Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Monday

Alex Massie

Ed Miliband’s Leveson response shows his weakness: he’s a follower, not a leader. – Spectator Blogs

The biggest risk in punditry is the determination to see what you want to see. Confirmation bias is an ever-present clear and present danger to solid thinking. Nevertheless, though keeping this in mind, I wonder if Ed Miliband's reaction to the Leveson Report has been wise, far less a response that will help him win the next election. By "wise" I mean wise in a purely political sense, not "wise" as in appropriate, sensible or well-judged. The Labour leader's demand that Leveson's recommendations be implemented is, in its way, remarkable. This, after all, is a 2,000 page report published in four volumes. And yet within this mountain of ponderous, muddle-headed thumb-sucking Mr Miliband has not been able to - or has chose not to - identify a single passage with which he might quibble.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

UKIP is not a libertarian party – Spectator Blogs

I'm sure, as James says, that the idea of some kind of Tory-UKIP non-aggression pact will not go away. But that's because many Tory backbenchers are remarkably stupid. Proponents of a Tory-UKIP alliance ignore the stubborn fact that many voters - voters the Tories need if they are to win a majority - aren't too keen on UKIP. There is no point adding one vote from the right if it costs you two from the middle, mainstream ground of British politics. Besides, the Tories are not every UKIP voter's second-choice and, anyway, the real battle is for the Liberal Democrat vote. Be that as it may, it is UKIP's insistence that it is a libertarian party that annoys me. Granted, there are many brands of libertarian and UKIP can describe itself as it wants.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Israel’s Tragedy: Even If She Wins She Loses – Spectator Blogs

Next time someone bores on about the so-called decline of the British literary novel you might consider pointing out to your dinner-party companion that this is not such a bad thing. It suggests, if the thesis is true, that there aren't too many problems in this realm that are still worth exploring, far less solving. Consider, by contrast, the twin and warring agonies of Israel and Palestine. Is there a better, bigger, subject for any novelist working today than this? I suspect not which is one reason why the likes of Amos Oz and David Grossman (and, doubtless, others too) are vital in every sense of the word. These dual tragedies evoke terror and pity in equal measure. There are few innocents and many guilty parties.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

Suing Twitter for Libel is a Mug’s Game – Spectator Blogs

Rod Liddle asks a question of the kind one frequently sees raised by media types: [W]hy is [Lord McAlpine] not suing Twitter itself? It is not Philip Schofield who the peer is suing, but ITV. Surely, likewise, Twitter needs to take some responsibility for its output? If, unlike broadcasters, it has no legal responsibility for what is put out through its witless conduit, then surely there is less of a responsibility on the people who use it, too? On the face of it this seems a reasonable question. But it doesn't take long to appreciate that it really isn't and that, though doubtless well-intentioned, it doesn't make a heap of sense. That is, it misunderstands both Twitter and the nature of the web. ITV employs Philip Schofield and is responsible for the programmes it chooses to broadcast.

Alex Massie

Annals of Odd Complaint: Moaning that Google Does Exactly What You Say You Want It To Do – Spectator Blogs

Via Tim Worstall, here's Jeanette Winterson: A fiery Jeanette Winterson has called for the hundreds of millions of pounds of profit which Amazon, Starbucks and Google were last week accused of diverting from the UK to be used to save Britain's beleaguered public libraries. In an impassioned speech at the British Library this evening, the award-winning author of Oranges Are Not the Only Fruit said: "Libraries cost about a billion a year to run right now. Make it two billion and charge Google, Amazon and Starbucks all that back tax on their profits here. Or if they want to go on paying fancy lawyers to legally avoid their moral duties, then perhaps those companies could do an Andrew Carnegie and build us new kinds of libraries for a new kind of future in a fairer and better world?

Alex Massie

The Intervention drums Beat for Syria, But To What End? – Spectator Blogs

Poor Syria. The Syrian opposition struggled for attention before the latest Israel-Hamas conflagration. Yet despite this, the agitation for intervention continues. But to what end? That's a question I ask in a piece for Foreign Policy: The international community's attitude is best-summarized by a recent headline from America's most reliable news source, The Onion: "Having Gone This Far Without Caring About Syria, Nation To Finish What It Started." That may be about to change, however as European powers -- as such Britain and France insist they be deemed -- inch closer and closer to intervening in the Syrian tragedy. […] British and French agitation still resembles nothing so much as an unorthodox variation on the classic governmental mantra: Something Must Be Done.

Friday

Alex Massie

Rand Paul: Leader of the US Senate’s Tiny Awkward Squad – Spectator Blogs

Speaking of politicians worthy of your support, here's Senator Rand Paul doing his thing: Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is holding up a vote on the Defense Authorization Act until he gets a vote on his amendment affirming the Sixth Amendment of the Constitution and the indefinite detention of Americans. [...] Paul’s amendment would give American citizens being held by the military rights to a fair trial with a jury of peers and the right to confront the witnesses against him or her.

Alex Massie

Michael Gove: an adult in a parliament of toddlers – Spectator Blogs

Michael Gove, the most important and successful Aberdonian politician since, well, since I don't know actually, is also that rarest of things: a grown-up cabinet minister. He knows the importance of praise. Consider this passage - highlighted by John Rentoul - from a speech he gave on Child Protection this morning: Just as the Labour Government early in its life felt that teachers needed to be told how to operate – down to the tiniest detail of what should happen in every literacy or numeracy hour – so the Labour Government towards the end of its life felt it had to produce thousands of pages of central Government prescription on social work practice. Both sets of interventions reflected a lack of trust in the frontline.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Will supporting gay marriage help the Tories? It’s all a matter of location, location, location. – Spectator Blogs

Do pollsters and pundits actually understand how British elections work? I sometimes wonder. Take, for instance, the debate concerning whether or not supporting gay marriage might win the Conservative party more votes than it loses. The Prime Minister says there are polls that suggest it would. Not so fast, retorts ComRes's Andrew Hawkins. He argues: Your letter of 19 October 2012 to The Rt Hon Cheryl Gillan MP states that “a recent poll by ComRes found that 10 percent of current Conservative voters say that the policy [to legalise same-sex marriage] would make them ‘less likely to vote Conservative’ compared with 7 percent saying it would make them ‘more likely to vote Conservative’.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Annals of Neoconservative Delusion: Leaving Iraq Edition – Spectator Blogs

Douglas Murray's latest post is a rum 'un indeed. He asks us to believe that Barack Obama's "foreign policy boasts" are unraveling now that the American election is usefully out the way. I must say that the evidence for this is thin, not least since it seems to rely upon 1. A reported Iranian attack on a US drone, 2. General Petraeus having an affair, 3. The existence of long-planned Congressional hearings on the Benghazi nonsense and 4. The Iraqi government's decision to release from gaol a suspected Hezbollah operative responsible for an ambush in which five American troops were killed. If this amounts to "unraveling" then I guess the President can live with it.

Alex Massie

Ireland and Abortion: Cruelty disguised as piety, cowardice misrepresented as principle. – Spectator Blogs

Oh, Ireland! You knew it would come to this. Today's Irish Times carries the appalling story of the death of Savita Halappanavar, a dentist in Galway, who died in hospital largely as a consequence of being denied an abortion. As the paper reports, Mrs Halappanavar: [P]resented with back pain at the hospital on October 21st, was found to be miscarrying, and died of septicaemia a week later. Her husband, Praveen Halappanavar (34), an engineer at Boston Scientific in Galway, says she asked several times over a three-day period that the pregnancy be terminated. He says that, having been told she was miscarrying, and after one day in severe pain, Ms Halappanavar asked for a medical termination.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

There is no duty we so much underrate as the duty of being happy. – Spectator Blogs

My thanks to Bella Caledonia for republishing Robert Louis Stevenson's splendid essay An Apology for Idlers on this the 162nd anniversary of that fine man's birth. It is the grandest entertainment I've read today. Originally published in the July 1877 edition of the Cornhill Magazine it still bounces with life today. Among its many romping moments: Idleness so called, which does not consist in doing nothing, but in doing a great deal not recognised in the dogmatic formularies of the ruling class, has as good a right to state its position as industry itself. It is admitted that the presence of people who refuse to enter in the great handicap race for sixpenny pieces, is at once an insult and a disenchantment for those who do.

Alex Massie

Race, gay marriage and modern Conservatism. Lessons for David Cameron from America. – Spectator Blogs

So, we've had nearly a week to digest the results of the American election and contemplate what, if anything, it might all mean for politics there and, naturally, in this country too. Let's begin with a necessary caveat: the "read-across" from American elections to the British political scene is something that must be handled deftly. If considered with a sensible measure of proportion, however, it can be instructive since some of the challenges facing political leaders in Britain are comparable in kind (though not always in degree) to those faced by their cousins in the United States. Demographics aren't destiny and policy matters more than journalists sometimes liked to pretend.

Alex Massie

In defence of… Starbucks – Spectator Blogs

It does seem odd that Starbucks can have so many coffee shops in the United Kingdom and yet fail to make any profit from them. I am no expert in these matters but assume Starbucks is merely acting rationally and, in fact, legally. If politicians don't like this kind of caper they might consider simplifying the tax code. Even for multinationals such as Starbucks, Amazon and Google. Anyway, all this has people harshing on Starbucks. Again. The coffee chain is a victim of its own ubiquity. Which is just another way of saying that it's suffering for its successes.

Monday

Alex Massie

Abu Qatada and the problem of freedom-stomping friends – Spectator Blogs

And so, once again, the judges are in the dock for insisting that due process be followed even when, as in the case of Abu Qatada, it is inconvenient to do so. On the face of it, the decision to thwart Qatada's deportation to Jordan seems unreasonable. But the truth is that few of us are in any position to judge the worth of the Jordanian government's assurances that none of the evidence used against Qatada will have been tainted by torture. It may be that, as the ECHR ruled, those assurances are credible (and if so, that's in part thanks to the work of bodies such as the ECHR) or it may be that, as the Special Immigration Appeals Commission has determined, they are not.

Alex Massie

Britain, Scotland, Norway and Europe: lands of magical Sovereignty-Unicorns – Spectator Blogs

Even the cheapest, Poundland crystal ball will tell even a blind observer that Europe is pretty soon going to be a pretty hefty problem for almost all of Britain's political parties. Almost all, I say, because that includes the SNP* whose europhilia is, in some respects, a product of a time that no longer exists. Anyway, the odds of manifesto pledges promising an in-or-out referendum in the next parliament seem to be shortening all the time. I have no idea what this is supposed to achieve since, as best I understand the matter, neither the Conservative nor Labour parties wish Britain to leave the European Union. Asking the question necessarily increases the chances of receiving an answer you do not think sensible or in the national interest.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Another Hateful Decision by the European Court of So-Called Human Rights – Spectator Blogs

How much longer must we put up with this kind of thing? A bus driver who was fired for being a member of the BNP has won a long legal battle claiming his dismissal was a breach of his human rights. Arthur Redfearn, 56, was sacked from his job in Bradford, West Yorkshire, where he drove mainly Asian adults and children with disabilities. Judges at the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg ruled today his employer Serco Ltd dismissed him only because of his membership of a political party. This breaks Article 11 of the European Convention on Human Rights – the Freedom of Assembly and Association, the chamber of the court ruled.  The seven judges came to this conclusion on a 4-3 majority.

Alex Massie

Immigration is only part of the problem Republicans have with hispanic voters – Spectator Blogs

Lord knows there are plenty of people to blame for Mitt Romney's defeat. One chap has not been mentioned often enough, however. Step forward and take your medicine Rick Perry! The Governor of Texas, who once persuaded otherwise sensible folk (and me) he was a more than plausible contender for the GOP nomination, played an important part in securing Barack Obama's re-election. Perhaps the President should send him a set of Presidential-seal embossed cowboy boots. There are bound to be some left from the Dubya days. It was Perry who insisted that, if you had a heart, you should support Texas's policy of not preventing the children of illegal immigrants from getting a college education. These kids, in Texas at least, are treated like any other kids in the Lone Star State.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

The View from the Cocoon of Denial and Epistemic Closure – Spectator Blogs

William F Buckley has, alas, gone the way of all flesh but his National Review lives on and arguably remains the flagship journal of contemporary American conservatism. It certainly considers itself such. As the Republican inquest into last night's election disaster begins, National Review offers a useful - and perhaps telling - glimpse into the contemporary conservative soul (American edition). Here's what its contributors have been writing today: Mary Matalin: What happened? A political narcissistic sociopath leveraged fear and ignorance with a campaign marked by mendacity and malice rather than a mandate for resurgence and reform.

Alex Massie

Amidst Obama’s Triumph, America Enjoys A Libertarian Moment – Spectator Blogs

Amidst last night's Democratic triumph and the confirmation that Obama is, in many respects, Ronald Reagan's heir let's not forget that this election was also a triumph for libertarians and libertarianism. True, Gary Johnson - shamefully treated by the GOP a year ago - "only" won a million votes and 1% of the vote but this was still the Libertarian Party's best performance since 1980. In any case, this small but cheering libertarian moment did not depend upon and should not be measured in terms of the presidential race itself. The real action came at the state level and it was mostly encouraging news for those of us interested in a better, kinder, fairer America. In Maine, Maryland and Washington state voters approved of ballot measures endorsing gay marriage.