Society

Tuesday

David Blackburn

A chance for parliament to re-assert itself

This afternoon, I had the great privilege of hearing Geoffrey Robertson QC and Sir Ken MacDonald QC argue why English libel law must be reformed. Up to this point I had, along with most of the audience I suspect, assumed that reform would only benefit journalists. I suppose that illustrates just how narcissistic the profession is because now I see that libel reform is essential for the preservation free speech and the sanctity of English law. As Geoffrey Robertson put it, “We do not have free speech in this country, we have expensive speech.” English libel actions cost several million pounds to fight – 140 times more than the European

Mark Bathgate

Two elementary mistakes

The warnings from around the world about the scale of the UK’s government debt crisis keep flowing in. Following last week’s warnings from the IMF and European Commission about the scale of the UK debt crisis, credit rating agency Fitch has described the UK as the AAA country most vulnerable to a downgrade. The table at the bottom of the page shows the European Commission’s forecasts for Government deficits as a share of GDP for next year. The UK beats IMF bailout case, Latvia, to head the league table with a deficit level almost double the EU average. The Commission estimates that the UK’s total debt will have almost doubled

Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

To you Celtic Football Club, I say: Never!

Celtic supporters sung Irish “rebel” songs during the one minute’s Remembrance Day silence before the kick off of their game at Falkirk. Even more Celtic fans waited outside the turnstiles so that they would not have to take part in the commemoration. What an unspeakably foul club it is, bigoted and filled with sectarian hatred. And yet the only Glasgow club which ever gets punished for fuelling sectarian hatred is its rival, Rangers. It is not so long ago that FIFA decided that Rangers supporters were racist bigots for singing their fatuous, hate-filled tales about the Battle of the Boyne etc, while Celtic’s supporters were merely reveling in a noble

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown on the rack

Watching Gordon Brown’s press conference you realise how on the ropes he is. The opening questions are all about the letter and Brown’s misspellings. Brown doesn’t have an answer that can shut this damaging story down and it is noticeable how he lacks the easy, public empathy of a Blair or a Cameron. Then the focus turns to Afghanistan and Brown lacks a compelling rationale for the presence of British troops there. All the while, everyone is forgetting the announcements on the NHS which Brown was trying to showcase this morning. When you consider that even with Brown acting as a drag on Labour’s electoral fortunes, some polls only suggest

David Blackburn

One Nation

David Cameron received a standing ovation after he proclaimed “Don’t dare lecture us about poverty”,  illustrating that compassionate conservatism is a central issue to the Conservative party. Today, David Cameron will set out his blueprint to eradicate poverty, which, together with education reform and the promotion of the family, form the compassionate case. Cameron is expected to say: “Our alternative to big government is not no government. Our alternative to big government is the big society, but we understand that the big society is not just going to spring to life on its own: we need strong and concerted government action to make it happen. We need to use the

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The pressure’s on Osborne

The Times tempted fate today with its splash boasting about the confidence and the strong pound. Fitch Ratings has today said that Britain’s AAA debt rating is more at risk than that of any other major nation because it needs “the largest budget adjustment” – ie, the most cuts – because Britain has the largest fiscal mess, and by some margin. (Sterling is off today on the news). But then Fitch says, more or less, that it’s banking on George Osborne’s first budget to sort the mess out. “Our stable rating outlook reflected our expectation that the U.K. government will articulate a stronger fiscal consolidation program next year.” The Conservatives

David Blackburn

Keeping the lights on

It may have come ten years late, but Ed Miliband’s decision to bypass planning processes for nuclear plants is welcome. Britain faces unprecedented energy insecurity, with widespread power cuts predicted from 2017. Rather than trust Vladimir Putin not to turn the top-off whenever he’s feeling piqued, or to rely on the totally unreliable Colonel Gadaffi, or import energy, the government will increase nuclear output to 25 percent of national production. To achieve this, government will act with almost dictatorial reach to circumvent local communities and their right to determine the scale and scope of local construction. Expense has long been an argument against nuclear power and each of the ten

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The March of the Surveillance State

Good grief: All telecoms companies and internet service providers will be required by law to keep a record of every customer’s personal communications, showing who they are contacting, when, where and which websites they are visiting. Despite widespread opposition over Britain’s growing surveillance society, 653 public bodies will be given access to the confidential information, including police, local councils, the Financial Services Authority, the Ambulance Service, fire authorities and even prison governors. They will not require the permission of a judge or a magistrate to access the information, but simply the authorisation of a senior police officer or the equivalent of a deputy head of department at a local authority.

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Without War We Are Nothing. Apparently.

Happily my Outrage Outage didn’t last long. Thanks, Robert Kaplan! Your Atlantic column on the fall of the Berlin Wall proved a most adequate tonic. You conclude your piece: What does the European Union truly stand for besides a cradle-to-grave social welfare system? For without something to struggle for, there can be no civil society—only decadence. Thus, with their patriotism dissipated, European governments can no longer ask for sacrifices from their populations when it comes to questions of peace and war. Ironically, we may have gained victory in the Cold War, but lost Europe in the process. Well! It’s almost as though Kaplan thinks more wars are a good thing!

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Blog Fail

Apologies for the light blogging. I’ve failed to be outraged by anything today. Lamentably, this even includes not being outraged by the outrage over whatever it is that’s the outrage of the day. Will try and do better tomorrow.

David Blackburn

Raving lunatic hails Major Hasan a ‘hero’

It’s worth noting this find that Harry’s Place has made. Anwar al Awlaki describes Major Hasan’s atrocity as ‘the right thing to do’. Al Awlaki is the former Imam of Dar al-Hijrah mosque in Great Falls, Virginia, where Hasan was a congregant. I maintain that it is too early to assert whether Hasan is or is not a ‘jihadist’ in the strict sense, but that his rapid freefall into homicidal madness would suggest that that he is a lunatic who happens to be a ‘devout’ Muslim; although in no way does that make him a victim.  Al Awlaki’s spiel highlights the absence of any moral objectivity to archaic, intolerant and

The Spectator

CoffeeHousers’ Wall 9 November – 15 November 

Welcome to the latest CoffeeHousers’ Wall. For those who haven’t come across the Wall before, it’s a post we put up each Monday, on which – providing your writing isn’t libellous, crammed with swearing, or offensive to common decency – you’ll be able to say whatever you like in the comments section. There is no topic, so there’s no need to stay ‘on topic’ – which means you’ll be able to debate with each other more freely and extensively. There’s also no constraint on the length of what you write – so, in effect, you can become Coffee House bloggers. Anything’s fair game – from political stories in your local

Sunday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Politics of Health Care

So the House of Representatives has, albeit narrowly, passed health care reform. Whatever one thinks of the merits of the bill that is an achievement for Pelosi and Obama in and of itself. Lord knows what kind of bill will emerge from the Senate and conference but that’s a matter for another day. Will it work? Who really knows? The politics of the issue are, in some ways, irrelevant to mundane questions such as “Is this a good bill?” Almost certainly not, but you go to war with the bill you’ve got. And, as a smart Democratic friend on K St puts it: They have to pass this unpopular bill

David Blackburn

If you must deceive, deceive competently

On 15th September, Gordon Brown finally uttered the word ‘cuts’, but he diluted the shock by pledging that frontline services would be protected. He told the TUC: “But when our plans are published in the coming months, people will see that Labour will not support cuts in vital frontline services on which people depend. Labour will not put the recovery at risk, protect and improve your frontline services first and make the right choices for low and middle income families in the country.” Today, some of those plans are published, albeit inadvertently in a document leaked to the Observer. Cuts are being planned in next year’s skills budget. 335,000 learners

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A question of dates

The news that Labour’s financial problems are restricting its campaigning activities with its call centres running at a quarter of their usual pre-election level does suggest that Brown might decide to go to the country earlier than the expected election date of May 6th, as Isabel Oakeshott notes. For Labour there is a real danger that the Tories could so out-spend and out–campaign Labour between now and the official start of the election campaign, with its attendant spending limits, that the Tory lead in the battle ground seats could be insurmountable even before the actual campaign has begun. Going against this is that Brown will want as long as possible

David Blackburn

A great shame

The Afghan war has claimed its 200th British soldier killed in action, a tragic milestone for this Remembrance Sunday. There is growing concern that younger generations are not as engaged with the act of remembrance as previous generations. Widespread public involvement at Wooton Bassett would disprove that, but that so many of the war memorials erected in towns and villages across the country in the wake of the two World Wars have been allowed to fall into disrepair is a national shame. A war memorial is a symbol of community, a reflection of gratitude for those who have given their lives for their country, and they are particularly pertinent at

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A healthy policy development

Tory health policy is often criticised for not being radical enough. But Andrew Lansley’s announcement last week that the Tories would encourage John-Lewis style employee ownership and provision of services in the NHS is to be hugely welcomed. The scheme would cover outpatient clinics, health visitors and community nurses among others. The idea is what Phillip Blond, the Red Tory guru, argued for in The Ownership State. Blond’s aim is a “breakup of monolithic state provision by employee driven buyouts to form social enterprises making better use of public money by creating an organisation owned by its providers and users.” Mutualism is a politically attractive idea that actually works. Expect

Alex Massie Alex Massie

London Scottish (1914)

The war memorial in my hometown, a place of no more than 6,000 people today, lists the names of no fewer than 292 men from Selkirk killed in the Great War. As we remember them, and the hundreds of thousands and millions of others today, it’s also worth noting that it is a mark of how much better the world is now that such sacrifice, such slaughter, is all but inconceivable. There are thousands of terrible stories with which one can mark Remembrance Sunday. Stuart Bathgate wrote a fine piece for the Scotsman yesterday, reminding us of one such story and the dreadful casualties suffered by the London Scottish rugby

Saturday

Melissa Kite

Dressed to kill

This will be a bit of harmless fun, I thought, as I climbed three flights of stairs to the top of a building in theatreland in search of a fancy-dress costume. I found myself in a room full of rails crammed tight with bright costumes. And there, standing in front of them, was the strangest person I have ever seen. She was wearing a lacy Dangerous Liaisons number with bursting décolletage and enormous side hoops, and she was smiling a disconcertingly wide smile. When I told her I had come to hire a fancy-dress costume she shrieked as if someone had stuck a cattle prod up her bottom. ‘Oh, how

Taki

Backing Zac

New York ‘Why would he run for Parliament?’ screams the headline in the New York Times. A subheading lists ‘An inherited passion for women, gambling, the environment and politics’. As I start to read, I fear the worst, but as it turns out it could have been a lot worse. Zac Goldsmith’s name is big in Britain, less so in America, although in green circles he’s an international prince. Although meant rhetorically, it’s quite dumb to ask why a person would run for Parliament, as if being rich and normal — liking women — disqualifies one from holding office. In fact, that’s what’s wrong with politics. The wrong people are