World

I don’t know why Bobby Jindal, the Republican party’s Great Brown Hope, agreed to give the GOP response to Obama’s speech last night. Supposedly a privilege, this more often turns out to be a fools errand. Indeed, the only successful opposition response I can recall in recent years was given by Senator Jim Webb. Generally, however, the poor sap offered the chance to go up against the President is on a hiding to nothing: the man in charge has the full majesty of his office behind him; the opposition spokesman sits in a wee room on their own waiting for their chance to give a speech no-one is very interested

Alex Salmond has been in Washington, where he snagged an audience with Hillary Clinton and delivered a speech at Georgetown University. Hamish Macdonnell explains: In a speech on Monday he took the time to praise Abraham Lincoln. This is what he said: “A man whose spirit and example will light America’s path for centuries to come. And a man whose name evokes, in the minds of your friends worldwide, the very highest image of America.” It did not take long, however, for Labour spin doctors to point out that Lincoln was, of course, the one man who did more to keep the Union in America together, even going to war

Melanie Phillips makes a pretty remarkable claim at the end of this post: The fact is that Israel faces the nightmare scenario that it now stands alone — and against America. Whether through naivety, ideology or rank malice, there is now a fifth columnist in the White House, undermining the cause of the free world. The vast majority of Americans who staunchly support Israel’s struggle to exist in the face of genocidal attack, and understand only too well its role as the front line of defence for the free world, need to become aware of what is being done in their name. As polemic, this is fine stuff. But as

Things you never thought you would see: the French government advising against wine consumption… In the midst of the winter gloom, President Sarkozy’s administration  has chosen this moment to tell its people to stop drinking wine. You are hearing right. The Ministry of Health has issued rules for reducing the risk of cancer and one of the main ones is never drink alcohol.  “The consumption of alcohol, and especially wine, is discouraged,” say guidelines that are drawn from the findings of the National Cancer Institute (INCA). A single glass of wine per day will raise your chance of contracting cancer by up to 168 percent, it says. A you might expect, the

An excellent post from Blimpish, making the point that while Labour governments tend to be elected with great enthusiasm, voters are usually more cautious when choosing Conservative ministries. It was only in 1983 that Thatcher won her landslide (Reagan, of course, emulated her example in 1984). And as he says, you don’t need to win your party (completely) to win the country: Thatcher’s latter-day hero-worshippers may believe the British people enthusiastically embraced the full-blooded Thatcherite agenda of sound money, free markets, union-busting, etc.  But it wasn’t the case; leaving aside that what became ‘Thatcherism’ didn’t really exist in 1979, inasmuch as it was articulated, people were generally sceptical – after

I take my hat off to Katty Kay. Writing at the Daily Beast she comes up with a novel criticism of the Obama administration: it’s too fond of  sports metaphors. Seriously. This, apparently, is “insidiously sexist” and consequently unfair to female political reporters trying to understand how the White House is approaching any given matter. I’d have thought that this injustice was scarcely limited to women, since presumably male reporters with no interest in baseball or basketball would be similarly disadvantaged. But perhaps not. Still, this shouldn’t surprise anyone: after all it is the media that loves to cover politics as a “horse race” (reducing politics to the level of

As if determined to prove my point about the absurd excesses of the GOP’s love for Winston Churchill, consider this entertaining snippet culled from the pages of the Washington Post: But  Rep. Eric Cantor (Va.), the House minority whip who led the fight to deny Obama every GOP vote for the plan, is studying Winston Churchill’s role leading the Tories in the late 1930s, a principled minority that was eventually catapulted into power over the Labor Party. He calls the stimulus bill “a stinker.” Well! It’s a shame the Post doesn’t seem to know any more British history than does Mr Cantor; then again it’s a shame Mr Cantor should

‘On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.’ So said President Obama on his inauguration. ‘On this day, we come to proclaim an end to the petty grievances and false promises, the recriminations and worn-out dogmas, that for far too long have strangled our politics.’ So said President Obama on his inauguration. It is not often that an American President so immediately, so publicly and so thoroughly trashes his predecessor. The Romans had a phrase for it: damnatio memoriae. It applied after the death of anyone considered a