Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.

The Liberal Democrats and the Fallacy of Sunk Costs

John McTernan makes the case: Paradoxically, it is the increaing unpopularity of the Liberal Democrats that will bind them closer to the Tories. It’s illogical, I know. Being in the Coalition has halved their support, so really they should leave as soon as possible. But they won’t, they’ll cling on for dear life. Economists know

Alex Massie

A Real Coalition, Not a Sham One

Mind you, Ed Miliband doesn’t understand coalition either. Fair enough. It’s not what he’s paid to understand. Still, according to Miliband (whom I keep forgetting is actually leader of the Labour party): Secretly recorded comments by Liberal Democrat ministers show the coalition government is “a sham,” Labour leader Ed Miliband has said. He described Vince

Alex Massie

Who’s Afraid of Rupert Murdoch?

Everyone, obviously. But if it weren’t Rupert Murdoch trying to purchase BSkyB would anyone care? Thought not. But since the Dirty Digger already owns 39% of Sky, what harm can it really do to let him buy the rest of a company he, more than anyone else, is responsible for making a success worth purchasing?

Alex Massie

Cable’s Survival is a Sign of Cameron’s Strength

James understands the dynamics of coalition government rather better than Simon Heffer. This may not surprise you. Mr Heffer complains that by letting Vince Cable survive – albeit in gelded form – while dumping the likes of Lord Young for other more trivial indiscretions, the Prime Minister is guilty of setting double standards. One would

Sunday Morning Country: Steve Earle & Emmylou Harris

A great song from Mr Earle’s terrific album Train A Coming which was also covered by Emmylou on Wrecking Ball. Here they are together performing Goodbye: UPDATE: This post is now, alas, dedicated to Julian FitzGerald, old friend from Trinity days and much missed by all who knew him.

The Greatest Englishmen XI

17th September 1932: Members of the MCC cricket team aboard the liner ‘Orontes’ at Tilbury, en route for Australia (left to right) Walter Hammond, Douglas Jardine (captain), Brown, Bowes, Duckworth (head turned), Harold Larwood, Leyland, Mitchell, Paynter, Herbert Sutcliffe, Verity, Voce and Wyatt. Photo by H. F. Davis/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. No, not this lot

Alex Massie

Department of Human Resources: Yahoo Edition

From a memo sent by Yahoo CEO Carol Bentz: Yahoos, I want to share some tough news with you. Today, we began notifying some Yahoos that they will lose their jobs. Most of the reductions will come from the Products org and, when completed, will affect about 4% of the company. I know this has

Alex Massie

In Praise of… Bob Ainsworth

Hats-off to the former Home Office Minister and Secretary of State for Defence who will use a Westminster Hall debate today to say: “I have just been reading the Coalition Government’s new Drugs Strategy. It is described by the Home Secretary as fundamentally different to what has gone before; it is not. To the extent

Reality-Based Fiscal Conservatism

Bully for George Osborne. His interview with James and Fraser contains heaps of good sense. Most especially when he defends his attitude towards tax: Asked if he regards Britain as an over-taxed country, he hesitates: “That’s a good question. I would like to reduce taxes – so, in that sense, it would be good if

Alex Massie

Only in America

Ben Smith has this snippet from Rahm Emanuel’s fledgling campaign to become mayor of Chicago: Bob Sirott (and Playbook) channel the candidate: Only in America can someone be in the Oval Office negotiating with leaders of the free world one minute, and the next — in a Loop basement being degraded by rejects from an

Alex Massie

The Tories’ Lib Dem Dilemma

Danny Finkelstein’s Times column (£) today is typically smart. I doubt any leading political columnist in Britain enjoys paradox more than the Fink.  Consider this, he suggests: the flak the Lib Dems have taken for their reality-based flip-flop on tuition fees is, on the surface, a blessing for the Tories. But that masks another fact:

Alex Massie

Lucky Strikes in the War on Terror

Yesterday I suggested that the War on Smoking should be considered one theatre in the War on Drugs. Silly me for forgetting that it’s actually a subset of the War on Terror. Here’s ASH’s Cecilia Farren talking on the Today programme about some recent modest amendments to Holland’s smoking laws: “It’s a very backward step.

Alex Massie

Baby Steps in the Provinces

One of the good features in the government’s Localism Bill is the proposal for referenda on more directly-elected mayors. At present it seems only a dozen English* towns and cities are taking advantage of these plans but one hopes more will do so in the future. Contemplating this, Bagehot chews on centralisation and London’s hegemony

Swings and Roundabouts in the Great, Endless Drug War

There’s good and bad news this month. The disappointing news is that the latest surveys suggest only one in five American high schoolers smokes tobacco even occasionally. The good news is that one in five smokes marijuana from time to time. According to this year’s official figures: For 12th-graders, declines in cigarette use accompanied by

Alex Massie

The Wikileaks Double Standard

You don’t need to share Julian Assange’s politics or his objectives to think that he’s the victim of at least one double standard. If he’s guilty of betraying secrets and endangering lives and making diplomacy more difficult and everything else then so are the publishers of the New York Times, the Guardian, Le Monde and

Alex Massie

Richard Holbrooke: Last of the Big Beasts?

In a sense, Richard Holbrooke is one of the few American foreign policy hands of recent years whom one can mention in the same league as the Big Beasts that prowled through the Cold War and the Vietnam disaster (Holbrooke was there too: he wrote one volume of the Pentagon Papers). His death – as

Alex Massie

Vladimir Putin’s Eulalie Moment

You can be dictator of All the Russias or you can be the kind of fellow who sings Blueberry Hill. In public. But not both. That’s the theory anyway. It’s hard to believe this is real but, yes, it is. Which reminds me: Wodehouse is immensely popular in Russia. I’d have thought the old boy

Public Services vs Government Services

During the latest bout of America’s interminable health care wars, Fox News decided that its presenters should refer to the “public option” as the “government option” or “government-run health insurance”. Big deal, you may say and you would have a point, but this has people in a tizzy about Fox’s “bias”. As if this had

When Bubba Came Back

Can you imagine Gordon Brown holding a meeting with Tony Blair in Downing Street, then agreeing to share a the Prime Ministerial podium with his predecessor and then disappearing to another engagement, leaving Blair to hold court for half an hour? No, I don’t think so. And not just because Brown hated Blair’s guts. Even