Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Friday

Alex Massie

Knife Crime Hysteria?

There's an old newspaper adage that "If it bleeds, it leads" that helps explain the current obsession with knife crime. But there's another old truth that it would be useful to remember: news, almost by definition, is defined by what is rare and unusual, not what is common. The more coverage an event or pattern receives, the more exceptional it is likely to be. There was a knife crime "summit" at the Scottish parliament today at which John Muir, whose son Damian was stabbed to death in Greenock in 2007, called for mandatory jail sentences for anyone caught carrying a knife: Mr Muir, 69, said his son's death was one of "the shameful violent statistics which have blighted the Scottish nation for decades".

Alex Massie

If Obama is Othello, who plays Iago?

Good grief. From the Guardian's theatre blog: Shortly before the inauguration of Barack Obama, I received a press release from the RSC with the subject line: "Obama: Is he an Othello for our times?" To the best of my knowledge, the 44th president of the United States has never once murdered his wife in a jealous rage before taking his own life. So, no, President Obama is not "an Othello for our times". But why on earth would the RSC want to suggest a parallel? Not bad, but not good enough. Perhaps the RSC mean to suggest that Obama will be manipulated (and destroyed!) by his subordinates - one of whom may feel that they have, unjustly, been overlooked for, nay denied, a prize they thought was deservedly theirs.

Alex Massie

Progressive libertarians!

That's not, of course, a contradiction in terms. (Which may be why I'm less spooked than some by the idea of "Progressive conservatism") Another way of putting this is, as Harvard's Edward Glaeser did in the NYT, "small-government egalitarianism". Key point: Libertarian progressivism distrusts big increases in government spending because that spending is likely to favor the privileged." Precisely.  Glaeser quotes Woodrow Wilson, who though an egregiously terrible president in many ways was correct on this: “If the government is to tell big business men how to run their business, then don’t you see that big business men have to get closer to the government even than they are now?”   All too true.

Alex Massie

Kennedy Poppycock

Anne Kornblut, normally a reliable reporter, was given a turkey by her editors yesterday. Here's how she begins her WaPo story on Caroline Kennedy's (mercifully) brief Senate bid: With her abrupt exit this week from consideration for the Senate, Caroline Kennedy added her name to a growing list: women who have sought the nation's highest offices only to face insurmountable hurdles. Like Hillary Rodham Clinton and Sarah Palin before her, Kennedy illustrated what some say is an enduring double standard in the handling of ambitious female office-seekers. Even as more women step forward as contenders for premier political jobs, observers say, few seem able to get there. Sure. Nothing to do with the fact that, as one wag put it, her bio ran out of steam shortly after "Born".

Thursday

Alex Massie

In Praise of Mahmut Aygun

How did I miss this tragic news? The man who invented the donor [sic!] kebab has died. Mahmut Aygun, was suffering from cancer and died in Berlin at the age of 87. Known as the "kebab king" he was born in Turkey and moved to Germany at the age of 16 to open a snack stall. He invented the doner kebab nearly 40 years ago. Kebab meat, consisiting of roast lamb and spices, had traditionally been served with rice but in a moment of inspiration Mr Aygun saw that the future lay in putting the meat inside a pitta bread. That allowed customers who had been drinking to wander off into the night with their food and eat it as they stumbled home. Mr Aygun once said: "I thought how much easier it would be if they could take their food with them.

Alex Massie

Kidney Markets

Markets all-around: Across Asia, the going rate for a kidney is usually agreed in the backstreet surgery of some unscrupulous doctor but in Singapore the government will soon be setting the price for this much in-demand organ. A controversial amendment to legalize the payment of compensation to organ donors was put before the Singapore parliament this week and while the health ministry is yet to decide on the upper limit for reimbursement, it is expected to be at least S$50,000 (US$33,000). This is good news and it would be excellent if the authorities here considered following Singapore's example. Regulation, not prohibition is a pretty useful rule of thumb. And not just, obviously, for organs either.

Alex Massie

A Change to Believe In

Not a bad start for the new President: "For a long time now there has been too much secrecy in this city," Obama said. "The old rules said that if there was a defensible argument for not disclosing something to the American people, then it should not be disclosed. That era is now over. Starting today, every agency and department should know that this administration stands on the side not of those who seek to withhold information, but those who seek to make it known... "The mere fact that you have the legal power to keep something secret does not mean you should use it," Obama said. "The Freedom of Information Act is perhaps the most powerful instrument we have for making our government honest and transparent and holding it accountable.

Alex Massie

Chirac’s Poodle

Sure it's only January, but there's already an obvious contender for the prized title of Headline of the Year: Former French President Chirac hospitalised after mauling by his clinically depressed poodle.

Alex Massie

Cameron the Radical?

Apparently the new issue of Prospect carries a piece by Philip Blond of Demos in which He calls on Cameron to lead a massive redistribution of power and wealth, to restore Britain’s “lost” civil society and local pride, to break up monopolies, protect small businesses and promote microfinance and self-improvement for the poor. If this sounds radical and distinctly un-Thatcherite, it’s because it is. But, Blond points out, as late as August 2008 David Cameron was promising to be “as radical a social reformer as Margaret Thatcher was an economic reformer.” This confuses me, since a lot of it sounds pretty Thatcherite to me. Self-improvement? Check. Small businesses? The grocer's daughter was all in favour of them, surely? Suspicion of monopolies?

Alex Massie

Obamamania Reaches the Borders

Seriously. You cannot escape Mr Obama. The splash in this week's edition of The Southern Reporter, out today, is headlined "Hope and fear as Parker and Moore welcome Obama". That's David Parker, leader of Scottish Borders Council and Michael Moore MP. For good measure, the new president claims the main picture on the front page too. That said, Mr Parker has sensible things to say on trade: “A range of trade unions and economic experts in the US are advising Obama and his team to be more protectionist and there is a danger that this could happen – the Clinton administration previously had protectionist policies which did impact on the world economy.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Expenses: Brown Gets out of Gaol

Disappointing to see that the government has retreated from its plans to exempt the disclosure of MPs expenses from being ocvered by the Freedom of Information Act. Yes, yes, everyone is supposed to hail this as a victory for transparency and, perhaps, as Iain Dale says, for online activism and lobbying too. I fear we protest too much on this issue. Not because MPs expenses should be kept secret (of course they shouldn't) but because a vote on the matter, with Labour MPs subjected to a three-line whip no less, would have a) been a monumental, and thus pleasing, embarrassment for the government and b) could easily have been repealed by a future Tory government. In other words, parliament dodged a pratfall today.

Alex Massie

Gut Instinct

Mark McKinnon, Bush's advertising man who left the McCain campaign because he didn't want to work against Obama, reports from the plane taking the Bushes back to Texas yesterday: And while I’m reluctant to quote the president directly from private conversations, I think I can fairly report that he feels a genuine warmth for President Obama. He admires his sense of family, his relaxed and easygoing nature, and his character. He has gotten to know him during this transition period and he has a pretty good gut for people. His gut tells him Obama has what it takes to be a successful leader. Not yet tested. Not yet proved he is willing to make difficult and unpopular decisions. But the potential is clearly there. Ah yes! The famous Bush gut.

Alex Massie

Bush’s Limited Idea of Compassionate Conservatism

George W Bush has earned praise for the manner in which he has left office: dignified and quiet. Fair enough. And at least unlike his predecessor he didn't cry tears of self-pity. Nor, by and large, did Bush disgrace the Presidency by handing out a bundle of pardons to friends and cronies. With one exception that is. Throwing one last bone to the GOP base, Bush commuted the sentences of Jose Alonso Compean and Ignacio Ramos, a pair of Border Patrol officers convicted of shooting an unarmed Mexican (who was subsequently proved to be a drug smuggler* - though the agents did not know that at the time) and then covering-up the shooting to make it seem as though their victim had been resisting arrest when he had, in fact, been running away and back towards Mexico.

Alex Massie

Everyone Needs an Obama

I also enjoyed the Alice Miles article Peter links to at the mother-blog, not least because I've never bought the notion that Gordon Brown was anything other than a long-term liability to this government. This, however, made me laugh: But does Labour have a Barack Obama of its own? The most hotly tipped contender is Chuka Umunna, the charismatic Labour candidate for Streatham - although that may be partly because Mr Umunna is black. And he is only 30 and not yet an MP, which is obviously a problem. Yeah, I guess it is. Still, this has the makings of some great sport: Where-oh-where is the Liberal Democrat Obama? How can Plaid Cymru expect to raise the valleys if they don't find a Welsh Obama? Where, in the name of the wee man, is the Ulster Unionist Obama? And so on and so on...

Alex Massie

Inauguration TV

One of the advantages of the satellite TV revolution is being able to compare the way different countries view historic events. Russia Today, the Kremlin's English-language outreach channel, for instance, was extremely revealing, if sometimes unintentionally, during the Russo-Georgian mini-war last summer. Yesterday it didn't bother with live coverage of Barack Obama's inauguration, featuring instead a talking heads panel featuring a number of grumpy Russian analysts. Still, that was better than China's propaganda vehicle, CCTV (yes, really), which, as far as I could see, hopping between stations, just ignored it altogether.  On the other hand, ignoring the celebrations might have been preferable to watching the inaugration on any of the US networks.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

A Young Nation Rises Again

In many respects this was a deeply traditional inauguration speech. It didn't reach the heights of Obama's "Jeremiah Wright" speech in Philadelphia, but it didn't need to and was, in any case, an address given to a very different kind of occasion. The Wright speech was interesting, not merely because of how Obama addressed the controversy, but because of what it told us about how he thinks. This, by contrast, was a grander, more formal affair. Less personal and so less interesting. But it didn't need to be a perfect speech. Nor did it matter much that it wasn't. It did more than enough to get the job done; what mattered was the identity of the man delivering the address.

Alex Massie

All Aboard the Obama Bandwagon!

I had thought that the Scottish Tories suggestion that they would invite Barack Obama to come to Scotland to collect his "Obama tartan" represented the most shameless attempt to hop aboard the Change We Can Believe In Express. But not so! Segolene Royal claims the prize: "Yes, I inspired Barack Obama and his team copied us" He sent a team to Paris to study her "Desire for the Future" site. "He took the idea of 'win-win' and the 'citizen expert' from us." [Ms Royal said.] Oddly, this inspirational example seems to have been overlooked by most, nay all, other observers and chroniclers.   [Hat-tip: Ben Smith. Translation from the French my own, rather rusty, effort.

Alex Massie

The Soft Bigotry of Low Expectations

Whatever else you might want to say about Peter Wehner's reasons for why Americans should thank George W Bush (and there's lots you could say!) you can't accuse him of setting the bar at an intimidatingly high level: "Restoring dignity to the Oval Office, acting with civility and grace, loving his country, and serving her well." Well, OK! How many Presidents* actually hated the United States of America? UPDATE: Jefferson Davis, I guess. But that's a slightly different case...

Alex Massie

Class Matters

At dinner the other night I was asked, "Do you think he will live?" The he in question, of course, being Barack Hussein Obama. Nor was this the first time I'd been asked this. I suspect that such fears are more widely held than you might care to think. And that left me thinking that for all that there's plenty of fine reporting from America in the British press, there has been, in some respects, a collective failure to understand how much the United States has changed. That is to say, it is always easier to focus upon tales of American weirdness, of gun-toting rednecks and bible-thumpers and all the rest of it. These are colourful parts of the American quilt, but they tend to receive disproportionate attention from the international press.

Alex Massie

Will Mark Penn Watch the Inauguration?

Remember Mark Penn? Hillary Clinton's chief strategist provided much entertainment during the primary campaign. It's especially worth reminding you of the most famous memo he sent Hillary in which he promised that Barack Obama was, well, toast: His roots to basic American values and culture are at best limited. I cannot imagine America electing a president during a time of war who is not at his center fundamentally American in his thinking and in his values... Let's explicitly own "American" in our programs, the speeches and the values. He doesn't... We are never going to say anything about his background - we have to show the value of ours when it comes to making decisions, understanding the needs of most American - the invisible Americans...