Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Monday

Alex Massie

Traducing Canute Watch: Frank Field

From our UK edition

Interviewed by the Times, Frank Field fails the Canute Test: Mr Field said that it was not good enough for the Government to say there was enough money in the budget to maintain the existing Sure Start centres. “The Government needs urgently to step in,” he said. “At some stage they are going to have to grow up, stop being King Canute and realise if they don’t do something about Sure Start they are going to be overwhelmed by the incoming tide of local authority cuts. We are in a difficult phase. They are keeping to their localism commitment, but now there is evidence on just how dangerous localism can be.

Sunday

Alex Massie

The Cult of Reagan: President of All Our Hearts

From our UK edition

The gushing nonsense that has accompanied the centennial of Ronald Wilson Reagan's birth can be no surprise to anyone even if, no especially if, you consider it mildly unseemly. "A Republic, if you can keep it" said Benjamin Franklin and Reagan's beatification is another reminder that the United States long ago became a republic in name only. Or, you know, a RINO.  There's previous on this, of course, as any trip to Mt Rushmore demonstrates. At least one can say that three of the Gods chiselled there either built or held the United States together (Teddy Roosevelt's presence shows how false gods are, like a purloined letter, honoured in plain sight.) And that, in a sense, is Reagan's claim to greatness too.

Friday

Alex Massie

Worthwhile Canadian Attack Ad

From our UK edition

Ah Canada! Such a nice, boringly successful place! So it's splendid to see they do attacks ads there too. Here the Tories have some fun with Michael Ignatieff: The only problem with this? It risks making the Conservatives seem provincial and oddly jealous of anyone who dares leave Canada and succeed somewhere else. Wrapping yourself in the Maple Leaf is fine and dandy but it can make you seem small too. Even when your target is Michael Ignatieff...

Alex Massie

Six Nations; One Festival of Rugby

From our UK edition

So here we go again. The Six Nations is back and just as unpredictable as ever. Happy times and so much better than the dark days when some - mainly English journalists admittedly - argued England should always play France on the last weekend of the championship since, invariably, that would be the game that would decide the tournament. This year's championship is ripe with uncertainty. The fixture list does not favour France who must visit Twickenham and Lansdowne Road (I refuse to call it the "Aviva Stadium") but England themselves, though showing signs of improvement, have won just four of their last 16 away fixtures and haven't picked up the title since winning the World Cup in 2003. This must be frustrating for England supporters, but it has been good for this annual festival.

Alex Massie

Sarah Palin’s Trademark

From our UK edition

Has anyone ever heard of a politician doing this? Politics Daily has learned that the Palin family lawyer, Alaska attorney Thomas Van Flein, has filed applications to the United States Patent and Trademark Office to trademark "Sarah Palin®" and "Bristol Palin®." According to patent office application (serial # 85170226), Van Flein registered for a trademark of "Sarah Palin" on Nov. 5, 2010 -- three days after the midterm elections. The government trademark examining attorney has "found no conflicting marks that would bar registration." In other words, nobody else had already taken the proposed trademark. A "Bristol Palin" application (serial #85130638) was filed on Sept. 15, 2010. Bristol Palin's stint with "Dancing With the Stars" premiered on Sept. 20.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Neoconservatism’s Mini-Revival

From our UK edition

The great thing about neoconservatism is the way it's become a universal bogeyman. On the one hand neoconservatives - by which I mean actual neoconservatives - are criticised by the right for their utopian dreams of a better, more liberal, more democratic Arab world; on the other neoconservatives - by which I mean people who generally aren't neoconservatives at all - are criticised by the left for urging caution in this present Egyptian crisis. Look at these dastardly neocon hypocrites backing Mubarak! It's a lose-lose moment for neoconservatism. So much so, in fact, that the term has been stripped of almost all meaning and now simply stands for Stuff I Don't Like. Nevertheless, neconservatism is neither as monolithic, nor as widespread as often imagined.

Alex Massie

Follow the Money: Why Localism Won’t Happen

From our UK edition

Who's responsible for cuts to council services? Central government or local government? The latter may find their budgets squeezed but it's still their decision to close libraries or swimming pools. Nowhere is is mandated that they react to a tight spending settlement by doing so. They are responsible for choices made in response to circumstances for which they are not primarily responsible. Nevertheless, David is quite right to bemoan: [...] Local government conniving to avoid responsibility for spending contractions. With adroit calculation, councils bastardise vital services to inconvenience those they represent. Local bus routes are a necessity, particularly for pensioners, school children and those who live in rural areas.

Alex Massie

The Looming Liberal Democrat Paradox

From our UK edition

You know, when you see that Neil Clark has written a piece for the Guardian arguing that, from his perspective, this government is even worse than Margaret Thatcher's you might expect to be entertained but you don't anticipate him making sense. But, lo, here he is: [...] Clegg, and his fellow Orange Book Liberals, are actually more keen on market forces and globalised capitalism than the so-called Tory wets were. In last year's election, the free market fundamentalism of the Liberal Democrats was ignored by many commentators and voters who saw their opposition to Labour's security measures, and their advocacy of electoral reform, as evidence that the party was progressive.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

What’s Politically Correct About Opposing Hosni Mubarak?

From our UK edition

I don't have much sympathy for a regime that unleashes its own goons against peaceful protestors in an attempt to foment chaos as part of a strategy designed, one imagines, to leave the "silent majority" craving something, anything that restores order and "stability" to Egyptian society. But it seems that's just another example of political correctness run amok. According to some, anyway. Such as our old friend Con Coughlin. Con, typically, takes a robust view of the Egyptian uprising: At the risk of provoking the wrath of the politically correct lobby that wants to see wholesale reform of the Middle East, I am starting to feel rather sorry for Hosni Mubarak.

Alex Massie

Michael Lewis & the Wizards of Dublin

From our UK edition

Michael Lewis's Vanity Fair piece on the Irish collapse is less entertaining than his trips to Greece and Iceland. Perhaps that's because it's closer to home. It's still good, however, and worth your time even if much of it will be familiar. On the other hand, this passage is worth a raised eyebrow or two: A week later the department [of Finance] hired investment bankers from Merrill Lynch to advise it. Some might say that if you were asking Merrill Lynch for financial advice in 2008 you were already beyond hope, but that is not entirely fair. The bank analyst who had been most prescient and interesting about the Irish banks worked for Merrill Lynch. His name was Philip Ingram.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

The Failure of Realism: Diagnosis Without Any Prescription

From our UK edition

These two posts by Melanie Phillips on the situation in Egypt are very useful. Clarifying, even. They merit a response not because it's Melanie and she's a neighbour but because she publishes a view that's more widely held than you might think if you only consulted the broadsheets and the BBC. It may, I think, be summarised as: Barack Obama is throwing Mubarak under the bus and we'll soon have Tehran on the Nile. A lot of people believe this or fear it the most probable outcome. They may, alas, be proven right. I'm struck, however, by their certainty that the Muslim Brotherhood will soon be running Egypt and, furthermore, that the Muslim Brotherhood in power will behave and speak in just the way it has in opposition. Perhaps this too will prove the case.

Alex Massie

I Love My Country, It’s the Government I Am Afraid Of

From our UK edition

Perhaps Glenn Beck can ask this girl, interviewed in Tahrir Square, if she is just a stooge of the Muslim Brotherhood. Perhaps the "Realists" can ask her that too. Hopey-changey bullshit? Well, maybe. Perhaps the young and the liberal and the educated will receive a desperate, chilling awakening. But this is not set in stone. Plainly this girl does not speak for all Egyptians (and I'd like to know more about what Egyptians living outside the major cities think) but let's not pretend either that this is a bogus or astroturf uprising. It's real and its demands are real too. Fear the worst all you like, but these people deserve whatever support we can offer them.  PS: I kinda want one of those t-shirts. Also, make sure you stick around to see the anti-Mubarak cat at the end.

Alex Massie

Glenn Beck: Performance Artist

From our UK edition

Even by our good friend Mr Beck's standards this is an impressive, virtuoso display. Twelve minutes out of your day but worth it, I promise you. Pick your own favourite moment. I'm torn between his wondering if Russia might invade western europe (perhaps Putin could run Belgium?) and his suggestion that protests in the UK (tuition fees) and Ireland (no money) are somehow part of a Muslim Brotherhood plot. Also: he says Italy is "on fire" but I think that's only true of Silvio Berlusconi and even then only in a Humbert Humbert sense...

Monday

Alex Massie

Huntsman 2012: The Manchurian Candidate

From our UK edition

This has been rumoured for some time but it still doesn't make any sense: Jon Huntsman, former Governor of Utah and currently US Ambassador to Beijing, is preparing to run for the GOP's presidential nomination. Maybe. Politico has the latest on this madness. Madness? Well it's certainly rum. If you think Mitt Romney is going to have problems explaining away the similarities between Romneycare in Massachusetts and Obamacare then imagine how difficult it is going to be for Huntsman to explain away actually working for the Obama administration. It's not, as Ramesh Ponnuru points out, as though he holds some tin-pot job either. Ambassador to China is a hefty, responsible job. Secondly, how many smooth, wealthy, technocratic Mormons can one primary season need?

Alex Massie

Yes, Virginia, the World Gets Better

From our UK edition

The year before I was born fewer than one in three countries in the world could be considered properly free. Today, according to Freedom House, nearly one in two can be classified as free. Despite the grinding stupidity and tedious witlessness that so often dominates our domestic politics we should remember that this is a great time to be alive. In fact there have been few better eras in human history. This is a big claim but it's justified given the expansion of liberty and opportunity across the planet these past 30 years. Of course there are exceptions and there remain many black holes of misery but the overall trend is clear.

Sunday

Alex Massie

Days of Hope, Not Rage, in Egypt.

From our UK edition

Fraser asks where or who is the Egyptian Lech Walesa? Well the answer, somewhat improbably, seems to be Mohamed ElBaradei*. And he's in Tahrir Square. Al Jazeera reports that the former IAEA chief has more backing than anyone might have expected just a week ago. The Muslim Brotherhood, secularists and socialists are all said to favour ElBaradei becoming interim president should Mubarak's regime crumble to dust. I'm less pessimistic than Fraser**. (This may not be a difficult status to acquire.) He writes: I wish I could be more enthusiastic about the events in Egypt and Tunisia – but, as I say in my News of the World column (£) today, the citizens of the Arab world all too often have a choice between a Bad Guy and a Worse Guy.

Alex Massie

How Do You Say Alea Iacta Est in Arabic?

From our UK edition

Like everyone else of sense, I'm wary of people who are too certain about anything that might happen next in Egypt. That suspicion certainly extends to my own opinions. I'm not sure we even know what the known knowns are, far less anything else. That said, I think one can reasonably suspect that the appointment of Omar Suleiman as Vice-President is neither a sign of Hosni Mubarak's strength nor anything like enough to satisfy the protestors. The regime may yet survive but I wouldn't rush to purchase Hosni Futures. Unlike David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy and Angela Merkel, Barack Obama hasn't talked about this year's elections yet but one imagines, reading between the lines of his most recent statement, that will be his next move.

Saturday

Alex Massie

British Politics Explained

From our UK edition

I'm indebted to my friend Neill Harvey-Smith for summing up the British attitude to politics in just three sentences: I don't know what it is. It sounds like a good idea. It probably won't work. That's in response to this: And you know what? Most of the time, I don't know what it is. It sounds like a good idea. It probably won't work is neither a dumb nor an irrational approach. But you can see why, in this instance at least, it might frustrate David Cameron and Steve Hilton.

Friday

Alex Massie

Life on the Nile?

From our UK edition

The risks of the status quo are always safer and more appealling than the uncertainties of the new, the unfamiliar and the unpredictable. So it wasn't a great surprise to discover Vice-President Joe Biden saying last night that, all things considered, he wouldn't refer to Hosni Mubarak "as a dictator" or outgoing White House press secretary Robert Gibbs insisting that Washington has no interest in "taking sides" in the struggle between the sclerotic Egyptian regime and the protestors. Depressing, perhaps, but not surprising. Like everyone else, the White House is waiting to see what happens today. Everyone agress that Mubarak's regime is rotten and that the 82-year old dictator (sorry, Mr Biden) cannot endure forever.

Thursday

Alex Massie

You’re Dead Son. Get Yourself Buried.

From our UK edition

I enjoyed Samira Ahmed's trawl through the history of movies about journalism but was surprised she didn't mention arguably the greatest example of the genre: Alexander Mackendrick's Sweet Smell of Success. It's just as, perhaps even more, relevant today as when it was made. Lancaster, playing the all-powerful columnist J.J Hunsecker, produces the performance of his career. So does Tony Curtis as that "cookie full of arsenic" and press agent Sidney Falco. Though set in New York, the movie is easily seen as a searing expose of the viciousness, hypocrisy, venality and arrogance of our own beloved tabloid press.