Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Friday

Alex Massie

GOP to World: Drop Dead

There are many good things in this week's edition of the magazine and among them, happily, is a piece by Dan Drezner. It's not online yet so why don't you subscribe? £1 an issue for the first 12. Bargain! Anyway, Dan casts a weary gaze (there being no other kind of gaze when it comes to this sort of survey) over the Republican presidential pretenders' foreign policy views. Here's how he begins: During the 2008 US presidential election cycle, the respected journal Foreign Affairs invited the leading prsidential candidates from both parties to outline their views of world politics. All of them responded with essays that, one presumes, they at least read if did not write.

Alex Massie

The Dumbest Council in Britain?

Edinburgh council - presently best known for spending £700m on half a tram system (and the wrong half at that) - has mercifully moved on to more important business: congratulating the Occupy Edinburgh "movement" on whatever it is they are doing camping in St Andrews' Square beneath the disapproving (I'm sure) gaze of Henry Dundas, Viscount Melville. Never knowingly out-ninnied, however, the cooncil has decided to "recognise" the movement (for whatever this may be worth), passing a motion approving of its aims and sympathising with the campers and wishing them well. Given that financial services are a significant, even vital, part of Edinburgh's economy and the campers are expressly and especially hostile to financial services this could be considered an odd move by the council.

Alex Massie

Artists vs Artisans

Watching Roger Federer destory Rafael Nadal the other day and knowing how many people can recognise their brilliance while always holding a vehement, even visceral, preference for one of these superb athletes I wondered if there was a correlation with another bitterly divisive sporting divide. I mean, of course, David Gower vs Graham Gooch. That is, how many people love Nadal and Gower and how many Gooch and Federer? Precious few I suspect. How could you? Even allowing for different sports and their different demands these things have an aesthetic quality. Gooch, English cricket's greatest monster these last 25 years, is obviously allied with Nadal; Gower with Federer. Perhaps I am mistaken but I cannot see how one could love Federer in tennis and side with Gooch in cricket.

Thursday

Alex Massie

An Endorsement Tom Harris MP Does Not Need

As the cousins celebrate the most genial holiday of them all, there are many things one for which one should be thankful. Not having a vote in the leadership contest currently gripping the Scottish Labour party comes pretty near the top of the list. Nevertheless and unlike Ed Miliband I can at least name each of the three candidates for this miserable prize. And like Kate Higgins, were I burdened with a vote in this contest, I should vote for Tom Harris. Granted, he will have to find himself a seat at Holyrood at some point but that's a technical detail which need not concern the rest of us. Granted too, I suspect he needs more than an anti-Salmond agenda to really prosper.

Alex Massie

In Defence of Lobbyists

Amol Rajan - author of the splendid Twirlymen - has an entertaining rant against lobbyists in the Independent today. Entertaining, of course, is code for less than mightily persuasive. Lobbying, Amol complains, is nothing but "legalised bribery". This is the accepted view and just the sort of thing sensible folk are supposed to believe. Distasteful as you may find the business, one does wonder what the anti-lobbying fraternity think is a viable alternative. 'Tis easy to despise lobbyists but they fulfill an essential role and one that, more importantly, needs to be protected. That this can produce unfortunate outcomes is not the point; the principle of the thing - the right to petition MPs and parliament - is rather more important.

Alex Massie

The 40p Tax Rate is Much More Important than the 50p Rate

Clarissa Tan made a number of fine points about the utility of the 50p rate of income tax yesterday. Tim Montgomerie makes some more at ConservativeHome today under the headline "Osborne is warned that Britain will lose its high earners if he doesn't abolish 50p tax band." Maybe, but he might lose the next election if he does. This is not the 1980s. It was possible then to persuade middle-income voters that tax rates north of 80% were foolish, punitive and counter-productive. Making a comparable case for abolishing the 50p rate is a much more difficult prospect. If these were happy times matters might be different but they are not and there's no point trying to pretend they are.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Up with the IRA and Down with the Pope of Rome

Joan McAlpine's column in the Scotsman this week is uncharacteristically unpersuasive. Since she decided to defend the SNP's plans for so-called anti-sectarian legislation she was backing a losing horse from the start. Still, it speaks well of her loyalty. Nevertheless, her piece is useful since, in large part, it outlines a kind of consensus that is deemed to exist and from which it is unwise to deviate. Certainly it is hard to think of many opposition politicians who have distinguished themselves in this affair. Even those who question the SNP's plans do so on grounds of efficiency, not ethics or principle. If the government's plans are woeful; the opposition remains fearful. How can it be otherwise given they also subscribe to the dreary theory that Something Must Always Be Done?

Friday

Alex Massie

A Republic, If You Can Keep It

The symbolism of this is pretty dire. These are still times for bitter melancholy in Ireland and many a Dubliner has rarely felt as republican as he does now that the state's sovereignty* is, shall we say, not what once it was. This, a friend says, is just another tale of life "under the occupation": Taoiseach Enda Kenny has rejected reports that details of next month's Budget, including a planned hike in the VAT rate, were shown to German officials yesterday. Mr Kenny met chancellor Angela Merkel in Berlin yesterday after which reports emerged that the Irish Government was planning raise the top rate of VAT by 2 per cent to 23 per cent. According to documents presented to a Bundestag budget committee, the measure would generate an additional €670 million for the Government.

Alex Massie

Ibrox: A Broader Church Than You Might Think

This case looks as though it belongs in some Chris Morris show or something: A Muslim Rangers supporter who chanted sectarian remarks at a game at Ibrox Stadium has been fined £600. Abdul Rafiq, 41, the only Muslim member of the English Defence League, was arrested at Rangers friendly game with Chelsea on 6 August. [...] Fiscal depute Seana Doherty, prosecuting said: "The accused was standing in the Govan front stand wearing a flag around his shoulders bearing the Red Hand of Ulster logo. "He was wearing an umbrella stand hat which was red white and blue and also had the Red Hand of Ulster logo on it, and carrying a blue Rangers backpack. "He was seen by three police officers to stand up from the seat and chant sectarian phrases.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Why are the SNP Talking Scotland Down?

These days "Talking Scotland down" is both the gravest sin imaginable and the standard SNP response to any suggestion there might be even the occasional or minor drawback to independence. Thus when Philip Hammond makes the obvious point that Rump Britannia might not build warships on the Clyde he's being "anti-Scottish". Thus too when George Osborne suggests some firms might want the constitutional questions - including EU-access - clarified to assist their long-term planning he too is guilty of "talking Scotland down". It is true, as Joan McAlpine says, that we have been here before and the sky did not fall.

Alex Massie

Newt: A Modest Bum of the Month

Who can blame Newt Gingrich for enjoying his 15 minutes as Mitt Romney's latest Bum of the Month? And who among us is not entertained by his becoming modesty? Take this, for example: "Because I am much like Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, I'm such an unconventional political figure that you really need to design a unique campaign that fits the way I operate and what I'm trying to do.' Readers are invited to speculate on the extent to which Newt really is "much like" St Ronnie and the Blessed Margaret. On the off-chance you still need persuading Newt's a huckster wrapped inside a fraud, Jonathan Bernstein lists just thee of the many reasons why the former Speaker won't be the Republican nominee. And yet the madness of pretending to take him as seriously as he takes himself persists.

Alex Massie

Taxi for Oxford Council

This is the sort of thing that makes you wonder about this country: Oxford council plans to require all taxis in the city to be fitted with "audio recording devices".  Taxi drivers in the university town have been told that they need to install the £460 devices by 2015 or face having their licenses revoked. The microphones, accompanied by CCTV cameras, will activate once the ignition in the car is turned on and will remain recording for 30 minutes after the engine is turned off. The council says the recording equipment is necessary to protect drivers and passengers as well as deal with any disputes over fares. Recorded information would only be accessible to the police or council officials. Presently, of course, it's impossible to resolve "disputes over fares". Obviously.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

The Harrier Flies Again!

That's the good news. The bad news is that these admirable little planes won't be flying for Britain. Navy Times (and others) report that the United States Marine Corps plans to purchase the whole of the United Kingdom's Harrier force. The spare parts will apparently cost the cousins some $50m and a price for the airframes will, apparently, be agreed soon. This is good news for the Harriers and for the US Marines who, as one Harrier expert told Navy Times, "We’re taking advantage of all the money the Brits have spent on them. It’s like we’re buying a car with maybe 15,000 miles on it.” Gee, ya think? Yeah, we think. Granted, the Americans and the UK have different needs and the age when the UK's armed forces were all-court players ended some time ago.

Alex Massie

Newtmania is the New Huntsmania!

Oh Jonathan, how you disappoint me! Newt Gingrich's "rise" in the polls means almost nothing. It certainly does not warrant being treated as a serious political phenomenon for the obvious and excellent reason that Newt isn't going to be the next Republican nominee. He just isn't. It would be an act of all-but unprecedented folly to select a man certain to send Obama coasting to a second term. Indeed, the more obvious it is that Obama is vulnerable so "electability" will become a mind-concentrating factor for GOP voters. I need hardly remind you that this is bad news for Newt. More to the point, remember when candidates such as Steve Forbes and Pat Buchanan actually won caucuses and primaries?

Alex Massie

Lessons in Leadership from the Eurocrisis

Paul Krugman has a good paragraph on the euro: [T]his incident exemplified something that was going on all along the march to the eurodebacle. Serious discussion of the risks and possible downsides was simply not allowed. If you were an independent economist expressing even mild concerns about the project, you were labeled as an enemy and shut out of the discussion. In a way, the remarkable thing is that it took until now for disaster to strike. This should be a warning to all political leaders. They each need someone whispering to them: What if we're wrong?

Alex Massie

Junk Tobacco Science: Tar Heel Edition

As always, I commend Chris Snowdon's blog, Velvet Glove, Iron Fist to you as among the very best places for common sense on tobacco issues. His latest post offers a pleasing, if sadly pointless, demolition of a North Carolina study claiming that a ban on smoking in bars caused a 21% fall in the number of heart attacks in the Tar Heel state. Poppycock but the sort of tripe that's accepted by press and politicians alike. As Chris explains: Even if we assume that secondhand smoke does cause heart attacks, smoking bans have so little effect on so few non-smokers (and have no effect at all on the smokers, unless it compels them to quit), that the kind of reductions in the heart attack rate reported by these studies defy both science and common sense.

Alex Massie

Bye Bye, Herman Cain

A while ago, a reader asked why I hadn't written more about Herman Cain. Because, I explained, the only reason he had a greater chance than any other eligible American citizen of winning the Republican nomination was that he's on the ballot paper in the early primary states. In time, I said, this would be seen to be a mere technical advantage for Mr Cain. The indulgence with which his candidacy has been treated can only be explained as some kind of virus or, if you wish to be more charitable, an experiment in mass hallucination. But these things pass and even bad trips end. Witness the (final) implosion: Writing about Herman Cain for President - even when so-called polls showed him doing well - was always a space-filling nonsense.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Rick Perry, RIP

Gosh, I hope I remembered to add the caveat "if he's any good at this stuff" to any post suggesting Rick Perry could or should be a GOP front-runner. Because his campaign ended last night. Here he is failing to remember what parts of the federal government he'd axe: Of course, scrapping the departments of education and commerce or at least sharply reducing their remits is not a bad idea. Nevertheless, "Ooops" is not the stuff of which Presidential campaigns are made. You can stick a fork in him, he's done.

Wednesday