Well that didn’t take long. No sooner had I decried the notion that President Barack Obama’s decision to move (but not cancel) the US’s proposed missile defence shield from eastern europe than, sure enough, up more folk arrive to suggest that OMG! It’s Munich All Over Again! This time it’s Rich Lowry, editor of National
Everyone agrees that cuts in public spending are necessary. Everyone also agrees that we could do with a better and more candid class of politician. And everyone should agree that we could do with better newspapers too. It’s budget week here in Scotland and that means there’s the chance to preview some of arguments that
18th March 1940: British prime minister, Neville Chamberlain (1869-1940) walking across the Horse Guard’s Parade, Buckingham Palace on his seventy-first birthday. Photo: Davies/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. Neville Chamberlain, it is fair to say, does not receive a good press these days. The War Party – on both sides of the Atlantic – sees Munich popping
From the Department of Criticism: the Irish Times handed my old Dublin University Players contemporary Peter Crawley the unenviable task of reviewing Chris de Burgh in concert. It’s fair to say that his notice was less than generous… Certain toes will never uncurl after this experience, but it is almost admirable how unaltered de Burgh
I’ve a piece up at the Daily Beast arguing that Congressman Joe Wilson shouldn’t have apologised for heckling Barack Obama during the latter’s campaigning health care speech the other night: Trivial though it may seem, this brouhaha highlights a great flaw in the American system: You elect a monarch. In olden days and on the
I’m not qualified to offer an opinion* on Obama’s health care speech last night. So I won’t, beyond observing that his refusal to countenance the possibility that the kind of reforms he wants don’t involve any trade-offs of any sort was, even by Presidential standards, unfortunate and, frankly, enough to make one suspect that there’s
This is perhaps the single worst column I’ve read. Ever. Anywhere. I have absolutely no idea what Mark Whicker thought he was attempting when he wrote this. But that the editors at the Orange County Register would then actually see fit to publish it is utterly incomprehensible. Mr Whicker begins: It doesn’t sound as if
Have you read David Grann’s article about the trial and execution of Cameron Todd Willingham? I’d urge you to do so. Willingham was convicted of setting the fire that brunt down his house and killed his three children. There were, investigators said, no fewer than 20 grounds for supposing that the fire was not an
One last – barring any more developments! – post on the Megrahi Affair. Much of the commentary has presumed that there must be some grubby, even sinister, deal made. No-one denies that British industrial interests influenced the terms of the Prisoner Transfer Agreement (though, again, that agreement was not, I understand, any different to those
Angela Harbutt of Liberal Vision and Samizdata’s Jonathan Pearce say much of what needs to be said about the British Medical Association’s depressingly predictable demand that all alcohol advertising and sponsorship should be banned. Meanwhile, elsewhere, Simon Clark draws my attention to the next front in the endless War on Smoking. Apparently smoking should be
Perhaps the second-funniest line I read today comes courtesy of good Mr Dale: One great thing about Armenia is that they cannot abide John Prescott. Iain’s just back from a trip to Armenia, where, as you can see, they have a pretty good grasp of British politics. Some of my Armenian-related blogging is collected here.
I confess I chuckled heartily when I saw the eyebrow-raising words “Cheney’s Lingerie Legacy” at Andrew Sullivan’s site. Two more words popped up, unprompted but irresistably and immediately. No prizes – not even for the bright pupils of Market Snodsbury Grammar School – for guessing that Spode was one and Eulalie the other. This sort
I can’t find the passage, but if memory serves there’s a moment in War and Peace when the assembled company is discussing Napoleon Bonaparte and marvelling at and quaking before the string of military victories he has won and how this spells doom for poor Russia when an old and ancient battle-weathered chap growls something
David Aaronovitch’s column in the Times today is a curious beast indeed. Some sub-editor has given it the headline Complacency has crept up on us (yet again) which seems curious since the partially-successful prosecution of the men accused – and guilty – of plotting to use “liquid bombs” to blow up transatlantic airliners would seem
And not, my English nationalist chums, so that he can bid good riddance to those troublesome, and endlessly grumbling, Scots. Rather lost amidst the Megrahi Fallout was the news that Wee Eck and his merry band of mischief-makers are pressing ahead with their plans for a 2011 referendum on the independence question. This despite the
My thanks to the ever-vigilant Mr Eugenides for alerting me to this wee gem: Pubs [in Edinburgh] are launching marathon cheap drink offers in a bid to beat new licensing legislation. The new rules, introduced last week, aimed to prevent “happy hour” offers by forcing publicans to keep drinks at the same price for a
James says that the government is at odds with itself over the Megrahi Case. He cites these statements to support his argument that while either of these claims may be true, they cannot both be: David Miliband on the Today Programme on September 2nd: “We did not want him [Megrahi] to die in prison.” Ed
1st May 1930: Australian opening batsmen Bill Woodfull (1897 – 1965, left) and Archie Jackson (1909 – 1933) going out to bat against Worcester at Worcester. Photo: E. F. Corcoran/Topical Press Agency/Getty Images. The other day Patrick Kidd wrote a nice post on cricket and the outbreak of the Second World War, but, speaking of
Not, I suppose, terribly surprising that Michael Moore’s latest “documentary*” should receive an enthusiastic review from the Guardian, but even by Moore’s lofty standards this new venture sounds exceptionally stupid: Capitalism: A Love Story is by turns crude and sentimental, impassioned and invigorating. It posits a simple moral universe inhabited by good little guys and
So, via Iain Dale, the News of the World has a story claiming that: Britain was facing the likelihood of an increased terror threat last night — after America’s CIA chiefs threatened to stop sharing vital intelligence with us following the Lockerbie bomber’s release. The Americans have already warned British intelligence services that sending