Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Dan Drezner tweeted this afternoon that Barack Obama vs Rick Perry would be the starkest choice between rival philosophies and policies since Johnson-Goldwater in 1964. That might well be true, particulalry if you limit the question to domestic policy. Perry is barely out of the traps, of course, and already people are rushing to argue
Oh look: a poll produced by R3 “the insolvency trade body” finds – surprise! – 47% of people think “financial pressures” contributed to the riots and 92% of folk think “easy access to credit” created “a sense of entitlement”. Well played lads. Sir Humphrey would be proud of you: [Hat-tip: Hopi Sen who – huzzah!
Boom! Phone-hacking is back and it’s yet more bad news for Andy Coulson and, by extension, David Cameron. The Prime Minister’s problem is that we are tasked with believing that he believed the former News of the World editor when Coulson claimed to have had no knowledge of phone-hacking (and other criminal acts) during his
I think it’s ridiculous to argue that Obama is comparing himself to Lincoln here and his remarks about the Old School way of doing politics are a welcome reminder that American politics is not actually very much or even at all uglier now than it has been in the past. Which kinda makes it unfortunate
It’s rare that I disagree with James but I’m not quite persuaded by this: David Cameron and Ed Miliband both gave speeches on the riots this morning and the political dividing lines between the two are becoming more and more apparent. Cameron argues that these riots were about culture not poverty, Miliband thinks you can’t
The best parts of David Cameron’s speech this morning were those passages spent defending the government’s plans for police reform and secondary education in England. This should not be a surprise: whether you agree with them or not, these are relatively coherent policies that have enjoyed the benefit of long gestation. The rest of the
It’s always worse elsewhere. That, at any rate, is one conclusion to be drawn from this question: This is consistent with polls that find twice as many people think crime is “Top Three” problem for the country as a whole than consider it a major problem for their own family. Doubtless there are many reasons
Courtesy of Karyn McCluskey on the Today programme: “The territoriality of gangs is really difficult. The territoriality of public services is even more difficult” Territoriality is a pretty rotten word but you know what she means and Margaret Thatcher and Tony Blair would, I think, agree with her.
You’ll notice that the great man has some good friends helping out on this version of Riding That Midnight Train. Among them: Tony Rice and Ricky Skaggs. All good, rollicking stuff.
Being a dreadful sucker for these things I stayed up to watch the Republican presidential debate in Iowa last night. As Jonathan Bernstein notes the stramash, hosted by Fox News, did not really matter very much and nor, of course, does (or should) the preposterous Ames straw poll this weekend. Nevertheless, it was unusually entertaining
Perhaps the best example I’ve yet seen in a well-stocked genre: Awkward Ed Miliband Photos. Captions, please… [Thanks to Harry Cole and Ian Leslie.]
The Old Batsman – one of my favourite cricket bloggers – had a typically lovely post yesterday noting that August 11th is the anniversary of Geoffrey Boycott’s one hundredth first class hundred. Few players will ever reach that landmark again; none will do so in a Test match. This is cricket’s loss. The Old Batsman
Many aspects of British life have been on display this week but, amidst them all, Tariq Jahan’s response to the death of his son, killed in Birmingham, deserves to be remembered too. The qualities on display here are scarcely unique to this island but there is a dignity and fortitude of a kind that we
To the surprise of no-one the public is more concerned by crime this week than it was a week ago. Fancy that! and, equally, to the surprise of no-one, parliament was prepared to indulge any number of kneejerk nonsenses today. Hence the foolishness* about shutting down “social networking communications” during “times of unrest”. Parliament may
I suspect that the idea that opportunistic looting can be explained by organised gangs is, no matter what the Prime Minister said this morning, a questionable premise. Nevertheless, it was interesting and encouraging to see him reference the work done by the Violence Reduction Unit at Strathclyde Police. Interesting because their approach to gang-related violence
The great traditions of journalistic hyperbole justify this magazine’s cover image this week (Subscribe!) but that doesn’t mean we must take it literally. “Britain” is not “ablaze” even if the riots we’ve seen in London, Birmingham and Manchester might make it seem as though the entire country is on fire. So a little perspective might
Meanwhile, mercifully, there’s a Test match taking place in Birmingham. The contrast between this England and that other England in the headlines these past few days is total, complete and reassuring. Which brings me to this lovely piece by Peter White on how a blind man may adore – and imagine – cricket: […] I
Via Art Goldhammer, a new paper examining trends in public disorder across europe from 1919 to our own blessed unhappy time. Here’s the chart: The authors explain their methodology: “We look at five different types of instability – anti-government demonstrations, riots, assassinations, general strikes, and attempted revolutions – in Europe over the period 1919-2009. The
If a riot has a hundred causes then it’s caused by everything and anything and any all-purpose, universal explanation for it is bound to be implausible. When a 31 year old teacher is among the first people charged in the aftermath of the worst of the violence you can put away your handy explanations about
Sure, you don’t necessarily think of Elvis as a country singer. But then you remember his gospel roots and the rockabilly and it all makes sense. How could such a great American ever escape the greatest American musical genre of them all? He never did. Or, if you prefer, he just often returned to it.