Society

Friday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Dinner with Abrahams

Amidst all this mystery about the Jewish Chronicle’s interview with Abrahams, an interesting aside springs to mind. I am told that Abrahams was a late arrival to the Anglo Israel Association dinner at the Savoy on Tuesday. For a laugh, they pointed him in the direction of all the hacks – including one Jenny Frazer from the JC. You can imagine her delight: a boring work night out had just got a lot more interesting.   Now, if this were me I’d chat away to Abrahams as casually as I could then rush off to the loo and jot down what he said. Ms Frazer this morning told CoffeeHouse that

The Spectator

The struggle takes many forms | 7 December 2007

Nick Robinson has a great little story about when Gordon Brown’s photo shoot with  the fashion photographer David Bailey. My favourite story of the week comes from the studios of David Bailey where the daddy of all photographers was taking pictures of the PM for the magazine GQ. “Do you use ever use digital instead of film?” asked Brown’s right hand woman Sue Nye. “Nah” drawled Bailey “digital’s like socialism – it flattens everything out and makes everything the same”. Bailey’s laughter at his own joke was met, I’m told, by an explanation that that’s not really what socialism was… Well at least the Labour left will be glad to

Thursday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

GOPolycephaly

I’m not quite sure why this hasn’t received more attention, but didn’t Mike Huckabee just propose an alliance with Rudy Giuliani to take down Mitt Romney? Seems like it to me. Let’s go to the Youtube Debate transcript: I am Joseph. I am from Dallas, Texas, and how you answer this question will tell us everything we need to know about you. Do you believe every word of this book [the King James version of the Bible]? Specifically, this book that I am holding in my hand, do you believe this book? Cooper: I think we’ve got a question. Mayor Giuliani? Huckabee: Do I need to help you out, Mayor,

Alex Massie Alex Massie

What an embarrassment!

Mitt’s Mightiest Fan, K-Lo, on the speech: I think a non-talking-head American watching the speech might be embarrassed at the thought that any American might be asked to prove he’s qualified to be president despite his religion. Really? What if the candidate were a Scientologist? Or a Jehovah’s Witness? Or, shudder, a Muslim? I think most Americans would demand to know more about that candidate’s religious views in those circumstances. I think Kathryn would too. Equally, it seems entirely proper that Huckabee’s belief in Creationism be weighed when assessing his candidacy. If you believe religious faith is a necessary condition for the Presidency – and clearly many people, including K-Lo

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Better than a chaffinch, I suppose

Mike Huckabee might not be ready for prime time. Here he is on national security: During the Cold War, we had hawks and doves, but this new war requires us to be a phoenix, rising reborn to meet each new challenge and seize each new opportunity. Really, governor? Yes, really: When the sun rose on September 11, we were the only superpower in the world; when the sun set that day, we were still the only superpower, but how different the world looked. During the Cold War, you were a hawk or a dove, but this new world requires us to be a phoenix, to rise from the ashes of

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Will the rate cut work?

“Interest rates are cut for the first time in two years, so does that mean we can spend more this Christmas?” so runs the headline from Radio One’s Newsbeat. As so often, it cuts to the chase. The million dollar question is how will lenders respond to the rate cut? How much clout does the bungling Bank of England have? For most of the last 20 years we have assumed a direct relation: base rate cut means lower mortgages and store-card rates.  But after the summer credit crunch, the BoE is losing credibility and clout. “It’s been running a ‘how not to” guide for monetary policy’ as one appalled banker

James Forsyth James Forsyth

The Ukraine’s Iron Lady

With today’s news that Yulia Tymoshenko, one of the key figures in the Orange Revolution, is set to return as Prime Minister of the Ukraine, it is well worth re-reading the interview that Allister Heath did with her in May last year. What’s particularly interesting–apart from her saying that Margaret Thatcher is her role model–is the tough line that she takes on the question of Russia and her country’s energy independence.

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

What the rate cut tells us

The Bank of England’s decision to cut interest rates is an acknowledgment that the UK economy is in a far worse condition that Gordon Brown makes out. It’s so important, because he’s getting away with murder. His skill was not in managing the economy well, but in making people believe it had been managed well. Here are some brief points. What boom? People who say the economy has boomed under Labour tend to live in London. The OECD figures (table 1, excel file) show that most developed countries had better growth than the UK since 1997. Do they all have a Gordon Brown figure claiming credit? We’ve actually been the

Wednesday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Romney’s Faith-Based Problem

What should Mitt Romney say in his impossible-to-live-up-to-the-hype speech in Texas tomorrow? Noah Millman puts some fine words into the governor’s mouth here: “This is the place.” That’s what Brigham Young said when he came to the valley of the Great Salt Lake for the first time. I don’t know if he heard him say it, but my grandfather’s grandfather was there, so he might have. The man who had led his people through the wilderness had come to the spot where he, and they, would build their permanent homes. It’s a great American story. A group of hardy pioneers, setting off westward to find a place where they could

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Henry Hyde’s transatlantic problem

I meant to comment on the death of Congressman Henry Hyde before now but never got around to it. National Review says: During the height of the impeachment controversy, Rep. Maxine Waters, a left-wing Democrat, tried to scold Hyde: “History will not be kind to you.” She was wrong. History will remember Henry Hyde for precisely what he was: One of the great congressmen of his generation — or any generation. Well it’s all about your perspective isn’t it? From a British point of view Henry Hyde was one of the very worst Congressmen of his generation (not as ghastly, admittedly, as the loathsome Peter King but arguably more influential).

James Forsyth James Forsyth

An explanation for why the Bush administration changed course on Iran

Bob Baer, a retired CIA officer who has been deeply sceptical of the Bush administration’s approach to the world, has an interesting take on the whole Iran NIE business:  “The real story behind this NIE is that the Bush Administration has finally concluded Iran is a bridge too far. With Iranian-backed Shi’a groups behaving themselves, things are looking up in Iraq. In Lebanon, the anti-Syrian coalition and pro-Syrian coalition, which includes Iran’s surrogate Hizballah, reportedly have settled on a compromise candidate, the army commander General Michel Suleiman. Bombing Iran now would upset the fragile balance in these two countries. Not to mention that Hizballah has threatened to shell Israel if

Matthew Dancona

We need more prisons

The review on penal policy by Lord Carter of Coles is unbelievably depressing, giving, as it does, further respectability to the idea that sentencing should be driven by the supply of prison places rather than the demand created by the courts and successful prosecutions. This orthodoxy within the criminal justice system has twin roots in the liberal social science which has infected Home Office thinking since Roy Jenkins and Reggie Maudling and the pressure from the Treasury to keep down the costs of the prison system. Governments, on the whole, want to be remembered for building hospitals not prisons. But the simple, bleak but unavoidable truth is that we need

Tuesday

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

The government’s damning report card

Gordon Brown likes to say people will judge this government not on day-to-day scandal but its record on public services. So the OECD’s study on education is devastating. It is the world’s most comprehensive assessment of pupil knowledge and skills – and it finds that English standards have fallen between 2000 and 2006. Our 15 year olds drop from 7th to 17th place for reading and from 8th to 24th place in maths. Coming on the back of a similar PIRLS study last week, it’s hard to argue against. Is Ed Balls going to blame video games again? As Civitas points out, this rather contrasts with a 7 percentage points

Fraser Nelson Fraser Nelson

Why the snob smear matters

One of the joys of blogging is that you can take a kicking instantly from people who disagree with you. I had this pleasure yesterday when I recommended that CoffeeHousers read the Daily Mirror piece accusing David Cameron of being a snob for holding a party and then just inviting the middle-class people to stay for dinner. Why, folk asked, would I draw attention to this muck-raking piece? Because I believe it is has much political significance. At the risk of another kicking, here’s why. When Cameron first threw his hat into the ring as leader, many Tories asked aloud if an Etonian could really be party leader. Not from

James Forsyth James Forsyth

Can you put a fork in this government?

The speed with which things are unravelling for Labour at the moment is quite extraordinary. But the big question is, can Gordon recover? I’ve always been inclined to say yes. Brown is nothing if not resilient as his ability to remain the heir apparent for 13 years demonstrated. But there are reasons to believe that Gordon really might be John Major circa 1994. First, the current set of crises is obscuring other bad news for the government not good news. Just take Britain’s tumble down the educational league tables which have not got nearly as much attention as they should because of all these events. Second, the government’s political judgement appears

Monday

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Mitt’s Mormon Moment

Daniel Larison explains why Mitt Romney’s speech on “religious liberty” on Thursday is going to be a tricky balancing act: His speech will have to go something like this: “My faith, which is very important to me and has made me who I am, should not be important to you, but it is important that we have a person of faith leading this country, and that person happens to be me.” It is Romney’s misfortune that many Americans wonder if he actually belongs to a cult. Doubtless he feels this is unfair, but he could comfort himself by reflecting that he could be labouring under a much more grievous burden:

Alex Massie Alex Massie

Because the current war just isn’t big enough…

National Review Online’s Andy McCarthy believes that the premise that: “we are all quite aware that the Muslims we take seriously are the formers and reformers'” — is mistaken.  We, as in you and I and many of us Corner types, may be aware of that.  But the American people generally are not.  They have been told, repeatedly, by high public officials (and those who would be high public officials) that there is one Islam, that it is a religion of peace (the religion of love and peace, sayeth our Secretary of State), and that the people we need to be concerned about constitute a tiny fringe who have distorted

Alex Massie Alex Massie

How the Elector of Saxony Created Osama bin Laden. Or Something.

So it’s all-Corner all the time here today. Next up is the never-knowingly-undersold Mark Steyn: The Islamic “reformation” is, in a sense, the opposite of Christianity’s. The Saudis have used their vast oil enrichment to promote themselves as a kind of Holy See for Muslims, and the Wahhabization of previously low-key syncretic localized Islams in almost every corner of the planet is testament to their success. I look at the gazillions of dollars tossed into the great sucking maw of US “intelligence” agencies and I wonder why somewhere in the budget we couldn’t put something aside to promote a bit of covert ideological rollback in Chechnya or Bosnia or Pakistan.