Great column by Simon Jenkins in today’s Guardian. The celebration of the “Cheeky Brothers” Martin McGuinness and Ian Paisley has been nauseating. Now the old brute has gone and good riddance to him. Or at least so you might think. But no, instead you could have been forgiven for supposing that a national treasure is
When is “off the record” actually off the record? Dana Goldstein says “shame on The Scotsman” for publishing Samantha Power’s description of Hillary Clinton as “a monster”. But this is not a matter of shame, nor necessarily, as Goldstein suggests, of the foreign press “stooping to play gotcha with secondary advisors”. It may well be
Like Robin Hanson, I meant to blog these words of wisdom from Will Wilkinson last week. I say, again and again, that it is an embarrassing non-sequitur to argue that people are “irrational” and then leap to the conclusion that they need benevolent paternal guidance from the state. After all, if people are irrational then
So a good night for Hillary Clinton last night but a better one for John McCain. Here’s what Obama had to say this morning: “I hope people start asking is what exactly is this foreign experience she is claiming,” he said. “Was she handling crises during this period of time? I haven’t seen any evidence
Grrrr. According to the Telegraph Gordon Brown has announced a review of the Barnett Formula. Fair enough. It was, after all, designed as a temporary measure, updating the 19th century Goschen Formula that allocated spending across the UK. But it would be nice if people writing about it knew what they were talking about. Here’s
The general view seems to be that Clinton needs to gain an edge in either the cumulative popular vote or, less probably, the pledged-delegate count if she is to have a chance of persuading the Superdelegates to give her the nomination (and of course, once you strip independents and other non-Democrats out of the election
Did Rush Limbaugh win Texas for Clinton? Dave Weigel crunches the numbers and finds that he quite possibly did. Hilarious.
It’s an election, of course, so no card must be left un-played. Nonetheless, there’s something a little unseemly about trying to exploit war crimes and massacres for personal, political gain. In fact it’s grotesque. I assume this press release* was supposed to appeal to Polish-Americans in Ohio. Statement from Senator Hillary Clinton “We will soon
Earlier this year Con Coughlin argued in The Spectator: Clearly there is a need for the government to get a firm grip on all the various security challenges that might come our way, which is why there has been much talk at the Cabinet Office, which is overseeing the review, of establishing a National Security
Another sad tale of a writer essentially making up a memoir: In “Love and Consequences,” a critically acclaimed memoir published last week, Margaret B. Jones wrote about her life as a half-white, half-Native American girl growing up in South-Central Los Angeles as a foster child among gang-bangers, running drugs for the Bloods. The problem is
This could be the most risible thing one’s seen yet from this risible government: The Labour Party has accused the BBC of bias towards the Tories. An official complaint has been lodged, claiming Radio 4’s Today programme has given David Cameron an easy ride in recent interviews. A senior party official accused the broadcaster of
Comments are good. It’s always nice to hear – and learn – from readers. So it was lovely to receive this comment from, appropriately, “Monoglot”, on this post about Marion Cotillard’s love of conspiracy theories: What is it [about] french and the strange conceit that it needs no translation, in some circles? You don’t see
More on trade. Jagdish Bhagwati says that Obama’s better – or, rather “a less disturbing prospect” – on trade than Clinton. He gives five reasons: First, Mrs Clinton, in an infamous interview with the Financial Times, responded to a question on support for the Doha round with the need for a pause, whereas Mr Obama
The internet is all about niche, right? It’s clear to me that there’s an as yet unfilled opening for a blog that combines analysis of the latest shenanigans between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton with equally speculative and ill-informed musings on England’s tour of New Zealand. We break new ground here, folks, with the world’s
Mr Eugenides has the details about how the Scottish government’s advertising campaigns presume that we’re all criminals. Depressing stuff. Mind you, when I saw this poster I assumed it was a police recruitment campaign, not a warning to prostitutes’ customers.
Charles Moore in The Spectator: One of the running jokes in Private Eye used to be a list of benefits from some public service or other which included, inexplicably, ‘grapefruit segments’. Last week, the Labour party emailed me ‘Our 50 top achievements since being elected in 1997’. Achievement no. 50 is ‘Free fruit for most
Megan McArdle suggested last year that one way to choose a candidate was to look at their economic advisers and pick the candidate with the smartest team. That being so, she lauded the University of Chicago’s Austan Goolsbee, an advisor to Barack Obama. This week Goolsbee’s in trouble for suggesting that the grotesque nonsense on
The Canadians say the Clinton campaign has also told them that her abysmal campaign rhetoric should not be taken too literally. One hopes that is the case. This leads Noam to add, tongue in cheek (I hope): What is it with these Canadians? Are they running some sort of entrapment operation up there? Why do
But… The makers of Scrabble are going after the Indian boys responsible for the wondrous Scrabulous. What stupidity. Don’t they realise that Scrabulous has introduced the Facebook generation to the game. Yes, it’s a rip-off of the boardgame but it’s also the best thing to have happened to Scrabble in years. How many sets will
Larry Kudlow, who normally sees brilliance in every aspect of the Bush administration’s record, now sees only disaster. Here he is at The Corner: If Sen. John McCain wants to run as a candidate of change, and if he’s truly interested in distancing himself from President Bush, he should reverse the declining fortunes of the