Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Chuckle not, it exists. Wealthy Nation, a new grouplet formed by the eminent historian Michael Fry, is making the case that Scotland can be an admirably prosperous little country after independence provided, that is, she casts off the soft-left Caledonian consensus that remains wearily orthodox thinking north of the Tweed and Solway. Fry, whose new
As I type this, Alex Salmond and Mark Carney are chowing over porridge at Bute House, the First Minister’s official residence in Edinburgh. There is always the risk of exaggerating the importance of these things but this morning’s meeting with the Governor of the Bank of England may be the most important encounter Alex Salmond
These, ranked from first to tenth, are the urban areas in Britain with the highest average weekly earnings in 2012: London, Reading, Crawley, Aldershot, Edinburgh, Cambridge, Milton Keynes, Aberdeen, Southend, Brighton. That’s from the latest, fascinating, report (pdf here) published by the Centre for Cities. It can be summarised easily: if you want to make it,
Almost no idea is rotten enough that it can’t or won’t be defended by some scoundrel somewhere. Even so, the equanimity with which some folk have greeted the proposed ICC coup is startling. Sure, the likes of Andy Bull, Mike Selvey and Simon Wilde each note that the ECB-CA-BCCI takeover is seriously flawed but, gosh, something needs
Never interrupt your opponent when he is making a mistake. On the other hand, when your opponent has made a mistake try not to match him by making an equal blunder of your own. That’s not how Westminster politics works, of course. For reasons that presumably make sense to the respective parties, Labour and the
Europe, eh? Good for nothing, innit? That’s the prevailing narrative you hear these days. But, as so often, this is a matter of perspective. The chart above, plundered courtesy of Anne Applebaum’s twitter feed, shows the respective growths of GDP per capita in Poland and the Ukraine since the fall of the Iron Curtain and
Anyone who questions any aspect of the way the NHS performs – whether in Scotland or England and Wales – soon becomes accustomed to being accused of harbouring some kind of ideological resentment towards the dear old thing. Ideological, of course, is a Bad Thing. It is supposed to indicate a preference for an evidence-free approach that
By god, you know matters have come to a wretched pass when you feel inclined to defend and protect the International Cricket Council. And yet, remarkably, such a moment is upon us. Like the old Roman republic, the ICC is threatened by a triumvirate. In this instance, Crassus is represented three times as India, England
For a long time now, the case for the United Kingdom has been made in a tiresomely negative sense. That is, Unionists have spent more time pointing out the practical and procedural difficulties that are an unavoidable consequence of Scottish independence. This is fine as far as it goes. The problem is that, however justified
Last month’s terrorist attacks in Volgograd were doubtless an attempt to warn foreigners off the Winter Olympics in Sochi next month. An attempt, too, to remind Vladimir Putin that his problems in the Caucasus – many of them at least partially made in Moscow – haven’t gone away. For understandable reasons the bombs have caused
The whole point of the House of Lords is that it lacks democratic legitimacy. This, as they say, is a feature not a bug. A damn good feature too. It is – or can or should be – a valuable cooling saucer into which ploys devised by the lower, popular, house are poured until such
January 2014, two years before the Iowa caucuses and already Chris Christie, the pugnacious governor of New Jersey, has been handed the Black Spot. His chances of securing the Republican party’s presidential nomination are already ruined. Or so the likes of Jonathan Chait would have us believe. Why? Because, well because Chris Christie is a
Alex Salmond might not wish to be compared to Gordon Brown but there is one sense in which the two dominant Scottish political personalities of the age are more alike than either would care to acknowledge: they each love a good dividing line. In Edinburgh yesterday Salmond announced that all pupils in their first three
Digital Detox is grand even when, as this New Year, it’s partly unplanned. Back today from an extended break on the Isle of Jura which, like much of Britain, has been lashed by gales. Unlike most of Britain, however, this has meant a) no ferries running and b) not much in the way of internet
In the bar of the Hotel Suisse, perched above the lake in Kandy (pictured), high up in Sri Lanka’s Hill Country, a driver touting for business smiles to reassure me that the British ‘left us many good things’. Trains, roads, the English language. And cricket, I remind him, ‘Oh yes, sir, cricket.’ I wonder what
That time of year again, I guess. Here is this blog’s fifth annual Christmas Quiz. I hope it has not been compiled in quite as absent-minded a fashion as last year’s effort and thus contains fewer errors that might both make it harder and more nonsensical than needs be the case. Anyway, as always, it’s
Chris Grayling is a nasty piece of work, isn’t he? To wit: [N]ew rules, which forbid prisoners from receiving any items in the post unless there are exceptional circumstances, were introduced in November as part of the government’s changes to the Incentives and Earned Privileges (IEP) scheme. Under the rules, families are prevented from sending
Fair’s fair. Ed Miliband might be a fish-faced ninny but that doesn’t let David Cameron off the hook. And not just because he’s trailing a fish-faced ninny in the polls. No, the Prime Minister can be a terrible poltroon himself. Witness his witless suggestion today that the United Kingdom might veto future EU enlargement unless
The puritan, as devotees of Baltimore’s finest know, is greatly exercised by the fear that someone, somewhere, might be enjoying themselves. Ed Miliband is a puritan. And a hopeless, nagging, fish-faced puritan at that. A ninny, in other words. The Labour leader has a rare gift. He knows, you see, how you should spend your
Yes, Eric Joyce, the MP for Falkirk until the next election, has issues. Yes, his copy book is well blotted. He has a conviction for assault which scarcely reflects splendidly upon him (even if many members of the public themselves wouldn’t mind sticking-the-heid on any number of MPs) and in his dozen or so years in