Society

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

When Paul placed his hands on them, the Holy Spirit came on them, and they spoke in tongues and prophesied…

Radley Balko is right. Faced with the prospect of a global financial meltdown (perhaps!) this is the sort of cheery story we need. If this doesn’t restore your faith in the United States of America, what can? State attorneys say John LaVoie should be forever barred from the massage business because he ran a house of prostitution camouflaged as a church. But in his latest court argument, the Tucson man says he hired women at Angel’s Heaven Relaxation Spa — near University Medical Center — not to sell sex but to comfort the afflicted through the religious act of “laying on of hands.” … LaVoie is now citing constitutional guarantees

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Brooks on McCain

Is it just me, or has David Brooks written a column this morning explaining that John McCain is fundamentally, irredeemably ill-suited to being President of the United States? My worry about [Sarah] Palin is that she shares McCain’s primary weakness — that she has a tendency to substitute a moral philosophy for a political philosophy. There are some issues where the most important job is to rally the armies of decency against the armies of corruption: Confronting Putin, tackling earmarks and reforming the process of government. But most issues are not confrontations between virtue and vice. Most problems — the ones Barack Obama is sure to focus on like health

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Cooking Bullwinkle

In the light of all the Sarah Palin entertainment, Matt Yglesias asks a good question: how should you cook moose anyway? He links to some recipes (Moose nose in jelly??) some of which confirm my suspicion that you should treat moose as though it were venison or, even, at a pinch, wild boar. Slow and low is almost certainly the way to go. So I’d hazard that this would be a pretty good moose feast: Marinade your hunk of moosemeat (leg? Loin? Does it matter?) for at least 24 hours in a bottle of country red wine, with plenty of garlic, juniper berries, salt, pepper, thyme, marjoram, bayleaves etc. Rosemary

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Star Quality

So the Republican convention gets back on track tonight though not quite as initially planned. George W Bush for instance will address the convention via satellite, not in person. One thing that has changed since 2004: back then it was the GOP convention that had star quality. In addition to the President, John McCain, Rudy Giuliani and Arnold Schwarzenegger highlighted a convention that dwarfed anything the Democrats could offer. This time around? Not so much. Who else is speaking tonight? Fred Dalton Thompson and Joe Lieberman. Hold me back! Whatever one may say abut Lieberman – and there’s lots one could, little of it polite – when it comes to

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Anbar achievement

The transfer of Anbar province to Iraqi control marks another step forward in Iraq. The transformation in Anbar has been quite incredible. Two years ago, no one sane would have predicted that the then heartland of the Sunni insurgency would be peacefully and voluntarily handed over by the United States at the end of August 2008 with the occasion marked by a parade featuring unarmed US troops. To be sure, there is still much work to be done in Iraq. The situation there is fragile and there appear to be some new problems to confront but there has been a remarkable amount of progress made there in the past year and a

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Silly money

Dr Sulaiman Al-Fahim, of the Abu Dhabi United Group—the new onwers of Manchester City, has said that he is planning a £135 million, yes one hundred and thirty five million pounds, bid for Cristiano Ronaldo. This strikes me as absurd: Ronaldo—whose big game temperament remains in question—is not worth anywhere near that much; City are contemplating paying way over the odds just to secure a trophy signing. (Personally I’d rather have the Russian playmaker Andrei Arshavin, valued at about £20 million, playing for my club than Ronaldo). But the more important issue is, is this further flow of money into the game good for football? Generally, I tend to agree

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Leaves on the line | 2 September 2008

From the Southeastern Railways timetable: Retimed trains during the leaf fall period From Monday 13 October 2008 until the end of the timetable, some morning services in this timetable (Mondays to Fridays only) will be subject to retiming. This is part of our plans to overcome delays that occur during the autumn leaf fall period. Where trains run earlier for part of their journey two schedules will be shown – the schedule for when the train is running earlier than normal will be shown in red in the timetable pages. Where a train arrives at its destination station later than normal a note will be added to indicate the normal

Michael Millar

Do the stamp duty stats add up?

I just got some stats about how many homes bought in the last year would have been covered by the stamp duty suspension were it to have come in 12 months ago. I’m surprised by the number frankly – no doubt I’ve spent too much time in London where a place for £175,000 is something of a pipedream. Sales last year that would have been caught were as follows: – Between Jan and Dec 2007 – 320,129 sales – Between May 2007 and Apr 2008 – 294,846 sales There was a total of 998,000 sales in 2007, so the £175,000 threshold would have covered about one in three purchases. I’m

Sean Martin

Faith schools shouldn’t get special treatment

Since 1997, faith schools have been peddled as a way to deliver high quality education – first by Blair, and now by Cameron and Gove. Sure, they may get impressive results. But to judge them on that basis alone ignores the gross unfairness, elitism and favouritism that lie at their heart.   As a state funded institution, faith schools should have the same selection policy as any other state school. The discrimination on the basis of faith at entrance denies many pupils the opportunity to get a high quality education. This is hardly in line with the message of “parental choice” repeated again and again by the political mainstream. If faith

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Dice are loaded against Brown

The news that stamp duty is to be axed on houses costing less than £175,000 is rather underwhelming—the Tories proposed abolishing it on homes under £250,000 last year but is indicative of the problems that the government is going to have with its re-launch. The best chance for a successful re-launch would have come from a genuine period of silence over the summer followed by the rollout of a set of new initiatives. Instead, what we are seeing is confirmation that variously extensively trailed ideas are going to be implemented and often in less radical form than first suggested. This, as the Populus poll in the Times shows , is

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Wolverines!

Matt Zeitlin, a Cal golden Bear soon, I understand, to become a Northwestern Wildcat, is kind enough to say some nice things about my piece on college football.  Nonetheless Mr Zeitlin also says this: There’s only [one] glaring problem with Massie’s piece – the love for Michigan. I mean, I guess as a Scotsman, he has free ground to pick a team, and one could do worse with Michigan, but one of the most annoying things about college football is how sycophantic the media is toward old, established, mostly Midwestern teams. Michigan isn’t the best example, Notre Dame is. This is true. In 1996 I was a student at Trinity

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Mooseburgers and other ephemera

So, apparently Tim Pawlenty though it was going to be him. My own suspicion – and it is only a hunch – is that McCain  may have wanted to choose Joe Lieberman but was persuaded that the consequences of doing so would doom his chances in November. The party wouldn’t wear a pro-choice candidate (any more than the Democrats could stomach a pro-life Veep). Lieberman’s appeal was that he would be a “game-changing” selection; once he was out of the running, what would be the point of a grey nonentity such as Pawlenty or, worse still, someone as well-kent and uninspiring as Mitt Romney. Thus the search was on, as

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Reforming the Vice-Presidency

Just how bad might a McCain presidency be anyway? Happily David Broder is on hand to tell us: By picking Palin, McCain has strengthened his reputation not as an ideologue, not as a partisan, but as a reformer — ready to shake up Washington as his hero, Teddy Roosevelt, once did. My guess is that cleansing Washington of its poisonous partisanship, its wasteful spending and its incompetence will become McCain’s major theme. Because lord knows that what we need is another crazed crusader* in the White House who can’t see – or imagine – a windmill without wanting to have a bloody tilt at it. Anyone who thinks McCain –

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Should we care about Sarah Palin’s teenage daughter being pregnant?

The Republican Convention, Minneapolis, Minnesota Word that Sarah Palin is to become a grandmother, aged 44, is spreading rapidly through Minneapolis. Should it matter? James says no, but personally I can’t see how it can avoid being an issue. Just three days ago, Palin was on a stage introducing her entire family to America. The system here involves the candidates invading their own privacy to an extent unheard of in Britain. The tradition of spousal speeches strikes Brits as bizarre and it is tough to work out where the line is drawn between political and private life. Character is king in American politics, and voters like every metric they can

Sean Martin

The higher education charade must stop

A study has shown that 1/3 of graduates receive no financial benefit from having a degree. And there’s been a 12% rise since 1992 in the number of graduates in non – graduate positions five years after leaving university. The worst performers were converted polytechnics and new universities spearheaded by the Labour government. These findings show the dangers of the incentivisation of higher education. A couple of weeks ago I said school wasn’t for everyone. Well, university isn’t either. Bribed into A levels by EMAs, and fooled by dated graduate salary figures into university, young people are sleepwalking into up to £20,000 of debt. And it’s not just a few

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Brown is neither feared nor loved

When David Miliband wrote his infamous Guardian piece and then further stoked the controversy with a series of provocative media appearances many of us expected the Brownites to knee-cap him. After all, vicious party in-fighting is what they do best. But the Brownites—reportedly because of Stephen Carter’s intervention—backed away. At this point, the air of almost physical menace that surrounded the Brownites evaporated. Maintaining discipline within the Labour party has consequently become far harder. No one now fears the consequences of speaking out in the way they once did. (It was once seriously put to me that Charles Clarke was prepared to stand up to Brown because his belly acted

Peter Hoskin

CoffeeHousers’ Wall, 1 September – 7 September

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 – provided 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

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Will Brown’s conference speech be a mea culpa?

Jackie Ashley’s column is, as always, well worth reading this morning. Perhaps, the most significant thing in it is the suggestion that Gordon Brown might admit to his own mistakes at conference: “Brown, who has been talking a lot to former Blair advisers, is said to be drafting a speech that will go further than he has ever done before to admit personal failings and explain why he wants to stay in office, even pushing ahead with reforms he used to oppose. We’ll see. He is said to be deeply frustrated by his own performance, and ready to listen to people he used to dismiss out of hand.” I’ve long been convinced

Sunday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Carter got

The Independent on Sunday’s report that Stephen Carter has been demoted is hugely significant. If it is right, and I have no reason to think it is not I just haven’t independently confirmed it, it suggests that a change in strategy is coming; that the Brownites are going to adopt a more bare-knuckle approach. In recent weeks, Carter has been advocating not trying to tear David Miliband down, he played a key role in the brokering of the Peace of Minorca, and trying to separate David Cameron from his party, Carter argues that the public believe Cameron to be a decent guy and a moderate so attempting to demonise him

James Forsyth James Forsyth

A political hurricane

It seems rather Jo Mooreish to be discussing the political implications of Hurricane Gustav as people are forced to evacuate their homes but with the hurricane expected to make landfall as the Republican convention gets under way and with the legacy of Katrina there is an unavoidable political angle to this story. As Fraser notes, the Republicans cannot in the current circumstances have a typical convention. It would be wrong both stylistically and substantively to have speakers indulging in partisan rhetoric as a natural disaster strikes. At first blush, this appears to put John McCain at a further disadvantage. While the Democrats had four days of wall to wall media