Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Three days on and Sri Lanka’s collapse to 82 all out on the final day at Sophia Gardens remains astonishing. What should have been a routine voyage ended in disaster. One minute the Lankans were supposed to ease their way to a comfortable, even dull, draw, the next they were holed below the waterline and
I don’t care to delve too deeply into the clump of giant hogweed that is health policy but if Andrew Lasley succeeds in freezing health spending in real terms then he will have been one of the more successful cabinet ministers even if his ambitious reforms go nowhere or achieve nothing. It is annoying, as
Readers in England and other less-fortunate lands may not have been following the latest stushie in Scotia new and braw. This time it’s the law that’s the problem. Or rather, the UK Supreme Court’s ability to rule on Scottish appeals on Human Rights and other EU-related business. Last week this led to the conviction of
Being a top-class troll takes time and effort. Not everyone has the patience to do it, far less derive quite so much pleasure from infuriating other people. Not for any great principle either but for the sheer devilment of it. As horses are entered for the 2012 GOP Disappointment Derby it’s not a surprise to
Amidst all the Dylanmania this week it’s worth recalling that Steve Earle once said, “Townes van Zandt is the best songwriter in the whole world and I’ll stand on Bob Dylan’s coffee table in my cowboy boots and say that.” He may be forgiven his touch of hyperbole. Nevertheless, To Live is to Fly is
A small series: 1. I was annoyed but not surprised when Barack Obama referred to Westminster as “The Mother of Parliaments” on Wednesday. This was not a surprising error for a foreigner even if his speechwriter should have been expected to know and do better. It is England that is the Mother of Parliaments, not Westminster.
A lovely picture of Her Majesty with the Obamas. Captions please! (Also, what joke is Prince Philip keeping to himself?) Meanwhile, I’ve a piece on Obamamania at the Daily Beast and a grumpy take on the “Special Relationship” at Foreign Policy.
It cannot be said that Alex Salmond’s ministry is off to a good legislative start. Not when its immediate aim is, apparently, to rush through ill-considered, illiberal, speech-curbing legislation that asks the public not to worry about the detail and trust that the legal authorities will not actually enforce either the letter or the spirit
What scares Israel more than anything else? Not, I wager, the rockets flying over the fence from Gaza or even, at least on a quotidian basis, the Iranian shadow. No, what happens if the Palestinians say Yes? Granted, the Palestinian leaderships – not without their own battles – have persistently demonstrated a fatal lack of
Speaking of a Scotland that is no more (or largely no more), here’s video of the Reverend Dr Donald McDonald addressing the crowd at the disbandment of the Cameronians in 1968. You don’t see stuff like this very often these days and I’m enough of a Tory to recognise that whle improvements bring many blessings
In the grand drama of an American presidential campaign, wondering whether Gary Johnson or Ron Paul will win the vestigial libertarian-minded vote in the Republican primary is but a tiny scene of little consequence whatsoever. At best it’s an Off-Off-Broadway production and even that might be a generous verdict. Nevertheless, it’s not without interest since
I’m indebted to the gallant Peat Worrier for reminding me of some of Robert Louis Stevenson’s famous reflections on this Kingdom. To wit, what with the seperate legal systems being much in the news lately: [I]n all countries; perhaps in all, men are most ignorant of the foreigners at home. John Bull is ignorant of
On the other hand, there’s some good news today. The policeman who hit Ian Tomnlinson during the G20 protests two years ago is to stand trial for manslaughter. As I wrote at the time: [M]istakes happen. But the police are, rightly, supposed to be held to a higher standard. Yes, they have a difficult job.
Given that British police are being armed with these weapons too, it’s only a matter of time before something like this happens in this country too: San Bernardino County Sheriff’s Deputies yesterday punished an “uncooperative” motorist by Tasing him to death. After 43-year-old Allen Kephart was pulled over for allegedly running a stop sign, he
How do you reconcile these comments? Argument A: “Abbas and co have had a laughably free pass despite their serial aggression, bad faith, reneging on treaties and repeated expressions of exterminatory aggression and incitement to hatred and murder of Jews. Yet it’s Israel alone upon which Obama has dumped, by expecting it to make suicidal
It’s not every day you can say that, is it? Nevertheless that’s one evangelical’s view (£) of the Kirk’s decision to consider ending its present moratorium on the induction of gay ministers. The vote came at the end of a long and passionate debate at the General Assembly in Edinburgh. Members also moved to allow
But you’ll have to come to Scotland and purchase a copy of the (struggling) Sunday Herald to discover the identity of the “athlete” or “footballer” said to have been having an affair with some TV person of whom I had never previously heard. Careless of CTB’s lawyers to forget to apply for an interdict at
In honour of his endorsement of Gary Johnson for the Republican presidential primary it’s time to feature the great man here again. Sometimes there’s just An Angel Flying Too Close To The Ground:
The Rapture is almost upon us. According to Harold Camping, the 89 year-old Family Radio network in Florida. The righteous, he has calculated, will ascend to heaven at 6pm EST tomorrow (11pm in the UK). Those of us not fortunate enough to be called to Heaven must suffer the consequences of the damned. As you
Well, this is going to be interesting. But I don’t see how it can end well: Twitter Inc. and some of its users were sued by an entity known as “CTB” in London, according to a court filing. While the document gave no details, CTB are the initials used by the court in a separate