrs. Leadsom has gone ballistic. This Blog does not wish to entangle itself in this argument. However, I do have a question. One which if you have a vote in this contest you may wish to reflect upon.

If Andrea Leadsom cannot handle the Times, how is she going to manage with Merkel and Hollande? Or Trump? Or Putin?

There is no doubt than the men have failed their country, plunging it into political chaos at the worst possible moment. So this Blog is firmly of the view that the time has come for a handbag.  Both Teresa May and Andrea Leadsom have the potential to be formidable handbaggers and whoever wins will need to be. She will need to bring her own special take on female leadership to the most inept and untrustworthy political class that this country has seen since it became a force of any merit in the world.

The ghost of Thatcher and the shadow of Merkel with follow her everywhere. Each candidate carries baggage. Mrs. May is rather, well rather intense perhaps, and  has no family; a snag among voters troubled by childcare issues. Mrs Leadsom appears to have allowed spin to burnish her CV; she is not the power in the City that at least her devotees have claimed. Some connection to banking may play well with Tory members, but could be electorally disastrous in the fractured and angry country beyond.

This blog, while affirming its support for a woman to lead the country left in a mess by childish men, will remain neutral in the contest among Tory party members. I believe MPs have already had the final say, Mrs May should be in Number Ten before the end of today, and that the continuing contest is in breach of both the tradition and practice of the constitution for any political party when in power. It is fundamentally against the national interest to continue forward rudderless for a further two months and is doing significant damage to the reputation of England across the world.

     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   

The one ingredient indispensable to re-balancing the economy to achieve sustained growth for the benefit of everybody, a falling pound, is in place. But the things to make it work in our favour are not.

This Blog believes that sustained growth in which imports fall, home industry prospers and exports expand, require a pound sterling trading between a low of $.95 and a high of $1.20. It also believes that central banks now have too big a remit which takes them into the arena of political decisions where they have no place to be, and from which they shrink. Restoring the role of government in both economic and currency management is essential. Government should introduce QE into the real economy to create new wealth through critical investment in social housing, transport, education, health, science, power generation and so on. This will divert investment from banking and debt,  which is far too large and which funds asset inflation, into the creation of new wealth, which is far too small.

If managed in the traditional manner by government, business, industry and unions, personal incomes grow as the increased money supply  expands the economy, through new activity both in the public and private sectors, which allows for an increase in the prices of imported goods and food to be offset by falling housing costs and less borrowing. It also creates much better opportunities for home manufacture of consumer goods and an expansion of exports through competitive pricing. This is all the more critical to the country’s future following Brexit. The critical bit is careful control and management of a volatile process.

If that is absent at the political level, which it now is, there is a risk that export opportunities will be limited and the weight of increased costs of imports in a country which imports almost everything, will act as a dead weight on the economy and slow it down. We are headed this way now.

We need a Prime Minister and a Chancellor long before September.

This blog has always proposed that in the event that a governing party changes its leader and therefore the country’s prime minister, only MPs should vote, so as to ensure a quick resolution to the crisis. With the pound now at  $1.29 and no plan of action to take advantage of this silver lining, it will become instead a dead weight on the real economy, which is clearly slowing down.

There are stresses beginning to develop in commercial property as what used to be called property bonds close their funds to withdrawals. Attempts to balance the budget have been abandoned not from choice, but because they cannot be achieved. Inward investment is severely curtailed as is business investment. This is no time to be without both an operational prime minister and chancellor and to continue like this would be to exhibit a degree of national irresponsibility without clear historical parallel. When Chamberlain had to go Churchill replaced him within the hour.

The Conservative Party must accept that its 140,000 members must forgo the luxury of hustings and a ballot. If they do act in the national interest, we can have a new government before the weekend. We certainly need one.