Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
There are many fine letters in today’s Daily Telegraph but this is my favourite: All quiet on the front SIR – Saturday was World Book Night. I would like to pass on what happened in Clacton-on-Sea that night. I was chosen as one of the “givers” and decided to give the book All Quiet on
Peter King, America’s worst Congressman, is back in the news and just as loathsome as ever. No surprise there. This, however, is news to me and wholly surprising: After Obama was elected president, King got a call from Rahm Emanuel, the incoming chief of staff. “President-elect Obama would like you to be ambassador to Ireland,”
Some nourishment for your soul. Or, if you prefer, a reflection on the hardships of life in Appalachia.
My esteemed colleage Nick Cohen dislikes disagreeing with the equally estimable James Forsyth and I dislike disagreeing with Nick in turn. But his comments on the decision not to block Rupert Murdoch’s bid to purchase the 61% of BSkyB he did not already own seem unecessarily belligerent and, moreover, hyperbolic. Nick writes: The editors of
An interesting survey from Conservative Home USA reports that the conservative intelligentsia – much of it DC-based – doesn’t think much of the Republican party’s presidential hopefuls. Asked to rank possible contenders across eight categories the only people to score highly are, wait for it, Chris Christie, Jeb Bush and Mitch Daniels. Keen-eyed readers will
Is David Cameron a hawk or a dove? And how useful is that question anyway? I suspect the answers are “more of a hawk than not” and “not much”. The Prime Minister has not, shall we say, been at his best vis a vis Libya. Then again, foreign policy is not his longest-suit as anyone
I can’t decide whether Matthew Sinclair thinks High-Speed Rail too ambitious or not ambitious enough. I’m happy to share his scepticism towards the economic and jobs numbers put forward by the plans’ backers but trust he will not be offended by the suggestion his own figures should be treated with comparable scepticism. Who knows what
I think that nice Laurie Penny over at the New Statesman must actually be a conservative mole dedicated to undermining leftism from within. How else to explain this sort of stuff: The difference between Tahrir Square and Parliament Square is one of scale, but not of substance. Across the world, ordinary people are being denied
On Friday Ireland threw away a chance of victory against Bangladesh, losing a game their bowlers had put them in a position to win. Chasing 205 on an oddly-paced pitch proved too much. And that’s often the way: anything much more than 4 an over is asking a lot. So when England reached 327 today
Reading Brother Blackburn’s post on high-speed rail I was, I admit, surprised to find so many Coffee House commenters backing the project. I had – unworthily! – assumed most would be against it. And if HSR stops at Birmingham I would oppose it too. Indeed, I think that if HSR is to go ahead it
As the candidate most likely to aver that the stars really are “God’s daisy chain” Mike Huckabee is already the Madeleine Bassett of the not-yet-officially-existing Republican Presidential campaign. That’s enough reason to wish him ill. Now there’s more: beneath that jovial southern-aw-shucks exterior lurks a Class A Idiot. From a recent radio interview: MALZBERG: Don’t
They’re still counting the results of the Irish election but it’s clear that, as expected, the story of the day is Fianna Fail’s collapse. Enda Kenny, who’s not half as youthful as he looks (he’s the Father of the House and has been a TD since 1975), will be Taoiseach but the election of 75
Irish Policeman Ronan McNamara and presiding electoral officer Hugh O’Donnell carry the ballot box from the ferry on Inishfree Island, off the Donegal coast of Ireland. It will not surprise you that Myles na Gopaleen had it right: The majority of the members of the Irish parliament are professional politicians, in the sense that otherwise
That’s the question Jeff Breslin asks at Better Nation and, as a bonus, he gets the answer right too: Alex Salmond. In truth, it’s not a difficult question no matter how one approaches it. From a governance perspective the SNP have been modestly underwhelming. This still represents a major advance from the days of the
Courtesy of RTE’s The Eleventh Hour. As the lads say, “Mistakes have been made. But in the right hands the mistakes of the past can be a valuable asset in excusing the mistakes of the future.” Thanks to the many friends and readers who pointed this out. More from Ireland to come. And sorry for
Who the hell knows and who can tell what might follow if the Gaddafi regime really does collapse? On Sunday night there were all manner of rumours swirling through cyberspace. Some said the Mad Colonel was fleeing to Venezuela. So far that does not seem to be the case. Nor does the speech given by
Jonathan Bernstein has a jolly post attempting to select a squad of baseball players who are still alive to take on Babe Ruth and his comrades on the All-Dead team in some kind of hypothetical celestial match-up. This is the kind of parlour game that can’t be left to baseball alone. So here’s an effort
This is likely to shake things up. Steve Coll, who tends to be pretty impeccably sourced, reports in the New Yorker that Washington has begun to talk to the Taliban: Last year, however, as the U.S.-led Afghan ground war passed its ninth anniversary, and Mullah Omar remained in hiding, presumably in Pakistan, a small number
There seems to be a sad shortage of Burrito* footage on Youtube but you can see them, quality Nudie Suits and all, in this video accompanying the great Sin City: *In his lovely book No News At Throat Lake Lawrence Donegan, now the Guardian’s golf correspondent, but once upon a time bassist for Lloyd Cole
Something is happening in Wisconsin*. I don’t think I’ve ever noticed that before. Nevertheless, there are aspects of the show down between Governor Scott Walker (Republican) and the public sector unions that may become familiar over here too. The details* of the dispute in the Badger State need not concern us unduly – though James