Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
It is often said that the case for the United Kingdom needs to be made in a positive fashion. This is reasonable. Less remarked upon is the SNP’s cheerful use of negative arguments for independence. Today, for example, there is the sillyness of Joan McAlpine’s suggestion Scotland is somehow analagous to some ill-treated wife and,
Melanie McDonagh makes a decent small-c conservative case against gay marriage based on a traditional procreation-based definition of marriage. This is fine as far as it goes but it doesn’t go quite as far as she, or other defenders of “traditional” marriage suggest it does. In the first place, as Stephen Hough reminds us in
This letter to the Daily Mail suggests all is not well in deepest, darkest Cheshire: Can this really be real? I am assured it is. Perhaps it is part of a contest to get the most Daily Mail letter published by the Daily Mail. Doubtless similar contests could be held at other papers. That said:
If Cardinal Keith O’Brien objects to being considered an intolerant bigot then he should perhaps cease making arguments that are a) intolerant and b) bigoted. Then again, he’s a member of the College of Cardinals and this is part of the price of membership*. His diatribe against gay marriage is an excellent example of this.
Considering the audience to which it was aimed, I suppose one could say that Johann Lamont’s first leaders’ speech to the Scottish Labour party conference was a success. Expectations for Ms Lamont were not quite at Obama-levels. I suspect Labour types will have been pleased by it. Which means, naturally, it should terrify everyone else.
Speaking of Texas, here’s that fine old troubador and all-round country oddity Lyle Lovett reminding us That’s Right, You’re Not From Texas…
March 2nd is the anniversary of the Texan Declaration of Independence in 1836. Some of my more left-wing American chums rather wish Texas were still either a part of Mexico or an independent state of its own. Be that as it may, the Declaration is a grand thing that both beats anything the Scottish National
So Rupert Murdoch had lunch with Alex Salmond at Bute House today. At a time when politicians are scurrying to distance themselves from the Dirty Digger he is still welcome in Edinburgh. This annoys, even angers, many of Salmond’s own supporters (see Kate Higgins for example) and, I daresay or if Gerry Hassan is a
In as much as it is possible to feel sympathy for a man seeking the American presidency while possessing a $250m fortune, Mitt Romney is an unusually pitiful figure. He may yet win the Michigan primary tonight and he remains the most probable eventual nominee but there is a sense, right now anyway, in which
And, as we know, Brussels has a habit of changing the answer any time anyone offers the wrong inconvenient answer. Nevertheless, the Irish government’s decision – made on the advice of the Attorney General – to hold a referendum on the latest EU “Stability Pact” is not, I hazard, likely to please everyone: “I am
From France, that is: The Socialist favourite in France’s presidential election, Francois Hollande, has said top earners should pay 75% of their income in tax. “Above 1m euros [£847,000; $1.3m], the tax rate should be 75% because it’s not possible to have that level of income,” he said. Speaking on prime time TV, he promised
As you’d expect, Brother Hoskin offers a fair summary of George Osborne’s difficulties with fuel duty. Osborne, backed it should be said by Danny Alexander, decided to pay for his fuel policies by levying additional taxes on North Sea oil production. How’s that worked out? Entirely predictably: North Sea Oil production fell by 18% last
How large are the stakes in this year’s American presidential election? Pretty huge if you’re a Republican. Jon Chait has an excellent piece in New York magazine explaining how the GOP, in its present form, has mortgaged its future in a bet that Barack Obama will be a one-term President. Defeat, he suggests, will mark
The Lockerbie case is back in the news with the publication of Megrahi: You Are My Jury by John Ashton, a member of Abdelbaset ali al-Megrahi’s defence team. That Megrahi remains alive, if only just, two and a half years after he was released on compassionate grounds is, plainly, an embarassment and all the evidence
Meanwhile, in other emergency service news: a milestone has been reached in the United States. 500 people, most of them unarmed and unthreatening, have been killed* by police officers using Tasers: According to data collected by Amnesty International, at least 500 people in the United States have died since 2001 after being shocked with Tasers
Via Bagehot, an enraging story from the Mail on Sunday: [O]n an overcast lunchtime last March when no fewer than 25 members of the emergency services, including a press officer, descended on a 3½ft-deep model boating lake minutes after Simon Burgess, 41, fell into the water when he suffered a seizure. But as an inquest
One thing to be said about Mitt Romney: there’s an artless quality to his campaign and there are times when he seems just a goof. For a man who is accused of parsing and pandering all the time, he’s sometimes shows no idea of how his remarks will be perceived by, you know, normal people.
Johnny Cash would have been 80 tomorrow which is reason enough to resurrect some Saturday Morning Country. Here, from 1987, is a performance of Lefty Frizzell’s classic The Long Black Veil:
This is one reason – among many – why it is a bad idea to agree to be interviewed by Glenn Beck: Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said Thursday that President Obama wants more young adults to go to college so they can undergo “indoctrination” to a secular world view. In an hour-long interview with
One of Henry Kissinger’s great gifts is the ability to write op-eds that are clear as petrol. I recall one such piece, published by the Washington Post (his favoured venue for ex cathedra announcements), that left opponents and supporters of tougher measures against Saddam Hussein believing the old man was on their side. Kissinger had,