Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Bloggery | 20 July 2009

From our UK edition

So, Iain Dale writes: It's that time of year again, when Total Politics asks you to vote for your Top 10 favourite blogs. The votes will be compiled and included in the forthcoming book, the Total Politics Guide to Blogging 2009-10, which will be published in September... The rules are simple. 1. You must vote for your ten favourite blogs and ranks them from 1 (your favourite) to 10 (your tenth favourite). 2. Your votes must be ranked from 1 to 10. Any votes which do not have rankings will not be counted. 3. You MUST include ten blogs. If you include fewer than ten your vote will not count. 4. Email your vote to toptenblogs@totalpolitics.com 5. Only vote once. 6. Only blogs based in the UK, run by UK residents or based on UK politics are eligible. 7.

The New “Old Tom”

From our UK edition

Tom Watson strides up the 9th hole during round three of the 138th Open Championship. Photo: Richard Heathcote/Getty Images. This needs to be written now, not later. Because I’m still a sceptic. I’d love to believe that Tom Watson, 60 in two months time and sporting a new hip, can really win the Open Championship this afternoon. But sometimes faith and hope aren’t enough. The laws of probability and the remorseless weight of years of accumulated evidence scoff at the notion that Old Tom can pull it off. But, by god, wouldn’t it be splendid if he can? Commonsense dictates he can’t. Commonsense demands that Watson’s putter, the cause of so much heartbreak over the years, cannot continue to work so smoothly.

The Most Influential Innings of the Decade

From our UK edition

In 132 years of test cricket a side has followed on and won on just three occasions. Despite this, enforcing the follow-on has become almost as unfashionable in the modern game as stationing a fielder at third man. It is as though modern skippers have concluded that the accumulated weight of cricketing evidence, built up over more than a century, has lost its persuasive power in the contemporary game. So it wasn't terribly surprising that Andrew Strauss declined to put Australia in again at Lord's this morning. One man, above all, is responsible for the follow-on falling out of favour. Ever since VVS Laxman scored 281 against Australia at Eden Gardens in 2001, the Australians have been wary of putting the opposition in again.

Saturday Afternoon Country: Alison Krauss

From our UK edition

A shocking hiatus had turned this weekly tour along the dirt tracks of American folk and country music into just a more-or-less-weekly series. But we're back this week and back with a good 'un. I can't believe it's taken this long to get round to featuring Alison Krauss and her band Union Station. I know there are some people who find Krauss's crossover appeal irritating and who'd prefer her to return to her bluegrass roots. But her collaborations with the likes of Robert Plant are interesting and just another string to her fiddle. Heck, AKUS are so good they can make even Genesis songs sound good. But here they are performing the great Every Time You Say Goodbye in concert last year a few years ago*... *Thanks, Tal.

New Tories: Eurosceptic, Gay Friendly, Barely Unionist and Definitely Not Libertarian

From our UK edition

Conservative Home's survey of 144 of the Tory candidates most likely to enter parliament after the next election is very interesting. It's hardly a surprise that the Tories want British history to be taught in schools, nor that they're in favour of school vouchers and strongly euroscpetic. Nor is it an enormous shock that 48% of them say they would have voted for Barack Obama in the US presidential election (that says more about the state and temper of the contemporary Republican party than it does about either Mr Obama or the Tories). But it's a sign of how the times have changed that 62% of the Class of 2010 think that same-sex couples should enjoy the same benefits as married heterosexual couples.

In Praise of Ken Clarke

From our UK edition

James's comments on Ken's latest are all very germane and all that. But whatever the party's differences with Big Bluff Ken, this is a sentiment all sensible people can endorse: Jogging is for people who are not intelligent enough to watch breakfast television. Quite so. UPDATE: Buzzards join the anti-jogging movement.

The £64 ‘Are You A Paedophile?’ Question…

From our UK edition

Sometimes you can only despair. It seems that anyone who gives talks to schoolkids (in England, Wales and Northern Ireland) on a "regular" basis now needs to pay £64 for a certificate declaring that they are not a paedophile. This is part of something called the Vetting and Barring Scheme* designed to protect children from innocent and well-meaning strangers. A spokesman for the Department for Children, Schools and Families (Hello, Nanny State!) explains that authors such as Philip Pullman, have it all wrong. The Are You A Paedophile? checks are vital** and "This is because visitors to schools, even if they are supervised by a teacher at all times, are being placed in a unique position of trust where they can easily become deeply liked and trusted by pupils.

Worst Hat-Bashing for Years: 16/7/39

From our UK edition

No-one who has done time at one of this country's more expensive educational institutions will be surprised by this account of the aftermath of the 1939 Eton vs Harrow match at Lord's. It's a scene of carnage that could be lifted from the pages of Wodehouse or, more darkly, Waugh. Note too the attitude of the police and the frankly suspicious-but-far-too-good-to-check reference to Hitler. This, then, is the Sunday Express's account, noted by George Orwell in his diary entry for the 16th of July, 1939. Worst Hat-Bashing For Years Our “Gentlemen” Enjoy Themselves Harrow beat Eton at cricket yesterday, at Lord’s, for the first time for thirty years, and then followed the biggest display of hat-bashing since the 1919 match.

Books Overboard: What Would You Throw Away?

From our UK edition

Parlour game time! The Literary Canon is an intimidating thing at the best of times but these days it's becoming grotesquely bloated. It could do with losing some weight. So, in that spirit, it's time to think of what books could safely be ditched without causing too much pain or guilt.  The Second Pass starts the game by choosing ten books that (they think) your life might be improved by ignoring: White Noise by Don DeLillo Absalom, Absalom by William Faulkner One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel García Márquez The Road by Cormac McCarthy The Rainbow by D. H.

Hillary & Barack’s Conventional Hawkery

From our UK edition

The problem with Major Foreign Policy Speeches is that different folk are listening. For instance, this section from Hillary Clinton's "Hey guys, remember me?" speech today: "...we will remain clear-eyed about our purpose. Not everybody in the world wishes us well or shares our values and interests. Some will seek to undermine our efforts. In those cases, our partnerships will help constrain or deter their actions. And to these foes and would-be foes, let me say: You should know that our focus on diplomacy and development is not an alternative to our national security arsenal. You should never see America's willingness to talk as a sign of weakness to be exploited. We will not hesitate to defend our friends and ourselves vigorously when necessary with the world's strongest military.

Sarah Palin’s Little Platoons

From our UK edition

Danny Finkelstein's column today argues that Sarah Palin is the true leader of the Republican party these days. And he doesn't mean that in a good way: There is no more eloquent statement of modern Republicanism than resigning office with time still on the clock. Mrs Palin has chosen to talk about power, rather than exercise it. She would rather write a book and give lectures about being a governor than actually be a governor. And her party has made the same choice. It has cast itself, deliberately, as the opposition, the angry outsider, and it is more comfortable in this role than it is as the party of power... One of Mrs Palin’s constant refrains when asked about giving up her office is that she didn’t want to practise “politics as usual”.

Frustrating Change & Ignoring Public Opinion: That’s A Bad Thing?

From our UK edition

Matt Yglesias laments that American political institutions aren't more like, well, ours: The American legislative system, however, is not a good venue in which to attempt to rip off a band-aid. Nobody wants to propose such a thing, provoke an outcry, and then have it not happen. And the odds of getting 60 votes in the Senate for anything more controversial than a vote in favor of mom and apple pie are pretty thin. Consequently, bad policy can just sit there on the books with everyone afraid to peek their head over the ramparts lest it get shot off. Matt is specifically addressing the failure to eliminate mortgage-interest tax relief and, in this instance as in many others, he's right that the US Congress frustrates efforts at rectifying past mistakes.

Adventures in Defence Procurement. Plus, Do We Need the RAF?

From our UK edition

Defence procurement is difficult. It's hard to design and build new weapons systems and predicting what kinds of equipment and force structure will be needed in 20 years time is a necessarily tricky business. Mistakes and blunders don't just happen; they're inevitable. Still, despite the Eurofighter and the looming problems with the Royal Navy's new carrier class, it's not clear that there's anything on the MoD's books quite so daft as the US Air Force's F-22 fighter*. It's not merely a matter of cost - though as nearly $200m a pop the F-22 is no bargain - but that, apparently, the average F-22 only flies for 1.7 hours before developing a "critical failure" that jeopardises its mission.

The Rights of Fans vs The Rights of Stars

From our UK edition

Tuesday's stage in the Tour de France was interesting and, in its way, revealing. Ultimately, it was about power and interest. Should the race be run be its organisers or, effectively, in partnership with the peloton and the teams? And, just as importantly, should the interests of the teams be placed ahead of the interests of the fans? The Tour organisers decreed that yesterday the riders would ride without the radios they've come to rely upon. The teams, unsurprisingly, objected and, equally unsurprisingly, the riders agreed not to race properly until the closing kilometres of the stage.

The SNP, Cricket and Soft Unionism

From our UK edition

There were at least a dozen people on my flight from Edinburgh to Cardiff last week who were clearly heading to Wales to watch the test match. This was not a surprise, given that tests held at Headingley and, perhaps especially, Old Trafford attract plenty of spectators from north of the border. There is much more enthusiasm for cricket, and much more cricket actuallly played, in Scotland than many people in England appreciate. And there's much more cricket in Scotland than some Scots appreciate too. This is especially true of joyless, chippy, narrow-minded, prejudiced nationalist members of the Scottish parliament, plenty of whom see the game as an unwecome, if irrelevent, interloper at best and, doubtless, an agent of English colonialism at worst. This, naturally, is Class-A piffle.

The 3% Solution & the Case for More, Not Fewer, Foreign Workers

From our UK edition

So the Tories have announced their new international development policy. Apparently it's going to be "results-based" and fit for a "post-bureaucratic age" (this latter being, mind you, the kind of phrase coined by bureaucrats). Iain Dale likes the sound of it and so does Tory Bear. I'm sure there are plenty of good ideas lurking in the new paper, but I'm also pretty sure that there's not much sign of the Tories moving towards a truly radical approach to international development: open borders. Actually, it's not quite open borders, more a question of creating a worldwide guest-worker programme. Harvard's Lant Pritchett is perhaps the leading proponent of this sort of idea.

Looking for Laku in Nicaragua

From our UK edition

More evidence emerges to support the notion that Scoop is really a work of non-fiction. This time it's in the form of this report in the Washington Post: For months, the reports percolated in Washington and other capitals. Iran was constructing a major beachhead in Nicaragua as part of a diplomatic push into Latin America, featuring huge investment deals, new embassies and even TV programming from the Islamic republic. "The Iranians are building a huge embassy in Managua," Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton warned in May. "And you can only imagine what that's for." But here in Nicaragua, no one can find any super-embassy. Nicaraguan reporters scoured the sprawling tropical city in search of the embassy construction site. Nothing.

69 Balls

From our UK edition

Jimmy Anderson and Monty Panesar of England walk off after securing the draw in the 1st Ashes Test Match between England and Australia at Sophia Gardens. Photo: Hamish Blair/Getty Images. Look at Monty Panesar's face there. The poor lad looks punch-drunk and spent, drained by the scale of the drama in which he's played such a part. Jimmy Anderson, on the other hand, bounces off with a sly, even cheeky, grin that simulataneously acknowledges how close England came to disaster and tries to persuade you that you should have expected this and that England's survival was never in doubt 'cos it was just all part of an honest day's work. Right? Up to a point. One of the nice things about cricket is that you can get quite so excited by things that don't happen.

Ashes Hiatus

From our UK edition

So, yes, little blogging. Blame a combination of Ashes cricket and an infestation of family... Hiatus will continue as I shall be at the cricket in Cardiff on Friday. Talk amongst yourselves and deliver your verdict on whether Kevin Pieterson is just a tube or merely something else... See you on Sunday* or Monday.... *We're playing vile Gala on Sunday in a must-win reserve league fixture. So, no blogging Sunday either. It's all cricket all the bloody time here, you know...