Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Friday

Alex Massie

Best British Movies?

Commenting on this post, WPN asks: "What would a list of the Top 10 British films of the last 25 years look like? As an American, British films are not 'foreign' enough for me to think of them as a separate category in my own mental space. I'd be curious what Brits think."Good question! The obvious answer is, natch, "thin". Nonetheless, my own list of Top British Flicks Since Local Hero would include (in no particular order): The Crying Game The Madness of King George My Name is Joe Secrets and Lies Henry V Withnail & I Richard III Mona Lisa 24 Hour Party People Naked Other contenders could include: Small Faces, Land and Freedom, Layer Cake, Sense and Sensibility, Hamlet, A cock and Bull Story, Bright Young Things...

Alex Massie

Hillary Accepts

Well, one assumes the dear old New York Times wouldn't run a story saying she's accepted the offer to be Secretary of State unless it was pretty well certain that she will. That sound you hear is foreign editors tearing up their pages right now. The groaning comes from Sunday newspaper hacks who now need to recast their focus pieces. What does it all mean? Well, like I say, it suggests Obama's not going to break with the Washington consensus on foreign policy. But perhaps we will all be surprised. Alas, this also means the already tiresome "Team of Rivals" meme will run and run...

Thursday

Alex Massie

Should Gordon Go Now?

By which I mean, natch, should El Gordo toddle off to Buckingham Palace and call for a general election next spring rather than hanging on until 2010. Danny Finkelstein says yes he should. I rather agree. Admittedly this agreement is to some extent predicated upon my dislike of Brown and the rest of his miserable, chiselling crew. (Smith, J being but the most alarming example of the breed). Consequently, the sooner the country has a chance to be rid of them, the better. Nonetheless, putting personal prejudices aside (and the downside of a Tory victory in the spring, of course, is that disappointment will arrive that muh sooner), there's a Labour-centred case for going early too.

Alex Massie

So what kind of blog is this, anyway?

Well, according to this site - which purports to "analyse" your blog - I'm a Mechanic or an ISTP on the Myers-Briggs scale, just like Andrew Sullivan. This means that we're: The independent and problem-solving type. They are especially attuned to the demands of the moment are masters of responding to challenges that arise spontaneously. They generelly prefer to think things out for themselves and often avoid inter-personal conflicts. The Mechanics enjoy working together with other independent and highly skilled people and often like seek fun and action both in their work and personal life. They enjoy adventure and risk such as in driving race cars or working as policemen and firefighters.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Chart of the Day

Nuff said, methinks. Vouchers and proper school choice programmes aren't the only answer, of course, but it's simple decency to extend to the working class  opportunities taken for granted by the middle-class, including, of course, many teachers themselves. More details on the chart here.

Alex Massie

Tales from the House of Commons 2

Time to return to TP O'Connor's Sketches in the House, his account of the 1893 parliamentary session. Back then, happily, the government could not yet guillotine a bill and so obstructionism - or filibustering - was a legitimate, if infuriating, parliamentary tactic. Much to Mr O'Connor's irritation... Again I repeat, obstruction is a matter not of intellect, but temperament. Intellectually, I should put Jimmy in a very low place, even in the ranks of the stupid party. Temperamentally he stands very high. A brief description of his methods of obstruction will bring this home. First, it should be said that he is entirely inarticulate and, beyond rough common sense, destitute of ideas. He has nothing to say, and he cannot say it.

Alex Massie

The Libertarian Inquest

I'm a sucker for any story headlined "Where Did the Libertarian Party Go Wrong?" and sure enough Brian Doherty's Reason article is a fun read. I particularly liked his opening line: From the outset, Bob Barr’s Libertarian run for the presidency was fraught with great expectations. The biggest problems for the LP? Apart, that is, from the fact that libertarian ideas aren't all that popular? The failure to take advantage of the Ron Paul Revolution. That and the problem that Obama was a pretty good vehicle for protest votes this year - in a way that John Kerry never was.

Alex Massie

Country Life

The countryside can be a wild and dangerous place: Farmers have been warned to be on their guard as scrap metal thieves target large gates in southern Scotland.Three farms in the Selkirk area of the Borders were struck at the weekend.Farmers said the thefts were not only costly but also put livestock at risk of being killed if they wandered out onto nearby roads.The Scottish National Farmers Union said that when the economy was under pressure people needed to guard against "petty, opportunistic crime". Happily, as best I can tell, none of the gates here have been taken. Yet.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

The Best Little Brisket in Texas

One thing I'd like to do next summer (if, that is, we have a summer) is devote some time to doing some proper BBQ. No surprise, then, that I was a sucker for Calvin Trillin's New Yorker piece on the small Lexington BBQ-joint hailed by Texas Monthly as the home of the Best BBQ in the Lone Star state. As a longtime editor, though, he knew a Cinderella story when he saw one. It wasn’t just that Snow’s had been unknown to a Texas barbecue fancy that is notably mobile. Snow’s proprietor, Kerry Bexley, was a former rodeo clown who worked as a blending-facility operator at a coal mine.

Alex Massie

Hillary’s Return?

Ewen MacAskill reports that Hillary is indeed going to be Obama's Secretary of State. His report in the Guardian is entirely unsourced however - which is interesting because MacAskill is not a reckless reporter by any means. Even so, Josh Marshall says he doesn't believe anything any British paper publishes about American politics. My old friend Toby Harnden has a theory explaining what could have happened: Maybe the almost complete lack of sourcing is a clue. When that happens, what's usually going on is that a very senior person on the paper has been told something, is certain it's true and directs that the story be written, without furnishing many (or any) details or giving the reporter access to (or even the identity of) the source.

Alex Massie

The Roman Obama?

Mary Beard, in good form today: I’m surprised that no-one seems to have spotted an obvious Roman parallel for the success of Barack Obama. Or have I missed it? In the second century AD, Lucius Septimius Severus became the first ‘African-Roman’ emperor of Rome. Like Obama he was of mixed race -- his father from Libya, his mother of European descent. He too had an outspoken and determined wife, from Syria. And his first task on coming to the throne in 193 AD was to deal with a military disaster in Iraq (‘Parthia’ as it was then known). Of course, I'm sceptical that there are often actually any (truly useful) lessons to be learnt from Rome but that doesn't mean one can't have some fun digging up comparisons from the ancient world.

Alex Massie

One Nation Republicanism?

David Frum is leaving National Review to set up a new online venture called NewMajority.com which will launch once Obama takes the oath of office in January. Frum explains himself here: Over the past three years, I have been engaged in some intense rethinking of my own conservatism. My fundamental political principles remain the same as ever: free markets, American leadership in the world, and intense attachment to inherited moral and cultural traditions. Yet I cannot be blind to the evidence that we have seen free markets produce some damaging and dangerous results in recent years. Or that the foreign policy I supported has not yielded the success I would have wished to see. Or that traditions must evolve if they are to endure.

Alex Massie

The Importance of the Reverse Ferret

I'm pleased to see that Jack Shafer is calling the New York Post's sudden admiration for President-elect Barack Obama a fine example of the time-honoured tabloid tradition of the Reverse Ferret. (See TDL here and here for more on the importance of ferrets to tabloid newspapers). But there's nothing terribly surprising here: Obama is enormously popular and the NYP publishes in a city that voted for the new guy overwhelmingly. It would be nuts to be anything other than gushingly enthusiastic about the new President's prospects. Remember too that the tabloids can't live on cynicism and manufactured outrage alone. No, they need a thick streak of sentiment too. Hence their enduring love for have-a-go heroes and rags-to-riches stories. Mawkish gloop sells too.

Alex Massie

Local Hero: 25 Years On

Until the BBC's Culture Show reminded me of it this evening, I had no idea that it is now 25 years since Local Hero was released. Christ, that makes one feel old. If Bill Forsyth's classic is not the best British movie of the past quarter century, it is certainly the loveliest. And, oddly, timely too these days.

Monday

Alex Massie

The Game is the Game

My friend James Forsyth asks a daring question: "Will Peter Mandelson end up a National Treasure?" A crazy notion, you may feel, but not an impossible one! Now, of course, in many respects Mandeslon is a dreadful character, but whereas, say, Alastair Campbell is a mere thuggish bully, Mandelson is a subtler operator who enlivens, rather than demeans, the political game. I suspect the lobby is delighted that he's back. Who could fail to be amused by the manner in which he smoked George Osbourne this summer, as though the Shadow Chancellor was but a kipper? This was Mandelson as his slimy, effortlessly loathsome best. There was something brilliant in his audacity and his continuining ability to argue that black is white and vice versa.

Alex Massie

She’s Back! (Maybe)

I don't know. You go away for an internet-free weekend and everything seems more or less normal. You return and discover that there's much talk that Hillary Clinton could be the next US Secretary of State. Blimey! Andrew is, I think, depressed by this but concludes that shoving Hillary over to Foggy Bottom means she can't damage Obama without also, presumably, damaging her own chances of succeeding him. Perhaps! On the other hand, Mike Crowley says: A stint at State, incidentally, would set Hillary up pretty nicely for 2016, if she's interested. (She'll be 69 years old on Election Day of that year.) No longer would people doubt the validity of her "experience." I'm not sure this is entirely accurate.

Friday

Alex Massie

The Hillbilly Vote

The day after the Presidential election Matt Yglesias spotted this map that shows the counties across the country which swung towards John McCain this year. As you can see, there aren't that many of them. But what's interesting is where they are: Matt quipped that, "You can see why John McCain’s principled stand against higher taxes on the wealthy would have a special resonance in this region. Liberals who thought race had something to do with those appeals should be ashamed of themselves."  Andrew Sullivan agreed with Matt: "Ah, yes, Appalachia and Arkansas. Obviously concerned about marginal tax rates for those earning over $250,000 a year, I suppose." Now, clearly, it would be absurd to pretend - and I do not so pretend - that race had nothing to do with this.

Alex Massie

Probable Hiatus

Another mini-break: I'm heading north to visit my sister. I've said it before, but it deserves saying again that she's the person to contact if you need or even just feel like commissioning a painting. As a rather eminent Fund Manager said to me the other day, "Art may well be a safer investment than anything in my portfolio." And you can look at paintings too...

Thursday

Alex Massie

An American PMQs?

Peter Suderman endorses the idea that life in Washington would be considerably improved if the American president were subjected to some kind of equivalent of Prime Ministers' Question in the House of Commons. By life, I mean, of course, the quality of political entertainment. And given the dreary nature of most of what happens on the Hill - or in the White House Rose Garden for that matter - one can see why many Americans find the idea appealing. And yet, it's hard to see quite how any American equivalent would work. PMQs is not, it should be said, quite what many Americans think it is. That is to say, it is more a matter of style than substance. As someone who thinks politics could do with more, not less, heckling and cheering and booing I'm quite in favour of this.