Tweet of the Day
Courtesy of an Anglo-Italian historian in lovely New Hampshire. She tweets here and blogs about New England history here: [Via Oliver Burkeman]
Alex Massie
Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Wednesday
An Execution in Tehran
Cranmer is right about this: It really is quite incredible. Last week, a convicted murderer, Troy Davis, was finally executed in the United States, and it seemed as though the entire British (and EU) Establishment arose to denounce the barbarism. Even Pope Benedict XVI appealed for clemency. Yet today, Iran is scheduled to hang a
No, Martin McGuinness is Not a Fit and Proper Person.
Since I’ve always thought Shaun Woodward a nasty little toad it’s reassuring to discover the man will do nothing to earn a reassessment. Is anyone surprised he is entirely relaxed about Martin McGuinness’s campaign for the Irish presidency? Of course not. why would ayone be surprised? As the dreadful Woodward made clear, speaking at a
Miliband’s Message: Neoliberalism is Dead. But What Comes Next?
I know one isn’t supposed to say this but there was an idea somewhere in the middle of Ed Miliband’s confused speech to the Labour party conference. Unfortunately it was smothered by 4000 words of contradictory waffling that, accompanied by Miliband’s desperate delivery, made the whole thing almost unbearable. If the Labour leader lacks presence
The Polish Invasion Was A Good Thing
It seems typical of Labour’s reaction to being removed from office after 13 frustrating years in power that it should have decided to disown one of its braver, better, bolder decisions: the decision to permit unfettered movement from Poland and other EU-accession countries to the United Kingdom. It takes a special kind of malignancy to
Tuesday
Ivan Lewis’s Comedy Act
So the shadow Culture Secretary thinks journalists should be licensed (by whom?) and rotten hacks guilty of “serious misconduct” (how is that to be defined?) should be “struck-off”. Well, that’s a proposal guaranteed to go down well with the press corps! Ignore the fact that it’s unworkable in the internet age and that it’s perhaps
An Irish Recovery?
I think it’s tiresome the way countries in desperate economic trouble are treated as lab rats by pundits far away whose sole interest in their travails lies in their providing an argument to buttress favoured policies back home. It’s a pretty grim game, really. So when Paul Krugman spends a summer writing about Ireland’s enforced
Monday
Thought for the Day | 26 September 2011
Via Samizdata, here’s Jeff Randall on the eurozone crisis: The fallacy at the heart of this crisis is that every financial problem has a political solution. True. And one can make another, related point: the fallacy at the heart of this and every other matter is that every political problem has a financial solution.
Wednesday
Scenes From An Execution
It’s important to insist that the argument about Troy Davis’s execution does not actually really rest on whether he is innocent or not. Nor is it actually the point that there are grounds for wondering if his conviction is entirely safe. We should not execute wrongly-convicted people is a necessary but not sufficient case against
President Perry: Hollywood Action Hero
Peter Suderman says Rick Perry’s “epic new campaign ad appears to have been shot by Michael Bay and edited by Tony Scott in Domino-esque fit of ADHD frenzy” and, sure enough, that’s about right. But it’s kinda absurd and awesome too. I can’t wait to see Rowan Atkinson star in the Ed Miliband version… If
Who Benefits from School Choice? The Poor.
Responding to research that finds school-voucher lottery winners from poorly-performing school districts in North Carolina do much better than the beleaguered kids who don’t get a winning ticket, Matt Yglesias makes the vital point: Note that this is consistent with charter skeptics’ favorite research finding that, on average, public charter schools are about the same
Your Lying Eyes
I don’t know, just as you don’t know, whether Troy Davis is innocent. I do suspect that his conviction would, in this country, be considered unsafe. Not that this, or anything else, matters to the Georgia Board of Pardons who have denied Davis’s last appeal for clemency. No-one should be surprised by that. Nevertheless, the
Tuesday
Annals of Self-Awareness: Cristina Odone Edition
I don’t think “squeezed middle” means what the lovely Mrs Odone thinks it means: For the past decade, our parental angst, which had my husband tossing and turning at night and me frantic about freelance work (I remember dashing out of hospital within three days of an emergency caesarian to write an article), could be
Martin McGuinness Asks Ireland to Forget History
Martin McGuinness’s campaign for the Irish Presidency is, of course, a disgusting affair. How could it ever be otherwise? But even by Sinn Fein’s grim standards, it’s off to a loathsome, disingenuous beginning. Speaking on Irish radio this morning, McGuinness complained that a coterie of “West Brits” in the Dublin media are out to get
The Liberal Democrat Death Wish
If nothing else, this year’s Liberal Democrat conference has shown that many party members are content to lurch towards electoral disaster. Broadly speaking, the members seem happier with the Farron-Huhne-Harris view of the coalition as, at best, a necessary if uncomfortable evil than they do with the Clegg-Alexander-Laws belief that it’s a happy, virtuous thing.
Monday
Gold, Jerry, Gold
Some politician shouldn’t try stand-up comedy. Sarah Teather is one of those politicians.
Sunday
A Drugs Question for David Cameron
Though scarcely the main thrust of James’s most recent post, this is still notable: Lib Dem conference delegates have just provided the press with a nice easy story, they’ve voted to set up a panel to look at the legalisation of cannabis and the decriminalisation of all drugs. I know James is tweaking the press
Saturday
Foreign Policy Hogwash
As a general rule any time you read an article asking that foreign policy be recalibrated to take greater account of the “national interest” you can be sure that you’re dealing with blather and hokum and platitudes and a deliberate misrepresentation of whatever the other mob got up to when they were in power. Sadly
The Bleak Business of the Black Diamonds
The death of the four trapped miners in West Wales is obviously a desperate business. Desperate enough that some cads will try and use it to make political points, regardless of the nonsense of that.Anyway, here’s Richard Burton on mining and, in some sense, on a Britain we’d mainly thought had mainly vanished until these
Saturday Morning Country: Steve Earle | 17 September 2011
Here’s an improbably, even impossibly, young Steve Earle jamming with a bunch of great old boys at Guy Clark’s place way back in the day. It’s a groovy side of country and, you’ll observe, one fuelled by ample quantities of booze, tobacco and dope. Quality all the way. And, blimey, Steve’s just a kid singing