Archive for January, 2018

Carillion Collapse: A Government Disaster

Monday, January 15th, 2018

This tottering Tory government is now under continuous bombardment from disasters of which it is the author. Brexit is in a mess in whichever direction you look; even Boris and Farage are beginning to have doubts disguised as flag waving for a cause fraudulently presented to voters as a proposition of opportunity, which in the event the massed ranks of Brexiteers are unable to explain or deliver.

The NHS and Social Care are in crisis, driven by a toxic combination of chronic underfunding, byzantine management structures and a forest of supervising quangos. The prisons are in a dreadful state and education is begging cash from parents to keep standards in schools at an acceptable level. Railways are overcrowded and main highways choked at peak times. Government ministers make aspirational speeches high on rhetoric but with outcomes never delivered.

To an ever growing list of issues, now explodes the bombshell of Carillion. A total collapse of the government’s pet contractor. Responsible for construction and maintenance right across the public sector  from railways to prisons, hospitals and schools. Awarded more contracts in spite of warnings about its financial position. Owing nearly a billion pounds to its banks. Now it is bankrupt. As is the Tory ideology which promises prosperity through austerity and efficiency through outsourcing services to the private sector, which grows fat on public money.

Three massive issues are now converging on the beleaguered political Noddy Land which Downing Street has become. Brexit, Carillion and the NHS. It is going to be a very big bang.

Trump Visit Off: The Real Reason?

Friday, January 12th, 2018

With the unique dynamics of the Trump presidency we will never know. Certainly there is much to criticise about the decision to build a fortress style new U.S. embassy off the beaten track south of the Thames at Nine Elms. The money and the location should both have been a no no at every level, so on those grounds no wonder Trump does not want to cut the ribbon. Even the lure of lunch with the Queen, a special honour for a working rather than State Visit, was evidently not enough.

But then again the UK is Washington’s closest ally. But is it? Trump is by far the most unpopular President, in the UK, to occupy the White House since anyone here took an interest in who the American president actually was. There would undoubtedly be hostile demonstrations which would be widely reported across world media, especially social media. The two countries are at odds over Climate Change, Jerusalem and Iran. The UK has sided with the EU against the US on all three. Then there was the outcry over the re-tweet and the double slap down from May. Only yesterday the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Britain and the EU met with their Iranian counterpart to reaffirm their support for the Iran nuclear deal and urging Trump to do the same. At the press conference afterwards Boris Johnson not only backed the deal, but challenged the US to come up with a better and acceptable alternative if it did not like it. This is a new kind of special relationship. One in which the UK is willing to oppose the US, not just once, but three times on the trot. And not just in private, but in the glare of publicity on the world stage.

Clearly this cannot be satisfactory and there are fences to mend. When the repair process will start depends on Trump. In an election year when much depends on the outcome of the mid-terms in November, Trump will do nothing to give Democrats ammunition to advance in the polls. In his hypersensitive image consciousness, angry crowds waving placards ‘Trump Go Home’ would not be good. In truth I doubt the average American voter would care tuppence or see the clips. The State Visit remains on the agenda for sometime, but sometime is not yet.

NHS: Now The Chips Are Down

Thursday, January 11th, 2018

It was bound to happen. The moment when everybody admits the NHS is underfunded and unable to deliver to an acceptable standard. No amount of commissioning boards, quangos and regulators can disguise this simple truth, obvious to many including this blog for some years.  The notion that you can provide an infinite service, which must expand with demand, on a finite budget is mathematically impossible, except on a rationed service and for a short time.

So now the conversation has begun. So far the government is staying silent, but it knows it is rumbled. This blog suspects that Jeremy Hunt, who refused to move in the cabinet reshuffle, is more than happy that the **** is now hitting the fan and  intends to launch a campaign within government for a completely new funding concept and settlement.

We will wait and watch and comment. There is another truth which will send shivers through the Tory ranks at every level. A major crisis in the Brexit saga can derail the government. But a major crisis in the NHS will bring it down for sure.

Brexit: Off To Denial of Reality Again

Wednesday, January 10th, 2018

Phase One saw May sign up in the end to everything the EU demanded at the very beginning of the negotiations. Now we find Davis and Hammond trying to persuade the Germans to back the continuation of free access of GB financial services to the single market, including passporting, even though it is our intention to leave it. No doubt they will learn the German view. The rules are simple. To get the benefits of the single market you have to be in it, all of it including free movement, ECJ and everything, or you are out of it. If you are out, whilst trading deals can be agreed, Canada is an example, theses cover goods not services. To allow the inclusion of the latter would compromise the future integrity of the EU, which at its heart is a political union to secure permanent peace and harmony in Europe after centuries of blood letting. Trade is the icing on the cake, but not the cake.

Nothing will be allowed to compromise or weaken that union. Not even, especially not even, Brexit.

Cabinet Reshuffle: Another Mess

Tuesday, January 9th, 2018

May was riding , after her post election misfortunes, high before the Christmas break, having secured both consent for the deal struck with the EU at the end of Phase One and the backing of her fellow EU leaders. There was trouble with her friend Damien, but that could easily be fixed at the much trailed Cabinet Reshuffle after Christmas and her now famous goose. So all set for Mega Monday and a new look Government. She now had the power to reshape it in her image and stamp her authority upon a divided cabinet. But the wheels of the project began to fly off in all directions.

It had already become clear, in spite of lurid briefings before the holiday, that she could not touch  the three big offices of state, Treasury, Home and Foreign offices. That smacked if not of outright weakness, certainly of limits to power. But then push back on her Conservative Party ( now a rump with only 70,000 members, average age late sixties and predominately white male) plans, Tweets appeared and were cancelled, Ministers instead of doing as they were told and going where they were sent began to argue and refuse. The day wore on and ended in a mess, with May’s authority shattered and the government looking much the same.

So, for how long can this go on? That is anybody’s guess. But sooner or later key decisions will have to be made which will divide the government further and perhaps bust apart the fractured Tory party for keeps. It could happen that she muddles on. But then again it could all end. Quite suddenly.

Trump v Bannon: A New West Wing Drama

Thursday, January 4th, 2018

It is no exaggeration to say that the world is now gripped with a new twist in the story of Donald Trump, as a consequence of alleged disclosures upcoming in a new book by Michael Wolff. A big public row has broken out between Steve Bannon and his former boss, the details of which are wall to wall on international media and do not need to be repeated here.

I have no means of knowing how much of the book is true and how much is rubbish. Maybe all one or the other, but more likely a mix. I have never subscribed to the idea of collusion with Russia, nor do I think meeting with them can be treason, unless there is something medieval about the US Constitution which I have missed. But I have all along said that there is a strong possibility of Russian capital funding parts of the Trump empire. This is not illegal but it might not sit well with the American public in the present climate. However, a new thought has emerged based upon comments from several sources. Russia has been subject to sanctions since the Crimea returned to the Russian Federation, a miscalculation by the Western promoters of the overthrow of the Russia leaning Kiev government in 2014.

If money laundering to circumvent those sanctions was used to get funding from its Russian source to its destination in a Trump corporation and that is proved, the Trump presidency will end quite suddenly. If not all the latest drama is but another Twitter storm.

GB 2018: Where Exactly Are We?

Wednesday, January 3rd, 2018

We are in a country in which when it snows everything stops, the NHS goes into a crisis if people fall ill, we vote for Brexit without knowing what it involves, we tell public servants they can only have a 1% pay rise but we put up season tickets on the trains by over 3%, we have never had so many people employed, but they earn less than they did ten years ago, our new warships either leak at sea or suffer catastrophic power failures in combat mode, the list goes on and on.

But there is change coming. Because never before have so many people under forty come together in common purpose to bring about a new and different society, in which people work together for the common good, things function in all weather, illness is treated in timely fashion, housing is plentiful and affordable, the rich no longer prosper by milking the poor, this list goes on and on, too, and then on even longer.

That is why this Blog is optimistic for the future of our United Kingdom in 2018. The night of austerity, greed and me first is over. The dawn of better times is breaking. We must watch for signs of light upon the horizon. Among the first may be the flash of the divided Tory government, split from top to bottom on Brexit and austerity,  breaking up.

 

A Happy New Year To All Readers

Monday, January 1st, 2018

This blog returns from  the holiday break with a few thoughts for 2018.

North Korea  Kim Jon Un has declared in his New Year message that his country now has intercontinental nuclear armed missiles which can strike anywhere in the US. He also says that he will never use them to attack in a first strike, they are there to deter. He offers negotiations from a position of strength, with improved relations with South Korea, including a possible N.K Team appearance at the Winter Olympics. Whether he has jumped forward from reality to claim something which has not yet quite happened is not important. He is very close and by the time the rest of the world, led by the US, has huffed and puffed, he will have all the systems ready to go.

This means that the US will have to sit down and talk to a nuclear capable country which is not going to give up what it sees as a guarantee that it will not be subject to a surprise attack. North Korea is not Iran, which was working towards nuclear capability. It is threshold, or actually, capable now. The conversation will be about a permanent peace on the Korean peninsular, demilitarization, force reductions, US pull back, human rights, ending sanctions, you name it, the list will be long. But giving up its deterrent capability will not be on it.

How America got to this point is an interesting subject for discussion. But it matters not, because we are where we are. Had America spent less time lecturing and more time thinking, where we are might be a better place.

Brexit  Whatever may be said by politicians, spinners and wishful thinkers, this project is now in trouble. There is a complete disconnect between what the government says it will achieve, what the Leave campaign promised and what the EU will agree to. GB thinks the economic self interest will finally trump political considerations and the EU will concede key issues in GB’s favour. This is tripe. The EU puts politics above everything, its unity is paramount, nothing will be allowed to threaten the current and future stability and unity of the EU and if that means the loss of all trade with GB so be it. It has agreed its terms and only at the margin will they be varied.  Just like Phase One.

When the truth dawns and the terms are clear, hard Brexit will simply not be acceptable to the majority in parliament or to voters in the country. A soft Brexit would leave the UK subject to all the rules and enjoying all the benefits much as now, but without a seat at the ruling table. So we will abandon the project and stay. Either way the outcome is the same.

Populism and Democracy

There has been leaned comment about the wave of populism and the future of democracy in the run up to the close of the somewhat tumultuous political story of 2017. This blog does not see a threat to democracy, but it does see the demise of career politicians who promise, mislead and fail to deliver. People are now connected to each other in a way unimagined before. They share news from source and debate among themselves desired outcomes. They do not depend on the media or the political machines for any of it. They know what they want. They will vote for politicians who claim they can deliver and they will stay on their backs until they do. It is a different sort of democracy, but very much better.