Alex Massie

Alex Massie

Monday

Alex Massie

Ireland’s Last Growth Industry: Pitchforks and Torches

Morgan Kelly's piece in today's Irish Times is a brutal and alarming analysis of Ireland's next nightmare: a mass "strategic default" on mortgages. This could, he suggests, change the politics of the state forever: My stating the simple fact that the Government has driven Ireland over the brink of insolvency should not be taken as a tacit endorsement of the Opposition. The stark lesson of the last 30 years is that, while Fianna Fáil’s record of economic management has been decidedly mixed, that of the various Fine Gael coalitions has been uniformly dismal.

Alex Massie

Where’s Barack?

Mike Allen brings us this endearing snippet from George W Bush's new book: “As an Obama win looked increasingly likely, I started to think more about what it would mean for an African American to win the presidency. I got an unexpected glimpse a few days before the election. An African American member of the White House residence staff brought his twin sons, age six, to the Oval Office for a farewell photo. One glanced up around the room and blurted out, ‘Where’s Barack Obama?’ ‘He’s not here yet,’ I deadpanned. On election night, I was moved by images of black men and women crying on TV. More than once said, ‘I never thought I would live to see this day.’” Emphasis added.

Sunday

Alex Massie

This Scotland, Alas

I gather this banner was seen at Celtic Park yesterday. Notice how these clowns can't even spell. I wonder, too, what the club's chairman, Dr John Reid, thinks of this sort of caper. For the rest of us, it kind of leaves one thinking that if there isn't a refereeing conspiracy out to get Celtic (the buggers won 9-0 yesterday) then perhaps there should be? Then again: why give them the satisfaction? Also worth noting: this sort of dreary "protest" is so familiar that, like the 90-minute (at best) bigotry at Ibrox, it barely warrants much of a mention in the press.

Saturday

Friday

Alex Massie

Free Speech Is Expensive But It’s Free

Simon Heffer is very good on grammar, Thomas Carlyle and, most importantly, cricket. And much more besides. But even Mr Heffer is not immune to the unfortunate Laws of Punditry, one of which insists that while writing something in one time zone something will happen in another which rebuts one's argument all too convincingly. So his suggestion that Hillary Clinton might challenge Barack Obama for the Democratic party's presidential nomination in 2012 is somewhat confounded by the Secretary of State's declaration, during a visit to New Zealand, that she has no intention of doing so, nor of ever running for President again. Of course, she may be lying! Or events may force her hand.

Alex Massie

Irish Austerity Diet Revealed: Cheese

Somehow, I don't think this kind of government assistance is going to be enough to soothe Irish woes: The Government is to distribute some 53 tonnes of free cheese to people in need in the run up to Christmas. Minister for Agriculture Brendan Smith announced the EU-funded scheme today following talks with a number of charitable organisations. He said the cheese will be available free of charge for distribution to those most in need. It will be available from November 15th “in time for Christmas”. The State has been given more than €818,000 from the EU budget to purchase the cheese and the Irish Dairy Board has been awarded the tender to supply it. More than €750,000 will be spent on the Christmas scheme.

Alex Massie

The Man Who Won’t Be President (But Is Worth Backing Anyway)

Behold: the latest stirrings of the ongoing Gary Johnson boomlet. The former governor of New Mexico (1994-2002) will probably announce his Presidential candidacy early next year. Hence this Daily Caller piece and an article in the New Republic. No-one, alas, expects Johnson's candidacy to fare brilliantly, though theoretically he should be the candidate the Tea Party backs and he already enjoys Ron Paul's blessing. Paul's success - in fundraising if not traditional campaigning - surprised almost all Beltway journalists back in 2007. In retrospect, however, that's where you find the genesis of at least some parts of the Tea Party movement.

Thursday

Alex Massie

Marco Rubio Will Go Far

Further to Deroy Murdock's post on Marco Rubio, here's his acceptance speech. The guy's a natural. Sure, the hymn to American exceptionalism is much less true now than it was in the past but that's not the point and nor is it a problem that the anti-Washington stuff is merely well-expressed boilerplate. The thing is: it really isn't impossible to imagine Rubio on the Republican ticket in 2016... So here's a ridiculously early punt for 2016: Rubio vs Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland. There's no downside to this sort of hunch. Get it wrong and it's just a meaningless, long-odds punt. But fluke it right and you dine out for years.

Wednesday

Alex Massie

Speaker John Boehner

Fox and the other networks have consulted the augurs and declared the signs good for the Republican party. Projections - as at 2am - suggest the GOP will pick up around 60 seats in the House of Representatives. That's roughly in the middle of most of the best pre-election predictions. And it's a very big wave, if not quite a tsunami. In effect, however, it more or less takes the House back to the early Bush years with the GOP holding 230+ seats and the Democrats, this time, somewhere short of 200. Wiping out the past two Congressional elections is not nothing. But as Marco Rubio*, the newly elected Senator from Florida, put it this elections was not "an embrace of the Republican party, but a second chance to be what the Republican party said it would be, not long ago.

Alex Massie

The President Remains the Daddy

That's not me subscribing to the Cult of the Presidency, it's incoming Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner who says: “While our new majority will serve as your voice in the people’s House, we must remember it’s the president who sets the agenda for our government.” I guess all that stuff about respecting the limits of the Constitution doesn't mean very much, eh? Now there's something to be said for modesty in victory and Republicans have been careful - even canny - not to blow their own trumpets too loudly and you might also say that Boehner is merely reflecting the media-political reality of life in the Imperial capital but, still...

Alex Massie

Obama vs Labour

Compare and contrast and be reminded, yet again, that the United Kingdom and the United States play by different rules. During his press conference this afternoon - on which more later - Barack Obama took great care to reiterate his opposition to tax increases for "middle-class" Americans (ie, those earning under $200,000 a year). Increasing taxes, he said, would "take money out of the system". In Britain, however, the Labour party has spent the last year telling everyone that cutting spending means the government is "taking money out of the system" -  a proposition that invites one to wonder if Labour believes that raising taxes would be "putting money into the economy." You can certainly argue that both positions are reasonable, even correct.

Tuesday

Alex Massie

The Fairness Doctrine

Fairness has become an important theme in contemporary politics and not just because the electorate - especially the Baby Boomers - are fond of complaining that "it's not fair". It doesn't matter much what that something is or where the complaining is being done: fairness, or the perception of fairness is a thread connecting Washington to Paris via London. Here, the coalition's welfare reforms are analysed in terms of their "fairness"; in France, protestors complain that pension reforms aren't "fair" while in the United States there's a widespread sense that the game is "unfairly" rigged against the common man. Each case is different but in each there's a palpable sense that the public think it is being asked to make sacrifices to pay for other people's mistakes. Which is kind of true.

Alex Massie

Yes, Julian Assange Is A Journalist

I'm not sure I understand the Wikileaks controversy. If one of the many definitions of news is (and always has been) that it is something that someone, somewhere does not want you to know then, yes, Julian Assange is a journalist. Perhaps newsman would be a better, more strictly accurate way of putting it. As such, it's strange to see Americans accusing him of treason (he's an Australian!) or William Hague complaining that the Wikileaks document-dumps put "British lives" at risk. So what? Then there's Jonah Goldberg complaining that a column headlined "All Quiet On the Black-Ops Front" and subtitled "Why is Julian Assange Still Alive?" has - this may shock you - been misunderstood.

Alex Massie

Voting for Obama: A Matter for Regret?

2008 was an unusual election: even more than in 2004 there were decent grounds for libertarians and libertarian-minded people to vote for the Dmocratic candidate. Quite a few, including a good number of my friends, did so. Reason catches up with some of them here, asking if they regret* that vote. For the most part: no, not really. The Buyer's Remorse was priced-in at the time of the election. True, the health care bill may be worse than some feared and true too there's been more intervention in the economy than libertarians might think either sensible or palatable. And, of course, Obama's record on civil liberties and related issues has been dismal.  But that wasn't the question in 2008.

Alex Massie

Why is Hopi Sen a Free Man?

By which I mean why isn't he cooped up inside Ed Miliband's office, working as a strategy-comms chap? Maybe he wouldn't want the gig but it's a good thing for us (in both a blogging and an anti-Labour sense) that he's still a free man. Take this latest bout of good sense, for instance: Our nation has significant challenges – from deficit reduction to welfare policy to job growth. As an opposition we must have opinions on all of these, but lack the power to act on them. That is an exposed, vulnerable position. We already know how the Tories want to define us.  They want to spend the next four years painting us as wasteful in the public services, over-generous with welfare at the price of higher taxes for working families.

Alex Massie

Let the Democratic Recriminations Begin!

Tuesday is mid-term day and the only thing left is to measure the height of the Republican wave that's about to swamp Democrats. This is the third "change" election in a row (which itself might be something that should trouble the White House as it looks to 2012) and one that, in the end, can't be spun away by Democratic strategists. (See this useful Dave Weigel piece for more on that. Also Nate Silver who, in making the best case possible for Democrats reminds us that a night as bad as the 2006 mid-terms were for Republicans would be considered a good result by Democrats.

Monday

Alex Massie

So you think civil liberties are important, eh? That’s why you’re a terrorist.

Alas so, even though on the great Toner Cartridge Plot, Dan Drezner gets it right: Al Qaeda failed… again. Seriously, if al Qaeda is ostensibly the New York Yankees of terrorism, the Steinbrenners would have fired the GM and coach years ago. Quite so. International terrorism is hard and these guys are finding it difficult to match past "glories". It's a long way from 9/11 to stuffing explosives inside a couple of toner cartridges. That doesn't mean there isn't a threat but it is posssible to be both wary of the security lobby and recognise that the security services have a tough but vital job. Contrary to what Melanie Phillips suggests, I don't know many libertarians who think there's no terrorist threat.

Alex Massie

Tory Policy Refresh Strategy Unveiled

Courtesy of Ian Martin and Steve Hilton Stewart Pearson from The Thick of It. All too plausible: Monday Lock-in with the Weather Guys, our team of digital analysts plotting cultural climate change. Useful prep for the forthcoming Media Policy Refresh. Aiming to roll this out after Christmas, when everyone's more receptive to notions of shrinkage, frugality, Less Is More etc. Rethinking points already emerging. The Quango is dead. Long live The Hub. Out: "public consultation". In: "forward niche matrixing". Goodbye, tropegeist. Hello, Pixelated Society. Quick fruit lunch, then we're back on the synapse highway. More rethinking points: triangulations, forecasts, aftercasts, podcasts. Now we're mantra-sifting: Sympathise, Empathise, Synthesise, Synergise. Synergy?

Alex Massie

Labour’s Housing Benefit U-Turn

Hats off to Tom Harris for pointing out the obvious: comparing the coalition's canges to housing benefit to Balkan ethnic cleansing or Auschwitz is neither big nor clever. Points too for reminding us that the Labour manifesto this year included this passage: Our goal is to make responsibility the cornerstone of our welfare state. Housing Benefit will be reformed to ensure that we do not subsidise people to live in the private sector on rents that other ordinary working families could not afford. How many "ordinary working families" (however they may be categorised) can afford to pay £25,000 in rent each year? Precious few, I submit.

Saturday

Alex Massie

Irishman of the Year

Step forward a TD, no less! Fine Gael TD Michael Ring said the Irish government should "hand back" the Republic to the Queen during a royal visit next year. The County Mayo representative also suggested that the government should apologise to her for the "mess" they have made of the country. Mr Ring made the comments during an economic debate at the Irish Parliament. He said: "Now look at the mess we're in and look at the mess this country is in.. Next year the Queen is talking about coming to Ireland for a state visit. "Maybe we should say to the Queen when she comes 'you know, we have our own independence now, we'll hand you back the country and we'll apologise for the mess that we're after making of it.