Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

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.