Society

Saturday

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 27 September 2008

Crying games So what was Nick Faldo blubbing about a week ago when he was talking to the media about his European Ryder Cup team’s meeting with Muhammad Ali on the Valhalla course at Louisville, Kentucky? He doesn’t strike one as the weeping kind, though he has form. I seem to remember him reaching for the man-size after tapping in to win the Open at Muirfield in 1992. And we’re used to sportsmen cracking up during the event (remember Darren Clarke red-eyed and tender at the K Club two years ago, only a few weeks after his wife had died). But before, a whole day before? All very peculiar, especially

James Young

Competition | 27 September 2008

In Competition No 2563 you were invited to write a poem or a piece of prose whose lines or sentences end with twelve given words in any order. This is my last week minding the Comp Shop while Lucy Vickery has been on maternity leave. It has been a pleasure and a privilege doing business with you all and witnessing your wit and wisdom. Special thanks to Bill Greenwell, Basil Ransome-Davies, Alan Millard and a few other early-bird entrants; if a comp passes the B and B test, the setter knows that it won’t be a total turkey. No less valuable are the later arrivals, like the doughty Scots duo

Simon Nixon

A catalogue of credit-crunch cant

We live in frightening times. Markets are in freefall; economies are in turmoil; the financial system is on the brink. People want simple explanations and easy answers. They want to know who to blame for the mess and what can be done to clear it up. Just as well, then, that there is no shortage of politicians ready to fulfil this need. The dictionary defines ‘cant’ as insincere, pious or moralistic talk. If cant was a commodity, it would be the first big bubble of the post-credit-crunch world. Already debate over the credit crunch is being reduced in some quarters to a series of simplistic narratives in which all bankers

Paul Johnson

And Another Thing | 27 September 2008

Stop throwing bricks! You might hit a bishop’s niece ‘Damn! Another bishop dead!’ said Lord Melbourne in 1834, adding, ‘I think they do it to vex me.’ The departure of one bishop meant he had to make a new one, and that involved writing (in his own hand, for security reasons) disagreeable letters on matters in which he took little interest. In his time, however, there were only 26 bishops, and no more than two died, on average, in any one year. Today there are 114 bishops, and when one dies, or half a dozen for that matter, it is, to use Talleyrand’s distinction, a news-item, not an event. The

Rowan Williams

Face it: Marx was partly right about capitalism

Readers of Anthony Trollope will remember how thoughtless and greedy young men in the Victorian professions can be lured into ruin by accepting ‘accommodation bills’ from their shifty acquaintances. They make themselves liable for the debts of others; and only too late do they discover that they are trapped in a web of financial mechanics that forces them to pay hugely inflated sums for obligations or services they have had nothing to do with. Their own individual credit-worthiness, their own circumstances, even their own personal choices are all irrelevant: the debt has acquired a life of its own, quite independent of any real transaction they are involved in. A prescient

Andrew Tyrie

How Dave and George can avoid a terrible rift

The Treasury will be the engine room of David Cameron’s government. It will have to be, given the ghastly economic inheritance. But the economy will be only one of the incoming Chancellor’s headaches — his department will be in no fit state to do the leading. The Treasury — once the citadel of high-quality policy advice and the driving force behind the economic and financial reforms which revived Britain in the 1980s — now lies prostrate. It is a casualty of Gordon Brown’s personality, ten years of trench warfare between him and Tony Blair and the appointment of a new Chancellor, broken backed on arrival. This financial crisis has brutally

Anthony King

The Tory lead is more solid than you might think

The Conservatives last won a general election in 1992. That was also the year when the opinion polls met their Waterloo. The results of 50 nationwide surveys were published during that campaign. All but six showed Labour ahead, and they all suggested that the outcome of the election would be a hung Parliament, with Labour probably the largest party. They were all wrong. The largest Tory lead reported by any poll during the campaign was only a single percentage point. In the event, the Conservatives’ lead over Labour approached eight points. To this day, no one knows why the polls came a cropper in 1992. Indeed, no one knows for

Deborah Ross

A cliché too far

Taken 15, Nationwide Taken is the latest film from the French film-maker Luc Besson and is about American, ex-CIA agent Bryan Mills (Liam Neeson) who turns Paris upside down — ‘I’ll tear down the Eiffel Tower if I have to!’ — in his search for his abducted, 17-year-old daughter, Kim, although, personally, I wouldn’t have bothered. Kim is so irritating. Kim is so excitable and such a pampered flouncer to boot. ‘Bryan,’ I’d have said to him if I could, ‘you’re better off without her; so excitable and such a pampered flouncer to boot. Now, let’s go eat.’ But doting dads are doting dads, I guess, and there is just

Friday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Karl Marx: Blogger

Norm has the details, of course: Why do you blog? > To lay bare the economic law of motion of modern society. (1) What has been your best blogging experience? > Have just finished correcting the last sheet (49th) of the book [Volume I of Capital]… So, this volume is finished. I owe it to you alone [Engels] that it was possible! Without your self-sacrifice for me I could not possibly have managed the immense labour demanded by the 3 volumes. I embrace you, full of thanks! (2) What has been your worst blogging experience? > Constant labour of one uniform kind disturbs the intensity and flow of a man’s

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Bailout Politics

So, no deal in Washington. NYT account here; WaPo here. Politico’s story contains this detail that, unsurprisingly, has been making waves: According to one GOP lawmaker, some House Republicans are saying privately that they’d rather “let the markets crash” than sign on to a massive bailout. “For the sake of the altar of the free market system, do you accept a Great Depression?” the member asked. Well. I hadn’t realised that was the choice. House Republicans are obviously being blamed for the impasse, but I rther think there are plenty of Democrats who will be content enough with the current state of play. They don’t like this either. Certainly they

James Forsyth James Forsyth

McCain must win tonight’s debate to get his campaign back on track

John McCain will attend tonight’s debate despite there not yet being a deal on the bailout. Realistically, McCain couldn’t afford to miss it. Obama’s biggest weakness is still the Commander in Chief test: McCain has to ram home the point that he is significantly better qualified for this role than Obama if he is to have a real chance of winning the election. McCain also has to better Obama tonight to regain momentum. The last week of presidential campaign coverage has been dominated by a string of stories that hurt McCain. First, there was the row over McCain’s campaign manager’s alleged ties to Freddie Mac. Second, there was the Sarah

James Forsyth James Forsyth

McNulty for Chief Whip?  

The Sun reports today that Tony McNulty is the new favourite to replace Geoff Hoon as Chief Whip. George Pascoe-Watson reveals that Brown was told by a Minister that if he appointed Nick Brown to the job, “All hell would break. It would destroy any Cabinet unity and people would feel very uncomfortable.” McNulty would be a savvy choice by Brown. As he showed during the 42 days debate he knows how to persuade Labour MPs to stay on side. He is a friendly and engaging presence on TV and is long overdue promotion to the Cabinet. Brown’s reshuffle dilemma is that he needs to be bold to show that

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Crashed Ferraris

A great stat about the financial crisis from the Daily Mail: “There were 734 second-hand Ferraris placed on the market last week.” Hat Tip: The Week

Peter Hoskin

One for the Presidential Debate junkies

It’s still doubtful whether Presidential Debate junkies will get their fix tonight.  But here’s something to tide them over: footage of the very first televised Presidential Debate – between Kennedy and Nixon – which took place 48 years ago today.  It lacks the two candidates’ opening and closing statements (for a full transcript, click here), but there’s still plenty to savour – from Nixon glowering to the Mad Men stylings.  Classic politics, and classic TV:

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown’s St Helena moment

Martin Kettle’s column this morning contains an absolutely astonishing example of how much of a control freak Brown is: “Four years ago, ministers decided that Britain’s South Atlantic island possession of St Helena needed to have an airport. If planes could land on the tiny island, more than 1,200 miles from the nearest continent, its economic and demographic decline could perhaps be turned around. Plans began to be made. The airport was scheduled to open in 2010. Earlier this year, the Foreign Office finally asked the Department for International Development to sign off on the airport. The file went up to the secretary of state, Douglas Alexander. But instead of

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The new capitalism

Most paradigm shifts in politics are recognisable only in retrospect, but it’s fairly clear we’re living through one now. When you have the US seeking to nationalise $700bn of dodgy assets and the average British household now liable for £3,020 of Northern Rock debt something has changed. But what? I’ve been struggling to find a proper analysis of this, so it was great to read Irwin Stelzer’s meaty lecture to the Centre for Policy Studies where he says that, though free marketeers may hate it, a New Capitalism is now upon us. Here’s his take:-  “You know that a revolution has succeeded when the opponents of change capitulate. Which is

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

“We just wanted to choose a really large number”

So, how’s the financial rescue plan coming along? Are you inspired with confidence? Not so much… In fact, some of the most basic details, including the $700 billion figure Treasury would use to buy up bad debt, are fuzzy. “It’s not based on any particular data point,” a Treasury spokeswoman told Forbes.com Tuesday. “We just wanted to choose a really large number.” Meanwhile, and for once, good news for Detroit! With Congress preoccupied with the massive, $700 billion bailout plan for the financial industry, General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler have finally secured Part One of their own federal rescue plan. A bill set to be passed by Congress and signed

Louisa Stoppard

Introducing ID cards

Today, Jacqui Smith unveiled the first ever ID card . These earliest cards are designed for foreign residents (and will be sent out in November to marriage visa holders and international students). Will this really improve security? Or is it just a way of ‘softening up’ the process of national implementation? Either way, expect fakes to appear on the streets in the next few weeks…