Ach, David, methinks you protest too much. Is Obama’s problem with BP really “rooted in prejudice”? Or might it be based on the fact that the disaster unfolding in the Gulf of Mexico is doing him considerable political damage? The latter, surely. I don’t think the President comes out of this affair especially brilliantly but
A pair of interesting developments in the early manoevering for the Republican party’s presidential nomination in 2012. 1. Sarah Palin endorses Terry Branstad in the Iowa gubernatorial race rather than his opponent Vander Plaats even though Plaats is the favoured candidate of Tea Partying types and prominent evangelicals such as James Dobson. Odd, no? Actually,
Hats-off to the Wall Street Journal for featuring the Amber Nectar of the Gods (Fizzy Pop Division) on their front page yesterday to report on how Barr’s are responding to the latest piece of interference from the meddlers at the Food Standards Agency: For nearly half a century, the man behind “Scotland’s other national drink”
Paging John Rentoul and Oliver Kamm for this exception to the general rule that most questions asked in the press are best answered in the negative. Here’s Eliot Spitzer – or, as Radley Balko puts it, “disgraced former tyrannical prosecutor Eliot Spitzer” – flying this beauty: After reading the Gettysburg Address, does the idea of
Naturally there’ll be some of that here this month, but I’m also blogging for the New Republic over at Frank Foer’s reconstituted Goal Post blog. Among the other contributors: novelists Aleksandar Hemon, Daniel Alarcon and Rabih Alemeddine. There’s also Howard Wolfson, now a Deputy Mayor of New York City but better known, perhaps, as communications
David Cameron’s speech on reducing public spending, curbing the deficit and tackling the national debt was important stuff. Not least because, at some length, he pointed out the poisonous position the incoming government faces to make it clear that, far from being Tory cuts, when the axe comes, as fall it must, the underlying responsibility
I reckon it’s been too long since Dolly Parton featured here. So here she is making her debut on the Porter Wagoner Show way back in 1967 and performing Dumb Blonde:
As a coda to this post on immigration, it’s worth noting that despite the impression given by politicians (especially during an election campaign) and by some of the newspapers this remains a pretty good country in which to live and most people, despite the national appetite for grumbling, are quite content with the places they
An interesting piece from the BBC’s Nick Bryant, arguing that Australian conservatives have concluded that Cameron failed to win an overall majority because he was insufficiently clear – that is, right-wing. The Liberal leader Tony Abbott appears determined not to make the same mistake [sic*] and is modifying, that is to say abandoning, some of
Ben Brogan’s column in the Telegraph urges David Cameron to get tough on immigration and act quickly. He need have no fear on that front. Since Labour seemed to have decided – erroneously – that immigration cost them the election the Conservatives and Labour are racing one another to see who can be beastliest about
Via Samizdata, a succinct analysis of the european fiscal crisis from Clarke & Dawe, Australia’s version of Bird & Fortune:
What a disaster. For Israel that is. One may appreciate two things simultaneously: that the “peace” activists en route to Gaza were not necessarily as innocent as that appellation might suggest and that the Israeli commandos were, as matters developed, compelled to use more force than perhaps they anticipated. Few sensible folk dispute Israel’s right
So, yes, as several commenters pointed out, the timing of this post about David Laws proved unfortunate. James and Fraser have said much of all that needs to be said on the matter. Perhaps if Laws had been in any other cabinet post he could have survived this firestorm – though the alacrity with which
I suppose that relatively few people in England knew Alan Ruddock, who died from a heart attack on Sunday aged just 49, but in Scottish and Irish journalistic circles he was a considerable figure. As Kevin Myers reminds us, he defied the IRA as editor of the Sunday Times’s Irish edition. Later, as Stewart Kirkpatrick
As you know, it’s Ivan Basso in the picture here and on Saturday, for the first time and on the penultimate stage, in this year’s Giro d’Italia he will wear the race leader’s Maglia Rosa. He deserves it too. On the Zoncolan and then yesterday on the Mortirolo pass Basso has been the pride
In some senses, and for all its reforming zeal, this is something of a throwback government. David Cameron’s own views and preferences have, I think, mellowed with time to the point that he is now in some respects the kind of Tory who might not have been altogether out of place in the era of
While Britishers have been getting used to coalition government, some things in America never change. In fact, if anything the Cult of the Presidency* is stronger than ever. True, the Obama administration has not always, or even often, done much to acknowledge any limits** on Presidential brilliance but the response to the BP oil spill
A few days ago – that is, a couple of years back in blogworld – my old chum Iain Martin asked how Nick Clegg will fill his time. Without a department of his own what will the Deputy Prime Minister actually do? The first and obvious answer: less damage than ministers who have departments. Happily
Backbenchers are invariably a motley crew. That’s the nature of the beast. And I think it’s right that backbenchers have a proper forum for airing their passions, concerns and grievances. Which is why I also think it right that the 1922 Committee has survived the Tory leadership’s misguided attempt to all but abolish it. Nevertheless,
I’m indebted to Stephen Pollard, late of this very parish, for alerting me to these poetic renditions of the Blessed Sarah’s public pronouncements. They have a certain zany – zen? – charm to them. For instance: “Prayer Before Debating Joe Biden” I. I said, “Piper, ‘kay, I’m going out onstage. I’m debatin’ this guy, it’s