Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
One of the more tiresome aspects of the SNP’s vision for the future of Scotland is its fondness for breezily sweeping away awkward questions as though important elements of Scotland’s prospects as an independent nation were nit-picking details that need not delay anyone from setting out on the road to Independence. It sometimes seems as
A reader writes asking if I wish to reconsider my past certainty that Mitt Romney is the Republican party’s presumptive nominee? No, not really. This is less a matter of Mr Romney’s strengths as a front-runner and more a question of the impossibility of selecting any of his rivals. Newt Gingrich’s resurrection in South Carolina
Apparently it is all but compulsory for London-based observers to note that Alex Salmond is “wily”. Those possessing an Anglo-Scots dictionary may add that he’s “sleekit”. By this they really mean he’s not a numpty and this, given the pressures of the times and all of that, is as much of a compliment as any
So, the game is afoot. The Scottish government today published its consultation document on an independence referendum to be held in the autumn of 2014. You can read it all here though I should warn you that most of it is entirely unobjectionable. If Mr Salmond is the salesman he hopes he is, the next
Some Presidential campaigns make some kind of intuitive sense; others do not. Rick Perry’s run for the Republican nomination this year fell into that former category, Jon Huntsman’s into the latter. Now each has lost their pomp and is one with Ninevah and Tyre. It turns out that, whatever the basis for your campaign, running
John Wilkes was radical and wrong; his latter-day equivalents are merely stupid and wrong. To buttress this notion, I submit the cases* of Simon Heffer and Melanie Phillips. We are talking, as you know, about the Scottish Question upon which these Daily Mail columnists have recently seen fit to pontificate. As we shall see, if
Previously, I’ve supported the government’s plans for High-Speed Rail, even though the “business case” for them has always struck me as being pretty weak*. On reflection, I’m not sure I was right. The case for HSR in Britain is weaker than I allowed. Not because HSR is undesirable (I still think it could be useful)
Most of the time the most lunatic examples of Drug War mania, at least in the English-speaking world, come from the United States. but not always! Today’s villains are Canadian. Chris Snowdon has the details of the murderous contempt police in British Columbia have for their citizens. It seems there is a batch of contaminated
This ain’t necessarily Townes at his best. Then again, the singing was never the biggest point of TvZ. But of all his songs this is close to being my favourite and not just because it means much to at least one other person. Self-indulgent? Sure. But so what? This is a blog. My blog, actually.
Edinburgh Something astonishing is happening in Scotland. For the first time in a political generation the Scottish Conservative & Unionist Party has an opportunity to become relevant to public life north of the Tweed. And it is all thanks to Alex Salmond, now the unlikely potential saviour of Scottish right-of-centre politics. The First Minister is
The crisis in euroland continues unstaunched and, perhaps, irrevocably. Naturally, being self-obsessed sorts and this being the week it is, one is drawn to consider the impact this must have on Alex Salmond and the prospects for Scottish independence. Plainly, the currency question is a difficult one for the First Minister. While the euro seemed
How brave are the Scottish Tories? Brave enough to appreciate that they might have to risk the Union to save it? Bold enough to recognise that much greater powers for Holyrood are in their interest just as much as such additional powers are something the SNP craves? Because how can there be a right-of-centre revival
Mitt Romney’s romp to the Republican nomination has not been without its troubles but Romney’s difficulties are as nothing compared to those facing a press corps determined to string the primary season out for as long as possible. A Romney victory in South Carolina is bad news for the media. It will ruin the fun.
After last week’s mishap, Peter Oborne returns to form with a column best considered as a mash-note to the Radio Four theme. Because Peter is, essentially, a romantic he allows himself to be carried away by the fond vigour of his desire to see Great Britain preserved for future generations to enjoy. That should not
Y’all will note that Newt Gingrich asks “Who can beat Barack Obama in the debates?” not “Who can defeat Barack Obama in the general election?” I’d like to think this hints at the existence of some previously unknown aquifer of self-knowledge in Gingrichland but that’s plainly preposterous since, if nothing else, Newt’s kamikaze assault on
When Mitt Romney secures the Republican presidential nomination, it’s pretty clear the last man standing against him will be Ron Paul. The Texas Congressman will be outgunned for sure but he is the only one of Romney’s rivals with the money and the doggedness to keep going even after it becomes clear Romney is going
Today’s commentary on the independence referendum kerfuffle is out-sourced to the Daily Mash: As Scottish first minister Alex Salmond set out his timetable for an independence referendum, he was dealt a devastating blow after research showed separation from the UK would make absolutely no difference whatsoever. Professor Henry Brubaker, of the Institute for Studies, said:
Bill Kristol, in his ongoing bid to supplant Dick Morris’s as America’s Worst Pundit, has been trying to spin Mitt Romney’s victory in the New Hampshire primary as a disappointing outcome for Romney. By the time the ballots are all counted, however, Romney will have taken close to (and perhaps more than) 40% of the
Since I was watching the House of Commons just now, I needed twitter to tell me that it seems as though Alex Salmond, ever the tweaker, has announced he wants to hold his referendum in the autumn of 2014. Hurrah. That’s fine. No need, in my view, for Westminster to object to this. On the
Michael Moore’s statement to the House of Commons on the question of how a referendum on Scotland’s constitutional future may be held was clear, composed, sensible and modest. In other words it was everything that the last few days have not been. The Prime Minister in particular – as bemoaned here, here and here –