You can’t have a country music series without acknowledging the contribution church music has made to the genre. The thing about the gospel music that sprang from the this topsoil of the Appalachian mountains is that, for, or rather because of, all its desperation, there remains an essential glimmer of hope that, in the next
Of all the blunders made by Gordon Brown and his henchmen, few were as easily avoidable as that which led to Caroline Flint’s resignation. Equally, few do more to illuminate a simple, but vital truth: Gordon Brown just isn’t very good at politics. Flint might have been a troublesome minister and far too close to
El Gordo addresses the nation: This government will never stop fighting for ordinary people in these extraordinary times. Today I have reshaped the government around three clear priorities. Cleaning up politics, getting through this downturn fairly and giving people greater control over their public services. We need a clean up of our politics in this
Could anything more confirm this government’s hapless, pointless, useless, desperate, incompetence than the appointment of Alan Sugar* as “Enterprise Czar” (whatever the hell that is)? Doubtless this is something to do with the idea of a “government of all the talents”. Sheesh. Still, why end here? Readers are invited to speculate which of these preposterous
Via Facebook, a friend makes a very good point: John Hutton’s successor as Secretary of State for Defence will be the fifth person to hold that job in the last five years. No wonder there’s a total lack of continuity at the MoD. This is, to put it mildly, no way to treat what should
I’d been thinking that I might as well vote today but Chris Dillow makes a pretty good case for not bothering to endorse any of the parties seeking one’s support. Also, the Scottish european election campaign has, if anything, been even more of a non-event than it seems to have been elsewhere. That is, the
I have no doubt that Barack Obama’s speech in Cairo today will not have gone down well amongst American conservatives. In fact many of them will be appalled by it. How long before someone in the right-wing blogosphere writes something about how terrible, if unsurprising, it was to see an American President protstrate himself in
More on the disappointing lack of emphasis Obama places on human rights and democratic reform. Mike Crowley reports from Cairo that Ayman Nour, the Egyptian dissident, has turned down an invitation to attend Obama’s speech tomorrow: The president’s reticence to push Mubarak about democracy, Nour says, has been “a huge disappointment, not only from Egypt’s
Melanie Phillips is, of course, correct to point out that Barack Obama’s statement that the US is one of the larger muslim countries in the world is an exaggeration – though also, I would say (though Melanie might not), an understandable one. However she then writes: Just what planet is this US President on? Or
Commenting on this post in which I suggested that the BNP’s electoral tactics are not dissimilar to those employed by Sinn Fein in the Republic of Ireland, NDM asked that I clarify what I meant when I wrote: “Research shows just 20 per cent of working-class Brits believe that being white is an ‘important factor’
Now that the Tories have reopened their candidate selection process, there are going to be plenty of candidates wondering how best to take advantage of their opponents’ extravagant expense claims. The intricacies of capital gains tax and “flipping” second homes are all very entertaining, but liable to become bogged down in legalese. Not so, by
Ricky Jay has an op-ed in today’s NYT on the Susan Boyle phenomenon. It’s interesting – there may not be many people alive who know more about the history of freak shows and public oddities than Jay – but it’s really just an excuse to point you towards Mark Singer’s terrific New Yorker profile of
Every so often someone at Lords remembers to trot out the line that Test Cricket is and must remain the pinnacle of the game; every time this happens something pops up that makes it harder than ever to take the ECB seriously when they say this. Not that the ECB are the only culprits; the
How committed is Obama to human rights? Not very, it seems. Perhaps his speech in Cairo on Thursday will change one’s view of this, but the new President must be judged by actions, not merely words and noble intentions. As my friend Mike Crowley points out: But when it comes to Egypt, he has already
Marty Peretz makes a sensible point: A story by Parisa Hafezi at Reuters knocks the wind out of the expectation that, if Dr. A’jad loses his re-election campaign, Iran’s nuclear policy will be changed. These matters rest in the head and hands of the Ayatollah Al Khamenei, the Supreme Leader, successor to the revolutionary founder
Michael Kinsley has a very entertaining take-down of the “new” Newsweek in this week’s edition of the New Republic*. However, I doubt the “old” Newsweek would have dared publish this very entertaining, even brutal, demolition of Oprah Winfrey. In fact, it’s the sort of piece one might imagine appearing in TNR. So, whatever the merits
As Yglesias notes, it’s uncanny how too many conservative pundits continue to believe that every problem is a nail and the only tool the United States possesses is a hammer. Now, like everyone else, I have no idea how we should deal with North Korea. And even that assumes that there is some kind of
When a politician tries to make a virtue out of the fact that he was brought up in a household in which lying was frowned upon then, verily, you know he’s on his uppers. Equally, though I daresay that much of the expenses scandal does offend the remnants of Gordon’s “presbyterian conscience” it’s not immediately
As a couple of commenters noted I was shamefully remiss in forgetting to post some quality country music last Saturday. My excuse? I was en route to the Heineken Cup final (Yay. Leinster!) but, frankly, that wasn’t good enough. Today? I’m off to Langholm, representing Selkirk Cricket Club in our, possibly futile or at best
This is one of the Big Questions. Nate Silver was one of the biggest winners in last year’s election and one is wary of suggesting that he’s got this question wrong. Nevertheless, I rather suspect that he may have. He suggests that, in 2012 at least, the GOP could, perhaps should, consider giving up on