Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

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.

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There are two kind of crisis which countries must guard against. The first is a political crisis. The second is an economic crisis. But sometimes an economic crisis extends to become a political crisis and vice versa. We are now engulfed in a political crisis. In 2008 we had an economic crisis which was sudden and catastrophic. But it did not become a political crisis; in fact it was the Brown government’s finest hour. This time we are at risk from the political crisis breeding an economic crisis which is slow and creeping and the worry is that it could become quite bad. Although the markets are having a jolly after their Big Fright as the Brexit result became known, the underlying situation is tense because everything about it is far from clear.

All the informed opinion is that the real economy is going to slow. The markets are buoyant now because they know that the B of E has set up crisis liquidity and is going to ease monetary policy all the way to QE if needs be. The political crisis can hardly get worse and there are signs that people are coming to their senses. One or two good candidates are emerging for the PM vacancy on the Tory side. As a matter of national interest the rules should be changed so that when a party is in government the new leader has to be selected by the parliamentary party only and quickly. The luxury of touring the country, hustings and the whole rigmarole should be one of the perks of opposition. The Tories are brilliant at mounting leadership coups, back stabbings and treachery and in their forest great oaks crash to the ground with breathtaking suddenness. Labour on the other hand is completely inept at the coup business. They have mounted one but the oak still stands, because in their forest nobody has a saw.

However up ahead it does not look good. Little publicity has been given to certain key decisions in Europe. The Council of Ministers, in charge of Brexit under the terms of the Lisbon Treaty, has decided that the terms in the treaty are quite different to the stuff we have been told here. First the terms of Britain’s exit have to be separately negotiated and it has to go. Only then can discussions begin about a new trade deal with what is now a third party country. Nobody told us that and moreover nobody bothered to find out. Repeat we have to go first, lock stock and barrel, then knock on the door for talks about a future deal.

That is a game changer. A bombshell. Perhaps somebody whispered it to Boris? No wonder he fled the field.

As I kept the two minute silence at 07.28  this morning to commemorate the centenary of the start of the Battle of the Somme, with an eye on the television screen showing the scene at the battlefield memorial at Thiepval to honour the dead with no known grave, one of those dead gazed down at me from his portrait style photograph high on the wall above. My uncle, a Lieutenant in the Royal Scots, 18 years old, lasted 23 days, before being blown to pieces leading his men into Delville Wood.

His brother, my father, survived the war, although his health was shattered and through most of my childhood he was an invalid. He used to tell me vivid stories of what it was like on the Western Front, which added to my own childhood experiences under German bombs and rockets, has meant that for me European Unity has always been a mandatory obligation to those who suffered hell on earth and gave their lives, that we might get to where we are today.

Until last Friday.

What exactly have we done?

And for what have we done it?