Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Death by Taser: Coming to a Street Near You

From our UK edition

Meanwhile, in other police news, Coppers in Birmingham are being armed with Tasers as a matter of course. Until recently, only firearms officers were so equipped. Sadly, this means that it's only a matter of time before someone is killed by one of these things. That's what happens when you start flinging 50,000 volt charges about. This isn't a question of if but of when. It will happen. What's more, I strongly suspect that handing more weapons  - even of the supposedly non-lethal type - actually makes everyone less safe. When the police are encouraged to think of themselves as paramilitaries then we shouldn't be surprised when they start acting in a thuggish fashion.

Alex Massie

Another Disgraceful Prosecution

From our UK edition

Like the Devil's Kitchen, I'm late getting to this story travesty. The most enraging aspect of it is, of course, that one can no longer be surprised by this kind of behaviour. Yet again the police and the criminal justice system prove themselves out of touch with common sense or decency. A grandmother has been jailed for five years for possessing a "family heirloom" World War II pistol. Gail Cochrane, 53, had kept the gun for 29 years following the death of her father, who had been in the Royal Navy. Police found the weapon, a Browning self-loading pistol, during a search of her home in Dundee while looking for her son. She admitted illegal possession of the firearm, an offence with a minimum five-year jail term under Scots law.

Alex Massie

Heroic Journalism

From our UK edition

I am a great admirer of John Rentoul's series of Questions to Which the Answer is No and recommend it to you without hesitation. Until today, however, I had not known of the inspiration for this splendid feature. Discovering that it all began with the Daily Mail is no great surprise and could anything really be more perfect than the question* that Rentoul picked to begin this valuable series: There is, I submit, something almost heroic about this and the minds capable of producing such dizzying leaps of logic. It is magnificent. *As is often the case, the online version isn't quite as good.

Friday

Alex Massie

Touareg 0 Toerags 0

From our UK edition

I'm not going to intrude into private grief. But, as mentioned before, there's a considerable disconnect between the England fans (many of them anyway) and the tabloids. As this wince-inducing Sun frontpage from the day after the draw was announced makes clear... So, readers, what do you think England should do next?

Alex Massie

Oh No! English People Support England! Racists! Think of the Children!

From our UK edition

Sunder Katwala has already done a terrific job dismantling this fatuous piece of New Statesman guff by James Macintyre. But that doesn't mean other people can't play the game too. Macintyre, you see, wants to see a United British football team. Not, mind you, because he thinks it might be better than England's but because this is needed "for the sake of the Union". Yes, really. Macintyre's piece is remarkable, not least because I'm not persuaded it contains even a single sensible sentence while every one of its assumptions is wrong and each of its dubious interpretations is as hopeless as anything ever produced by a Russian linesman. It's so bad he could probably have persuaded the Guardian to pay* him for it. So...

Thursday

Alex Massie

Obama Should Thank BP

From our UK edition

Well, up to a point. Too Big To Fail is a phrase we often hear these days and one that by now you may well be bored by. We don't hear much about its companion: Big Enough To Fail. But that would seem to be the case with BP and the Gulf of Mexico. Even amongst oil companies there aren't many - Exxon, Chevron, Shell and a handful of others - who'd have the resources or revenues to cope with a disaster of this magnitude. BP is one of the select few. And even then it may be a damned close run thing. That doesn't mean all is fine and dandy with BP or excuse its appallingly ham-fisted press operation but it's a reminder, perhaps, that this situation, catastrophic as it may be, could be much worse.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Annals of Dismal Punditry: World Cup Edition

From our UK edition

One of the stranger aspects of watching World Cup coverage in the United States is ESPN's choice of colour commentator and studio analyst. Who knew that what this tournament really needs is Robbie Mustoe's analysis? Then there's Steve McManaman and Ally McCoist and Efan Ekoku all of whom are working for the Americans for, frankly, mysterious reasons. Not all of it works. Then again, the quality of analysis on the BBC and ITV has been abysmal and actually, I think, worse than what ESPN offers.

Alex Massie

Obama’s Pragmatism Part 2: Civil Liberties Division

From our UK edition

In Washington at the weekend, I spent some time talking to a friend who works on privacy and civil liberties concerns. He'd been a little worried, professionally that is, that the Obama administration might reduce his workload and disappointed, personally that is, that it has not. Far from it in fact. Today's example is a demonstration of how innocent US citizens are, thanks to the No-Fly list, essentially consigned to exile: For six weeks, Mr. [Yahya] Wehelie has been in limbo in the Egyptian capital. He and his parents say he has no radical views, despises al-Qaeda and merely wants to get home to complete his education and get a job. When he offered to fly home handcuffed and flanked by air marshals, Mr. Wehelie said, F.B.I. agents turned him down. ....

Alex Massie

A Wee Bit of Culture

From our UK edition

Never let it be said that politicians will cling to even the meanest post until the torch and pitchfork brigade come calling. Labour MSP Frank McAveety has stood down from his position as the convenor of the Scottish Parliament's Public Petitions Committee. And why? Because, during a committee meeting he was heard to say: "There's a very attractive girl in the second row, dark . . . and dusky. We'll maybe put a wee word out for her." Mr McAveety went on: "She's very attractive looking, nice, very nice, very slim," before adding: "The heat's getting to me." The MSP also said: "She looks kinda . . . she's got that Filipino look. "You know . . . the kind you'd see in a Gauguin painting. There's a wee bit of culture*." That "There's a wee bit of culture" is a splendidly Glaswegian touch.

Alex Massie

Obama’s Pragmatism Is A Strength and His Weakness

From our UK edition

James Joyner has a good round-up of liberal disappointment with Barack Obama's oil-spill televised address last night and Jonathan Bernstein's take seems measured and sensible to me. So does Ross Douthat's since Ross points out, correctly, that the President couldn't win, not least because he's supposed to "take control" of a political problem that cannot be solved politically and, in any case, is not the President's to control in any practical sense. As Ross summarises matters: [O]f course everybody saw through these rhetorical maneuvers, and nobody was satisfied.

Alex Massie

Of Pigs and Cucumbers

From our UK edition

Pleased to be back in Blighty and pleased too to see that the Economist has launched Johnson, a blog about language and politics. From the most recent entry: Germany has a cranky coalition government and garrulous politicians, and so conditions are good for political insults. In one intramural fight a health ministry official from the liberal FDP likened the CSU—Bavarian conservatives—to a Wildsau, or wild pig, for its rough handling of the liberals’ health-reform ideas. But the better insult was the riposte by the CSU man, who called the liberals a Gurkentruppe, literally a troop of cucumbers. Anglophone journalists have been puzzling over how to turn this into recognisable English.

Sunday

Alex Massie

The View From Here

From our UK edition

 Hats off to the New York Post: And we'll have no more jokes about Scottish goalkeepers, ok? [Thanks to RF for the tip.

Thursday

Alex Massie

DC Intermission

From our UK edition

Photo: Jewel Samad/AFP/Getty Images Not sure how much blogging there will be these next few days as I'm off to Washington to a) attend a wedding, b) catch up with old friends and c) watch a lot of football. Granted c) could be accomplished here too. Nevertheless, consider this an open thread for, well, anything you like but perhaps especially the World Cup and Saturday's game between England and the United States...

Wednesday

Alex Massie

A World Cup Song for England

From our UK edition

In 2006 David Cameron said: "This coyness, this reserve, is, I always think, an intrinsic part of being British. We are understated. We don't do flags on the front lawn." Now that he's Prime Minister and there's a World Cup on, Dave has (quite reasonably) decreed that the Cross of St George will fly above Downing Street. As a friend commented, it seems "We don't do flags on the front lawn - unless the football's on." For some reason this reminded me of Merle Haggard's classic Okie from Muskogee. And so, with apologies to Mr Haggard, here's a rewritten version that, in a better world, would be England's 2010 World Cup anthem...

Alex Massie

Smoking Bans = Fewer Heart Attacks? Up To A Point, Lord Copper

From our UK edition

Oh my, what a credulous press corps we have. Selectively credulous that is. Put it this way: if a report compiled by a Philip Morris board member suggested smoking was good for you it wouldn't be taken terribly seriously. But let an ASH board member - in this case Dr Anna Gilmore - put together a report that says the smoking ban in England & Wales "caused" a "dramatic" fall in heart attacks and the newspapers will be happy to be spoon-fed their reporting. Now, you may say that the existence of the report is itself news. Perhaps so. But, again, the provenance of the report matters too and should be borne in mind.

Alex Massie

Some Chicken; Some Leg

From our UK edition

I dare say this sort of thing happens in other countries too but, in general, it seems a Very British Story: A woman from Cwmbran, Torfaen took out a bank loan and lived on beans on toast for a year to pay £1,800 in vet bills after her pet chicken injured its leg. Vicky Mills, 24, was heartbroken when Lily, a Rhode Island Red, got her leg trapped in a barbed wire fence . Despite the costs, Mrs Mills told her vet to try to save the limb rather than have her put down. When the treatment failed, she paid for an amputation. Lily was also diagnosed with depression but has now recovered, said Mrs Mills. The chicken's gloominess was thought to have been brought on by being in the house alone while Mrs Mills and her husband Sam were out at work.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Defending the Defence: Italian Edition

From our UK edition

As the build-up to the World Cup continues, my latest item at Goal Post defends Italy and the Italian way of playing football. Some of this, I confess, is based on sentiment. If Scotland cannot prevail - and it seems that some techinicality has made that more than usually impossible this year - then Italy are the european team I tend to support. Perhaps it's because I spent the first year of my life in Rome that this is the case. No memories of that time, of course, but some bond of sentiment nonetheless. Anyway, there's a magnificent austerity to Italian football sometimes and, while one might not want to feat upon it every day, it's good to have it there nonetheless: There is, as I say, a minimalist purity to the essence of Italian football.

Alex Massie

Obama vs BP Cont.

From our UK edition

My old friend Iain Martin wonders if or when David Cameron will pick up the phone to have a word with the American President: Team Obama has chosen to set about a British company with increasing ferocity. Will there come a point when Cameron decides that the British national interest and pride makes a measured intervention desirable? Even if it is simply to point out that BP has given endless commitments to clean up the mess and that ratcheting up the rhetoric against it is far from helpful. Other British based companies and those keen to see what Cameron is made of in terms of foreign policy will be watching closely. Well, maybe. As I suggested earlier, few parties are emerging from this mess with their dignity intact.

Alex Massie

The Malignancy of Ed Balls

From our UK edition

I've only just got round to reading Ed Balls' piece in the Observer in which he argues that Britain should be more protectionist in europe. Of course that's not quite what he says, but "revisiting" the question of the free movement of peoples across the EU is essentially a protectionist measure. Anyway it reminded me of Evelyn Waugh's response to the news that Randolph Churchill had successfully had a benign tumour removed: "It was a typical triumph of modern science, to find the only part of Randolph that was not malignant, and remove it." This is a little unfair on Labour since it had other achievements to boast of. Nevertheless, it seems typical of Balls' malignancy that he should disown such a benign, even honourable, part of Labour's legacy.