Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

It cannot be denied that the Tory lead in the polls is more or less unprecedented. Nor can it be denied that they appear to be running a slicker campaign. It is also a fact that if Labour is to win (and denying May an increased majority on June 8th would be a very big win) it has to orchestrate one of the biggest political upsets in our electoral history. But it is possible because of a major Tory vulnerability when it comes to specific issues. And in the end it is the issues which drive the votes.

The Tory campaign is all about leadership and Brexit. But as the campaign develops leadership will become a less potent weapon as problems affecting the quality of everyday life for millions increasingly begin to dominate. Housing costs, train fares, social care, the NHS, tuition fees, funding of public services, utility prices, low wages and productivity, a failure to create a fairer economy which can deliver enough growth and revenue to pay the bills of properly funded public services and markets which work for people. The list is almost endless. And because the Tories have boxed themselves in with an economy which favours the few above the many and because they have been in power for seven years, failing to keep the promises to remodel the economy and cut immigration, they are on the defensive along a huge front.

Batter their flimsy defences and they will crack. Already with the manifesto leak and other pledges Labour is beginning a slow advance in the polls. Now is the moment to put in the effort to pick up speed. History beckons.

You read my blogs and many of you are Remainers and also Corbyn supporters who want to see a Labour victory. Especially younger readers who own the future.

I have enjoyed a lifetime as a political observer and at times a participant. My first election memory is of 1945 and grown ups around me expressing disbelief at the rejection of Churchill and the scale of Attlee’s victory. My first general election, as a Tory activist,  was in 1959. Later I became a founder member of the SDP and as the inequalities and injustices of the Thatcher economic model began to emerge, I turned to the Left.

Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. If the Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo just some of the principles which I set out, Labour will spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages.

Click image to buy. Just 99p for download £4.50 for paperback

Yes, according to reports large parts of the NHS are still running on Windows XP. This maybe alright if you are a failing department store about to shut down, or an elderly pensioner who occasionally uses a PC to book a holiday, but as the beating heart of the NHS it is an outrage.

Sooner or later we have to bite the bullet and understand that the current model of competing trusts and a score of quangos underfunded by a government dumb about raising enough money to pay its way, is no way to manage a modern health service, nor to pay for it. And sooner or later the remarkably forgiving British public will have to stop listening to sound bites and slogans and elect a government with a proper plan to set things right. Strong government as a slogan is clever, but entirely useless if all it does in practice is screw up on everything.

Think about that before June 8th.

You read my blogs and many of you are Remainers and also Corbyn supporters who want to see a Labour victory. Especially younger readers who own the future.

I have enjoyed a lifetime as a political observer and at times a participant. My first election memory is of 1945 and grown ups around me expressing disbelief at the rejection of Churchill and the scale of Attlee’s victory. My first general election, as a Tory activist,  was in 1959. Later I became a founder member of the SDP and as the inequalities and injustices of the Thatcher economic model began to emerge, I turned to the Left.

Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. If the Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo just some of the principles which I set out, Labour will spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages.

Click image to buy. Just 99p for download £4.50 paperback

There a has been a cyber attack world wide. But the impact on the UK is acute because it has disabled much of our health service, put staff under tremendous pressure and without doubt put lives at risk. This would be a challenge in itself, but the appalling fact is the NHS should not have been affected. It is because large parts of it are using an out of date unsupported operating system vulnerable to this kind of attack, from which more modern systems are protected. Since 2010 Tory led governments have borrowed more than ever before but have failed to boost economic output sufficient to balance the books.

The consequences are run down and creaking infrastructure vulnerable to failure, or in the case of the NHS, cyber attack. We do not know if power and water supplies are similarly at risk. What we do know is that time and again it has become clear that the NHS is underfunded and over stretched. Now we know that lives are threatened because the IT is clapped out. Vista gave good service on my first laptop, but now I have moved on. Supposing that a system unfit for private use can work safely in the NHS is at the very least reckless and not far short of criminal.

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. The ideas are relevant whether Brexit goes hard or soft. 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. Published in 2016 and circulated to the Labour leadership, Turn Left To Power was a trailblazer for the manifesto.

Click image to buy Paperback £4.99   Kindle £1.99  

At last we have a game changer from Labour. For the first time in decades the philosophy, aspirations and needs of the left have been given form. No longer is the choice between a soft centre or a harder one; a sterile choice that has driven millions of working class voters into hibernation or extremes. At last there is to be a full blooded manifesto from the Labour party based on the realization that it has no purpose or function as a party of the centre. Indeed there is no centre without first there being a right and left. The Tories are, have been and always will be the party of the right. Likewise Labour can only exist as the party of the left.

The dynamics are simple. You campaign from left or right, but you move towards the centre to govern, because in the end you govern for all. But if you campaign with integrity you will govern with authority. We have had a procession of strong governments with weak mandates.  The current economic model is shot through and unfair. There are crises  brewing at every twist and turn and radical change is demanded to set the country on a quite different path. The good thing about the leak is that it gives more air time to what is a bombshell intervention into the political conversation.  Whether that is time enough to mobilize a radical revolution is open to question. At least there is now more to this election than the coronation of May.

You read my blogs and many of you are Remainers and also Corbyn supporters who want to see a Labour victory. Especially younger readers who own the future.

I have enjoyed a lifetime as a political observer and at times a participant. My first election memory is of 1945 and grown ups around me expressing disbelief at the rejection of Churchill and the scale of Attlee’s victory. My first general election, as a Tory activist,  was in 1959. Later I became a founder member of the SDP and as the inequalities and injustices of the Thatcher economic model began to emerge, I turned to the Left.

Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. If the Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo just some of the principles which I set out, Labour will spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages.

Click image to buy. Just 99p for download £4.50 paperback

By Trump standards, no. He does not play to the rules. He hires, but also fires and has no problem doing so. There was a widespread belief in Washington that Comey’s conduct and reasoning had become an issue undermining the credibility of the FBI, both in regard to the Clinton emails and the Russian alleged involvement in cyber supporting the Trump campaign. There is also the question of how much the campaign encouraged this, if at all. Yet the summary dismissal of this senior public official is almost without precedent and has caused even more uproar in Washington than we have come to expect from this Presidency. There are the usual demands for special prosecutors and loads of contributions from sanctimonious Democrats, whom few would trust on a good day.

Nevertheless, even if this is not that bad for Trump, it is not that good for America’s image. Not least because these dramas make the international headlines, whilst bread and butter stuff of running the country does not, creating a widespread impression that almost every presidency gets bogged down in scandal fomented by the opposition party, in order to disrupt the effectiveness of the Executive. This is surely not the prospectus which the United States wishes to promote, as an example for others to follow. Neither is it a joined up way to run its own affairs.

Meanwhile, in the midst of the drama, a smiling Lavrov arrives and is ushered into the Oval office, cameras rolling. A rare honour normally given only to heads of government. That is the real news.

You read my blogs and many of you are Remainers and also Corbyn supporters who want to see a Labour victory. Especially younger readers who own the future.

I have enjoyed a lifetime as a political observer and at times a participant. My first election memory is of 1945 and grown ups around me expressing disbelief at the rejection of Churchill and the scale of Attlee’s victory. My first general election, as a Tory activist,  was in 1959. Later I became a founder member of the SDP and as the inequalities and injustices of the Thatcher economic model began to emerge, I turned to the Left.

Labour Can Win is an abridged version of my dissertation Turn Left to Power. If the Labour Manifesto for the General Election on June 8th contains proposals which echo just some of the principles which I set out, Labour will spring an historic surprise on June 8th. If you want a Labour victory, this is a must read. It will give you ideas and inspiration to drive you forward. A message of hope over fear in under 100 pages.

Click image to buy. Just 99p for download £4.50 paperback