Society

Saturday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama failed this week as well as Clinton

James Forsyth says that Hillary’s disappointment in Tuesday’s primaries is matched by the decline in Obama’s image, as the sheen of the wunderkind fades and doubts multiply Barack Obama entered the arena on Tuesday night to Bruce Springsteen’s ‘The Rising’. But a more appropriate song would have been ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want’ by the Rolling Stones. For although Obama did not get the two victories he wanted (in Indiana and North Carolina) to knock Hillary out of the race, he got what he needed: a far bigger win in North Carolina than Hillary Clinton achieved in Indiana. So after these two contests, Obama is within touching distance

Roger Alton Roger Alton

Spectator Sport | 10 May 2008

The infinite capacity of men to talk utter balls about football should never amaze, but the level of spiteful twaddle spouted about Chelsea’s Avram Grant, which started at volume 11, is laughable. This decent, courteous, humorous and intensely honourable man was put in charge of a team of highly gifted, absurdly paid, over-ego’d individuals who were capable of playing profoundly tedious football and has turned them into what is easily right now the most attractive team in the Premiership. But still fans whine and experts carp. God, it’s awful stuff. So why isn’t Avram Grant getting the respect, admiration and, er, love he deserves? It is baffling: here are Chelsea

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Cameron gets ready for No. 10 — and Boris must wait his turn

David Cameron talks to Fraser Nelson about his local election triumphs, admits that he is not going to ‘agree on everything’ with the new Mayor of London, and says Boris should join the queue to become PM after him The victorious David Cameron is being driven towards Buckingham Palace, the adrenaline of election success still pumping through his veins. Crowds line The Mall, peering into the blackened glass of his limousine. But when he approaches the Palace, his car turns for the A4 and the reverie is shattered. He’s on his way to Crewe for the by-election, setting off by car because of train cancellations. The crowds were for someone

Lucy Vickery

A to P

In Competition No. 2543 you were invited to submit a poem about the things people need to live on, in which the first letter of each line spells out the first 16 letters of the alphabet. Martin Parker, self-confessed ‘crawler’, played the flattery card (he was not alone), which had no bearing whatsoever, of course, on his inclusion in the winners’ enclosure. His is a Betjeman-esque nostalgia for a now almost bygone era. It provides a nice counterpoint to Mike Morrison’s grim lament on what makes today’s world go around. He bags the extra fiver, while the other winners, printed below, net £25 each. Honourable mentions to Brian Murdoch, Basil

Barry Humphries

London Notebook

Only the most venerable and knowledgeable London cab driver has heard of Belsize Circus, a roundabout near the slums of Kilburn Heights where I have my lodgings. During the second world war many bombs fell nearby but, as was the case with most of London, the worst damage by far was wrought after the war by local councils and town-planners. This morning I saw a massive new building arising on the site of an innocuous petrol station. It is already so transcendentally hideous it could only have been enthusiastically approved by Camden Council. It claims to have been put up by something called the Notting Hill Housing Association and is

Andrew Neil

Our transport system is not even ‘Third World’

To Liverpool to chair the annual conference of the British Chambers of Commerce, stout yeomen of the country’s small- to medium-sized businesses. I’ll let the train take the strain, I thought, and burnish my green credentials, even though I planned to travel on a Sunday, which meant the normal two-and-a-half-hour trip would take an extra hour. In fact, it was my wallet which felt the strain first: Richard Branson’s Virgin charged me £320 for the privilege of a first-class return from London, an obscene amount of money for a modest train ride. (I can fly business class to Nice and back for less!) Undaunted, I arrived at Euston in plenty

Martin Davies

Coming up trumps

There is an old Arab saying, ‘among the one-eyed close one eye’ (when in Rome…), a saw which seems particularly appropriate for Hugh Miles’s second book, set in and around the City of a Thousand Minarets. Novel or travelogue? — the reader sometimes wonders which, with a narrative too close-up and personal for the average travel (residence) book. But whatever the ratio of fact to fiction, this book has the feeling of a novel — and a good one at that. Jane Austen’s definition springs to mind: ‘The happiest delineation of the varieties of human nature, the liveliest effusions of wit and humour, conveyed in the best-chosen language.’ Like the

Matthew Parris Matthew Parris

Another Voice | 10 May 2008

‘You have reminded me, Mr Speaker, that for a minister resigning, permission to make a Personal Statement to the House is granted entirely at your discretion and should be of an explanatory nature. With the speech of the Noble Lord, Lord Howe, in mind, I too will keep mine short: to a thousand words. Members opposite will forgive me if the burden of what I have to say is addressed to my own party even if the implications are perhaps of interest to a wider audience. ‘I can no longer serve as a minister in this Cabinet. I have come to doubt I should have accepted office in the first

Friday

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The situation in Burma

The news that food aid to Burma has had to be suspended because the military junta that rules the country has seized it for its own purposes is as depressing as it is predictable. Considering that one and a half million survivors of the cyclone are in dire need of assistance, the consequences of this are appalling. The situation in Burma is a reminder of why Amartya Sen was right to argue that only democracy guarantees that the best interests of the citizenry is the state’s paramount concern.

Thursday

Matthew Dancona

Has Brown broken the New Labour pact?

Frank Field’s piece in the magazine is one of the most interesting analyses of New Labour and its character I have read: Frank’s point is that the Blair Project was not primarily presentational but contractual. The architects of New Labour – Gordon Brown prime among them – agreed to hold true to certain core values in return for the party’s compliance over a radical programme of internal modernisation. The abolition of the 10p tax rate, he continues, violates this contract and marks out a gulf of “clear red water” between Government and PLP. Frank is, of course, no spokesman of the Labour Left but his passionate concern for the poor

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

How did she manage to ignore “Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee”?

Good lord. Thanks (er, I think) to Kevin Drum for pointing me to today’s Maureen Dowd column. It is, as they say, a doozy. Even though people at diners kept trying to fatten up Obama — he drew the line at gravy — he looked increasingly diaphanous, like anti-matter to Hillary’s matter. She’s more appealing when she’s beaten down; he’s less imposing… Obama is like her idealistic, somewhat naïve self before the world launched 1,000 attacks against her, turning her into the hard-bitten, driven politician who has launched 1,000 attacks against Obama. As she makes a last frenzied and likely futile attempt to crush the butterfly [Obama], it’s as though

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Those Unemotional Italians…

Milan beat Inter 2-1* and, well, just watch the rest of it yourself. Great stuff. Thank you to Tiziano Crudeli… Milan 2-1 Inter commentaire Italienby t_m Hat-tip: Andrew and Rizzo Sports. *An important result, in fairness, since it puts the Rossoneri in line for a Champions’ League place next season. Tough week for Fiorentina…

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Obama is almost there

Raleigh, North Carolina This morning, Barack Obama is closer than ever to being the Democratic nominee. He scored an impressive 14 point victory in North Carolina and ran Hillary Clinton extremely close in Indiana. The size of his victory in North Carolina almost guarantees that he will be ahead in the popular vote as well as pledged delegates at the end of this process, denying her the standing she needs to make her case to the super delegates. Obama has had an awful few weeks with Rev Wright dominating the news, garnering more coverage than Clinton and McCain combined, and desperately needed this victory to put him back on the

Jane Ridley

Doctoring the record

The Story of San Michele is one of the great bestsellers of all time. It languishes on the shelves of second-hand bookshops, the autobiography of a Swedish doctor who fell in love with the island of Capri. The author, Axel Munthe, is a shadowy figure, a name often mentioned but (to me at least) an enigma. Munthe’s life, as related by Bengt Jangfeldt in this new biography, was an extraordinary adventure, far more exciting than his autobiography. He was entirely self-made. Born in 1857, he was a middle-class Swedish boy, the son of a pharmacist. When he began to cough blood as a medical student, he left Sweden in search

Tuesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Picture of the Day | 6 May 2008

Back from Ireland and, whaddyaknow, it’s like summer has finally arrived here. By which I mean that temperatures have soared into the 70s. Regular blogging to resume soon. Meanwhile, here’s a picture two of my mother’s hens…

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Why blog?

A friend asked me that question this weekend. There are, of course, plenty of answers to that, but this screen shot showing the location of recent visitors to this blog helps explain part of the appeal I think: Hello World! The last 25 visitors alone have come from: the UK, the USA, Canada, Pakistan, South Africa, Poland, Belgium and Germany. Obviously there’s a certain egotism to this sort of exercise, but it’s also kinda cool to think that, for whatever reason, folk from all manner of different countries and of all kinds of different persuasions can stumble into the same tiny corner of the blogosphere. [Hat-tip: Englishman in New York who

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Like MTV but with music you enjoy

Speaking of country music, I’m going to guess that this is the sort of thing that’s not news to anyone but me. But did you know that you can create your own music TV station? If you have a lastfm account*, just enter your user name here and, by the magic of youtube, you’ll get a stream of music videos chosen to fit your lastfm preferences. That’s too cool for me really. *Even if you don’t, just enter a band name and you’ll get all their youtube goodness delivered straight to your screen.

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Live from Obama’s election night HQ

I’m at Obama’s election night event here in Raleigh. It’s been held in the basketball arena at North Carolina State which gives the press section with its rows of wooden desks and folding chairs the feel of a school exam hall.  The early exits are a mixed bunch but suggest that Hillary will both fail to secure the double victory she needs to really turn the race around and that Obama’s margin in North Carolina will be bigger than Clinton’s in Indiana. But looking ahead to the general election, the Obama camp has to be worried that 48 percent of voters in both states said that the Rev Wright affair was important to how