Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
I wish the Conservative party’s attitude towards european policy made more sense. To be more specific, I wish the Prime Minister’s attitude made more sense. One can respect the views of, say, Bill Cash or Michael Heseltine without needing to agree with them. They have the merit of holding views that are easy to understand.
Yesterday, Barack Obama came out of the closet and acknowledged what we’d all suspected for a long, long time: he supports extending the civil recognition of marriage to same-sex couples. As you might expect, this has been hailed as a bold and risky and courageous move even though, as the chart above demonstrates, Obama is
Last night, I finally watched last week’s BBC This World documentary investigating the latest stage of the child abuse scandal that is destroying the Catholic Church in Ireland and, like Jenny McCartney, suspect it is time for Cardinal Sean Brady, Primate of All-Ireland, to resign his post. I don’t suppose Cardinal Brady is a bad
The public is not, I suspect, nearly as bothered by or interested in the Leveson Inquiry as some editors think. Nevertheless it is not just a Guardianesque enthusiasm. And even if voters dn’t much care for it, Leveson inevitably colours how the professional press views the government. With Andy Coulsen giving evidence tomorrow and Rebekah
A government relaunch of the sort we’ve endured this week is inevitably a fraught, fragile affair. The problem with such enterprises is that they have this unfortunate habit of drawing attention to the fact that it is, well, a relaunch. Downing Street may hope differently but a relaunch inevitably draws attention to the very failures
Years ago, before government began to take its toll I remember reading an interview with young David Cameron published by the Dundee Courier. The paper wanted to know if the leader of the opposition (as he then was) had any plans to reverse the army reforms that bundled all the Scottish infanty regiments together to
The first-time visitor to Manchester cannot fail to be struck by the grandeur of its Victorian civic buildings. The Town Hall, pictured above, is a mighty declaration of municipal pride and confidence. It is proudly provincial but there is nothing pejoratively provincial about it. Nor is Manchester alone: Newcastle and Leeds and the other great
The Prime Minister’s supporters will hope that this detail in Peter Oborne’s column today is not true: A fresh embarrassment concerns Rebekah Brooks, who providentially retained the text messages she received from the Prime Minister, which I’m told could exceed a dozen a day. These may now be published, a horrible thought. Now “I’m told”
A propos nothing at all except coming across it in a comment over at Slugger O’Toole, here’s a jolly tale of 1960s Irish anarchism: One day in the late 1960s, when we thought we’d heard the chimes of freedom flashing, I drove to Dublin with [John] McGuffin and the American anarchist Jerry Rubin. A mile
Meanwhile, in other defence news Winslow Wheeler says it is time for the cousins to give up on the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter. It is, as everyone knows, a troubled plane. Quite expensive too: The F-35 will actually cost multiples of the $395.7 billion cited above. That is the current estimate only to acquire it,
The next round of army cuts will be announced next month as the government reduces reconfigures Britain’s military capability yet again. According to a report at the weekend the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders and the Royal Scots Dragood Guards will be two of the casualties heading to the knacker’s yard. Progress, if that is what
The American presidential campaign is in one of its few fallow periods just now. Which means it is time for a favourite quadrennial pastime: the Veepstakes! Who will Mitt Romney choose to be his running-mate? Rob Portman of Ohio? Marco Rubio of Florida? Chris Christie of New Jersey? Someone else entirely? Who can tell but
And for Honduras too. Ottawa and Tegucicalpa are considering founding a Charter City in Honduras. As Paul Romer – the NYU professor at the head of the Charter City movement – explained in the Globe and Mail yesterday: Honduran congressional support for the RED reflects a clear understanding of the challenges the country faces. Inefficient
Lord knows Heathrow airport is usually a pretty hellish place even on its better days (another reason, incidentally, for starting again on the Thames Estuary and building houses for 150,000 people at Heathrow) but, at the risk of seeming simple this stramash over lengthy queues at LHR’s immigration seems laughably simple to resolve: deploy more
With apologies to the Beckett Estate… Two tramps appear on stage. They are dressed in white tie and tails and wearing top hats. Their clothes are dirty and shabby; their hats gleam. The stage is bare, apart from a mound of earth and a tree. Which appears to be dead. ACT ONE: David: [gloomy] It’s
From one great Texan to another: Amarillo Slim, giant of poker and peddler of western wisecracks, has died. Now that poker is a mainstream entertainment, you have to do some brain-cudgeling to recall the era when it seemed distant and exotic and even attractively seedy. All that has gone the way of all flesh now
Willie Nelson. An Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground. That is all.
It’s Friday afternoon and even Rangers fans might have to laugh at this: There have been numerous [football computer] games throughout the history of the genre which have fallen by the wayside: Sierra’s Ultimate Soccer Manager, Elite’s Complete Onside Soccer and… Ally McCoist’s Director of Football. Released in 2001, the game allows you to manage
I’m not sure Ed Miliband’s people will be altogether happy that James McIntyre’s Prospect interview with the Labour leader devotes quite so much time to Miliband’s leadership credentials. This is not, I think, generally considered helpful. Mr Miliband says he is “Labour’s biggest critic” to which the obvious rejoinder is “Not while so many of
I know that this must seem a large claim while so many other rotters still breathe but at least, as questions go, it makes more sense than the one bold Sir Simon asks today: Now everyone is connected, is this the death of conversation? Good grief but, being the charitable sort, you may suppose that