Blog 2023 Malcolm Blair-Robinson

At last the day has come. The most astonishing political campaign ever organised in this country has seen the underdog turn into a rock star and the front runner stumble. It has transformed the the political conversation.  A real, radical alternative with a widely praised, well thought out, properly costed Labour manifesto took the whole media and political establishment by surprise and has proved very popular on the doorstep. By contrast the Tory manifesto has been a disaster, unraveling both their campaign and their leader’s invincible aura. U-Turns are back. A  blue van bearing the theme ‘Strong and Stable Leadership’ blew over in yesterday’s high winds on one of the motorways, causing traffic delays. Was that an omen?

The political establishment, the media and most of the commentators expect and predict a Tory win by miles. Just one or two outlying polls tell a different story. This time tomorrow we will know who was right.  On the one hand we stand on the brink of more of the depressing same, laced with U-Turns and Brexit grandstanding. And on the other hand?

A political revolution.

Labour is advancing in the polls beyond anything seen for years because at last it is attracting back its core working class vote. But it is also attracting huge numbers of young people, many of whom are well educated and successful movers and shakers, who live in the hear and now, see what is wrong with our country and have no time whatever for wild Tory finger pointing at attitudes and people from thirty years ago. I also have evidence that a surprising number are from the privileged few. In other words a coming together of classes and social cultures in a common mission for all.

Opinion polls all show the gap between the Tories and Labour narrowing, but some still show a healthy lead for May, while the latest shows the gap all but closed. There is a reason for this. Some polls are using a model weighted to reflect the demographic turnout in 2015, when very large numbers of young voters did not bother to vote. Where the gap has closed the model reflects the belief that a much higher percentage of young people in the age group 18-35 will vote, denying May the power to speak for Britain and setting our country on a new and better path. So if you too want to live in a country of hope, progress and fair shares and liberate us all from the sterile mantra of endless austerity, make sure you get out and cast your vote on Thursday.

I was born when Neville Chamberlain was Prime Minister, so I cannot claim to be young.  But it is your future I want to assure and so I will be voting with you. I have lived under fifteen prime ministers, but this current one is by far the worst.

Let’s do it.

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US mayors have backed Sadiq Khan as he leads London in the aftermath of Saturday’s terrorist attack while being criticised on Twitter by Donald Trump.

The US Conference of Mayors, which represents leaders of more than 1,400 cities, said it stood “united with Mayor Sadiq Khan of London and the people of London” following the attack.

They said of Mr Khan: “He has risen above this crisis of death and destruction, as mayors continue to do, to alleviate fear, to bring comfort to his people of London and to give support to the first responders who continue to protect, defend and provide emergency care to his people of London.

“Thank you, Mayor Khan, for your leadership during this crisis.”

Very well said. This blog has been broadly supportive of Trump, recognising the very real issues challenging the American heartlands which he is trying to address and the urgent need to reset international relations into a more productive cycle, where things get better not worse. Trump clearly faces enemies from without and within, yet one is tempted to reach the conclusion that through some peculiar flaws of personality, he is himself his own worst enemy by far. Many Americans now feel he is their own worst enemy too, but this blog is too much outside the US to engage in essentially a partisan debate. Nevertheless there is a real risk that things will begin to  run out of the control of what is reported to be the most divided and fractious White House in anybody’s memory.

To halt the slide Trump needs to grasp that the first rule underpinning the authority of a President of the United States, is that the incumbent has to behave like one.

There are figures out today which will almost certainly be lost beneath election and security coverage in the days before polling. But the story they tell is worth a mention. Manufacturing is buoyant and firms are infused with rising confidence and order books. The falling pound has increased demand for British made goods. And where does this growth come from?  From the EU. Where we enjoy open access and free movement. Exactly.

And if we cut ourselves off with a hard Brexit, how is this trade to be replaced and with whom? This is a question nobody will answer because nobody knows. Especially not the hard Brexiteers.

No deal, shrieks the strident May, is better than a bad deal. Really? Surely there can be nothing worse than no deal! Of course. May knows that. But she is not fussed because she can always do a U Turn.

Once again we are in shock at dreadful news of a terror attack. Our thoughts are with the victims and their families and my heart goes out to them. After a period of respite from terrorism in these islands, we are on our third attack this year. More than one hundred seriously injured people are being cared for in hospitals in London and Manchester, among them small children. This represents a sea change in the times through which we live and to respond we will have to make changes of our own. But now is not the time for that.

This is a moment to send all our strength and sympathy to the victims and our admiration and thanks to those who are now caring for them. We also share our admiration for the brave responders who threw themselves into danger to save and protect the innocent public caught up in a nightmare.

I think it would be helpful to get some quick facts straight on these two big issues. Nonsense is flying about suggesting unwillingness of politicians to be frank and big misunderstandings among voters.

The Deterrent  

Trident is just that. It is not a viable weapon which you can use to keep us safe. If Corbyn or anyone else were called upon to fire it, you and most everybody else will already be dead. Each Trident submarine commander has in his on board safe orders in the form of a letter signed by the prime minister of the day authorizing him, if he judges it fit, to launch his missiles, in the event that contact with London is lost meaning not only has the capital, and most other cities, been wiped out, but so have the deep bunkers beneath them. The deterrent has failed if it has to be fired. Revenge could be the only motive, ensuring that any who thought it fun to start a nuclear war would themselves  be fried in the revenge counter strike. And the reason it deters is because that revenge strike is in the hands not of the government but the Trident boat captain.

So obsessing about whether Corbyn would ‘press the red button’ as hysterical rednecks demand, is as futile and inept as asking the man if, when prime minister, he would be willing to do a rain dance in the Downing Street garden in the event of a drought.

Immigration

The greatest threat to the long term economic stability and well being of the United Kingdom is the fact that old people are multiplying faster than young ones and eventually, if the trend continues, the burden  borne by earners of the cost of the non earners will not only shrink the economy but it will also bankrupt it. The solution is to quickly multiply the earners through immigration, especially of those with qualifications and skills, so that the balance between earners and non earners remains economically viable and socially fair. It is a fact that it is immigration which is responsible for such economic growth as we have seen since 2010. Without the immigrants we would be in quite a deep depression.

It is certainly right to end austerity so as to create the services and infrastructure for a rising population and it is also necessary to do some serious work on the quality and relevance of the qualifications and skills which our education systems produce, so that we are less dependent on new people coming in. But even if we do that we have to push on towards the projected 80 million in order to keep both the people prosperous and the economy sustainable.

So if you are among those who clamour for immigration to be cut to this elusive 100,000 or perhaps even nil, carry on do. But when you get old and needy, be prepared to look after yourself, with your own money. Something for you to look forward to.

It is unusual that the whole world turns on one country to criticize it. It is without precedent that the country in the dock should be the United States of America. But the plain truth is Trump has put his country first as he promised to. It is also true that he had no option but to do so, having promised on the campaign trail that he would. And if you are out of work in the rust belt or a coal miner you will have transformed from despair to hope. The base of the President’s electoral strength will be thrilled. The 40% who will stick with him through thick and thin. The other 60% and how they vote mid-term and in 2020, will perhaps decide what happens in the end.

Meanwhile a number of states and cities, including California and New York, plus loads of corporations like Apple, Microsoft and General Electric have said they will continue to operate the protocols. America has one of the biggest clean energy industries and the renewable energy sector employs more workers than the coal mines. Much of the climate science is American. America leads in the new clean technologies. There is big money being made in the US by and from these advances. Even if you do not believe the science, trying to reduce the risk is worthwhile. So the impact of the American withdrawal is more political than practical.

The political implications of walking out of something previously signed up to are clear cut. The early meeting between the EU and China today to jointly declare their continuing adherence to the Accord and the very sharp rebuke of the US by Merkel are tastes of things to come. Trump is not liked in Europe and he knows it. America is going down an isolationist road. The slogan America First is unambiguous.  But there is a price. America is still the most powerful country on earth and will be shown due respect. But gone are days when it is acknowledged as leader of the free world. There are other voices now.

I know I have said before and will boringly say again, my first active election was in 1959. As a Young Conservative I delivered leaflets, canvassed, spoke at meetings as a warm up for the star and on polling day took, in my rather draughty car which was older than I was,  the elderly, the transport-less and the stragglers to the polling station. Every hour I reported to the local committee room about who had voted and who had not. So, although times have changed and so have I, I do know a little bit about how elections are run. And I can say without a moment’s hesitation that the Tory Party’s current campaign, which seems to have been hijacked by their leader as a personal ego trip, is so bad that it is not only beyond belief but it is also beyond comprehension.

I do not see how Theresa May, who cannot even write a coherent manifesto, who has done no costings of it, or Brexit, or the hard Brexit which really turns her lights on and makes her eyes shine, either in money or jobs or growth or human misery, how on earth she can be re-elected leader of our country. But I have only one vote.

Be assured it will not be cast for her. I have increasing confidence that I am not alone. The latest poll has cut her lead from 25 to 3. Not far to go.