Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
I have little to say on the subject of the, er, colourful scandal that has been entertaining Australians lately. The Speaker, one Peter Slipper, has been pushed to resignation following accusations of sexual harassment and, well, much else besides. However – and no matter what you think of her politics – there’s much to admire
Jeremy Hunt: what a card! A row about abortion is just what the Conservative and Unionist party needs to kick-off its conference week! The MP for South West Surrey is certainly entitled to say he favours outlawing abortion outwith the first trimester; the Secretary of State for Health would have been wiser to have kept
This post s out-sourced to the almost-always-brilliant Hopi Sen who, despite being an incorrigible Labourite, has written a speech for David Cameron to deliver at next week’s Tory conference that is almost certainly better than the speech the Prime Minister will actually give. Among the many choice cuts: Mr Miliband spoke of Disraeli’s speech in
Everyone says that the debates don’t change the dynamics of a presidential race very often. President Barack Obama better hope that remains the case this year. Last night’s debate wasn’t even close. Mitt Romney thumped Obama in Denver. It was, as they say, an old-fashioned ass-kicking. Any Democrat who pretends otherwise is either deluding themselves
From Peggy Noonan’s blog which, unusually for a political columnist, is almost always lovely and generous and warmly-acute: “Man needs less to be instructed than reminded,” Dr. Johnson said, but it wasn’t really a reminder I got yesterday, it was a sort of revivifier. I was at the big annual street fair in Bay Ridge,
The first thing to remember about Ed Miliband’s speech to the Labour conference today is that it’s not about you, it’s about us. That is, it was designed to persuade the media to give Miliband a fresh look more than it was an attempt to impress the general public, far less the Labour members gathered
Tony Judt’s verdict on Eric Hobsbawm seems fair: “If he had not been a lifelong Communist he would be remembered simply as one of the great historians of the 20th century.” That if is a hefty qualification, of course, for some of the reasons Nick Cohen makes admirably clear. Any appraisal of Hobsbawm’s life and
Jon Cruddas reviews Britannia Unchained in the Guardian today. As you might expect he is not overly impressed by the manifesto penned by a fistful of the Tory party’s “rising stars”. But Cruddas is always worth paying attention to. Anyway, his article reminded me that I’d been meaning to write something about Isabel Hardman’s revealing
A typical tale of nitwittery from modern Britain. And this, of course, is one of the problems with localism: it means giving more power to local councillors. That’s still, on balance, a risk worth taking even though so many of them seem so utterly devoid of common sense. Quackers council chiefs have banned a bow
Bob Wright correctly observes that we should soon be treated to a barrage of Romney Combeack stories chiefly because the press needs a new story to tell and this is one of the few even semi-plausible tales remaining. It may even be necessary to concoct a Romney comeback even without there being any actual evidence
I’ve avoided commenting on Andrew Mitchell’s problems with police officers and gates because, damn it, the whole affair has been saturated in so much stupidity that it scarcely seemed to warrant further examination. But James Kirkup has pushed me over the edge. He asks if David Cameron “trusts the word of the police who guard
Whisper it sceptically but something interesting may have happened in Scotland yesterday. It might even turn out to be an important something too. Even more remarkably, this was all because of a speech given by Johann Lamont, leader of Labour’s bedraggled Scottish troops. I know, it all sounds too astonishing to be true. Be that
Also elsewhere today, I’ve a piece for the Scotsman arguing that Andrew Adonis was the third-most important person in the Blair-Brown governments and that, by god, Scotland could do with some of his reforming zeal too. Most sensible people in England agree academies have been a success (though there’s still a long way to go);
Saturday’s Rally for Independence in Edinburgh was such a non-event that, as best I can discover, Getty Images doesn’t even have any pictures of the march. Hence the tat illustrating this post. But, in a way, that’s the point. A march that even on the most generous estimate attracted no more than 10,000 people is
How rich is Mitt Romney? Wealthy enough to voluntarily pay $250,000 more tax than he needed to last year. That’s the most notable thing about the Romneys’ 2011 tax return released yesterday evening. Mitt and Ann reported income of $13.7 million last year, most of it from investments. They gave $4 million to charity (most
There are days when Scottish independence seems a more than decent idea. Budget day at Holyrood is always one of them. I say budget day but it’s really faux-budget day because, at least until now, it’s always been only half a budget. A parliament that may spend but cannot tax is only half a parliament.
Failed presidencies have long half-lives. Just ask Walter Mondale or Michael Dukakis. Jimmy Carter’s legacy wasn’t the only reason they lost but they certainly received no assistance from the great peanut farmer’s record in office either. Mitt Romney has a similar problem. The memory of George W Bush’s unhappy presidency remains all too fresh. It
On balance, Iain Duncan Smith’s spell as Tory leader can’t be remembered as an unmitigated success. Be that as it may, sometimes there are second acts in political lives and, just occasionally, these are worth celebrating. IDS is one example of this. Nevertheless, even a man as palpably decent and well-meaning as IDS doesn’t always
You rarely hear people defending the European Court of Human Rights. It is, according to British mythology, a meddlesome beast populated by dimwit judges of dubious foreign provenance whose rulings are invariably ninnyish, ignorant and intolerable in equal measure. I prefer to think of the court as the last protector of individual rights often threatened
In politics – especially Presidential politics – message reinforcement is a risky business. You hope that, if reminded often enough, the electorate gets and keeps an idea of your guy’s good qualities; there’s always a nagging fear they may grasp and hold and take to heart the negative stuff instead. This is Mitt Romney’s problem
