Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Very, very weak according to Ezra Klein: Does the 2012 Republican primary field feel a little…thin to anyone else? In 2008, Republicans fielded five candidates who looked, at various points in the process, like plausible nominees and even plausible presidents: Mitt Romney, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Mike Huckabee. […] Why have so
Now that Colonel Gaddafi is dead, there’s a lot stuff flying about Twitter along the lines of Are you watching Mr Mugabe/Assad/Ahmadinejad? I’m sure they are. Few people are likely to mourn Gaddafi’s death but one should not, I fear, suppose that his eclipse weakens other distatorial regimes or vastly emboldens their respective opposition movements.
There appears to be widespread agreement that Rick Perry’s performance in Tuesday’s debate in Las Vegas was his best yet. Thank heavens I missed the last couple of GOP debates then, because I thought Perry’s performance was dreadful. At no point did one look at him and think Hmmm, that guy could be President of
There are some – especially on the American left – who give the impression of thinking that if only the European Central Bank behaved differently or if only Angela Merkel could be persuaded to do the right thing then somehow there might be a way out of the eurozone crisis. But even allowing for the
Even by the lofty standards of delusional politicians, Bertie Ahern remains a man apart. The former Taoiseach who once boasted that “the boom times are getting boomier” has a novel theory to explain Ireland’s economic bust: it was the fault of the newspapers. Apparently they were too interested in writing about the curious way in
In the unlikely event of Martin McGuinness becoming President of the Republic of Ireland, this would surely be the Irish equivalent of Air Force One. It’s also basically how Sinn Fein/IRA hope voters will mark their ballots… [Hat-tip: David Cochrane of Politics.ie]
Sectarianism, we are often told, is “Scotland’s Shame” though there’s also ample evidence it’s actually “Scotland’s Pleasure”. For some at least. The prosecution and conviction of Stephen Birrell for comments he posted on a Facebook page entitled “Neil Lennon should be Banned” marks a new low. Not because of anything Mr Birrell wrote – his
Yikes: Former FIFA vice-president Jack Warner has blamed Zionism for the circumstances that led to him and former Asian Football Confederation chief Mohammed Bin Hammam being forced out of world football. Warner, 68, resigned from FIFA after ethics investigations were begun into a meeting he held with Bin Hammam where FIFA say payments were made
The annual tiff about the Man Booker Prize is a reassuringly perennial feature of the British autumn. It is also almost always ridiculous. This year, apparently, the prize has been “dumbed down” as the judges (including the Spectator’s Susan Hill) neglected a number of fashionable names in favour of a shortlist that, Julian Barnes excepted,
How important is the Ministry of Defence? Not, according to Fraser, important enough to this government to appoint a Secretary of State who has any great interest in Defence issues. This is fairly remarkable. You might have thought – and the MoD’s particular problems might have persuaded you – that defence would be an issue
When it comes to covering American politics the foreign press loves nothing more than gawping at the excesses of the right-wing of the conservative movement. Some of this is reasonable, even fair; much of it descends into caricature. Implicit in much of this stuff is the idea that these Americans should be figures of horror
Whatever may be said about his difficulties with the Republican base, there’s no doubt that Mitt Romney is a much more formidable candidate in 2012 than he was in 2008. It turns out that having form over course and distance really does matter. And, of course, it helps that he’s running to replace a Democratic,
At the risk of careering round an old argument, Jonathan, the graphs you’ve produced on political affiliations are yet another reminder, if ever one were needed (and it is) that the Tory right’s argument that Cameron would have won a majority if only he’d run a blue-meat campaign is dreadfully mistaken. As you can see,
Michael Kinsley begins his latest Bloomberg column with an observation so old it’s even been made in these parts: If Mitt Romey ever becomes President, it will be because his supporters are convinced that he’s a liar. True enough. Kinsley continues: Romney’s campaign is hoping he gets through the primaries without losing his appeal to
There are many reasons to read James Fallows’ Atlantic article on what happens when your email is hacked (and anyyone who uses gmail should definitely read it) but buried within it is this snippet on the In “The Chilling Story of Genius in a Land of Chronic Unemployment,” this past May in TechCrunch, Sarah Lacy
Meanwhile, in the day’s other Supreme Court judgement, the justices struck down the government’s ban on non-EU spouses under the age of 21 coming to live in Britain. This legislation was, it should be noted, well-intentioned and aimed to make it harder to arrange forced marriages in this country. So far so admirable. But, as
I’m not convinced the Scottish parliament’s 2009 bill permitting individuals with pleural plaques to sue for asbestos-related damages was a good law. Nor ca one be wholly comfortable with retrospective legislation. Nevertheless, the Supreme Court today upheld the Court of Session’s judgement that the insurance companies could not credibly claim their human rights had been
As a general rule complaints that the opposition are too beastly for words should not be taken too seriously. They reflect a sense of entitlement on the part of the governing party that, whenever it may be modestly frustrated, quickly becomes peevish, sour and silly. If this is true of parliamentarians it is even truer
The ballots for the Scottish Conservative and Unionist party’s leadership election have been posted to members and few people, I think, have any real idea as to what the result will be. In general terms, as readers know, I’m sympathetic to Murdo Fraser’s analysis of the woes afflicting conservatism in Scotland and unpersuaded that Ruth
UPDATE: Strathclyde Police have responded to all this and their version of events is quite different. So much so, in fact, that they dispute every aspect of what’s related here. Hark at this terrorist threat! The photograph above was taken by Chris White at Braehead shopping centre near Glasgow last Friday. It may look an