Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

America has become disorientated by the victory of a presidential candidate whose fundamental support comes from the notion of disrupting the status quo in almost every direction. So the handover, so carefully choreographed in normal times to represent almost a royal rather than democratic transfer, is blown apart by reports of Russian hackers (the inflammatory word is Russian, not hacking, which happens all the time) and Tweets from the president elect who communicates his thoughts on everything to the whole world almost every hour of the day. This leaves the establishment aghast and the press corps running around looking silly proffering old news. So parts of it try to stir things up. Trump loves that and stirs back.

But in the end there is a real world out there and problems have to be solved. We know Trump plans on getting a better working relationship with Russia, a better economic balance with China, a more realistic relationship with Europe which costs America less and he plans to have a serious attempt to rekindle lost rust belt jobs. He has not assembled a team of admirers, nor like almost all his predecessors has he had to give jobs to people he owes. He has chosen a strong team of big, or very big, hitters who disagree with him on quite a lot. But he will task them to deliver outcomes in their spheres of responsibility, of which deadlock or a stand-off will not do at all. Solutions, not postures, will be the demand of the Trump oval office. And solutions which above all work.

Most of that most of America will like, because it is very American. It is true that a majority of people voted for more of the same, but if you look at the map you will see the majority of the country voted not just for change but disruptive change. So it is now time for the losers to end their hysteria and fall in line. That is what democracy is. Somebody wins.

Malcolm Blair-Robinson is a writer and blogger who 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.

Post Brexit and with a swing left of the  political centre ground, as the failure of globalization to bring improving prosperity to the majority becomes the mainstream challenge worldwide, this small volume is a must read not just for Labour supporters, but for all who would like to find a way forward, whichever political party you favour or if you favour none.

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Labour has been working hard to regain the initiative as the political opposition following its bloodletting on who should be its leader. Having resolved that self indulgent question with the ever popular Corbyn returning with an increased mandate, it finds a country drifting rudderless in a Brexit fog and awaiting with anxiety the onset of a deliberately disruptive Trump Presidency.

Not since the end of WWII has the country had to face uncertainties simultaneously with its greatest ally and its closest trading partner. Thus far the May government seems unable to offer more than fancy rhetoric, resulting in mounting public impatience. The spectacle of two of her cabinet ministers being separately chased grim faced and tight lipped in Whitehall by angry media (Health and Transport) was telling. Daily there is news of terrible disruption on the tubes and Southern Rail, which is causing very great suffering to the life and working patterns of millions of ordinary people. Almost hourly it seems, there is news of some further pressure building in the NHS,  in which the deeper you dig the worse it gets; almost every authority within its Byzantine structure warns of mounting crisis.

This extraordinary state of disarray should be an opportunity for the official Opposition to seize control of the political conversation with bold plans and a clear vision befitting a government in waiting with a real chance of winning power. Labour has some sound policies and intelligent positions, yet it is constantly entangled in gaffes and mixed messages which appear to confuse even its own stalwarts. Worse, it trails in the polls (Con 42 Lab 28 according to latest) at a level to which even Michael Foot barely sank and he faced a break-away wing formed into the SDP. This is not good by any measure.

It is not as bad as it might be because now we have fixed term parliaments. Talk of a snap election is a fantasy, because legally (another Cameron blunder?) there is no such thing, unless two thirds of the Commons votes to dissolve itself and turkeys do not vote for Christmas. Failing that May would have to lose a vote of confidence and the alternative, Corbyn, as leader of the next largest party, would have to do the same, before the Queen could lawfully turn out the lights and send them all to the country and their electoral fate. There is one other possibility.  Boris pounces and deposes May as leader of the Tories and replaces her as PM. That would hardly help Labour. It might be a calamity.

So Labour has to start getting its act together. That includes the muttering Blairite wing as much as the activists in Momentum. Make no mistake from one who knows about things like this, either they come together with a common message which they all articulate and embrace and in turn support their leadership and each other.

Or voters will scatter them to the four winds.

Set in the mid nineteen nineties, this fast moving thriller lifts the curtain on sex, sleaze and corruption in high places as the long reign of the government totters to an end, following the ousting of the iconic Margaret Thatcher. The novel catches the mood of those times with a host of fictional characters who engage in political intrigue, sex, money laundering and murder, pursued by an Irish investigative journalist and his girlfriend, the daughter of a cabinet minister found dead in a hotel room after bondage sex.

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