Conrad Black, late of this parish of course, describes his daily routine after his first year in prison: I get up just after 7 except on the weekends and holidays when it is possible to sleep in. I eat some granola and go to my workplace where I tutor high school-leaving candidates, one-on-one, though sometimes
The White House could easily have granted the press conference Gordon Brown so clearly craved. Though there was something a little craven, a touch humiliating about much of the build-up to this week’s Prime Ministerial visit to Washington, it’s reasonable to suppose that, in this instance at least, Brown may have been treated a little
Steve Coll, late of the Washington Post and now ensconsed at the New Yorker and the New America Foundation, is a brave, brave man. He’s actually going to read the stimulus bill Barack Obama signed into law. All 407 pages of it. And then he’s going to blog about it. I suppose someone in “traditional”
Sometimes it’s the seemingly minor events – minor, that is, in the grand scheme of matters, not necessarily small or insignificant at the moment they occur – that can carry more weight than more obviously important or telling developments. Lord knows, there’s been no end of troubling news from Pakistan in recent years. But, silly
Poor Gordon Brown. Yes, really. The expectations for his visit to Washington this week could not have been framed more unkindly. It’s as though the Prime Minister has been set up to fail. His enemies in the press will not mind this, but his friends’ talk has not helped either. The less hype this visit,
I sometimes wonder about pollsters and political consultants. That is, I wonder if they are rather like the financial Masters of the Universe whose mastery turns out, it seems, to have been somewhat exaggerated. That’s not say there aren’t differences between well-run campaigns (Barack Obama) and lousy, ill-focused, foolish ones (Hillary Clinton), rather that the
There’s a reason Rahm Emanuel is happy to agree with Rush Limbaugh’s assertion that he, the Great Rushbo, is the de facto leader of the Republican opposition: Limbaugh turns off middle-class, middle of the road voters. An Obama vs Limbaugh battle is not one the White House is going to lose. Indeed it’s hard to
It can be dangerous to be more catholic than the Pope. That was my immediate reaction to John O’Sullivan’s piece on David Cameron in the latest issue of National Review. O’Sullivan dismisses the notion that there’s anything the Republican party can, let alone should, learn from the Cameronian Makeover. O’Sullivan is hardly alone in thinking
Harriet Harman’s proposal for legislation designed to target a single person – Sir Fred Goodwin – who, whatever his other failings, has not yet been charged wth any crime, seem even more extraordinary today than they did yesterday. Daniel Hannan puts the matter into some historical context: Harriet Harman is proposing that a law be
Peter may well be right to argue that it’s hard to see how Gordon Brown can sack Harriet Harman. But let’s just say that she’s not really helping the government these days. Take her performance this morning, for example: “Sir Fred Goodwin should not count on being £650,000 a year better off because it is
Another Saturday, another trip to Murrayfield. Frank Hadden is not a lucky coach; the Scotland front five was supposed to be the team’s strength but Nathan Hines will miss the entire championship, while Euan Murray’s rib injjury has kept him out until this afternoon’s must-win match against Italy. Murray’s an unusal rugby player. Not only
Competition is pretty tough, but Fox’s Glenn Beck may actually be too dumb for cable news. And if Beck is a libertarian, I’m an Eskimo. [Hat-tip: Radley Balko]
Everyone is supposed to hate Ryanair, right? It’s the compay that takes the frills out of no-frills and that, increasingly, seems to relish treating its customers with a degree of contempt. Despite this, I think it a splendid airline. That’s not just because it can fly one to interesting places for tiny prices (though obviously
Avigdor Lieberman – Israel’s new kingmaker and, according to no less a hawk than Marty Peretz, a “neo-fascist” – says his ideas on citizenship really aren’t any different from those espoused by Gordon Brown’s government. Elsewhere, regardless of whether or not Fred Goodwin “deserves” a £650,000 pension is becomes abundantly clear that, despite this still
How do you know the Obama administration isn’t “soft” on Israel? John Bolton says it is. To wit, Bolton was asked at CPAC today if Obama would defend Israel “when” the “Arab nations” attack it and here’s what he said: BOLTON: I would certainly hope they would come to Israel’s assistance, but I think there’s
Golly. The Daily Mail seems to have a very narrow, dangerous view of who is, and who isn’t, British: However although the figures from the Government’s Office for National Statistics show an increase in numbers of foreign born people they still fail to record the true impact of immigration because they record their children as
Fraser’s article on the Californification of the Tory party is a splendid piece of work and highly recommended. I enjoyed it very much. And yet, the more one thinks about it, the more problematic, and perhaps even contradicory, some parts of this vision of a Tory future seemed to be. For one thing, it seems
Gene Healy, author of The Cult of the Presidency (highly recommended, incidentally), resurrects one of my favourite Never-Gonna-Happen-Ploys: the President should make fewer speeches and deliver the State of the Union address in writing, not in person: The “permanent campaign” that dominates modern presidential politics would have appalled our forefathers. Accepting the 1844 Democratic nomination,
Via Terry Teachout, the Elegant Variation republishes a list of books written between 1945 and 1985 that James Wood recommends you read. What’s notable is not so much the list itself as the extent to which it contradicts the view that Wood takes a particularly docrtinaire view of fiction. True, he may be most famous
I don’t know why Bobby Jindal, the Republican party’s Great Brown Hope, agreed to give the GOP response to Obama’s speech last night. Supposedly a privilege, this more often turns out to be a fools errand. Indeed, the only successful opposition response I can recall in recent years was given by Senator Jim Webb. Generally,