Society

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Freeing the Lockerbie Bomber?

Back when I worked at Scotland on Sunday I was never the Lockerbie Guy. Nor was I even the Lockerbie Guy’s Assistant. For years every paper needed a Lockerbie specialist, not least because having one ensured that the rest of us didn’t have to follow the tortuously complicated story any more closely than the readers. Which is to say, I don’t know the extent of Abdelbaset Ali al-Megrahi’s involvement, though clearly even if he was involved he wasn’t the fellow who ordered or thought of the mission. Still, the speculation that he might be released on compassionate grounds – he has been diagnosed with incurable prostate cancer – has provoked

Peter Hoskin

The next government will have to help this lost generation

It’s noteworthy enough when David Blanchflower – a member of the Bank of England’s MPC until May this year – says that the government “isn’t doing enough” to stem the unemployment crisis, as he does in an article for today’s Guardian.  But his more specific points about the “lost generation” of unemployed young people are also worth highlighting. As Fraser blogged yesterday, this recession is taking a particular toll on those aged under 25.  Partially, this is down to school and university leavers being unable to find work.  But, as Blachflower points out, there’s another effect at play – young people with jobs are the first in line to lose

Wednesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The truth behind Mandy’s “half-a-million jobs” claim

Anyone listening to Lord Mandelson’s claim this morning that the Brown stimulus saved “at least” half a million jobs would have smelt a large, whiskered rat. The Treasury has tonight told The Telegraph that the 500,000 figure was a maximum estimate, not a minimum as Mandy claimed. Your baristas here at Coffee House have asked the Treasury to show us their study – not available, it seems. So we have submitted a Freedom of Information request for it. While we all hold our breath, it’s worth looking at this claim in more detail because it is a Brownie we are highly likely to hear again. First, here’s Mandy’s comments to

Alex Massie Alex Massie

The Other Glorious Twelfth

Ian Elliot, Grouse Keeper views a grouse moor, at Horseupcleugh estate in the Lammermuir Hills in the Borders. The Glorious Twelfth is the official starting date for the red grouse shooting season in Scotland and parts of northern England. Photo: Jeff J Mitchell/Getty Images. I don’t really understand the mad dash to get grouse to London restaurants this evening since, obviously, the birds are better eating once they’ve been hung for a few days. But the good news, for once, is that grouse numbers may be increasing.

Peter Hoskin

Osborne should avoid Brown-style rhetoric on cuts

Right, I know I keep banging on about Osborne’s speech, but – Alan Duncan’s loose lips aside – it’s certainly the topic du jour in Westminster.  Yesterday evening, I noted a couple of qualms I had with what I thought was – on the whole – an important and effective address.  Today, I’ve got another concern to add to the pile; one prompted by Osborne’s article in the Times. The headline to that article reads thus: “The new dividing line: radical reform or cuts”.  And the sub-head runs: “Sceptics argue that reform is a luxury we cannot afford.  Without it, money for schools and health will inevitably be slashed.”  Now,

Daniel Korski

A new world order – don’t be silly

Go to any international think-tank conference and you will hear one complaint repeated ad nauseam: the intenational system, built after World War II – and incorporating the UN, NATO, the IMF, WHO etc. – is no longer fit for purpose. It needs to change to accomodate new threats, like climate change, and new powers like India and Brazil. The last point is particularly oft-heard. If India provides the majority of UN peacekeepers, should Delhi not have a permanent say on the UN Security Council? Now that China has become a pillar of the global economy, should the Beijing government not have more votes on the IMF board? The limited representation

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Burmese Days

It may be counted a sign of progress – small, for sure, but real nonetheless – that the Guardian and Telegraph editorials this morning largely resist kneejerk calls for tightening sanctions on Burma in the wake of the absurd sentence given to Aung San Suu Kyi (though the Guardian spoils this by calling for action against companies that do business in Burma). The Times and the Independent, alas, demand more and better sanctions even though they must, surely, know that such sanctions, even were they to be agreed upon, would be unlikely to be applied. I’m not as convinced as Thomas Bell is that trade can open up Burma to

James Doran

Cash for Clunkers: at last, a stimulus that works

James Doran says the instant success of America’s car scrappage scheme merely highlights the failures of the rest of Obama’s $787 billion economic stimulus package America’s tortured love affair with the gas-guzzler is finally drawing to a close thanks to the Obama administration’s so-called ‘Cash for Clunkers’ scheme. By promising anyone with a clapped-out old motor as much as $4,500 so long as they spend the rebate on a shiny new fuel-efficient model, Obama has managed to do what a doubling of the price of petrol could not. Cash for Clunkers was such a success when it launched in July that the initial $1 billion of taxpayers’ money devoted to

Quentin Willson

‘Strictly’ isn’t what it was in my day

Among my life’s achievements I treasure a rare and special honour. I have the lowest ever recorded score on Strictly Come Dancing. That quartet of steely-hearted judges awarded me a lamentable eight out of a possible 40 points for a Cha Cha routine that was hypnotically and hysterically hopeless. A record, I’m quietly proud to admit, that stands unbroken to this day. I danced with the poise of a prematurely opened deck-chair and made John Sergeant look like Tinkerbell. The evil Craig gave me a single miserable point and Bruno described my routine with the World Ballroom Champion Hazel Newberry (poor woman) as like watching a ‘Reliant Robin making love

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

‘Progressive conservatism’ riles Mandelson because Labour has achieved so little

Conservatism is beautifully simple. It flows from the belief that society is stronger and fairer when power lies with the many and not the few. It is about trusting institutions — the family, the community — while being sceptical about the grander claims of government. It is about believing that a man will spend the money he earns more wisely and justly than the state could ever do on his behalf. To be a conservative is, fundamentally, a vote of faith in mankind. But how can one distil all this into a soundbite? David Cameron has struggled to answer this question. He watched uncomfortably as William Hague (briefly) and then

Ursula Buchan

Wings of desire

I knew I was in for a treat when I drove up to the newly opened Butterfly World along Miriam Lane. An affectionate homage to Dame Miriam Lane (Rothschild), the great conservationist and butterfly enthusiast, was a good start, but so was the fact that the banks on the side of the road to the car park were carpeted with rainbow-coloured meadow annuals — blue cornflowers, yellow Californian poppies, pink corn cockle, scarlet poppies –— all flowering fit to bust. Two thirds of the 27-acre site at Chiswell Green, near St Albans, is covered with these annuals, in varying combinations of 65 species. The seed has come partly from Emorsgate

Tuesday

David Blackburn

Can the Afghan police be trusted?

Lindsey Hilsum, Channel 4’s Helmand correspondent asked local Police Chief, Colonel Asadullah Shirzard, if the police were sufficiently free from corruption to manage the forthcoming election. The corpulent Colonel declaimed:  “We have eradicated corruption in our police force!” This is a seminal moment. Rudy Giuliani couldn’t do it, Sir Ian Blair failed, though that’s no surprise, and moving around Venezuela will confirm that even Hugo Chavez can’t stop his police taking a cut from the downtrodden population. But in war-torn Helmand, the perfect police force has been born. As Hilsum notes, this is even more extraordinary when one considers that Helmand is the centre of the opium trade and that

Daniel Korski

Aung Sang Suu Kyi, a victim of the post-American world

Today the Burmese junta convicted pro-democracy campaigner Aung Sang Suu Kyi to a further 18 months under house arrest after a U.S. man swam uninvited to her lakeside home in May and stayed there for two days, breaching the terms of her house arrest. Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy have led the world’s outrage, urging the UN Security Council and European Union to impose tougher sanctions on the regime.   Unfortunately, not much is likely to happen to the Burmese generals. They remain protected not only by their neighbors, but by China and India who have both economic and strategic interests in keeping the regime intact. Like China, power-hungry India

David Blackburn

The trials of being in a power couple

It seems Hillary Clinton is smarting from her husband’s Korean coup. Exhibit A: her Q&A session with Congolese students yesterday, where her translator relayed this question: “Mrs Clinton, we’ve all heard about the Chinese contracts in this country. The interference is from the World Bank against this contract. What does Mr. Clinton think through the mouth of Mrs. Clinton and what does Mr. Mutombo think on this situation?”    The Secretary of State offered a stark clarification: “My husband is not secretary of state, I am. I am not going to be channelling my husband.” Here’s footage: The official line is that it was all down to a mistranslation and

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Stephen Hawking Has Not Yet Been Murdered by the NHS

There are, I think, two essential truths in international health policy. No-one sees fit to copy the National Health Service and no-one sees fit to copy the American system. Still, for all that we need NHS reform (hardly a surprise since just about every health system is under strain and needs tweaking), the picture of the NHS given by some of the people opposed to Obama’s health plans is, well, not hugely accurate. Take, for instance, this Investors Business Daily editorial which claims that: People such as scientist Stephen Hawking wouldn’t have a chance in the U.K., where the National Health Service would say the life of this brilliant man,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Do Football Managers Make a Difference?

Left Back in the Changing Room and More than Mind Games have already commented on Simon Kuper’s* article in the FT that argues that football managers have no real impact on their teams’ fortunes. But that doesn’t mean I can’t have a say too! Kuper writes: The obsession with football managers is misguided. Hardly any of them make any difference to results. The institution of manager is something of a con-trick. Ferguson and Ancelotti are best understood as marketing tools. The fact is that players’ salaries alone almost entirely determine football results. Stefan Szymanski, economics professor at Cass Business School, studied the spending of 40 English clubs between 1978 and

Peter Hoskin

Putting the “public” into “public spending cuts”

My old colleagues at Reform have put together a very useful analysis of the Canadian spending cuts programme – which got that country’s debt-to-GDP ratio down by 20 percent during the late 1990s – over at Centre Right.  I’d suggest you read the whole thing, but this point deserves repeating: “The key lesson from the Canadian reforms is that, as Andrew Haldenby recently argued, getting the public to support tough measures requires them to feel part of the process. This need for openness with the public contrasts with the approach of Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who has argued that it would be a mistake for the Government to set departmental

The Spectator

August’s Book of the Month

We’ve just seleceted our new Book of the Month over at the Spectator Book Club: John Updike’s collection of short stories, My Father’s Tears & Other Stories.  The collection features recent material and some stories that were written in the author’s Sixties heyday, and was published just after his death in January.  It would be great to see some CoffeeHousers over at the discussion board we’ve set up here.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Mandy’s class war avoids the real problems

I don’t for a minute believe that Mandelson believes this class war nonsense, brilliantly rubbished by Melanie Phillips today. His decision to reprise the “posh unis don’t let in poor kids” theme is a more a sign that even someone as horribly powerful as Mandy feels the need to kowtow to a certain element of the Labour Party. The Sutton Trust is absolutely correct to point to social segregation as being one of the biggest problems in Britain today – but the problem lies with the schools, not the universities. The suggestion that snobbish admissions tutors are somehow to blame does the working class no favours by deflecting attention from

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Painting Scotland

Perthshire Moorland, by Aberfeldy. By Claudia Massie. There is, of course, plenty to do and see in Edinburgh in August. But amidst the many joys of festival Edinburgh, may I suggest that readers might care to have a gander at my sister’s latest exhibition of paintings? Of course I may. And will. She’s exhibiting at the Flaubert Gallery in Stockbridge until August 19th. Most of the new work, I think, is from Sutherland and highland Perthshire. I especially like the painting here which, though it’s Perthshire, actually makes me think of the Canadian north-country that features prominently and memorably in John Buchan’s Sick Heart River. Anyway, check it out.