Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
President Obama’s speech yesterday confirmed that the main thrust of American foreign policy in the middle east may now fairly be characterised as Obama men and Bush measures. In large part it could have been written by David Frum. Admittedly, as Frum says there’s a difference between broad statements of principle and the actual, more
How do you measure a politician’s life? By the standards of the political (or any other) breed Dr Garret FitzGerald, who died this morning, was an uncommonly decent, humane, kind individual. Partly because of that his two terms as Taoiseach were less than wholly successful. Yet their legacy has been immense and FitzGerald should be
Back to Ben Brogan’s latest piece, headlined David Cameron has lost his zeal for the radical in favour of retreat. This seems unduly harsh. According to the Telegraph’s Deputy Editor, however: Yet, as has become increasingly apparent, retreat is fast becoming the order of the day. Indeed, the gap I mentioned a few weeks ago
In the midst of an otherwise interesting and thoughtful piece arguing that David Cameron is “retreating” from his “radical” start, Ben Brogan lobs in this astonishing paragraph: Even on issues on which he has not found such obvious consensus, Mr Cameron has shown himself willing to take risks when politics would dictate prudence. Take Libya,
Hands-up if you, or anyone you know whom you’d consider even vaguely sensible, is happy with the declared field for the 2012 Republican Presidential Nomination Stakes? Quite. The case against each candidate – Romney, Pawlenty et al – is vastly stronger than the strongest case you can make for their prospects. It is not a
At the state dinner at Dublin Castle this evening is rather good. As you would expect from HMQ it says all the right things and does so modestly and without fanfare. Especially this bit: Of course, the relationship has not always been straightforward; nor has the record over the centuries been entirely benign. It is
Much of Alex Salmond’s speech on the occasion of his re-election as First Minister was entirely unobjectionable and some of it was even eloquent. A shame, then, that his peroration threw all that away: A change is coming, and the people are ready. They put ambition ahead of hesitation. The process is not about endings.
On reflection, perhaps I’ve been a little too quick to discount the historical significance of the Queen’s visit to Ireland this week. Like so much else, it’s a question of perspective. If you’re 80 years old and a citizen of the Irish Republic, perhaps the sight of the Irish President greeting and welcoming the British
Pete is right to say there’s a definite “resonance” to these pictures. Nevertheless, I suspect that British people’s view of the “historic” significance of Her Majesty the Queen’s visit to the Republic of Ireland is inversely proportionate to one’s experience of Ireland. That is, the more time you have spent in Ireland and the better
Meanwhile and continuing our population theme it may be worth spending a moment on population density in the developing world too. Commenting on this post Axstane writes: This logic tells us that Nigeria, South Africa, Mexico and Brazil are all very well off indeed since they have dramatically increasing populations. Their slums, crime rates and
Further to this post on population increase, it’s useful to remember that despite the undoubted pressures population growth causes for public services and other facilities, it is not accurate to suggest that Britain “is full”. In fact there’s ample room for more people as even a cursory comparison of urban population density demonstrates. Chart? Would
This, Watson, is the salient fact to be gleaned from the stramash over International Development funding. There is nothing especially wrong with aspiring* to spend 0.7% of GDP on overseas aid but it’s wrong to legislate to make this a legal requirement. Wrong because government should not try to tie the hands of or otherwise
Via Jack Schofield, What We Say vs What We Mean vs What They Understand: Pretty accurate. Readers are invited to submit other entries to this taxonomy of British-speak.
Pretty much my new favourite thing: Peanut Tweeter. Random tweets from around the world inserted into not-wholly-random Peanuts galleries. Weirdly cool and fun. Hurrah for the internet. Thus: And: Many more here. [Thanks to RF]
You can’t get much more country than Tonight the Bottle Let Me Down. Here’s a take on that classic lament performed by Waylon Jennings:
There are more than 100,000 American and Allied troops in Afghanistan. That is, there are more than 1,000 troops for every suspected al-Qa’eda ‘operative’. Not for the first time in Afghanistan means, ways and ends appear to be out of kilter. There are more Nato troops than are needed to combat al-Qa’eda but not enough
Plenty of folk seem to think otherwise. Including George Bridges who has written a very curious post for the Motherblog in which he seems most perturbed by the prospect of this happy isle’s population increasing. He even suggests he’s not doing his bit since Mrs Bridges is expecting their third child, presumably furthering the onrushing
Every so often the good John McCain reappears. His recent Senate speech on torture and the hunt for Osama bin Laden is the best thing I’ve seen from him in lord knows how long. It deserves to be read in full but some of the highlights include: [There has been a] debate over whether the
Ross Douthat and Andrew Sullivan have been debating the extent, if any, to which Barack Obama’s foreign policy has broken with his predecessor’s. Ross’s point in his column this week is that Obama’s approach is more consistent with Bush’s than is generally supposed. I think that’s true, though some of Andrew’s criticisms of that view
Who cares about immigration? In theory, everyone. It’s always mentioned as the policy that exercises voters but is ignored by politicians. (Europe generally comes second in this category.) Let’s see what YouGov reports. In one of their tracking polls this week they asked voters to pick the three most important issues. Chart? Fully 66% of