Alex Massie is Scotland Editor of The Spectator.
Next time you hear a Labour politician arguing that the markets are punishing Ireland despite its austerity drive (and therefore Britain should not rush to cut its own deficit) you might kindly point out that, because of the horrors at Anglo Irish and elsewhere, you can certainly argue that there hasn’t actually been an Irish
Has to be: Human foot found in Cleethorpes matches another in Holland. It gets stranger still: Humberside Police said a right foot found on Cleethorpes beach on August 11 belongs to a man reported missing from the South Yorkshire area in December 2008. A spokesman said: ”Humberside Police has also been liaising with the Netherlands
Andrew Sullivan suggests my concerns about the Obama administration’s belief it need not justify the assassination of American citizens are overdone: [A] single American al Qaeda terrorist in a foreign country actively waging war against us seems to me to be a pretty isolated example. And Obama always said he would fight a war against
Thursday is an important day for Ireland and, in the end, another reminder that Ireland’s economic woes and the measures taken to alleviate them don’t offer much of an example for other countries or their governments. The Irish government is going to have to announce its plan for bailing out (or not) Anglo Irish Bank’s
Predictably, commenters criticised with my aversion to the Obama administration’s view that not only may it declare any American citizen an enemy combatant anywhere in the world but that it may also assassinate that American without having to give any grounds for doing so. Predictably, I say, because one thing we’ve learned, or been reminded
Oh dear. I know Neil Kinnock is trying to rally the troops and all that but, really, I don’t think this is terribly helpful. Of Ed Miliband and his little speech: “It was magnificent and I will never be able to praise him enough,” the peer told a packed hall. “A trade union delegate leaned
Liam Fox may well be correct to argue that the Ministry of Defence ought not to be subject to the same level of cuts as other government departments. It is odd to ring-fence NHS and International Development budgets but not the MoD even though there’s supposed to be a war on and all the rest
I was playing golf this afternoon and so didn’t watch Milifest live. But having watched Ed Miliband’s speech and, more importantly, having read it one thing is clear: there was a good speech in there. Unfortunately it was the speech Miliband gave defending the record of the first two Blair ministries. That part of his
I think it’s reasonable to say that those Americans who hoped for some improvement – even if only of the marginal variety – from Barack Obama on the civil liberties front have often been pretty disappointed. But because American conservatives – at least those conservatives gathered in the Republican party – have no interest in
Yup. This is a news website article about a scientific paper In the standfirst I will make a fairly obvious pun about the subject matter before posing an inane question I have no intention of really answering: is this an important scientific finding? In this paragraph I will state the main claim that the research
Labour’s new leader “does human”. Over-estimating Ed Miliband is the new under-estimating Ed Miliband. That’s why James, Iain Martin, Ben Brogan and, among others, David Skelton all warn against under-estimating Ed Miliband. This is the clever play. If Ed turns out to be a disaster no-one will recall warning that he might be surprisingly effective;
You may remember Paul Chambers. He’s the poor sod tried and convicted for tweeting: “Crap! Robin Hood Airport is closed. You’ve got a week… otherwise I’m blowing the airport sky high!” The context? He was trying to visit his girlfriend in Northern Ireland. It was January. There was snow. Nottingham airport was closed. This was
As Iain Martin notes, it didn’t take Labour long to welcome the news that the Irish economy shrank by 1.2% last quarter*. Welcome isn’t quite how they put it but since Irish economic pain is a weapon with which the opposition can attack the coalition, Irish misery is a price worth paying so Ed Balls
Rounding-up some reactions to the new Bob Woodward tome, James Joyner asks a good, if disturbing, question: what happened to civilian control? Bernard Finel, a professor at the National War College and Atlantic Council contributing editor, goes further: “President Obama seems to be in over his head in trying to deal with national security. He
A pretty good ad produced by Citizens for the Republic: By good, I mean of course, effective and a nice echo of Reagan’s famous Morning in America ad. Don’t expect a GOP-controlled Congress to do much better however. The GOP’s Pledge to America basically amounts to “rolling back” non-defence, non-entitlement spending to, oh, 2007 levels.
Peter Beinart says the GOP is “her party now”. Robert Lane Greene at the Economist says “she has to be considered the front-runner.” Jon Chait and David Frum agree. So does Paul Mirengoff. Andrew Sullivan, unsurprisingly, asks “who can beat her?” Standing athwart this tide of pessimism – for none of those cited here want
Bob Woodward is the best (and perhaps nastiest) blackmailer in Washington. Sure, you don’t have to co-operate with him but you know what will happen if you don’t. Those who talk to Woodward are always treated kindly by the great stenographer; those who decline his advances invariably become the villains. Each time this happens it
Emotional involvement is a grand thing. Except when it clouds the mind. Such, anyway, would seem to be the case with Tim Montgomerie’s call for government intervention in the vexed [sic] issue of who owns football clubs. Now, like Tim (who, unlike me, is a Manchester United fan) I’ve little against supporters-groups owning football clubs.
Bagehot had the misfortune to attend a Liberal Democrat fringe meeting on education reform. But I’m glad he did because he’s produced a righteous post that demands to be read in full. Here’s a taste of it: The title of the meeting was blunt: “Will Schools Have Too Much Freedom in a Big Society?” Mr
I dare say it makes one a bad person to be amused by this: ONE gives only a pittance in direct charitable support to its causes — something Borochoff said the average donor might not realize. The Bono nonprofit took in $14,993,873 in public donations in 2008, the latest year for which tax records are