Elections, Elections, Elections

Apart from my family and friends, the two most important interests that occupy me are sport and politics. Both provide the stuff of life, the OMG moments that help make time on the planet worthwhile. For example, as most of you know, I have been a fanatical supporter of Tottenham Hotspurs, virtually from birth. This season, they had a remote opportunity of winning "The Double", namely both the Premier League and the FA Cup. It can't happen now but there’s always next season? And if it did, OMG? I’ll be in Holy Moly country.

As for politics, I am waiting to read a tweet from President Frump along the lines of: "That effing May has called a British General Election. FAKE POLITICS. She wants to lose so she doesn't have to entertain me on my state visit to England. Never mind, Queen Betty will be fine with me. I'll be back on the Brit newspapers front pages before you can say nuke."

For the third time in as many years, we Brits are going to the polls. In the good old days, it was once or twice in five years. It’s so wearying. In case my American readers are confused about what has happened in the little old kingdom of Westminster, here's the explanation. Back in 2010, the Conservative Party, led by David Cameron, won the General Election but did not have enough seats for an overall parliamentary majority. So, Cameron and Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, did a deal, forming a coalition government, something which does not and, indeed, cannot occur under the American governmental system.

It was a term of the deal that the 2010 Coalition government would run its full five year term. Hitherto, the British Prime Minister had the sole right to call a General Election at any time during parliament’s five year term, so long as six weeks’ prior notice is given. Mr Clegg wanted to avoid a situation where a popular Cameron government could call for an early election and kick the Liberal Democrats out of power and back into the long grass. So the Coalition passed The Fixed Term Parliaments Act, requiring our government to serve its full five year term unless either the government lost a vote of confidence in the House of Commons, or Parliament passed a motion to dissolve, which passed with a two thirds majority. And this is exactly what happened last week. Within 24 hours of announcing the new election, Mrs May had won her motion to avoid the Fixed Term Act.

Could this happen in America? No. Imagine The Frump being rebuffed by the Republican majority in Congress and the Courts again and again over a period of months and years. He does not have the power to go to the American people before 2020 to ask whether they want to see his administration repeatedly being denied. His choices are limited: he can hope for better things after a mid-term election in 2018, run again in 2020 in the hope that he will get a very clear mandate for his policies, or he can resign the office. It follows that in certain respects, the so-called ‘most powerful man in the world’ has less power than our Prime Minister. Indeed, if Mrs May wins the June election, I expect the new Conservative government will repeal The Fixed Parliament Act and go back to the old system where a Prime Minister has the prerogative to call a general election whenever he or she chooses. I can see the President going both green and crimson, which would make an unfortunate clash with his orange hair and gold curtains!

I suspect my American friends will look upon our process of an election campaign with envy. Not only are there statutory limits on election expenditures but the time between the declaration of the election and voting day is often a mere 42 days. Compare this with American election expenditures which runs in the billions, while the campaign lasts for two years or more.

Don't be too envious. I'm anticipating the foulest, dirtiest UK election ever where prejudice will trump policy, forgive the “t” word. I wonder when our political leaders will adopt the Trump campaigning methods of talking over an opponent, vilifying and lying about his or her record and bringing out the worst in people. Already, Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour leader, has talked about “a rigged system.” Even worse, the debate is “hard Brexit and soft Brexit.” Why can’t our leaders understand that what is needed is smart Brexit.

Politics is a serious business, fortunately often tinged with humor, but it is not a relentless war where victory at any cost is worthwhile. Policy, not personality, should be supreme. Sadly, this is no longer the case. Perception is far more important than reality these days when it comes to politics.

 

As I am confident that El Trumpo will not blow up the Korean peninsula during the next week or so, I am taking a break. I'll be back in mid-May.

 

Nukes and Boasts

If you accept the thrust of last Sunday’s newspapers, we should all be dead or dying from nuclear radiation. Trump’s threat to “go it alone” against North Korea was, evidently, leading to imminent nuclear war. A few journalists tried to provide a balance, noting that the North Korean nuclear threat was mostly empty and estimated that the chances of their dropping a Hiroshima level bomb on Seoul were lower than Watford playing in the Champion’s League next season.  (For my American readers, the Champion’s League is the highest level club soccer competition in Europe and Watford are a middle of the road Premier League side.)

However, the nuclear sabre-rattling by both America and North Korea was taken seriously by much of the media and politicians alike. Some compared the situation to the Cuban Missile Crisis of October, 1962. When I read this over breakfast, I almost choked on my corn flakes. Cuba is 90 miles from Key West. Pyongyang is thousands of miles from America’s shores. Yes, I know if South Korea is attacked by the North, America is likely to respond quickly but the South Koreans have an admirable armoury of anti-missile missiles. And, more important, they refused to ratchet down their deployment, notwithstanding pleas from their allies.

What is Trump’s foreign policy? Once the USA became the world’s policeman, the Truman Doctrine of the 1940s was put in place. It was followed first by Eisenhower’s “brinkmanship and asymmetrical response,” then JFK’s and LBJ’s “flexible and calibrated response” until set aside by Nixon and Kissinger with realpolitik, as they played Russia and China off against each other. And now we have foreign policy a la Trump which seems to be limited to “the new sheriff in town.” Trump has let the Joint Chiefs have their head and last week, they showed off the Mother of All Bombs, to the western media’s delight. MOAB is an eleven ton earthquake bomb. It was dropped in remote Afghanistan. What a really scary move and demonstration of American power! No doubt that will bring the Syrians and North Koreans to the negotiating table! But we should not be dazzled by the technology. In 1944, the RAF dropped ten ton earthquake bombs on the German submarine pens in Peenemunde.

What none of the learned writers mentioned in their stories and blogs was that use by America of a nuclear weapon was an act of war, requiring Congressional approval under the 1973 War Powers Act. Failure to get approval before use of a nuclear bomb would lead not only to impeachment of the President but also criminal prosecution of the Joint Chiefs.  Mr Trump may have many “toys” at his disposal but he should heed the words of LBJ who once famously exclaimed to his Secretary of State for Defense about the North Vietnamese, “the only fucking power I’ve got is nuclear power and I can’t use it.” Not only did he know Congress would not approve, notwithstanding the Gulf of Tonkin blank check, but also it would be an act of inhumanity.

I have another serious concern. Last week, Mr Trump announced: “We are sending an armada, very powerful. We have submarines, very powerful, far more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that I can tell you… And I will say this. He [Kim Jong-Un] is doing the wrong thing. He is doing the wrong thing.” Putting on one side the President’s inarticulate and repetitive phrasing, The Guardian observed: “As an explanation of a nuclear crisis, this is right up there with his [Trump’s] February press conference, when he spilled the secrets about his classified briefings on nuclear war with Russia: “Nuclear holocaust would be like no other.” The crucial point is that the vaunted American armada was not sailing towards North Korea. In fact, it was sailing away from Pyongyang, more than 3,500 miles into the Indian Ocean for a joint exercise with the Australian navy.

So, what next for the Trump administration foreign policy? The appointment of Dr Strangelove? These days there are many available car parking spaces at Foggy Bottom, home of the State Department. Important positions have not been filled as part of the effort to neuter and shrink the federal government. As a result, the lack of expertise in American foreign affairs is showing and making America look like an incompetent fool.

However, on a different tack, Mr Trump has not disappointed. I have been awaiting this particular Trump announcement for quite a few days and this week, the boast came: “I have accomplished more in my first 90 days than any previous President.” This statement by any president post 1933 suggesting that his first 100 days somehow topped Roosevelt’s achievement is rank stupidity. LBJ, Reagan and Obama are credited with significant legislative achievements early in their first terms, but much of their success generally came after the first 100 days. And none of these three Presidents claimed to be more successful than FDR.

In FDR’s first 100 days, he addressed enormous problems including a third of America’s workforce being out of work and the wholesale failure of the banking system, as well as the vast numbers of people rendered homeless, as the Great Depression reached its nadir. In his first 100 days, FDR persuaded Congress to pass 15 major bills and over 70 Acts. The legislation reshaped every aspect of the American economy and life: banking, industry, agriculture and social welfare. The administration’s policy was clear: Relief, Recovery and Reform. This is not the place to explore the detail of FDR’s achievements. Suffice it to say he is one of the most revered and respected men ever to have occupied the White House.

In contrast, what has Trump actually achieved? He and his group of businessmen friends, the men from Exxon and Goldman Sachs, have attacked America’s status quo to give nightmares to millions of people whose health is insured under Obamacare. Visiting Muslims are no longer welcome stateside. Regulations protecting the health and welfare of citizens are being rolled back in the name of big business. And by changing its rules, the Senate has approved the appointment of a right-wing Trump nominee to the Supreme Court. 

President Trump, you would be well advised not to make a big deal of your record to date. The evidence not only shows you not coming close to matching FDR. It also demonstrates you have little grasp of governing and rely far too much on bullying, sound bites and self-aggrandisement to try to get the job done, as you define it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Healthcare of the Nation

Over the past months, two people close to me have been admitted into hospital as emergency cases. One was in England, the other in America. I, too have known the emergency hospital experience in both England and America. I readily admit that these cases comprise a miniscule sample, not a useful guide to the state of healthcare in both countries.

However, let me say that I and those close to me have never experienced unkindness or anything unprofessional from the medics. Mind you, the healthcare experience as an emergency patient is not pleasant. It is scary to find so many professionals gathered around a bed and speaking English in a way that is not penetrable. What the hell is “stat”? There is little dignity either. But what the professionals on both sides of the Atlantic are doing is in the patient’s best interests. They are confirming a diagnosis and applying professional expertise to make an awful situation less bad. Then, over days, weeks and sometimes months, more expertise is applied to provide a cure or a modus vivandi. After all, doctors and nurses are not miracle workers.

The recent past has confirmed my opinion of healthcare workers, both in UK and America. Doctors are well trained, most will listen but they are given so many patients which often prevents the bedside manner emerging. Nurses are habitually kind, caring and professional and will take time to talk to the patients, if time allows. And the porters are usually cheerful and chatty, although they are the forgotten men and women of the hospital. We should remember that without them, things would come to a grinding halt.  

So why does healthcare come in for so much criticism, both here and in USA. Reasons include media, money and politics. First the media. You never see a headline: “Hospital has 98.5% Patient Satisfaction.” Good news doesn’t sell. But a story about the removal of the wrong kidney will run for days. Of course, it should never have happened but it’s a ten million to one chance. An inexperienced clerk, an overworked and tired surgeon, and hey presto. I do not dismiss that a life will probably be lost as a result but where is the media balance? Little or no good news is published.

One story that has not yet been publicised in UK is that NHS nurses are considering industrial action. The nurses have never gone on strike since the NHS was created in 1948 but a miserly 1% pay rise this year, when inflation stands at 2% plus, is effectively a pay cut. This is an example of the UK government’s intransigence on funding when nurses are the lifeblood of the NHS. The media won’t report the story unless the nurses strike.

Where the countries divide most is on healthcare funding. In UK, we have a mutual insurance system. Most beneficiaries of the NHS contribute to its funding through taxation. (Children are excluded from responsibility as most do not pay taxes.) Treatment is free at the point of delivery. No one is asked for a credit card or insurance details when seeking medical help at a hospital or General Practitioner’s practice. However, the NHS has some big problems. First, it seems unable to manage on a £115 billion budget. The NHS has more than a million employees but there are often severe staff shortages, especially at night, which results in huge expenditure for locums. Second, there is a postcode (zip code) lottery where treatment is better in one place than another. These days, the NHS employs numerous managers, who seem to struggle year on year. Perhaps it is not surprising because there are hidden government cuts in funding, year on year. Yet it is the doctors who get criticised.

The USA operates mostly under a private healthcare system. There are federally funded hospitals for those without insurance but my experience is that these are under-funded, where pressurised doctors and nurses are desperate to help with limited resources. And the patients are left with debts they cannot repay. The private system is governed by Health Maintenance Organizations, whose reputation for trying to avoid claims is notorious. The HMO system with its deductibles and coverage differentials is so complex that it needs someone more expert than me to explain it. Insurance premiums escalate annually, often with the excuse that negligence action pay-outs have risen sharply.

Essentially, the “money” difference between the countries could be explained as the UK being service driven and the USA profit driven. But this is simplistic and naïve. The Thatcher government introduced market competition into the NHS but it has never worked well. And I am certain that HMOs don’t always seek to cheat their customers at the outset; it’s more likely that the latter haven’t read the small print carefully.

Where I have major issues is politics. In the UK, the NHS has been a political football. Successive governments since the 1970s have tried to introduce different management and costing systems to make the NHS efficient. The government does not want to accept the service is demand-based. You cannot budget successfully if you don’t accommodate for the vast numbers of people who seek to use the service, increasing every year. I do not have a perfect solution but other countries, like France, have managed well. Why do we not introduce new rules to require a contribution, in addition to that paid via taxation, for use of the health service, which in turn can be covered by insurance? Would most taxpayers really object to a £5 levy for seeing a GP or £25 per day for a hospital stay? However, the NHS is the “third rail” of British politics. It is an entitlement so if a politician touches it, his career will die.

There are other interesting suggestions to improve the NHS. For example, place a team of GPs at the front door of every A and E (ER) Department to help some 30% of patients who do not actually need emergency hospital care. And the government should be honest with the public about the real choices if, as a nation, we do not spend more on the NHS as a proportion of our gross domestic product. However, healthcare is the most complex and difficult of topics that government faces and I don’t pretend solutions are readily available and easy.

As for USA, I am no expert on Obamacare but a government policy that enabled 20 million more Americans to benefit from health insurance was significant. Republican political ideology to damage and defeat Obamacare is anathema, if those 20 million and probably many others will cease to have insurance and, more important, peace of mind. The Trump administration and Congressional Republicans are all over the place on how to replace the Affordable Healthcare Act. They said it was an easy fix. Really?

What I dread for Americans is an Unaffordable Healthcare Act, accompanied by a return to Republican political ideology of the 1920s: ‘wealth is a sign from God that he approves of you and poverty is a sin.’ Is such a return unthinkable? Well, so is a nuclear war with North Korea!

 

 

The Nuclear Option

Yesterday, Neil Gorsuch was confirmed as the new Supreme Court Justice by the US Senate. It is not for me to comment on the abilities of Judge Gorsuch. Suffice it to say he was nominated by President Trump for his reputation as a strict constructionist of the Constitution and his conservative judicial record.

The Supreme Court, often referred to as the least dangerous branch of the U. S. government, is supposedly politically impartial, often judging cases solely on the issue of constitutionality. But the Court has gone through phases of pro and anti-business, and individual versus corporate priorities. In the 1930s, the Court ran roughshod through Roosevelt’s first New Deal legislation. Twenty years later, the Warren Court ruled in favour of liberality, for example in Brown v Board of Education, when America’s public schools were desegregated.

Before Gorsuch’s confirmation, and with the death of Justice Scalia, the Court was equally divided between liberal and conservative Justices. Now, the right wing of the Court will enjoy majority, which might be helpful to a President whose programmes include a desire to rid the country of many environmental regulations and moves to restrict entry to the country on religious grounds. A right wing Court may well find that narrow corporate profit interests overrule the physical health and safety of the nation. 

What is of immediate concern to me is the legislative process that won Gorsuch his seat. Senate floor procedure is governed by a set of standing rules and a body of precedents created by presiding officers and votes of the Senate. In other words, the Senate has always made its own rules. Until yesterday individual Senators had the right to unlimited debate and Senators used this right to extend debate and delay action, a tactic known as a “filibuster.” Just the threat of a filibuster was often used to extract concessions from the Senate leadership.

At this week’s confirmation hearing, the Democrats started a filibuster to frustrate and hopefully defeat Gorsuch’s appointment. Senate rules provide that a filibuster can be ended by a cloture motion, where a three fifths majority, in this case 60 votes, are needed. The Republicans did not have the sixty votes, so with a light-footed piece of theatre, Mitch McConnell, the majority leader, called for a rule change, the so-called “nuclear option.” It worked. The Senate voted on party lines, 52-48, to make the change.

The filibuster no longer applies to any judicial appointments. Indeed, Gorsuch was swiftly in an “up and down vote,” i.e. a simple majority. What if the Democrats seek to filibuster approval of a treaty which they regard as adverse to American interests or new healthcare legislation even more restrictive to the middle class than the previous effort? Will the Senate Republicans change the rules to get these issues done?

In the process of ramming through Gorsuch’s appointment, the Republicans have probably ensured that the Court will be seen less as the interpreter of the Constitution and more as just another partisan political, unelected legislative body. I fear the Supreme Court is collateral damage in the fierce, political fight to the death between America’s political parties in Congress.

The framers of the Constitution feared government by mere majority vote. They worried that a demagogue might overwhelm minority rights and plain common sense, using bare majorities to force laws through. Under the Constitution as originally passed, the members of the House of Representatives were elected by the people but neither the President, nor members of the Senate, nor the Supreme Court Justices were. The Founders just did not trust the people.

Here in U.K., warring political parties in the House of Commons, whose behaviour is often beyond the pale, usually end their fights with the government prevailing. Watch Prime Minister’s question time. The politicians heckle and jeer across the divide like a badly behaved mob. The government’s parliamentary majority virtually guarantees total control of its agenda. The whipping system ensuring party loyalty works. The minority party might be loud but it is powerless.

The Founding Fathers considered the way European governments operated and decided they wanted no monarchy nor rule by simple majority. The Federalist Papers, a contemporary account of the discussions leading to the Constitution, bears this out. The Framers purposely made it impossible for ruling factions to ram laws through. Instead, there would have to be consensus.

After yesterday, the Republicans have changed the nature of America’s government and its special character. Congressional Republicans will rule by simple majority, without having to worry about a vociferous minority, and will claim that this is how democracy works. The Supreme Court will be diminished because its members will be appointed by a partisan political majority. And be in no doubt that if and when the Democrats gain control of Congress, they will not return to the old Senate rules. They will be just as partisan as their political foes. The losers are the Congressional moderates on both sides of the aisle whose voices will be muted and the American people, most of whom will be sacrificed in the name of ideology.

 

Bring Back Thomas Jefferson

This has been a big political week for us Brits. On 29^th March, Prime Minister Theresa May triggered Article 50 of the Treaty of Lisbon, which gives any EU member the right to quit the Union unilaterally. The leaving country has two years to negotiate an exit deal. Once set in motion, the process cannot be stopped, except by unanimous consent of all member states. Any deal must be approved by a “qualified majority” of EU member states and can be vetoed by the European Parliament.

I have read the wording of the UK government’s Article 50 notice. I was concerned that as it will have been drafted by parliamentary specialists and civil servants, the language would have been both dense and undecipherable, something which would make my retired senior civil servant friends very proud. Instead, the letter serving the Article 50 notice was a model of clarity. Whether the ideas expressed in the notice will remain clear over the next two years is doubtful.* The result of last year’s Referendum on the EU was described by Mrs. May as a vote for national determination, but she also expressed a desire to remain partners with our European friends, “engaging with one another constructively.” How will this desire be achieved? A “hard Brexit” which her right win colleagues seem to want would neither be sensible nor the answer.

The language of Mrs. May’s letter contains nothing heroic. I would have preferred our government to have harkened back to 1776 and emulate the wording chosen by Thomas Jefferson, ably assisted by Benjamin Franklin and John Adams, to sever legal ties between the newly formed United States of America and Great Britain. Jefferson chose sterling words, some of which were as follows:

            “When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bonds which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights and that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”

Jefferson then lists the numerous failings of King George III and his government, including refusal of assent to laws, dissolved representative houses as he invaded the rights of the people and obstructed justice. The indictment is lengthy and a strong argument for independence. The Declaration ends with these words:

            “We, therefore, the representatives of the United States of America, in General Congress, assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do…solemnly publish and declare, that these united colonies are, and of right ought to be free and independent states; that they are absolved from all allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the state of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as free and independent states, they have full power to…do all other acts and things which independent states may of right do.”

Whatever you may think of America’s actions all those years ago, you have to accept the formidable strength of the Declaration. The Notice under Article 50 was prosaic by comparison. Perhaps it is only in America that stirring rhetoric is still used. If you were to recall an Inaugural address by a new President, my guess is that you would opt for JFK’s who said, “Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” Yes, JFK may have spoiled it for all the Presidents who followed him.

For Americans who are politically aware, these are troubling times as their new President is hell-bent on changing much of American life, but I would understand it if they indulged in schaudenfreude at the sight of the British and their Parliament tearing themselves to pieces over hard and soft Brexit. For decades, the EU has been our strongest trading partner; our hospitals, schools and public services are staffed by many EU nationals whose futures here are now uncertain; the City of London has become of the strongest financial centres the world has seen but it now stands vulnerable; and our country has benefited enormously from the work of immigrants, the vast majority of whom are law-abiding, tax-paying citizens who contribute meaningfully to our diverse culture.

The Leavers won the Referendum. One of the promises by Leave leaders was a saving of £350 million a week which would be invested in our NHS. That promise was withdrawn within days of the vote. Leavers say they seek a return of our Parliamentary sovereignty, yet when our executive branch decided to trigger Article 50 without recourse to Parliament, litigation was needed to stop the Prime Minister using imaginary powers. If Leavers truly want a return of Parliamentary sovereignty, why did they object to Parliament having the final say?

There are so many contradictions in the arguments of Remainers and Leavers alike. If any Brit points a finger at the chaos that is the current state of the American government, my American readers have every right to retort, “pot, kettle, black.” Isn’t it troubling that two of the world’s leading nations should be in such political disarray? I’m not losing sleep just yet but if our government follows the usual EU negotiating stance and uses the two years after the Article 50 Notice to get nowhere, ending up with all night sessions to cobble together a sausage of a political deal, I might have to consider emigration. Where? Now, that’s a question.

 

*Britain’s hopes to run divorce and trade talks in tandem were dashed by the EU on Day 1 of the negotiations. Spain is already seeking sovereignty rights over Gibraltar. Well spotted our team!