WOBBLES AND WORRIES

My confidence in a Conservative victory on 8 June is unshaken, but the election campaigns of all parties have been unimpressive and uninspiring. My disappointment has been particularly intense with the Tories who have been forced to exercise more U-turns then a demented ukulele. Jeremy Corbyn’s stock has been rising, the opinion polls say, but I refuse to believe the electorate will rally to his benighted cause in the actual voting booth, whatever The Guardian and The Independent may maintain. Mind you, nobody gave Trump a snowball’s chance in Hell and look at the US now……!

Theresa seeks a mandate

 The Tories started their campaign with every prospect of an easy path to triumph. I had glossed over their abject U-turn over the Autumn Statement when a rise in NIC for the self-employed was proposed and hurriedly withdrawn– surely there would be no repeat.  But then the ball was dropped again over means-testing winter fuel allowance (although bizarrely exempting the Scots!) while confusion reigned over the level of assets to be kept when older patients required free social care – quickly labelled “the dementia tax”. The Conservatives are right to tackle the problems of benefit levels and contributions from the more prosperous elderly but these are emotive subjects, easily misunderstood and twisted. Spokesmen need to be robust and well-briefed but Theresa May has tried to do too much herself, boasting of her allegedly strong and stable leadership, while her best lieutenants, Boris J, Davis and Hammond have been invisible.

Theresa is not a great campaigner. Her demeanour is stiff and unsmiling. She can make her case at least initially but she is not entirely at ease on economic matters, as Cameron was, and she has a fatal tendency to descend to vacuous mantras like Brexit means Brexit or Strong and Stable. She is not nimble-footed, is readily flustered and has a vicarage-influenced imperative to honour past pledges – this seduced her into promising a free vote on legalising fox-hunting, an old Cameronian (and never-delivered) policy. This was an own-goal; many solidly Tory country people attach importance to fox-hunting but it is electoral poison in the cities and stirs up hatred of class stereo-types. Theresa should have kept mum and can hold her free vote later. I hope she ups her game in the coming days and inspires us warmly to welcome her ministry. I think we can still rely on the mature generation, the 4m 2015 UKippers and Scots discontented with the SNP to deliver a 100-seat majority to the Tories.

Jeremy Corbyn has succeeded in concealing many of his negatives. His extreme socialism, a throw- back to 1946, was evident in his manifesto with nationalisation and high spending rampant. In interviews he has spoken softly rather than ranted and avoided the specifics in a fog of vagueness. But his CND ignorance of defence, his admiration of the IRA, Hamas, Hezbollah have returned to haunt him, his hatred of his own country, the United States and Israel, his basic irresponsibility has shone through. He is the least credible national leader ever to take the electoral stage and deserves to be pulverised at the polls.

An alternative Leader?

The Manchester atrocity has changed the tone of the election; 22 young people murdered by an Anglo-Libyan nobody, Salman Abedi, born and bred in the UK. Radical Islam needs to be rooted out of our country, agitating mosques shut down and its murderous proponents locked up.  No doubt they cannot do everything but the police failed to pick up Abedi and post-event invocations of The Manchester Spirit are empty and futile. Manchester and the country are hurting and draconian action against the terrorists and their support networks is essential, whatever the damage to so-called “community relations”. Theresa can make up for her lost time at the Home Office by pushing through tough, emergency legislation limiting movements to and from rogue countries, silencing terrorist propaganda and even introducing internment without trial.

The jihadi terrorist

Theresa called the election to give her a personal mandate to negotiate Brexit, certain to be an abrasive process until 2019. There is no alternative to Theresa and she deserves every support.

SMD

28.05.17

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2017

THERESA'S EASY PASSAGE

These days - after the game-changing Brexit referendum, the unexpected apotheosis of Donald Trump and the strong initial showing of Marine LePen – it is tempting fate to predict how voters will jump, but I firmly believe Theresa May will win the forthcoming UK election and win it easily with a Conservative majority well in excess of 100. She has chosen the moment well: a 5-year term will allow her to negotiate a sensible Brexit deal, compromise and make concessions if necessary, without constantly facing sniping and potentially fatal opposition from her more extreme Eurosceptic members: an election victory will establish her political authority as the choice of the electorate and not just of a Tory faction.

"No nonsense" Theresa May

At this juncture Theresa is respected but unloved. Prime Minister since 13 July 2016 her actual achievements in office are unimpressive. She deftly created a ministerial team with Brexiteers Boris Johnson, David Davis and Liam Fox in senior positions balanced by Remainers Philip Hammond at the Exchequer and Amber Rudd at the Home Office. Prominent Brexiteers Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith were consigned to the backbenches. Nine months later she has merely triggered Article 50 as promised by end-March and prepared for negotiations with an EU opposing team which one day is being conciliatory and the next is breathing fire and brimstone.

While it is said that the Tories are having a fit of Theresa-mania, Theresa herself doggedly concentrates on the job in hand: her manner is schoolmistress-like and disciplined, not charismatic nor inspirational, yet she speaks well enough and almost looks the part as an embryonic Margaret Thatcher, even down to the twin-set and pearls. Yet her Chancellor’s autumn statement was a shambles as he had to withdraw a key National Insurance tax rise after pressure from a faction of her backbenchers. This episode probably persuaded her to seek a surprise fresh mandate. The UK’s finances are overstretched and much work needs to be done to resolve NHS funding, rising social care costs, improve educational standards, stimulate the affordable housing market and enhance productivity. The Conservative election manifesto needs to be convincing and detailed – broad-brush platitudes will not be enough.

Yet Theresa could hardly have a more primrose-laden path to victory. The Opposition has ceased to exist. It beggars belief that Labour persists with the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn, whose modest talents are those of a demo ranter and second-rate street agitator. Boris’ jibe that Corbyn is “a mutton-headed old mugwump” is well-aimed, though the electorate tires quickly of personal abuse. Corbyn is not much good at glad-handing or kissing babies either, he pulls faces, giggles at the wrong moments and does not think on his feet. Labour’s struggle to back Trident, its open hand for all causes irrespective of cost, be they NHS staff costs, free school meals, social security payments or old age pensions, condemns Labour to inanity and, like Michael Foot’s in 1983, will ensure that Labour’s manifesto will again be “the longest suicide note in history”.

Labour's candidate for the Premiership, Jeremy Corbyn

A dud Leader would be bad enough but Labour also is handicapped by an ineffective Front Bench. Tom Watson, John McDonnell, Diane Abbot, Keith Starmer, Emily Thornberry and Nia Griffith etc. are hardly names to quicken the pulses and surely cannot be taken seriously as senior government ministers, other than by an Islington clique. No doubt Labour will hang on in some of its heartlands but its appeal has seldom been weaker and a trouncing at the polls is inevitable.

Some say the election is a great opportunity for a LibDem revival. I do not see it – the tide is moving Right and LibDem enthusiasm for the EU, for free movement of people, for progressive causes whatever the cost strikes a discordant note. Personally I find Tim Farron a pipsqueak, though his Northern tones may play well elsewhere. I guess the LibDems will win 3 seats in England and 2 in Scotland in their traditional Celtic Fringe.

The SNP had their great year in 2015 holding or winning 56 seats. That performance cannot be improved upon and I think they will lose 8 seats to the Conservatives, dynamically led by Ruth Davidson, and 2 to the LibDems. With any luck the SNP will be given an early shove downhill from the 4 May local elections but unfortunately the SNP will remain politically dominant in Scotland for the next weary 5 years. My heart aches for my patient fellow-countrymen, endlessly berated by shrill Nicola Sturgeon and her deluded gang!

Intelligent electioneering is necessary but all the signs are that the Conservatives will form a strong government. The real challenge is whether the power they have will be put to good use.

The short-term priority is Brexit. As if we needed reminding, the currently serialised memoirs of Yanis Varoufakis, erstwhile Greek Finance Minister, tells us just how devious and mendacious the German-dominated EU apparatus is, and the UK will be bombarded with absurd demands and sucked into irrelevant debates. The UK has a much more powerful economy than Greece. Theresa’s government will need to have the courage to take the initiative in our own interest and cut the Gordian knot with a “hard Brexit” if necessary; the EU is best dealt with politely, from a distance and with a long spoon.

Longer-term Theresa needs to put flesh on her oft-repeated concern for those “barely managing” – our nation suffers from grotesque inequalities and poverties that are not simply materialistic.

Theresa, rise to this high challenge!

SMD

29.04.17

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017

PLUMS

Little Jack Horner
Sat in the corner,
Eating a Christmas pie;
He put in his thumb,
And pulled out a plum,
And said 'What a good boy am I!'

This famous nursery rhyme celebrates the delectable plum even though historians analyse it endlessly and link it to one Thomas Horner, bribe-giving and bribe-taking henchman of Henry VIII much involved in Glastonbury Abbey at the Dissolution. But enough of academia, I am simply concentrating on Plums – squelchy and delicious, with their fragrant cousins, Greengages and Apricots, not to forget their blessedly laxative dried version of Prunes.

Irresistible Plums

Jack Horner pulled a plum from his Christmas pie, a little mysteriously, as my Christmas pies do not feature plums but apparently in Victorian times plums and raisins were commonly confused, and we had raisins a-plenty. Yet I am out of date and read recipes for Plum Duff, sounding very tasty, including sliced plums and apples.

Plum Duff a la mode

The other Plum I adore is P.G.”Plum” Wodehouse (1881-1975), the author of many dozens of       comic novels and short story collections, who reached his apogee in the 1930s. He also wrote many songs and cooperated with the likes of Jerome Kern in fashioning a clutch of American musicals. Plum created a magical and wholly imaginary world inhabited by brainless Bertie Wooster, denizen of The Drones Club, and his ingenious manservant Jeeves, by Lord Emsworth and a ferocious collection of aunts at Blandings Castle. His golf stories and the tales related by Mr Mulliner also reach an apex of hilarity which still, after many re-readings, make me laugh out loud.

P G "Plum" Wodehouse

I am conscious that quite a few people of my acquaintance do not “get” PGW and will dissent strongly from my chorus of praise for the writer. I stick by my belief that Wodehouse had an incomparable turn of phrase, highly original similes, ingenious madcap plots and purveyed sunshine all the way: I call him a genius.

On Good Friday I went to an excellent Brahms concert in Folkestone. His Concerto for violin and cello was performed and the young solo virtuosi were Savitri and Indira Grier. Savitri (1^st class honours in Music at Christ Church, Oxford) was looking fetchingly glam in a plum-coloured gown while her cellist sister played beautifully too. The main piece was Ein Deutsches Requiem, which I had never heard before, and it was a revelation, much more cheerful than Mozart’s or Verdi’s. The only odd note was that Luther’s Bible renders “At the last Trumpet” as “At the last Trombone” (Die Posaune), which sounds wrong!

Savitri Grier

Not all was high culture this Easter. I plumbed the depths with my umpteenth viewing of Carry On Up the Khyber with Kenneth Williams as the Khazi of Kalabar, Sid James, Joan Sims, Terry Scott and Peter Butterworth in riotous knock-about form. 

Talking about plumbing the depths, some nations lay claim to professional expertise. Thus Belgian dentists were the archetypical private Eurobond investors and now Polish plumbers are supposed to be masters of that dark art. Well, a leak in the flat above us is supposedly fixed on the 3^rd attempt – I can only concede that a Polish plumber is probably better than no plumber but do not take their reputed expertise at face value.

Finally I mused about plum jobs. I reckoned Christine Lagarde of the IMF was the most fortunate of executives – a tax free salary of $468,000 plus perks, plus being treated as a quasi-head of state. She was recently reprimanded but not punished for murky transactions in the Tapie-Credit Lyonnais scandal, while French Finance Minister, and she has allowed her institution to be dragged into the Eurozone’s bail-outs for Greece – not at all the IMF’s business – so I doubt if she will leave an admirable legacy on departing from this “nice little earner”.

Christine Lagarde

 

Donald Trump

At least Lagarde is smart. The winner of the Plum Job stakes must be our friend Donald Trump, inarticulate, volatile, maybe even unhinged US President. How he must love seeing himself as a Superhero from his dog-eared Marvel Comics, squashing Arabs, Mexicans and sinister Orientals. His current adversary is North Korea’s wonder-boy Kim Jong-un, quite mad too, so don your radiation suits!

SMD

17.04.17

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017

A WORLD IN FLUX

I am not sure if I should ascribe my reactions to a native resistance to the unfamiliar, to the senile confusions of old age or simply to a lack of understanding of Realpolitik in the 21^st century, but I am totally bamboozled by the direction of travel of modern diplomacy and begin to believe that our experienced elites have quite simply gone potty.

The US took a huge gamble electing Trump; I fear that gamble is failing. The Donald is wholly lacking in Presidential qualities but worse, he has failed to assemble a credible team around him and his administration’s policies are incoherent or contradictory. Does he want détente with Russia or does he want to confront Russia? Does he disparage the EU or value European support? Does he believe NATO to be obsolete or is it a bulwark for peace? Will he isolate North Korea diplomatically and pressure China to intervene or will he lose patience and nuke Pyongyang? The answers to all these questions is “Yes”, depending from which side of the bed Trump has alighted – not a stable basis nor an intellectually defensible one for world peace!

Sergei Lavrov and Rex Tillerson disagreeing

Russia’s leadership is equally volatile. Can economically - challenged Russia really afford to engage in a “forward” foreign policy, provoking tough sanctions, with adventures in Syria, Crimea and Ukraine? Is it not in her best interests to have good relations with Central and Eastern Europe, building up trade, enhancing her credit- worthiness and reducing military expenditure? Putin is behaving like an extreme nationalist with a touch of Kim Jong-un’s megalomania. His Russia has scant prospect of unlocking her great potential by alienating the West.

Talking of “alienation” brings me to the EU. Never has a fall been so precipitous. Once an inspiration to progressive opinion, the EU is cack-handed and ill-led. The Mediterranean littoral is struggling but the terms of bail-outs are daunting. The Brits voted to leave after deal-seeking Cameron was spurned with contempt at the Brussels door. Right-wing nationalists ride high in France, Holland and Hungary; Italy is deeply disillusioned; Greece has been systematically impoverished. Germany and her near neighbours press on with their integration programme but there is scant enthusiasm and the prospect of 27-nation unanimity is zero. The EU is a failing, rudderless institution.

Britain ranged against Germany and France

Britain chose well to head for the exit but extrication from the EU will be a fraught experience. Brussels is in a nastily vengeful mood and France heads the group of nations seeking to punish Britain pour encourager les autres. Let’s hope the atmosphere improves, perhaps with an early mutual extension of all existing EU immigrants’ rights. Britain has its own problem with Nicola Sturgeon’s Scotland but with a bit of luck she will be weakened by the 4 May local elections – and, best of all, if Theresa May calls a general election later this year. Theresa needs a stronger personal mandate to push through a sensible Brexit. Elections clear the air and France, Germany (and Britain) may look quite different politically by the end of 2017.

Meanwhile Easter in all its solemnity is upon us. Jihadist ISIL may be militarily broken but there was a time “Christendom” would respond vigorously to the persecution of the faithful. Although many of these communities are vibrant, they exist in a sea of danger and incipient terrorism. It is to betray history to disregard the sufferings of Copts, Armenians, Eastern Orthodox, Syriacs, Jacobites and Maronites. Whatever one’s religious opinions, providing protection and a safe haven for them is a worthier cause than many others.

Copts mourn Palm Sunday 2017 bomb victims

 

SMD

13.04.17, 

BRITISH SONGBIRDS

Popular music thrives in so many guises but I am struck by the high success rate of female singers. In the US they have had Ella Fitzgerald or Whitney Houston hitting the highest of high notes, Germany and later the US were wowed by the throaty tones of Marlene Dietrich and the French were blasted out of their seats by diminutive Edith Piaf. Since the 1940s Britain has had her share of songstresses and I here celebrate four very different artistes, Vera Lynn, Alma Cogan, Dusty Springfield and Cilla Black.

Vera during WW2 and Vera at 100

Dame Vera Lynn (1917- ) celebrated her 100^th birthday on 20 March and has long been an “icon” in the words of the popular press. A well-known vocalist with dance bands in the 1930s she became The Forces’ Sweetheart during the war. Toothy and smiling she entertained the troops most famously in Burma and India, in the jungle around Kohima. Her strong penetrating voice illuminated classics like A Nightingale sang in Berkeley Square, The White Cliffs of Dover and most of all nostalgic We’ll meet Again. My dear father adored Vera along with a million other fans.

Vera kept singing for decades after the War and had a notable hit with Auf Wiedersehn Sweetheart in the early 1950s. The daughter of an East End plumber, her image was wholly different from today’s pop divas. She spoke Home Counties English clearly, wore hats and adopted a middle-class lifestyle. A compilation album of her greatest songs topped the charts 5 years ago; she was revered by the military, hobnobbed with Mrs Thatcher and was showered with honours including the CH and being created a Dame. On 20 March her image was projected onto The White Cliffs in tribute. A National Treasure is an overworked expression but she has won that prize hands down.

Alma Cogan

Moving on to the 1950s and early 1960s, Alma Cogan (1932 – 66) was an ubiquitous presence in radio and TV shows and her records, principally covers of American artistes, sold very well. The pop-songs of her era were simple lyrical pieces which people hummed or whistled – Where will the Dimple Be?, Dreamboat or I’ve Got the Bell-bottom Blues are typical examples. Alma would give a lively rendition of these songs in her characteristic voice with a trade-mark giggly catch in it.

Alma was also renowned for her frocks. Huge hooped confections, unsparing of sequins and tightly busted showed off her ample charms and a high bee-hive hairdo completed the image. Alma was the daughter of observant Jewish-Romanians and her father was an itinerant haberdasher from Whitechapel. However Alma was educated at a Catholic convent school in Reading and was wholly secular. In her heyday, she shared a flat in Kensington High Street with her widowed mother and they threw showbiz parties patronised by the likes of Princess Margaret, Noel Coward, Bruce Forsyth, Michael Caine, Frankie Vaughan and other celebrities.

The advent of the Beatles and the transformation of the pop scene from 1963 made Alma look square and unfashionable and she lost her UK audience, although she remained popular in Sweden, Germany and Japan. Curiously she became very close to John Lennon, 8 years her junior. Visibly ailing in 1965, she died of ovarian cancer in London in 1966. She was only 34 and had given great pleasure in her short career.

Dusty Springfield

Dusty Springfield (1939-1999) was a more complex character. Born Mary O’Brien to a Scots-Irish tax accountant and a mother from Tralee, she was brought up in High Wycombe. The family were keen on music but was dysfunctional, a perfectionist father battling against a more easy-going mother. Dusty was a tomboy, suffering from severe mood swings. There were many instances of food and crockery being thrown around.

Entering showbiz in an all-girl quartet, The Lana Sisters, she joined up with her brother Tom and another to form The Springfields, who enjoyed some success in the folk circuit before Dusty went solo in 1963. Her husky soul-music voice became instantly popular and she produced a line of hits up to 1969 – I Only had to be with You, Wishin’ n’ Hopin’, You Don’t have to Say you love Me, Son of a Preacher Man. This was to be the apex of her career.

Dusty was a great admirer of US Motown black music and she went to Memphis to record an album which she hoped would break new ground. The album’s sales were disappointing although critically well-received.  Dusty’s personal demons asserted themselves. With her career treading water, she took to drink and suffered psychological illness, self-harm becoming a problem. She was very reticent about her sexuality but she had passionate lesbian relationships, some ending in sinister violence and physical injuries.

She returned to the UK in 1983 and had a partial comeback singing with The Pet Shop Boys. Much praised as one of the finest female rock singers in the world, her diva persona frightened off record companies. In 1994 breast cancer was diagnosed and her last performance was in 1995. She lived her last years quietly in Henley on Thames, Oxfordshire and died there in 1999. She was 59, her early promise largely unfulfilled.

Cilla Black in the 1960s

Cilla Black (1943 – 2015) was born Priscilla White in the Scotland Road area of Liverpool. She worked as a waitress at The Cavern, the venue much frequented by The Beatles in the 1960s. Her own impromptu performances were noticed and encouraged by the Fab Four and she eventually signed up with high-flying Brian Epstein as her manager. In 1964 she recorded her most famous song, a Burt Bacharach number intended for Dionne Warwick, which became Cilla’s trademark, Anyone who had a Heart. It was an enormous success and the flipside of the disc You’re my World was also a chart-topper.

Cilla toured the pop circuit until 1971. Personally I did not think Cilla’s voice matched Dusty Springfield’s nor was she as energetic a performer as Lulu but she did have oodles of warm personality which was to serve her well. Her version of the Beatles’ classic The Long and Winding Road was also much admired and she had a hit with another Bacharach song Alfie.

She might then have sunk into obscurity. She hosted her own BBC pop programme Cilla from 1968-76 and there was a doomed attempt to make her a comedy actress. Then LWT found the ideal vehicle for her in Blind Date which ran for 20 years from 1983 to 2003. This show tried to match up aspiring males with compatible girls and was decidedly down-market but was largely kept afloat by Cilla’s irrepressible Scouse good humour, her empathy with the contestants and her bubbly personality. These qualities were also in evidence in the other hit show she hosted Surprise, Surprise.

Cilla died of a stroke and a fall at her villa in Estepona, Spain in 2015, aged 72. Her Liverpool and North West England audience referred to her as “Our Cilla” in much the way Northerners dubbed Gracie Fields “Our Gracie” in the 1930s. This was a great and affectionate compliment.

My four singers were above all entertainers and they daily lightened the steps of their followers. Who could ask for anything more?

www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHcunREYzNY          Vera Lynn

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WP5TsJAyFJc            Alma Cogan

www.youtube.com/watch?v=uonH7CcextM          Dusty Springfield

www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUxn6JLwdDY          Cilla Black

SMD

29.03.17

Text Copyright © Sidney Donald 2017

A MAN WITH A GUN

I am struck by how unsuccessful and futile political murders are. They usually trigger a reaction which is entirely opposed to what the perpetrator desired and bring disaster on the community he may claim to represent. Thus John Wilkes Booth’s murder of Abraham Lincoln in 1865 solidified opposition to slavery and made the South a political pariah for generations. The assassination of Julius Caesar did nothing to save the Roman Republic, instead ushering in a long line of Emperors, exploiting the patrician and senatorial class .The luckless Archduke Franz Ferdinand fell to Gavrilo Princip in Sarajevo in 1914; the ensuing war convulsed all Europe but the cause of Serbian nationalism was doomed, with Serbia totally overrun by the Central Powers.

Deplorable Khalid Masood

Violent misfit and loser Klalid Masood, British born, killed 4 innocents on 22 March on Westminster Bridge and at the entrance to Parliament. His weapons were a car and two kitchen knives, hardly sophisticated items. He achieved nothing other than exacerbating the hatred and contempt felt by the British for ISIL and jihadist extremists generally. The British are a phlegmatic people and readily come to each others’ aid and like to return to normality very quickly. That same resilience is evident in sorely tested France, Germany and Belgium, bravely carrying on business as usual.

Of course security can be tightened ad nauseum but government must be accessible to citizens of all kinds. The police cannot be everywhere. The disaffected and the alienated may need early support within their own circle of friends and family. Schools and social services have a role to play - many “communities” fall down on this duty. The whole nation needs to keep a sharp eye out for the odd and the unfamiliar and not “pass by on the other side”. The Law probably needs to be strengthened; incitement to violence is criminal but not easily invoked; perhaps that old Home Office favourite, “Conspiracy”, can be widened and fashioned into an effective weapon against the grooming of embryo terrorists. As a last resort, Internment without trial may be a way of taking dangerous but judicially unproven malefactors out of circulation. Liberals will suck in their breath noisily. Yet a society which is ruthlessly attacked must ruthlessly defend itself.

After all, did the murder of John F.Kennedy stop the spread of liberal ideas in America or that of Martin Luther King halt the drive for civil rights? No, quite the opposite. More to the point, did the long IRA campaign of murder and bombings from 1968 to 1998 in Northern Ireland and mainland Britain advance the cause of a united Ireland? Again, quite the opposite. 3,600 died and the Unionist majority in Ulster reacted savagely and single-mindedly with its own sectarian campaign and British opinion mainly opposed the nationalists. This week has seen the death of Martin McGuiness, once the IRA Chief of Staff, a gunman in his youth and a director of gunmen for decades. His violent green fantasies fuelled the conflict and nothing can condone his early bloody career, as Theresa May noted. He finally realised the only way to make progress was to end terror and negotiate.

Reformed gunman McGuiness with his pal Gerry Adams

The Good Friday 1998 Agreement followed bringing power-sharing to Ulster but preserving Northern Ireland’s British status. In time the relieved people of Ulster were to see an unholy alliance of rabid Presbyterian demagogue Ian Paisley as First Minister and unrepentent IRA leader Martin McGuiness as his Deputy ruling together rather amicably. At least the killing ended and I grudgingly give McGuiness some credit. The obituaries of McGuiness politely accentuated the positives – the Leftist BBC characteristically more or less deified the ex-terrorist and of course ineffable Bill Clinton could not resist grandstanding at the funeral.  The only publically discordant note came from Thatcherite minister Norman Tebbitt who wished McGuiness a hot time in Hell – not surprisingly as the IRA bomb in Brighton in 1984 had cruelly disabled his beloved wife, Margaret.

Violence can destroy but it cannot build. There used to be a defeatist saying in the  1930s The Bomber will always get through. Well that was not true, as Britain demonstrated by building Hurricanes and Spitfires and inventing radar. That same courage and ingenuity is deployed now against terrorists. There is an Irving Berlin classic You can’t get a Man with a Gun but we can and we do.

SMD

25.03.17

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2017

THERESA DIGS IN

  

Beset and besieged by a variety of jackals and vultures, Theresa May has staunchly hunkered down to address all the financial, constitutional and social problems facing the United Kingdom. The electorate expects firm, fair and coherent government and demands that the government quickly masters the complexities of Brexit – so far there have been mixed results and a headmaster’s report would use the time-honoured phrase “could do better”.

Theresa May at work

The great positive is that Parliament has finally approved the triggering of Article 50, now scheduled for 29 March, and the Royal Assent has been given. Negotiations will presumably begin soon. The passage through the Commons was easy enough as Jeremy Corbyn’s opposition from Labour was pathetically muted. The Lords made predictably Establishment noises fortified by last-ditch pleas from arch-Europhile, and erstwhile darling of the Tory faithful, Michael Heseltine:  but they realised their very existence would be jeopardised if they defied the Commons on this crucial issue and they finally concurred. No doubt there will be dozens of ministerial statements, parliamentary questions and second-line debates but there will only be one make-or-break vote on the final terms sometime in 2018-19. One hopes that by that time some kind of national consensus will have emerged.

The UK’s financial performance has much exceeded the deep gloom forecast by the Remainers in their Project Fear campaign, growing second only to Germany in Europe. The weakness of sterling helps exports and attracts inward investment but will also boost inflation. But so far, so good. Philip Hammond’s Spring Budget however proved to be a shambles. A central measure was a modest increase in NIC of 2% for the self-employed. This broke a 2015 manifesto pledge not to increase NIC costs and the self-employed are dearly cherished by the Tories. Backbenchers protested vociferously and May forced Hammond to withdraw this measure, demonstrating weak pre-budget liaison between No10 and the Treasury and maybe wobbly political will from Theresa herself. This does not augur well for the looming abrasive negotiations with the EU – we need nerveless and committed representatives at that little party which has every chance of turning particularly nasty.

Talking of the particularly nasty, Nicola Sturgeon, leader of the SNP and First Minister of Scotland announced that she would ask the UK government to approve the holding of a second Independence referendum. She lost the first 55-45% in 2014, but the Brexit vote is judged, fairly enough, “a material change of circumstances” and 62% of Scots voted to remain in the EU in the Leave/Remain vote of 2016. Theresa May has not refused an eventual referendum but states it cannot take place until after Brexit. This position was applauded by veteran SNP/Labour man Jim Sillars as “sensible”.  Predictably the SNP is theatrically outraged, but remember the SNP is “a grievance machine” unwilling to agree anything that does not suit its fanatical independence cravings.

Scotland's least enjoyed export, Nicola Sturgeon

Sadly, as a Scots Unionist, at present the SNP is politically dominant in my native country. The polls say that support for independence is waning – we will see to what extent in the May 4 local elections – but Labour seems ineffective and the Tories, doughtily led by Ruth Davidson, enjoys minority (if well-informed) support. The intellectual case for independence has never looked weaker: the SNP presides over a country with a much worse growth rate than the UK, North Sea oil revenues have nose-dived from £1.8bn in 2015 to just £60m in 2016 and an independent Scotland would have at 9.7% the 2^nd highest Debt/GDP ratio in the developed world. Her admission to the EU would be long delayed, the necessary “hard border” between Scotland and England would undermine Scots business, a new Scots currency would be required and so on ad infinitum. Sensible Scots see that remaining within the Union, subsidised by the UK, is crucial.

The SNP could not care less about these facts. La Sturgeon struts about as if she were already the President of the Scots Republic and any price, even bankruptcy, is worth paying for achieving her Holy Grail of Independence. Her bubble deserves to be pricked but Theresa avoids direct confrontation, at least for now. The Scots Parliament will pass a motion asking for a 2^nd independence referendum, but Theresa should resist these unwelcome pressures, as legally she has every right to do. Only she can fix a date for a referendum.

Theresa May’s position is not ideal. She lacks the authority of an election winner, as her eminence is the result of an inter-party Tory cabal. Her parliamentary majority of about 12 is much too thin for comfort and all the signs are it would be materially increased were there to be an early election. But Brexit business must take priority and calling an election requires far more guile than previously, under the 2011 Fixed Parliament Act. Opposition led by ineffable Jeremy Corbyn, pipsqueak Tim Farron and unlovable Nicola Sturgeon should easily enough be overcome, yet Theresa declines to call a poll. She probably wants to have more to boast about in terms of Brexit and economic progress. Meanwhile she has to grin and bear the poison arrows from hostile opponents and media.

2017 is certain to be a sticky year. Trump appears to be totally lacking in presidential qualities and his erratic domestic and foreign policies can cause mayhem. Germany and France will be distracted by national elections, but we should not be too much swayed by talk of radical political change. Marine Le Pen will not become French President nor will Merkel’s Christian Democrats lose their grip on power in Germany. The muted showing by Geert Wilders in the Netherlands shows that stodgy Europeans are not much attracted to revolutions these days. The EU as an institution will have to curb its ambitions and a two-speed Europe may well emerge. A predatory Russia will sniff for territorial prey on her borders, in say Latvia and Ukraine, putting NATO’s resolve and solidarity to the test.

Theresa May is not a flamboyant type but she has the experience and single-mindedness to lead the UK to what it wants to be – a prosperous cosmopolitan nation in a new arrangement outside the restrictions of the EU but cooperating closely with Europe in many vital fields. I hope most of the nation can in time unify around such a programme.

SMD

21.03.17

Text Copyright ©Sidney Donald 2017