Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Friday

Alex Massie

Mark Penn is the new Bob Shrum?

From our UK edition

This doesn't seem like a good idea. It's true that a Downing Street spokesflunky dismissed the suggestion that Mark Penn might hop across the Atlantic to work for Gordon Brown as "codswallop" but who would choose to believe what Downing Street says? Here's PR Weekly, reporting that Number 10 is interested in hiring Penn to be Brow's chief pollster.  With Gordon Brown's leadership rating falling to its lowest level yet this week, senior figures in Number 10 believe that Penn could be Brown's answer to Philip Gould - the polling guru credited with reversing Lab­our's declining fortunes in the 1990s.

Alex Massie

Guatemala’s Secret War on Israel

From our UK edition

Wackiest anti-immigration argument yet (US edition): Hamas wins when Hispanics are allowed into the United States. At least I think that's what Mark Krikorian is claiming: David Hazony at Contentions points to a new poll that incidentally illustrates an important result of assimilation. (Complete poll here, in pdf.) The survey found that 82 percent of American Christians felt they had a "moral and biblical" obligation to support Israel, including 89 percent of evangelicals, but also 76 percent of Catholics. It's this last statistic that's striking evidence of Americanization — I haven't seen comparable polls elsewhere, but it seems exceedingly unlikely that even a majority of Catholics anywhere else would agree.

Alex Massie

Guinness is Good For You; Government Is Not

From our UK edition

In the past nine months four pubs in Selkirk, my home town, have closed. It would be simplistic to presume that the liberty-quashing smoking ban was the sole cause of this regrettable trend; it would be idiotic to suppose it didn't play a part. Still, that's only one part of legislators' attempts to run publicans out of town. Consider this latest wheeze, for instance, as told by the Southern Reporter: Pub licensees, who currently pay £172 for a three-year licence to sell alcohol, will have to fork out up to £1,600 just to register their premises under the new [licensing] system. An annual fee on top of that has yet to be worked out.

Alex Massie

Who says the culture wars are over?

From our UK edition

This is probably the dumbest thing Barack Obama has said all year. "You go into these small towns in Pennsylvania and, like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing's replaced them...And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. “And it's not surprising then they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” That Obama was speaking at a  fundraiser in San Francisco, of all places, makes it worse.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Read All About It: Readers Resist Porridge

From our UK edition

Glenn Greenwald, elitist scourge of the modern media's cosy elitism, has been on a tear lately. He complains that the media focuses too much on trivial froth and not enough on serious issues. Why, he asks, does the media, ignore (relatively speaking) John Yoo's now-infamous (and rightly so) "Torture Memo" while devoting acres and hours of attention to Barack Obama going ten-pin bowling in Pennsylvania? The crux of Greenwald's argument is: And as Eric Boehlert documents, even Iraq -- that little five-year U.S. occupation with no end in sight -- has been virtually written out of the media narrative in favor of mindless, stupid, vapid chatter of the type referenced above. "The Clintons are Rich!!!!" will undoubtedly soon be at the top of this heap within a matter of a day or two.

Alex Massie

Things That Are Not True

From our UK edition

From our old friends at National Review: Or, as Bill Bennett puts it: Colombia is the Israel of Latin America. Your nominations please for other unlikely Israels in unlikely corners of the planet. eg, Andorra is the Israel of Europe or Orvieto the Israel of Umbria etc. A prize to the best suggestion...

Alex Massie

Italy Update

From our UK edition

I've missed Silvio Berlusconi and suspect you have too. Sure, I wouldn't want him running my country but it seems important that he be able to remain on the international stage for some time yet; It is a rather unorthodox argument for being elected, but in image-obsessed Italy it just might work. Famously outspoken Italian opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi has claimed that right-wing politicians are more attractive than their left-wing rivals. The centre-right's candidate in this weekend's national elections said the Left had "no taste" in women. He said that when he looked around parliament, he found female politicians from the right were "more beautiful", the BBC reports. "The left has no taste, even when it comes to women," he said.

Alex Massie

Stuff Readers Like

From our UK edition

Further to this post on the media and What Readers Want, it's always useful to have a gander at the New York Times's most emailed stories. For sure, this is no infallible guide but it is a useful snapshot of reader opinion in as much as it's a list of the stories readers most frequently recommend to their friends. Here's today's list. In Shift to Digital, More Repeat Mammograms Latest College Reading Lists: Menus With Pho and Lobster Equestrians’ Deaths Spread Unease in Sport Magazine Preview: The Aria of Chris Matthews Findings: And Behind Door No.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Has Blair Kinda/Sorta Endorsed John McCain?

From our UK edition

Danny Finkelstein thinks so. Noting that Blair had said that modern politics is more a matter of Open vs Closed than Left vs Right: And then I asked which politicians on the right he regarded as on his side, the open side, of the new argument. He replied:I think you can see the Republicans in the US who are on the pro-immigration side of the debate, on the pro-free-trade side, the Americans who are Democrats but protectionist. I think the thing that has come home to me most since leaving office is just the speed at which the world is opening up. Full interview - largely on Blair and his Faith Foundation - here.

Alex Massie

How can all be lost? Wisden has arrived.

From our UK edition

One of the great annual treats is upon us: yes, the 2008 edition of Wisden arrived this morning. As always, the obituaries provide some of the best reading. To wit, Mike Brearley's father, Horace who died last August aged 94. He was: A batsman who played once for Yorkshire before the war, and twice for Middlesex afterwards...Mike himself tells the story of his father's only game for Yorkshire, which was against Middlesex: "He batted an No. 5, and faced a side that contained three leg-spinners. Horace had never, or almost never, been confronted by a googly bowler, and here were three all at once. But he was a typical Yorkshireman, and his comment about the occasion was to complain that Len Hutton kept pinching the bowling. One might have though that this would have suited him fine.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Labour’s Toast: Or Why Gordon Brown Will Never Win An Election

From our UK edition

A delicious column by Rachel Sylvester in today's Telegraph. Some choice highlights: There is a "sulphurous mood" on the Labour benches. Disillusioned Left-wingers, who campaigned for Mr Brown to become leader, are joining forces with triumphant Blairites who say: "I told you so." Even Tony Lloyd, the chairman of the PLP, warned yesterday that the Government needed to "clarify what it's there for". Ministers are losing the habit of discipline too. Last week, Ivan Lewis, a health minister, warned that Labour was "losing touch" with hard-working families, then Gerry Sutcliffe, the licensing minister, attacked the tax rises on booze. Behind the scenes, things are even worse. With no clear direction from above, Cabinet ministers are at each other's throats.

Monday

Alex Massie

CB Fry’s XI

From our UK edition

After Armstrong, Benaud, Constantine, Dexter and Edrich it must be time for a bit of Fry. 1. Roy Fredericks (WI) 2. Jack Fingleton (AUS)3. CB Fry (ENG) (Capt)4. Tip Foster (ENG)5. Andy Flower (ZIM) 6. Aubrey Faulkner (SA) 7. Andrew Flintoff (ENG)8. Frank Foster (ENG)9. Bruce French (ENG) (Wkt) 10. Arthur Fielder (ENG) Fazal Mahmood (PAK)11. Tich Freeman (ENG) If some teams are a chore to select, others are a pleasure. This is one such delightful XI.There are names to conjour with aplenty: Fry, Faulkner, the (unrelated) Fosters, Freeman... And names one wishes to have been able to include too such as Percy Fender or Chuck Fleetwood-Smith. But there can only be XI and these are they.

Alex Massie

Death by Blogging?

From our UK edition

This article in the New York Times is, I suppose, unintentionally hilarious. No-one should be surprised if it prompts calls for regulation. Growing numbers of home-office laborers and entrepreneurs, armed with computers and smartphones and wired to the hilt, are toiling under great physical and emotional stress created by the around-the-clock Internet economy that demands a constant stream of news and comment. The bloggers can work elsewhere, and they profess a love of the nonstop action and perhaps the chance to create a global media outlet without a major upfront investment. At the same time, some are starting to wonder if something has gone very wrong. In the past few months, two among their ranks have died suddenly. Two weeks ago in North Lauderdale, Fla.

Alex Massie

Hillary’s Mugabe Problem

From our UK edition

Jon Chait is in good form in The New Republic this week, arguing that Hillary Clinton ought to drop out now since, barring cataclysm, she can't win the Democratic party's presidential nomination. This is true. Still, I liked Toby Harnden's take best: It seems that Hillary Clinton is pondering three options: seeking an amnesty deal and fleeing the country; going for an immediate run-off (on April 1st, she suggesting a bowling match with Barack Obama) or declaring a 90-day state of emergency and taking the whole thing into July. But she’s been ignoring pleas from across the civilised world to call it quits, insisting that the people have a right to vote again and again until they get the right answer.

Alex Massie

Good Day in Paris

From our UK edition

The BBC: Paris protests mar Olympic relay This, naturally, is entirely incorrect. The problem would have been if there hadn't been any protestors. Still, the BBC, which is sending more than 400 staff to Beijing, is heavily invested in the Olympics and keeps insisting that London 2012 is something to be jolly proud of whereas much of the population wished the IOC had handed the games to Paris instead.

Alex Massie

A Democratic Plan Colombia

From our UK edition

Hillary Clinton on the proposed US-Colombia trade deal: I am disappointed that President Bush has decided to send the Colombia Free Trade Agreement to Congress. As I have said consistently for several months, I oppose signing any trade deal with Colombia while violence against trade unionists continues and the perpetrators are not brought to justice. The United States should be pursuing trade agreements that promote human rights and worker rights, not overlook egregious abuses.  I will vote against the President's Colombia trade agreement, and will urge my Senate colleagues to do the same. No surprise there. No surprise either that Barack Obama is bound to vote against the deal himself.

Alex Massie

Sarko’s NATO Problem

From our UK edition

Here's The Economist reporting developments in France: THE Gaullist backlash against Nicolas Sarkozy's new Atlanticism has begun in earnest, and its new poster boy is Dominique de Villepin... Not only did he denounce the French president's decision, which was warmly greeted by George Bush at last week's NATO summit in Bucharest, to send an extra French battalion (some 700 troops) to Afghanistan. He went on to chastise Sarkozy for planning to reintegrate France into NATO's military command structure. "Not only is the return of France to NATO not in our country's interests, but I also think it's dangerous," he said: "We will lose space to manoeuvre, space to be independent" as well as "an ability to act alone". NATO, after all, he said "is an organisation under American domination".

Sunday

Alex Massie

The Outrage is What Isn’t Seen as Outrageous

From our UK edition

Terrific Nick Cohen column today, decrying the feebleness of a new ITV political satire show that oh-so courageously portrays Gordon Brown as some sort of Scottish miser. The truth, of course, is quite different: Brown couldn't be further from a Dickensian miser if he tried. For 10 years, he has thrown other people's money around with the abandon of a Roman emperor or Renaissance pope.. Try a thought experiment and suppose they had more confidence in themselves and their viewers and decided to deride Brown's Britain intelligently. They might then have looked at the NHS, which Labour promised to save in 1997. In fairness, it has all but doubled the health budget in real terms to £97bn, brought down waiting lists and built new hospitals.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Department of Timing

From our UK edition

The Scotsman today: Page 1: Mystery of Severed Head Found on Arbroath Beach Page 18: The Awe Inspiring Beauty of Scotland's Beaches.