Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
There are many good things in this week’s edition of the magazine and among them, happily, is a piece by Dan Drezner. It’s not online yet so why don’t you subscribe? £1 an issue for the first 12. Bargain! Anyway, Dan casts a weary gaze (there being no other kind of gaze when it comes
Edinburgh council – presently best known for spending £700m on half a tram system (and the wrong half at that) – has mercifully moved on to more important business: congratulating the Occupy Edinburgh “movement” on whatever it is they are doing camping in St Andrews’ Square beneath the disapproving (I’m sure) gaze of Henry Dundas,
Watching Roger Federer destory Rafael Nadal the other day and knowing how many people can recognise their brilliance while always holding a vehement, even visceral, preference for one of these superb athletes I wondered if there was a correlation with another bitterly divisive sporting divide. I mean, of course, David Gower vs Graham Gooch. That
As the cousins celebrate the most genial holiday of them all, there are many things one for which one should be thankful. Not having a vote in the leadership contest currently gripping the Scottish Labour party comes pretty near the top of the list. Nevertheless and unlike Ed Miliband I can at least name each
Amol Rajan – author of the splendid Twirlymen – has an entertaining rant against lobbyists in the Independent today. Entertaining, of course, is code for less than mightily persuasive. Lobbying, Amol complains, is nothing but “legalised bribery”. This is the accepted view and just the sort of thing sensible folk are supposed to believe. Distasteful
Clarissa Tan made a number of fine points about the utility of the 50p rate of income tax yesterday. Tim Montgomerie makes some more at ConservativeHome today under the headline “Osborne is warned that Britain will lose its high earners if he doesn’t abolish 50p tax band.” Maybe, but he might lose the next election
Joan McAlpine’s column in the Scotsman this week is uncharacteristically unpersuasive. Since she decided to defend the SNP’s plans for so-called anti-sectarian legislation she was backing a losing horse from the start. Still, it speaks well of her loyalty. Nevertheless, her piece is useful since, in large part, it outlines a kind of consensus that
The symbolism of this is pretty dire. These are still times for bitter melancholy in Ireland and many a Dubliner has rarely felt as republican as he does now that the state’s sovereignty* is, shall we say, not what once it was. This, a friend says, is just another tale of life “under the occupation”:
This case looks as though it belongs in some Chris Morris show or something: A Muslim Rangers supporter who chanted sectarian remarks at a game at Ibrox Stadium has been fined £600. Abdul Rafiq, 41, the only Muslim member of the English Defence League, was arrested at Rangers friendly game with Chelsea on 6 August.
These days “Talking Scotland down” is both the gravest sin imaginable and the standard SNP response to any suggestion there might be even the occasional or minor drawback to independence. Thus when Philip Hammond makes the obvious point that Rump Britannia might not build warships on the Clyde he’s being “anti-Scottish”. Thus too when George
Who can blame Newt Gingrich for enjoying his 15 minutes as Mitt Romney’s latest Bum of the Month? And who among us is not entertained by his becoming modesty? Take this, for example: “Because I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, I’m such an unconventional political figure that you really need to design a
This is the sort of thing that makes you wonder about this country: Oxford council plans to require all taxis in the city to be fitted with “audio recording devices”. Taxi drivers in the university town have been told that they need to install the £460 devices by 2015 or face having their licenses revoked.
That’s the good news. The bad news is that these admirable little planes won’t be flying for Britain. Navy Times (and others) report that the United States Marine Corps plans to purchase the whole of the United Kingdom’s Harrier force. The spare parts will apparently cost the cousins some $50m and a price for the
Oh Jonathan, how you disappoint me! Newt Gingrich’s “rise” in the polls means almost nothing. It certainly does not warrant being treated as a serious political phenomenon for the obvious and excellent reason that Newt isn’t going to be the next Republican nominee. He just isn’t. It would be an act of all-but unprecedented folly
Paul Krugman has a good paragraph on the euro: [T]his incident exemplified something that was going on all along the march to the eurodebacle. Serious discussion of the risks and possible downsides was simply not allowed. If you were an independent economist expressing even mild concerns about the project, you were labeled as an enemy
As always, I commend Chris Snowdon’s blog, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist to you as among the very best places for common sense on tobacco issues. His latest post offers a pleasing, if sadly pointless, demolition of a North Carolina study claiming that a ban on smoking in bars caused a 21% fall in the number
A while ago, a reader asked why I hadn’t written more about Herman Cain. Because, I explained, the only reason he had a greater chance than any other eligible American citizen of winning the Republican nomination was that he’s on the ballot paper in the early primary states. In time, I said, this would be
The Evening Standard wins the day with this gem: That the story would appear to be hyper-bollocks need not detain us. [Hat-tip: Dan Hodges]
Gosh, I hope I remembered to add the caveat “if he’s any good at this stuff” to any post suggesting Rick Perry could or should be a GOP front-runner. Because his campaign ended last night. Here he is failing to remember what parts of the federal government he’d axe: Of course, scrapping the departments of
As if GOP Idol 2012 weren’t odd enough already here, via Ben Smith, is Mike Tyson with a fake ad on behalf of Herman Cain. God Bless America. Herman Cain