Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
So I was on Bloggingheads yesterday talking about – what else? – Murdoch and his nefarious ways. Felix Salmon was excellent and lovely and more patient than he should probably have been. Anyway, there’s a whole hour of this stuff! If I look demented or spout nonsense I blame Rupert…
Cycling fans will recall the Festina Affair that crippled the 1998 version of the Tour de France. The discovery that the peloton could be considered a travelling pharmacy did not surprise veteran cycling aficionados, even if the extent and sophistication of the doping was enough to shock some. Entire teams withdrew from a race that,
Given how roughly he was treated by the press it’s not a surprise that Neil Kinnock still thirsts for revenge against tormentors. On the other hand, his appearance on the Today programme this morning when he called for the free press to be suppressed or otherwise outlawed demonstrated that, actually, the press was right to
John McTernan has some good advice for MPs questioning the Murdochs and La Brooks this afternoon. The main thing is basically this: see those famous Congressional hearings in the United States? Yeah, don’t behave as Senators and Members of the House of Representatives are prone to do. It’s not about you, it’s about the answers.
The public may not be much interested in the Murdoch Affair but the importance of an issue is not measured by the level of public interest in it. If it were and if the news channels only covered the things the public loves we’d be treated to exhaustive coverage of kittens in trees, car chases
Guido – or Harry Cole, actually – asks Where’s the Outrage? about Maurice Glasman’s declaration that all immigration to these fair islands should cease forthwith. Ed Miliband’s advisor or intellectual guru or whatever he’s termed these days believes immigration makes Britain little more than “an outpost of the UN” and we should cease being so
Tim Montgomerie suggests that we all at least try and keep the News of the World scandal in some degree of perspective. This is a worthy thought but not one that’s likely to fly very far given the febrile mood at Westminster. Moreover, Tim’s reasons for calling for calm are not, perhaps, quite as persuasive
How many Tory MPs came into parliament – even this parliament – thinking they’d be asked to support a Tory-led plan to cut the army by 20%? How many Tory voters think this is where the public spending axe should fall? Precious few, I reckon. And yet, remarkably, this is what Liam Fox is planning.
I rather like Fox News, partly because it’s so blessedly shameless (and, lord knows, it’s more fun to watch than CNN America). Even so, one can’t avoid the impression that there are times when its hosts and guests don’t quite know very much about the stories they are supposed to be “covering”. This is terrific,
Rebekah Brooks has been arrested on grounds of conspiring to intercept communications and, more generally, corrupting public life and so on. Since this story is no place for the naive, an appropriate measure of cynicism demands one ask why Brooks has been arrested today? At the very least this development is likely to make a
No pressing need to post this except that I enjoyed this sharp little short written and directed by an old chum from college days, Luke McManus. Nicely observed.
I’ve been guest-blogging at Andrew Sullivan’s place this week where, somewhat to my surprise, I ended up refighting the War of 1812 with Jonathan Rauch. I meant to post this here earlier but forgot, so here it is now. My word, that jackanape Jonathan Rauch does severely provoke me. First blogging, now the War of
Nashville is a fun town and there’s a heck of a lot of good stuff that’s come from Tennessee but Texas is the other great home of country music and the Texas singer-songwriter tradition is maintained by Robert Earl Keen (among many others). Here he is with The Road Goes on Forever (And the Party
I still maintain that Rick Perry is the biggest obstacle not named Mitt Romney standing between Mitt Romney and the Republican presidential nomination but, dang, he needs to be talking to some better people: From Katrina Trinko at the Corner: Word in Austin is that Rick Perry is doing everything necessary to prepare for a
Obviously that’s a Question To Which The Answer Is No. At the American Spectator (arrivistes!) Iain Murray and Matthew Melchiorre report on the success of a privatised fire service in Chatham County, Georgia: Free riders bankrupted London’s fire insurance companies by taking advantage of their fire services, but the free rider problem is not insurmountable.
I’m glad the kinetic military action faux-war in Libya has gone so well. What’s that? Oh. Nevertheless, the war has this to be said for it: very few people seem to care one way or the other what happens in Libya. Granted, a churl could construe this as a good reason to have avoided getting
There are few organisations that persuade one to root for Rupert Murdoch but the US Department of Justice is probably one. Then there’s Eliot Spitzer, just the kind of creep and hypocrite* who is supposed to be treated roughly by the newspapers. Spitzer, yet another example that Scott Fitzgerald’s silly suggestion “There are no second
Not the least astonishing aspect of the News of the World affair is the useless manner in which the Murdoch family has responded to the crisis. There appears to have been no plan, no attempt to get a grip on the situation; they have instead lurched from one miscalculation to another. Not that Rupert sees
I think Liberal Conspiracy should drop the “liberal” bit if they keep publishing tommyrot of this sort: I’ve never understood why we allow our print media to support a particular political viewpoint. Why is it that just before an election, our media line up in their separate camps and decide to tell us who to
Fairness demands one acknowledge this has been Ed Miliband’s best week since he became Labour leader. James’s piece in this week’s edition of the magazine explains why in typically fine fashion. He concludes: There’s undoubtedly something different about Miliband now: more swagger, more conviction. His adept handling of this crisis and his successful parliamentary gamble