Tag: Russia

2014 DIDN’T ANSWER THE UK QUESTION.

 

 

The Scottish independence vote and immigration into the UK were dominant themes in 2014, but for all the talk little has been resolved. The Scots voted no but the Scottish National Party could soon be holding the whip hand over a weak minority government at Westminster.

 

Then there’s the issue of our national identity. It is becoming clear that we are not going to be able to stop free movement of labour within the EU. So do we feel so passionately about immigration that we want to risk our economic future outside the EU?

 

Both these questions remain unresolved at the end of a year which has seen much debate on how we should be governed both nationally and in the North. Even before the Scottish vote Chancellor George Osborne had launched his northern powerhouse concept. It was the beginning of a period of extraordinary activity by Osborne on this subject. There can be few hi tech or manufacturing plants in the north of England that has not had a visit from George. It culminated in the devolution deal done with Greater Manchester and his insistence on imposing a mayor for the conurbation to be elected in 2017. Similar deals for Leeds, Sheffield and Liverpool have not been concluded as wrangling continues about elected mayors and leadership.

 

The prospect of a powerful Scotland to our north has stimulated debate on what happens outside the city regions. There are signs that Lancashire’s fourteen councils may be getting their act together to bid for a county region and a Yorkshire Party has been formed. I remain of the view that a council of the whole north is the answer. It is already in embryonic form in organisations like Rail North and One North but it should have powers beyond transport.

 

The economy has continued to recover with unemployment falling along with inflation to the point where people are asking if a 1% inflation rate is a bad thing. Strange days indeed for those of us who lived through the roaring inflation of the 1970’s. But issues like low wages, the budget deficit, low growth in Europe, China and Russia remain dark clouds on the horizon.

 

Politically the year has been dominated by the rise of UKIP. In the North West and Yorkshire they secured six MEPs in the European elections, ending the long European career of Lib Dem Chris Davies in the North West. Tory Sir Robert Atkins also left the stage whilst Labour have a completely new team in the region, although little has been heard from them so far. In Yorkshire two stalwarts Richard Corbett (Labour) and Tim Kirkhope (Conservative) survived the UKIP surge.

 

Labour held its two by elections in the North West (Wythenshawe and Heywood) but UKIP’s John Bickley stood in both and came second, indeed he nearly won in Heywood and Middleton. UKIP also got councillors elected, spectacularly so in Rotherham. People keep asking if they have peaked. Not yet it seems.

 

So where do the parties stand at year end. The Conservatives have had a better year because of the economic recovery but still show no sign of getting enough support to win outright in 2015. David Cameron remains unloved by many of his backbenchers.

 

Ed Miliband has had a poor year as Labour leader, but may have picked on a gem of an idea in suggesting the Tories want to make deep cuts for ideological reasons to create a smaller state. However the people’s minds are largely made up against him and the party will have to try and win despite him.

 

There has been little comfort for the Lib Dems in the north. They did hold on to their councillors in places like South Lakes, Southport and Stockport but look set for the day of reckoning nationally in May. The Greens have begun to benefit by attracting disillusioned Labour and Lib Dem supporters particularly on the issue of fracking.

We marked the 100th anniversary of the outbreak of the First World War this year. Our horrors are on a smaller scale than theirs but ISIS and the Taliban remind us that we live in a world where we can land a probe on a distant comet but still resolve our differences in ways little changed from the Dark Ages.

 

Have a peaceful Christmas.

 

 

 

 

TO FRACK OR NOT TO FRACK?

THE ENERGY GAP

 

Is the extraction of shale gas part of the answer to our looming energy gap, or a potential environmental disaster in our crowded island?

 

Opposition to fracking is rising as demonstrations from Blackpool in Lancashire to Balcombe in Sussex have shown. The government meanwhile seems determined to press ahead with exploratory licensing despite the fact that we are in the run up to a General Election.

 

The fracking controversy is coming to a head because Britain is facing an energy gap. Coal is a declining source of energy. Old nuclear power stations are being decommissioned and negotiations with energy companies about the strike price for new plants are lengthy. Fears about nuclear power after the Three Mile Island and Chernobyl incidents left politicians reluctant to invest in new plants around the turn of the century. UK natural gas production has been declining at 8% a year since 2000. Despite government support for renewables, the fact remains that water, wind and bio-energy account for a small percentage of our energy supply.

 

Then there is Russia. Recent events have increased a desire for the EU and the UK to be less dependent on Vladimir Putin’s gas and coal.

 

FRACKING

 

The process of fracking extracts gas from shale rock by pumping a mixture of water, sand and chemicals into fissures one or two miles down. The gas and waste water then flow up to the surface.

The chemicals used are commercially confidential and that has proved controversial with environmentalists.

 

Estimates vary as to how much shale gas there is under the UK. A recent report commissioned by the Department for Energy and Climate Change suggested that fracking could deliver 25% of the UK’s gas needs by the middle of the next decade. Other experts feel it will take much longer for shale gas to be produced in volume and that cheaper Russian gas will continue to be attractive. Indeed a key question will be the impact of shale gas on household bills.

 

The American experience looms large. There has been a 75% increase in United States natural gas reserves due to fracking. Gas prices have reduced from $12 to $3 per million British thermal units By 2020 the US will be exporting gas. However whilst states like Pennsylvania have embraced fracking, New York maintains a moratorium. Also when comparing the US with the UK, the major issue of population density must be taken into consideration. Another important difference is that American landowners own the mineral rights beneath their land whereas here they are the property of the Crown.

 

Currently there is a promise that £100,000 plus 1% of total revenues will be paid to local communities where fracking takes place. The question is will this be enough to buy off residents who fear groundwater contamination, methane leakage and incessant tanker movements on country lanes? The government insists that a tough regulatory regime will be in place and cite the cautious approach Ministers have taken so far. That includes a moratorium on test drilling when it was suggested that natural seismic movements under Blackpool might have been caused by exploratory work.

 

The conference will be held eight months before the General Election. Some of the most promising shale gas fields are under marginal constituencies in the North and the fracking debate could well become an election issue. Claims for the level of public support for fracking vary widely. An industry commissioned opinion poll claimed recently that opposition was down to 24%. A poll for the Guardian and Nottingham University suggested the nation is split fifty fifty.

 

However enthusiastic national government is to press on with fracking, it is local councillors who have to give planning permission. Some are questioning their expertise to make such crucial decisions.

 

On this crowded island fracking pitches local communities and environmentalists against those with responsibility for keeping the lights on.

THE LONG LEGACY OF WORLD WAR ONE

100 years ago the first shots were being fired in the First World War. At the end of it the Ottoman Empire was split up into the states that are involved in the awful carnage that we are seeing every night on our TV screens.

 

The situation is serious and is already affecting us here. My colleague Michael Taylor has addressed the street tension in Manchester over the Gaza issue in his Downtown blog. 500 people from Britain have gone to the Syrian civil war. Some may return to try and practise jihad on our streets. On the business front the fragile recovery could be reversed by more general war in the Middle East and interruption of fuel supplies.

 

There have been many Middle East crises before. This one has two new characteristics. Firstly social media is centre stage in the propaganda and recruitment war. Everything is accelerated. Rumours and lies rub shoulders with the truth and people choose what to believe and what determines their action. Secondly the United States is largely absent. After the unwise involvement of George Bush we now have the isolationism of President Obama. The decision to pivot American foreign policy towards the Pacific might have had a certain logic to it when Obama took office. However as the only world super power you take your eyes off the Middle East and Russia at your peril.

 

There is undoubtedly a paradox in United States involvement in the Middle East. On the one hand it is the hated symbol of Western imperialism and ultimate defender of Israel. On the other hand it retains massive military power and the potential to bring people together (The Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978).

 

The situation is so bloody and complex that the likelihood is that the Middle East will remain a running sore for decades to come. There may be ceasefires and short term agreements but the heady mix of vast economic disparity among the people, religious fanaticism and unresolved issues of national identity may be too difficult to resolve.

 

In 1919 the world was a different place. One set of Empires: Austria-Hungary, Germany, Russia and Ottoman Turkey were replaced by another set: Britain and France with the United States beginning to play a role.

 

Lloyd George, Clemenceau and President Wilson met in Paris without the chatter of social media and 24 hour news channels and carved up the Middle East and Africa. Although the superiority of the white man was beginning to be challenged, the western powers still called the shots and huge mistakes were made.

 

It was perhaps regrettable that T.E Lawrence’s idea for a Greater Arabia was not adopted. The secret of the Ottoman Empire was to govern lightly by collecting the taxes but letting local Sunni and Shia leaders run their areas.

 

The Kurds should have been given their own state and it goes without saying more thought should have been given to the implications for the Palestinians of the Balfour Declaration that set in train the creation of Israel.

 

The Palestinian issue is almost intractable but ultimately could a bargain be struck whereby Israel and its settlers withdraw to the pre-1967 borders in return for a demilitarised Palestinian state being set up in the West Bank and Gaza? Jerusalem should become an international city under the control of the United Nations with freedom of worship for all faiths.

 

It is easy to write such a proposal and it will offend many but the alternative seems to be continuing misery for the Palestinians and insecurity for the Israelis.

NUCLEAR WEAPON STATES HORRIFIED BY SARIN GAS

SYRIA

I share everyone’s disgust at the sight of children dying on our TV screens from the effects of chemical weapons. They were made illegal in 1925. But napalm isn’t illegal. Agent Orange ( used by America in Vietnam) isn’t illegal and nor is the most poisonous and indiscriminate weapon of all, nuclear bombs. The latter is possessed in large number by the United States and France who look most likely to “fire a shot across the bows” of President Assad of Syria sometime soon.

 

I have always had a problem with rules of war. It makes the whole ghastly business seem like a game. I suppose we need rules on the treatment of captured servicemen but we had better realise that war is bloody where awful things can and will happen. Trying to regulate it is going to be increasingly difficult now that people in the West are heartily sick of kicking over hornets nests in the Middle East.

 

Britain and France share historic blame for carving up the Middle East in the way we did in 1919. We hadn’t a clue about Sunni and Shia. T.E. Lawrence had a better plan for Greater Arabia. But we are where we are. On the one side Assad who’s very ordinariness personifies the blandness of evil. On the other a mixture of liberals, religious fanatics and terrorists. Removing dictators is problematic. For instance Israel is not seriously threatened by Assad but if Syria is taken over by an Iranian friendly regime a general war could break out from the flashpoint of the Golan Heights.

 

Russia rather than America offers the slimmest possibility of sorting this out. Will Putin rise to his responsibilities or stick with being a well buffed semi dictator?

 

MEAN BROTHERS

We probably have Ed Miliband to thank for stopping David Cameron and President Obama firing “shots across the bow” of President Assad last weekend. But no sooner had Ed got the credit for reflecting public unease on action against Syria than he was facing a big problem back home. The GMB union has cut its affiliation fees to Labour by a million pounds. This follows Miliband’s decision to try and make membership of the Labour Party honest. At the moment it is padded out by trade unionists who are deemed members unless they opt out of the political levy part of their membership fee.

 

The leader’s move will cause Labour huge financial problems and he is likely to get a cool reception at the Trades Union Congress in Bournemouth next week. But ultimately there is a lot in the idea of getting people either to engage with the party properly or walk away and take the consequences of continued Tory governments.

If Labour is impoverished and the election battle becomes unfair as it tries to fight a well funded Tory Party perhaps pressure will build to limit donations to them too. That would be a good thing for politics, after all much of the money raised is wasted in a poster arms race at election time.

 

THE NEXT STRAW

They don’t do dynastic succession in Blackburn. There was a possibility that Jack Straw would retire and hand the seat to his son Will in 2015.Instead Will is taking on neighbouring Rossendale currently marginally held by the Tories. Let’s hope we have the benefit of both generations of Straw speaking up for the North after 2015.

 

THE LAST FROST

When I interviewed the late Sir David Frost about his book on the Nixon interviews, I asked him if he had reflected on the fact that in the autumn of 1962 while Frost was launching That Was The Week That Was Nixon lost the governorship of California following his Presidential defeat two years earlier. He bitterly remarked to the press “You won’t have Dick Nixon to kick around any more”.

 

However he did come back and they did kick him around over Watergate which provided Frost with his greatest interview. David smiled at me and said no he hadn’t “That is a special Jim thought”. Nice man. We will miss him.