Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Loving the Liberal Democrats in a Hung Britain

Over at ConservativeHome Paul Goodman suggests that Nick Clegg be invited to address the Conservative Party Conference this year and, in general, that the Tories need to do more to get to know their colleagues in government. He's right. And here, via John Rentoul, is John Curtice to help explain why. Professor Curtice suggests that this most recent election ought not to be considered a freakish result and that even if the voting system remains unaltered hung parliaments are probably as likely as not for the foreseeable future.

Alex Massie

Bannockburn Should Be Celebrated

The usually estimable David Maddox has a very strange post up at the Scotsman's politics blog complaining that Alex Salmond wants to exploit the 700th anniversary of Bannockburn. Apparently: While Bannockburn is a battle which Scots should take historic pride in, seeing off an invading English army which had numerical superiority, it nevertheless is symbolic of anti-English feeling which are rife with the SNP and nationalist movement as a whole. So much for the "positive nationalism" which Mr Salmond claims to espouse. It is difficult to escape the feeling that this will be a year long "hate the English" festival in the run-up to a double election in 2015. This is, alas, piffle.

Alex Massie

Let Us Now Praise… Liam Byrne

The new firm of Osbourne Osborne* & Laws got off to a good start yesterday. True, trimming £6bn from this year's budget is a trivial task compared to the decisions that lie ahead but as a statement of good sense and prooof of good intentions it was, as I say, a good start**. The plain truth is that the government will lose around £500m every day this year. That's not sustainable and when put in such terms the public can understand, one trusts, that something will have to give. Let us now praise a Labour minister: Liam Byrne. Not for the fiscal profligacy that has left the public finances in much worse shape than they had to be  - a recession and banking calamity made some losses inevitable - but for the political cover he's given the new coalition.

Alex Massie

The Times Goes for Broke

  Rupert Murdoch is scarcely infallible and there's a sense abroad that he doesn't really understand the internet. But even if that's true it doesn't mean that his decision to take the Times behind a paywall is necessarily a mistake even if, naturally, it's inconvenient for bloggers and other news-grazers. So journalist me sort of hopes that Murdoch's gamble, beginning today with the launch of a new and sleeker Times website, works; blogger and consumer me is less optimistic and not just because the Times paywall is an upfront charge, not the metered system favoured by the Financial Times and, soon, the New York Times. In one sense £2 a week is not a great sum to pay. If the Times were the only paper with an online edition one might even think it a bargain.

Sunday

Saturday

Alex Massie

Saturday Night Country… John Denver

Way back when back in the distant times I was at college I had - still do, in fact - a friend who was a John Denver fanatic. Aged 20 or so he'd seen the great troubador more than 20 times. In those days I had not yet seen the country light and, sad to say, scoffed at this enthusiasm. So this one's for you Nick. Here's Mr Denver and his Wild Montana Skies....

Alex Massie

The Third Most Important Man in Britain

Well, in the government anyway. After David Cameron and Nick Clegg, the next most important chap is David Laws. So it's reassuring to see that the Liberal Democrat Chief Secretary to the Treasury is prepared for the worst. I recommend this interview with the Financial Times which, frankly, offers just another reminder that the calibre of the cabinet has been improved by including the Orange Bookers: [S]ome of the decisions that have got to be made, particularly in the spending review later on this year, are going to be a choice between the unpalatable and the disastrous. [...

Friday

Alex Massie

A Communist Mr Pooter

From the Morning Star and noted without any need for much further comment: Veteran Communist Monty Goldman is jubilant over his outstanding result in Hackney's mayoral election this month. Goldman, who was born and bred in the east London borough, began contesting local elections 50 years ago. This time he won 2,033 votes - or 2.2 per cent. "This is the highest Communist vote ever achieved in my lifetime as a candidate in Hackney," Goldman declares. "The last time I did this well was in the 1967 Greater London Council election, when I won 1,671 votes, which worked out at over 6 per cent." He emphasises that his recent success "reflects the grass-roots work that the party has done in Hackney over the last 30 to 40 years." Only another 250 years to go - at this rate - before victory.

Alex Massie

Beat This, Adidas

Nike's World Cup ad is great. Let's see how Adidas counter with Lionel Messi et al. Note too how even in an ad Ronaldo is an egotistical pillock.

Alex Massie

Rand Paul and the Civil Rights Act

Going out on a limb here, I'm guessing that Rand Paul's admission that he would have opposed the 1964 Civil Rights Act is not going to help him become the next Republican Senator representing the great state of  Kentucky. Of course he's walking back from his comments now but going from "I wouldn't have voted for it" to "Of course I would have voted for it" is flippier than your usual flip-flop. Paul, like his father Ron, is no white supremacist and his opposition to federal encroachment is principled and reasonably consistent. The Civil Rights Act was indeed a terrible infringement upon States' Rights.

Alex Massie

A Ten Year Deal

A wise column by Martin Kettle in today's Guardian. Wise, of course, because he reaches a conclusion this blog arrived at some time ago: Yet it is not too soon to insist that almost everything about this government so far, including today's programme, is intended to be about more than making the best of a bad job. Everything now points, indeed, to this coalition being a serious historic attempt to realign the liberal centre-right in the electoral middle ground. Cameron and Clegg, in their own ways, now almost say as much. "The more I see of this coalition in action," Cameron said, "the more I see its potential, not just in solving the problems that lie before us but solving them with a shared set of values".

Alex Massie

Is Lance Armstrong a Cheat?

This is a question of faith and those who believe won't let anything change their mind, while those who can't believe in the Miracle of Lance won't be satisfied until the poor man does something impossible and proves a negative. I'm divided: I think the believers deluded and the sceptics dangerously monomaniacal but I also have much more sympathy for the latter than the former and not just because I think Lance Armstrong a creep. Nevertheless... He cannot ever demonstrate that he has never doped - but that doesn't mean one has to believe everything Armstrong says.  As readers who are cycling fans and who possess long memories may recall, I am an Armstrong sceptic.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Intermission

Looking south towards Hawick. Quiet times here on account of visiting family. Usual service to resume later in the week. All being well.

Monday

Alex Massie

If Ed Miliband is the Answer, What is the Question?

Election post-mortems are always interesting and often fun. Take the speech Ed Miliband made to launch his campaign for the Labour leadership. While paying due attention* to Labour's achievements in government, it still reads as an indictment of the party's record in office. Consider these snippets: We must start by understanding the country we seek to lead again. ...[T]he truth is that as government wore on we lost that sense of progressive mission and of being in touch with people’s concerns. As time wore on we came to seem more caretakers than idealists—more technocratic than transformative. And when political parties lose that sense of idealism and mission they become much more vulnerable to the currents of events.

Alex Massie

Robin Hood and the Laffer Curve

I've been assuming that Ridley Scott's interpretation of the Robin Hood saga must be terrible. After all, it's nearly a decade since Black Hawk Down, Scott's last properly good movie. But now AO Scott pops up in the New York Times to suggest, though he may not mean to, that the movie has something going for it after all: You may have heard that Robin Hood stole from the rich and gave to the poor, but that was just liberal media propaganda. This Robin is no socialist bandit practicing freelance wealth redistribution, but rather a manly libertarian rebel striking out against high taxes and a big government scheme to trample the ancient liberties of property owners and provincial nobles. Don’t tread on him!

Alex Massie

The Latest Insidious Threat to the American Republic

Beautiful muslim women. Verily. According to the increasingly-ridiculous Daniel Pipes, Rima Fakih's triumph in this year's Miss USA beauty pageant is yet another dismal example of affirmative action. This is what that "affirmative action" looks like: Terrible, you'll agree. Not that Pipes is alone in complaining about this. Someone called Debbie Schlussel says "Hizbollah is laughing at us" and puts Donald Trump  - the absurdity whose organisation runs the contest - on the ever-lengthening list of "Dhimmi" fools aiding and abetting the destruction of the United States and the western world. For reals.

Saturday

Alex Massie

Forza Evans!

Cadel Evans wins Stage 7 of the 2010 Giro d'Italia in Montalcino. Photo: Luk Beines/AFP/Getty Images. What with being deprived of, for various reasons*, Contador, Menchov, Valverde, Pellizotti, di Luca, the Schleck brothers, Armstrong and Cancellara you could have been forgiven for thinking that this year's Giro d'Italia might be a disappointment. Not a bit of it. In fact, I wonder if these days the Giro doesn't often provide better racing than the Tour de France. It certainly did today. On paper the stage from Carrara to Montalcino was interesting but not obviously threatening even though it included some 20km over the Tuscan strade bianche - that is, gravel and shale roads that offer a small reminder of the conditions the giants of yesteryear battled every day.

Alex Massie

The British People Have Not Been Betrayed

Norm does a good job pointing out the sillyness of this silly Johann Hari column in which Hari complains that the Liberal Democrats have betrayed themselves, their voters and the country by agreeing to advance Liberal Democrat goals from government. How shocking! Nevertheless, Hari complains that "the British people have not got what they voted for". Well nor have BNP voters but I doubt that Hari is bothered by that. Nor should he be. In any case, no-one votes for a government of any stripe. All anyone gets to do is endorse a given candidate in their local constituency. After that  it's a case of letting the national chips fall where they may.

Friday

Alex Massie

Tweeting the Second World War

  It's good to talk about something other than the election and its aftermath. So let me recommend this: the National Archives are tweeting the Second World War. Day by day and several times a day and with a 140 character limit they bring you the news as it was in 1940. It's a strangely effective ploy. Consider these tweets from [sic] May 13th 1940: War Cabinet to meet at 1830 BST. New Prime Minister Winston Churchill to make statement to House of Commons at around 1400 BST. Germans advancing in Holland, Belgium. RAF has lost 76 aircraft in 48 hours. UK forces continuing to retreat in Norway Members of new War Cabinet formally announced to House of Commons. Leader of Opposition Clement Attlee to join coalition as Lord Privy Seal.

Alex Massie

Clause 4 Moments

One of my favourite bloggers, Sunder Katwala, has a typically fine post asking if this coalition really is, as some of us think, Dave's "Clause 4 Moment". He makes a number of pertinent point, not the least of which is his contention that, actually, it's Nick Clegg who has imposed such a choice upon his party. True, Cameron has forced change upon his party and, if it holds and works, the coalition may see some perceptions of the Tory party change but, in this instance anyway, that change has in turn been forced upon him even if I do think that Dave is happier with this arrangement than he would be with, say, having a majority of nine. But, yes, it's Clegg who has demanded a "Come to Jesus" moment of his party.