Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
This is, I know, a statement of the obvious but Ed Miliband is no Teddy Roosevelt. There are two reasons to be thankful for this. First, TR was really a ghastly man; secondly, if Ed Miliband were able to muster a quarter of Roosevelt’s brio he’d be faring rather better than he is. In the
Shockingly, it is possible some of you did not see my appearance on BBC News this afternoon. Thanks to the wonders of Youtube and the baffling enthusiasm some people have for clipping and sharing these things, you can catch up with it now. As is always the case, I forgot half the things I wanted
So. it looks as though David Cameron is following the Spectator’s advice not mine. What a nincompoop! But if the reports are correct then Cameron is playing us for fools. That is, there’s nothing wrong with suggesting a referendum on Scottish independence be held sooner rather than later; adding conditions to it is a different
I know no-one is allowed to say that public sector workers are “cosseted”. And of course no-one can ever say anything nasty about anyone who works in the emergency services. Salt of the earth types, heroically serving the public good each and every one of them. We scarcely deserve these Little Jesuses, don’t you know?
Been a while since Dolly featured in this slot. So here she is with Backwoods Barbie. It’s like a compendium of country and Dolly cliches but, you know, so what? It still works.
How bad was the last Labour government? Pretty much as bad as you can imagine says my old friend Peter Oborne. Which leads me to ask if my old friend has gone mad? According to Peter: It is now widely accepted that the years of New Labour government were an almost unalloyed national disaster. Whichever
There is a good deal of good sense in the magazine’s main leader this week. By which I mean of course that a good deal of it is unconvincing and some of it dangerously so. That is, if David Cameron listens to the Spectator he risks assisting the very forces – Alex Salmond and the
“Once you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, no matter how improbable, must be the truth.” So said Sherlock Holmes and he might have been talking about the 2012 race for the Republican party’s presidential nomination. The impossible candidates have been weeded out and the only one who remains in play is Mitt Romney. He must,
Back late last night from Jura (fabulous time despite constant rain, gales and all the rest of it) so 2012 blogging will begin soon. Hurrah for that. Here, then, are the results of the 2011 edition of the Annual Quiz. Hope those of you who had a crack at it enjoyed yourselves. There were some
I’m Hogmanaying on Jura so posting is likely to remain as unreliable as the electricity suppply presently is in these parts. When the lights came back on yesterday it was as though we leapt from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. (Actually: the north end of the island was only attached to the grid in,
May you and yours enjoy the day and have a rare and swell old time. Once you’ve done the quiz you can enjoy what is still the best damn (non-religious) Christmas song of all…
It’s that time of year again. So here’s the 2011 of the annual Christmas quiz. As always, there are no prizes and it’s just for fun. Mr Google may help with some, though perhaps not all, questions but where’s the glory in enlisting him as your assistant? The answers will be posted in the New
His ad team* PAC seem to be inspired by Patrick Swayze’s finest hour. That’s the 1984 classic, Red Dawn. (What else could qualify for that palm?) Anyway, whatever else it is this ain’t exactly pandering to the GOP base. Again: it’s time for UK parties to emulate the cousins’ approach to these things. Granted, the
Say this for Newt Gingrich, he does know how to have some sport at Mitt Romney’s expense. How else to explain this? Forget the back and forth attacks with Mitt Romney. Newt Gingrich’s campaign has decided to take another route on his bid to the Republican nomination: pets and music. The campaign said today that
It shouldn’t surprise anyone who remembers anything about Ron Paul’s run for the Presidency four years ago that The Newsletter Issue has cropped up again. There are many things that place a low ceiling on the Texas Congressman’s potential level of support and the newsletters are one of the reasons for that. This won’t matter
Drivel, of course, and the kind of thing you’d expect to find in the Guardian. One expects rather more from the Times but, nay, here is a piece of Simon Winchester’s column (£) today: The State’s founder, Kim Il Sung, claimed that all he wanted for North Korea was to be socialist, and to be
Unseemly to talk about this while the old Lady still breathes. Unseemly but necessary. Peter Oborne considers the argument in the Telegraph today: I believe it would be wrong to give Lady Thatcher a state funeral, even though I accept that she was a very great woman, one of the six or seven most important
STOP PRESS: LONDON MANDARIN RECOGNISES SNP WON ELECTION, INTEND TO CALL REFERENDUM. FUTURE OF UNITED KINGDOM UNSURE. ASTONISHING SCENES. Lord knows what the Telegraph paid Sir Gus O’Donnell, heid neep at the civil service, for the valedictory piece published in today’s paper but if the news summary of the thing is at all accurate they’ve
A reader asks: What do you think about Johann Lamont winning the Scottish Labour leadership contest? Well, jings, far be it for me to intrude into these matters but it bears noticing that Lamont, doughty as she may be, relied upon the tame votes of Trades Union affiliates to secure her victory. Ken McIntosh –
Good sense from Dan Hannan: The House of Commons rises today, prompting traditional seasonal whinges. ‘MPs have already awarded themselves a number of bonus holidays this year so they risk looking out of touch by sloping off early at Christmas,’ says the TaxPayers’ Alliance. Hang on a minute. Isn’t the TPA forever complaining that we