Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Education reform that actually works is one of the noblest, but most thankless, tasks in politics. Noble because it’s necessary, thankless because it doesn’t earn much in the way of an electoral dividend. Polling consistently suggests fewer than 15% of people consider education a top priority. This is understandable. If you do not have children you
A mischievous question, I know, but one prompted by Janan Ganesh’s latest Financial Times column. It is eight years since David Cameron became leader of the Conservative party and three and a half since he became Prime Minister. He may only have 18 months left in either post. We know – or think we know – a
All winning cricket teams are alike; each losing cricket team loses in its own way. It doesn’t matter, right now, that Shane Watson and Michael Clarke will never be chums just as it did not matter very much, back in the day, that Shane Warne and Adam Gilchrist couldn’t stand one another. Victory spawns solidarity.
If I were to say that I admire Charles Moore tremendously you would know there must be a ‘but’ looming towards the end of the paragraph. Nevertheless I do admire Charles Moore an awful lot. His column is a weekly treat much enjoyed by all sensible folk. If you don’t do so already you should
That’s Duggy Dug, the latest champion of the campaign for Scottish independence. For some reason Brian Cox – the actor, not the physics professor – has decided to put his voice to this cringetastic calamity. Duggy Dug (even the name is grim) is not, mercifully, part of the official Yes campaign which, given his plainly
Danny Finkelstein’s column in the Times today is characteristically elegant and incisive. In politics as in life he writes, “whatever apparent power and temptation lies with the adoption of the identity of victimhood it is ultimately destructive”. Since Finkelstein is pondering lessons that may be drawn from the life of Nelson Mandela it may not be
Here we go again. Time for another round of that perennial game so wearily familiar to England cricket supporters: Hunt the Positives. It is a mean game because, most of the time, there aren’t any. Certainly not today. England were abject in Adelaide. Scarcely any better than they had been in Brisbane. If, borrowing from Evelyn
Sometimes when a significant public figure dies, even, perhaps especially, when that death comes as no surprise and may, indeed, be considered some form of release there is a natural tendency to wonder if the blanket media coverage that invariably follows is altogether appropriate or even seemly. Is it not all too much? A man
I know this is not exactly breaking news but Gerry Adams is a vile man. Since no-one devotes much attention to Northern Ireland these days it is easy to forget this. Easy to file Adams and his Sinn Fein comrades into a musty drawer marked Ancient History. But the past is not another country. In Dublin
Hats-off to James Kirkup for noticing that Goldman Sachs have suggested they would “drastically” cut their UK workforce (and operations) should Britain decide to leave the European Union. That is the view of Michael Sherwood, the fellow responsible for running Goldman’s european operations. I am sure eurosceptics will dismiss this as the usual scaremongering just as Scottish nationalists dismiss
The chart at the top of this post comes from the government’s National (sic) Infrastructure Plan 2013. (Sic because it is largely a plan for England.) You can find it on page 30. You may notice that one rather large part of England is not listed on this chart: London. Perhaps that is because the
I don’t really understand why politicians spend so much time talking to journalists. Most of the time little good can come from doing so. Of course, from a personal or professional perspective, this is fine and adds greatly to the gaiety of trade and nation. Nevertheless… Take, for instance, the reports in today’s Financial Times
I do wish we were never allowed to speak about immigration. That seems the only way to prevent folk from spouting – and writing – rubbish on the subject. But of course there is no conspiracy intent on stifling discussion on immigration. Not even a liberal, metropolitan or elitist conspiracy. Sorry. You can say all
It’s bad enough being lectured by politicians from Edinburgh or even London. That, I suppose, is to be expected however. Irritating but normal. It’s rather different when foreigners – real foreigners – decide to interfere in our own constitutional rammy. It smacks of impertinence. When that intervention comes from the leader – to put it
The argument about Scottish independence which, it should be said, is not a new one is best understood in terms of the Overton Window. James Overton, an American political scientist, suggested that the general public is only prepared to contemplate a relatively narrow range of political opinions and policies. Those that fall outwith this window
This is not as obviously a Question to Which the Answer is No as it may initially seem. The Mayor of London is, in fact, well-placed to play a significant part in the campaign to persuade Scots their interests still lie within the United Kingdom. In the first place, as the titular leader of europe’s greatest
Don’t say you weren’t warned. You were. “Australia will win at least one test this winter…England will have a bad test or Australia an extremely good one…This is an Australian side learning who it is. There are signs of improvement, signs that on their day they could be formidable. (The question being, as before, how
Perhaps there is something mildly tawdry about discussing an issue such as gay marriage in terms of its impact on perceptions of the Tory party or the extent to which it helps the Tory evolutionary project. It is, after all, a rather larger, better issue than that. A Conservative who only supported equal marriage for
Another outbreak of the Tory Modernising Wars! What larks! Nick Boles’s speech to Bright Blue, a newish think tank for metropolitan swells folk who think the Tory message needs rethinking, has, as it was designed to, caused a minor rumpus. Rod Liddle thinks Boles is off his head. Iain Martin is kinder but concludes the
The fiftieth anniversary of John F Kennedy’s assassination is, of course, an occasion for a fresh outbreak of the virulent hagiography that has corrupted the memory of his actual record. The New York Times, a paper that should know better by now, published an article this week that repeated the old lie that somehow right-wing
