The Debatable Land

Mr Pooter Goes to Washington

Say what you like about this United States Senate resolution, but it probably did less damage than most bills that make their way through Washington.

IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES

December 6, 2007

Mr. KOHL (for himself, Mr. PRYOR, Mr. SCHUMER, Mr. JOHNSON, Mr. BROWN, and Mr. CHAMBLISS) submitted the following resolution; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary

March 11, 2008

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RESOLUTION

Designating March 11, 2008, as National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day.

Whereas the death of a family member, friend, or loved one is a devastating emotional event;

Whereas the memorialization and celebration of the decedent's life is the fabric of today's funeral service;

Whereas the family of the decedent has traditionally looked to funeral directors and morticians for consolation, strength, and guidance in the planning and implementation of a meaningful funeral ceremony;

Whereas funeral directors and morticians have dedicated their professional lives to serving the families of their communities in their times of need for generations with caring, compassion, and integrity;

Whereas these special men and women see their chosen profession as a higher calling, a sacred trust, in serving every family regardless of social standing, financial means, or time of day or day of the year, whenever a death occurs; and

Whereas on this special day, March 11, 2008, it would be appropriate to pay tribute to these funeral directors and morticians who, day in and day out, assist our Nation's families in their times of sadness and grief and help families mourn a death and celebrate a life: Now, therefore, be it

  Resolved, That the Senate--

(1) takes this opportunity to pay the Nation's collective debt of gratitude for all the hours and all the times they have put someone ahead of themselves by serving the living while caring for the dead;

(2) urges every American of every walk of life to embrace each of these special individuals with heartfelt thanks for their dedication to their profession; and

(3) designates March 11, 2008, as `National Funeral Director and Mortician Recognition Day'.

Hat-tip: Eve Fairbanks. Oh, the resolution passed unanimously. Who dares upset the powerful mortician lobby?

The Wendy (and Gordon) Farces Never Close...

I wasn't quite sure what to say about this. This being the Scottish Labour party's latest attempt to finesse their position on the matter of an independence referendum. Happily, J Arthur MacNumpty summarises Labour's position with admirable clarity:

Labour are Unionists, so don't want an independence referendum, but aren't afraid of the verdict of the people, so want a referendum now, while waiting for the Calman Commission to present its findings, so want to set the timing and question of a referendum which they do want in a Bill which they can't introduce and may even be ultra vires, and as they can't introduce it, they have scored a victory over the SNP by agreeing not to oppose the SNP's main policy come 2010, when they get round to scrutinising the policy in detail that is already available and decide it's completely unpalatable.

And yet, appallingly, come the next election hundreds of thousands (millions?) of my countrymen will still dutifully vote for these clowns.

Not that their counterparts at Westminster are much, if at all, better. That said, say this for Alastair Darling: at least he ran the Paxman gauntlet. There's no way his courageous predecessor - the man largely responsible for the 10p fiasco - would have done that.

UPDATE: Fraser reports that Darling was roasted by Jon Snow on Channel 4. As Snow put it: "All this does, in the end, sum up a complete shambles. You nearly lost the Finance Bill, the Prime Minister could not focus on the reality that the 10p was a problem. Then you have had to do what no Chancellor in our lifetime has ever had to do - change income tax arrangements between budgets. Why should people trust you after this, if things can go so badly wrong?"

Where's Blair?

Of course he's off saving the world or, as Robert Harris puts it today, "He is already on to the next big thing in his career, with the premiership (in Alan Bennett's wonderful phrase) merely a stage in his spiritual journey."

Time to give this a fresh airing then:

Harris makes a serious point: the absence of any kind of Blair legacy is itself a problem for Gordon Brown. And it's also the case that despite Brown's hapless performance and his seemingly doomed ministry I've yet to hear a single person express the wish that if only that nice Mr Blair could return...

[Hat-tip: Clive Davis]

The Most Under-Rated US Presidents

If the race to be considered the Most Over-Rated President in American history was won at a canter by Ronald Wilson Reagan, there was a much keener contest to earn the title Most Under-Rated president. No fewer than 36 of the 42 men to have held the post received votes in this ballot.

As before, ballots were scored on a 3,2,1 points system (three for most under-rated etc). If no order of preference was specified, each nominee was awarded 2 points. The results are given thus: total number of points collected, followed, in brackets, by each man's ranking in the Wall Street Journal's 2005 survey of historians.

THE MOST UNDER-RATED PRESIDENTS

1. 49 (8) Dwight Eisenhower
2. 44 (34) Jimmy Carter
3. 42 (9) James Polk
4. 39 (18) Lyndon B Johnson
5. 37 (23) Calvin Coolidge
6. 36 (32) Richard Nixon
7. 26 (21) George HW Bush
8. 21 (29) Ulysses S Grant
9. 17 (39) Warren Harding
10. 16 (12) Grover Cleveland

Others:11. 15 (7) Harry Truman, 12. 13 (13) John Adams, 13. 11 (25) John Quincey Adams, 14. 10 (6) Ronald Reagan, 14. 10 (19) George W Bush, 16. 9 (26) Chester Arthur, 16. 9 (11) Woodrow Wilson, 16. 9 (28) Gerald Ford, 19. 8 (3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 19. 8 (16) James Monroe, 21. 7 (2) Abraham Lincoln, 21. 7 (4) Thomas Jefferson, 23. 6 (1) George Washington, 23. 6  (17) James Madison, 25. 5 (37) Andrew Johnson, 26. 4. (N/A*) William H Harrison , 26. 4 (15) John F Kennedy, 26. 4 (20) William Howard Taft, 29. 3 (14) William McKinley, 29. 3 (33) Zachary Taylor, 29. 3  (35) John Tyler, 29. 3 (10) Andrew Jackson, 29. 3 (22) Bill Clinton, 34. 2 (5) Theodore Roosevelt, 35. 1 (27) Martin Van Buren, 35. 1 (N/A*) James Garfield.

*=not included in the 2005 WSJ survey.

Subtracting a Presidents' ranking in this poll from their place in the WSJ survey provides an alternative measurement of under-ratedness. The resulting number then, obviously, represents the divergence between our findings and those of the professionals. The higher the number, the more under-rated the President. By this ranking system the most over-looked Chief Executives are:

1. Jimmy Carter 32
2. Warren Harding 30
3. Richard Nixon 26
4. Ulysses S Grant 21
5. Calvin Coolidge 18

James Polk's new rating of 6 (9-3!) then means that by this measurement he's also actually one of the less under-rated under-rated Presidents. Equally, Eisenhower's score of 7 suggests he's actually rather less under-rated than voters think he is.

My favourite verdict, however, was delivered upon William H Harrison of whom one voter said, "If only more Presidents could have followed his example."

Other notes: non-Americans were especially likely to consider LBJ under-rated, while Nixon and Carter each drew notable levels of bipartisan reappraisal.

Once again, many thanks to all who participated.

The Most Over-Rated US Presidents

Here's the core finding of our quest to discover the Most Over-Rated and Most Under-Rated Presidents in US history: history has pegged Herbert Hoover absolutely right. Hoover was the only 20th century president who did not receive a single vote in either category. Uniquely amongst modern presidents, Hoover draws no controversy. He is the rock* upon which our survey can be built, the constant, universal dividing line between those who are over-rated and those whom history has foolishly frowned upon.

There was, I'm pleased to say, a healthy response. Equally happily the voting sample was reasonably evenly divided between conservatives and liberals with a fair sprinkling of libertarians and non-Americans to keep matters honest and diverse. 

Here then, are the results in the Over-Rated category. As you see there is a clear 1,2,3 followed by a pair at 4 and 5 and another couple at 6 and 7. You will also note that the top ten is in fact a top eleven. A reminder: ballots were scored on a 3,2,1 points system. If no order of preference was specified, each nominee was awarded 2 points. The results are given thus: total number of points collected, then, in brackets, each presidents' ranking in the Wall Street Journal's 2005 survey of historians.

THE MOST OVER-RATED PRESIDENTS:

1. 111 (6) Ronald Reagan
2. 92  (15) John F Kennedy
3. 67 (11) Woodrow Wilson
4. 45 (22) Bill Clinton
5. 41 (3) Franklin Delano Roosevelt
6. 29 (10) Andrew Jackon
7. 23 (4) Thomas Jefferson
8. 17 (5) Theodore Roosevelt
9. 11 (34) Jimmy Carter
10. 9 (2) Abraham Lincoln
10. 9 (18) Lyndon B Johnson

Others: 12. 8 (1) George Washington 13. 7 (17) James Madison 13. 7 (8) Dwight Eisenhower 15. 6 (21) George HW Bush 16. 5 (19) George W Bush  16. 5 (7) Harry Truman 16. 5 (23) Calvin Coolidge 19. 3 (12) Grover Cleveland 19. 3 (32) Richard Nixon 21. 2 (14) William McKinley 21. 2 (13) John Adams 23. 1 (9) James Polk.

In other words voters have judged that Polk is the least over-rated over-rated President. 

I should perhaps observe that Reagan's romp to victory was not the result of a liberal betting coup or court-packing conspiracy. Plenty of self-identified conservatives voted for him too, mostly on the not unreasonable grounds that Reagan's recent beatification over-estimates his ability to turn night into morning or cause walls to tumble with a single blast of his trumpet.

The reputations of JFK and Woodrow Wilson (ranked 4th in Arthur Schlesinger's original 1948 edition of this parlour game) have been sliding for some time, so it is not surprising to see them score well here. Wilson in particular attracted an impressively diverse barrage of scorn from voters of all political persuasion.

Of the rest, I had thought more voters might think that Harry Truman's reincarnation as a model Chief Executive might have led to him being over-rated. Perhaps his counter-evaluation still lies in the future, just as one would expect Clinton to fall down the rankings once the memory of his administration fades some more.

Many thanks to all of you who participated.

*Five other Presidents failed to trouble the scorers in either category: Benjamin Harrison, Rutherford B Hayes, James Buchanan, Millard Fillmore and Franklin Pierce.

Hillary: Situation excellent, I shall attack

The question itching le tout Washington is simple: why won't Hillary Clinton do the decent thing and quit? Well, my friend Mike Crowley has a grand piece in the latest edition of the New Republic that may explain why. The Clintons have been here before and, against the city's expectations, prevailed. Mike suggests that we should view Hillary's campaign in the light of her husband's impeachment. It's a persuasive thesis and, frankly, one that leaves you kicking yourself for not thinking of it before. The parallels cannot be exact, but they're sufficiently compelling to be useful.

As Mike lays out the scene:

The Clintons find themselves victimized and under siege. The presidency is being stolen from them. The press is out to get them. They deride elites and champion the masses. They live in a constant state of emergency. But they will endure any humiliation, ride out any crisis, fight on even when fighting seems hopeless.

Hence her appeal to byapss Washington and throw herself upon the mercy and common sense of the American people. It worked for Bill, so why not for Hillary too?

Populism is potent in the hands of many politicians. But the Clintons have perfected their own brand of it. Impeachment taught them that the specter of defeat could endear them to the public. It's no coincidence that, before several major primaries, Bill Clinton emphasized that Hillary's survival was on the line, or that Hillary's campaign has advertised rather than ignored efforts by pundits and party leaders to force her from the race. She has styled herself as a populist largely by adopting the pose of a fighter--one battling an elite political-media establishment that cares little for ordinary people (as exemplified by her derision of experts who trashed her gas-tax holiday proposal as a gimmick). What working-class American can't relate to feeling stepped on by the fancy-pants establishment?

True enough, but it's also worth recalling, I think, that this sort of self-pity  -and self-indulgence - was a major contributor to Clinton's presidency being less than it might have been.

Crowley again:

Beyond those particulars, however, one gets the overall impression that the Clintons feel Obama shouldn't be here in the first place--that this "young man's" very claim to power is itself questionable. In this sense, the Clintons may be victims of their own sense of victimhood. The vileness of the Clintons' past enemies seems to have convinced them that their enemies always are, by definition, in the wrong. And that Obama's candidacy is almost like another illegitimate attempt to steal a White House that, in some sense, belongs to them.

This too seems plausible. One point I'd add that tends to be ignored (including by me) is the question of why the Clintons should feel the White House belongs to them. I'd hazard there are two connected ideas at work here: firstly, there's the sense that eight fat years of peace and prosperity haven't given Bill (and by extension, his wife who, remember, aspired to be something of a co-President at one point) the place in history they dreamt of when first they arrived in Washington.

That way, a second Clinton administration offers a chance to correct the historical record, leaving the George W Bush years as just an awkward inter-regnum. History can be rewound and the project can begin again. Rubbing against this sense that history has not given Bill his due, however, is something else: the chance to take a Mulligan and have a second go. The Clintons are owed a second shot at the Presidency precisely because they didn't achieve all they wanted first time around. A hostile Congress didn't help, of course, but  they must also recognise that Bill's recklessness deprived them of their chance to make a grand, historical impact. In this sense, then, there's the feeling that they need a secod go at the Presidency because Bill's first and final two years were largely years of failure. In other words, the Clintons feel they have unfinished buiness on Pennsylvania Avenue. Thus, a Clinton restoration would, paradoxically, be a confirmation that Bill's presidency was significant and a chance to complete a long list of unfinished business...   

When the ASBO generation go to chokey, do they get to keep their hooded robes?

Elsewhere in Britain, it's good to see a much-hounded, misunderstood minority finally getting their due:

Hundreds of Pagan worshippers locked up in British jails have been given the right to take twigs into their cells to use as magic wands.

The ruling, which also allows hoodless robes and rune stones, was made to ensure the 300 or so Pagans currently serving sentences have the same rights as other religions.

The permission to use the “religious artefacts” was agreed after consultation with the Pagan Federation which advised the prison service on what equipment its members needed.

This, via Political Umpire whose choice of prison reading is, as you might expect, impeccable.

The Brown Chronicles: The Laughing Stock Years

Memo to Gordon Brown. This sot of caper explains why people are beginning to think you are in fact a fool:

Gordon Brown will not receive the Dalai Lama in Downing Street in an effort to avoid confrontation with China over Tibet, The Times has learnt.

The Prime Minister will, instead, see the Tibetan spiritual leader in Lambeth Palace, home of the Archbishop of Canterbury, enabling him to claim to the Chinese that he is receiving the Dalai Lama in a spiritual rather than political capacity.

What is the point of this nonsense? It's like the decision to sign the Lisbon Treaty but not in public with the rest of the european leaders or, as Mr Eugenides reminds one, of the Olympic Torch fiasco. It convinces no-one and makes the government look ridiculous.

Meanwhile, let's remember that though the Dalai Lama was received at Downing Street by Tony Blair and John Major, though Angela Merkel met him at the German Chancellery and George W Bush showed him round the White House, the title of Gordon Brown's last book is Courage: Eight Portraits. Clearly it's no mistake that a self-portrait ain't among 'em.

UPDATE: Elsewhere, Fraser Nelson almost feels sorry for Brown (but not quite!), while James Kirkup finds Frank Field asking: what's the point of Gordon Brown? Er, good question.

A New Kind of Campaign?

From the New York Times today:

In a sign of what could be an extremely unusual fall campaign, the two sides said Saturday that they would be open to holding joint forums or unmoderated debates across the country in front of voters through the summer. Mr. Obama, campaigning in Oregon, said that the proposal, floated by Mr. McCain’s advisers, was “a great idea.”...

The rivals are openly discussing staging forums across the country to speak directly to voters, an idea that is by any measure unconventional for a general election campaign.

Asked about the idea on Saturday, Mr. Obama told reporters in Oregon, “If I have the opportunity to debate substantive issues before the voters with John McCain, that’s something that I’m going to welcome.”

Noam Scheiber says "Obama should nix the unmoderated debate idea. Fast" arguing that there's no upside to it for Obama. Noam argues that the Democratic candidate is going to have an enormous financial adantage, he's going to generate more enthusiasm than McCain and he's going to try and tie McCain to a failed Bush presidency. Unmoderated debates would help McCain "overcome all three problems".

This seems right to me. Which is also why it's such a clever idea for McCain to propose. In the first place it flatters Obama's already well-developed sense of himself as a statesman cut from a higher grade of cloth than that worn by other politicians these days. It appeals to his idea of "elevating" politics too. Thirdly, and relatedly, it's easy to suspect that Obama could be weary of having to play the "gotcha" game favoured by the likes of Tim Russert, Chris Matthews and the rest of the blowhards who moderate "traditional" debates and, consequently, that he'd be open to anything that stymied their desire to referee the contest.

But the excellence of the notion - from the McCain point of view - is that McCain wins even if Obama rejects the idea. The McCain campaign would then be able to claim, not altogether unreasonably, that "Barack Obama preaches the idea of a 'new politics' moving away from and beyond the 'tired old conventions of the past' but when he's given the opportunity to prove the seriousness of his intentions he ducks and runs and hides. He's just another politician more interested in playing the same old games. You might consider him a hypocrite; we couldn't possibly comment. John McCain, by contrast, will speak before any audience, anytime, anywhere. The American people can contrast his record of Straight Talking candour with Barack Obama's rhetoric of reform that, curiously, always seems to founder upon the rocks of political expediency..." Well, you get the idea.

Since much of Obama's appeal rests upon his rhetoric and the sense to which he's offering something better, more noble than anything the voters have seen in years, the McCain campaign has to do something to counter this. "Where's the beef?" may be one part of it, but portraying Obama as a self-serving hypocrite might be even better. (With the added advantage that McCain, who suffers from no shortage of moral vanity himself, may also believe its true).

Equally, if Obama accepts the idea then McCain also benefits for all the reasons Noam lays out.

(Of course, it's also true that Obama could win these debates. But they would seem to carry more risk for him than for an underdog McCain.)

UPDATE: As commenters point out, the debates would also, of course, offer a contrast between a youthful, vigorous Obama and a shrunken, ancient McCain. True enough and it may also be true, as I say, that Obama would win the debates but all this merely makes it more likely that the media will give McCain the benefit of the doubt in terms of meeting, or exceeding, expectations even if he only has a mildly above-average performance. Maybe it shouldn't work that way, but all this is why it may be a riskier proposition for Obama than for McCain. He has more to lose. Which, I suspect, is one reason why McCain's people came up with the idea.

Stick a Fork in Brown...

More and more, it seems that Gordon Brown's government becomes eerily reminiscent of John Major's hapless ministry. Each day brings a fresh wave of damaging stories that sink the government further into the mire, providing material for fresh bouts of recrimination and acres of still more devastating coverage. Major, of course, was more unfortunate in having a smaller majority and a more awkward squad of unhappy, self-centred backbenchers. In fact just about the last people to realise the extent to which the Tories were doomed was the New Labour leadership itself.

Still, the parallels remain strong. Exhausted? Check. Bereft of ideas? Check. A Prime Minister who becomes a figure of fun, not to say open mockery? The parliamentary party unravelling? Check. Local election meltdown? Check. Losing by-elections in previously-safe seat? Probably. "Unhelpful" sniping from the sidelines? In spades.

Why, just today, you have John Prescott calling Brown "annoying and prickly", Lord Levy saying it's inconceivable Broon couldn't have known about Labour's dodgy "loans for Lordships" programme and Cherie Blair complaining about how Brown was always "rattling the [Downing Street] keys" at the Blairs, reminding them their time was up and it was Gordie's turn to have a go at mismanaging the country.

But worse, much worse than this, is Andrew Rawnsley's devastating analysis of a 5,000 strong PoliticsHome tracking poll which demonstrates the extent to which Brown is toast:

The findings expose a level of contempt among the voters for the Prime Minister that must ring alarm bells in the head of every sentient Labour MP.

Respect for Gordon Brown has dropped so calamitously that only one in five voters now reckons the Prime Minister is doing a good job while three-quarters of them think he is doing a bad one...

It is not just the depth of this collapse that is stunning. It is the sheer width of it, the comprehensive shattering of his reputation in all the areas that matter to the public. On every leadership quality that is important, the Prime Minister is now regarded less favourably than David Cameron...

David Cameron is now seen as more competent, more decisive and stronger than Gordon Brown. Voters really can be pitiless when they turn against a leader. They also rate Mr Cameron as more intelligent, an especially wounding finding for a Prime Minister who has always liked to be thought of as clever.

In one of the harshest findings of this survey, fewer than one in 10 voters is willing to call him 'caring'. Fewer than one in 10 will even call him 'fair'. He is beaten in both those categories not just by David Cameron, but also by Nick Clegg, the leader of the Lib Dems.

Rawnsley's conclusion is especially notable, coming as it does from such an astute - and broadly sympathetic - commentator:

The brutal but inescapable truth revealed by this survey is that the voters do not want to change anything about Gordon Brown. They want to change absolutely everything.

Look, it's over. There is something tragic about this but, it's important to remember that, like Othello's or Macbeth's, Brown's downfall is deserved. It's a failure rooted in his own flawed character and grotesque ambition that have trumped his intelligence and "wizardry". He is hoist by his own petard.

Barring a miracle, Brown won't win the next election. But it's hard to see how Labour MPs can get rid of their Velcro Prime Minister and, frankly, perhaps pointless too since it's hard to see how the party could win the election that would, I suspect, have to follow the elevation of a second unelected Prime Minister.

Irn Bru For Me And You

Irn Bru - the fabled amber nectar of the glens, the monarch of the fizzy pop world - has always been distinguished by the quality of its advertisements. Happily, this latest one, a take on Kipling's If, is just as quirky and oddly charming as we've come to expect. Top stuff.

It used to be said - with pride! - that Scotland was one of the few countries in the world in which both Coca-Cola and Pepsi had to give way to a market-leading indigenous pop. If memory serves this disconcerted the bosses in Atlanta, stinging them into setting up a scottish task force to topple Irn Bru. Clearly, this sort of soft drink imperialism must be resisted and it remains every Scots' duty to sacrifice their teeth to further the cause of the other national drink...

The Most Preposterous Thing I've Read All Week...

And amazingly, it has nothing to do with Hillary Clinton. No, it's Rangers' Christian Dailly who, having seen the referee keep the Ibrox club's SPL title ambitions alive yesterday had the effrontery, the gall, the unmitigated audacity to claim:

that since arriving at Ibrox in January he has formed the impression that Rangers are more often on the wrong end of decisions. "There have been lots of decisions not given that should have been given in our favour," he said. "It looks like a couple went our way today, but that is not the norm."

Words fail me. American readers may consider that this is akin to Michael Jordan complaining that the refereeing authorities never gave him the benefit of the doubt.

UPDATE: Audio of Dundee United manager Craig Levein's splendid rant complaining about the refereeing is here.

UPDATE 2: A reader writes, "I fear that this reinforces the notion that many Englishmen have about Scotland and Glasgow in particular, as it pertains to both sport and politics: that it is populated by slightly sinister, corrupt and small minded people who do anything inside and outside of the law to preserve the feudal order of things be it Rangers and Celtic football or old style thuggish stalinist Labour politics."

A Tartan Army Polka

Ah, apparently we're supporting Poland this summer. Good to get that decided early.

AFTER 10 years of being unable to cheer on their favourites at the finals of a big football tournament, the Tartan Army is switching sides to back Poland at this summer's European championships.

The supporters' organisation - with 1,500 members and dozens of branches in the country - has thrown its weight behind the eastern European side after all the home nations were knocked out of the competition.

Since 2004, more than 40,000 Poles have come to Scotland and the Tartan Army foot soldiers have vowed to show solidarity with their new neighbours. Pubs and restaurants in towns and cities with large Polish communities are preparing special events to coincide with Poland games.

Sports stores in Scotland are stocking replica Polish shirts in the run-up to the tournament and are expecting to cash in on demand from Poles and Scots supporters alike.

Hamish Husband, spokesman for the West of Scotland Tartan Army, said that Scots were used to being the underdog in big competitions and should support Poland who face Germany, Croatia and Austria in the group stage of the tournament, next month, which is co-hosted by Austria and Switzerland.

“We know what it feels like to be the underdogs. We got behind Latvia* at the last World Cup after their football association put out an appeal for all Scotsmen to support them,” he said. “It's been a difficult one because we are not given the option of supporting whoever is playing England so we have had to open our minds up a bit.”

Via Holyrood Chronicles.

(Actually, as is customary, I'll be supporting Italy, but you get the point...)

*Update: As commenter Ewan Watt points out, Latvia weren't at the last World Cup. I think Mr Husband meant to say Trinidad & Tobago.

Not too late to make your vote count...

Voting continues in our exciting quest to determine the most over-rated and under-rated Presidents in American history. But don't fret, it's not too late to cast your ballot before the polls close late on Sunday.

Simply let me know who you consider the three most over-rated and the three most under-rated US presidents. You can submit votes by emailing me here or in the comments section below.

Full details here.

Souterville on the hill...

Special to Souter-born, Phoenix-residing reader MG, here's a photograph of Selkirk, taken from the hill above my parents' house:

Westminster Moves in for the Kill

At the weekend a friend observed that Gordon Brown isn't the man my pal had thought he was. In unison two other friends chirped up: "but he's exactly the man I thought he was". Poor Broon, he's taking a terrible beating these days. Here's Simon Hoggart in the Guardian today:

It was awful, and it's getting worse. When I was at secondary school we had a temporary teacher for a term. He was hopeless. There is no group more cruel than young teenage boys, except young teenage girls, and we treated him unmercifully. At the end of term a friend and I saw him cycling down our street, and, separated from the feral pack, felt great pity. We stopped him, apologised for our class's behaviour, and said we hoped his next post would be happier. I would have told us to go to hell, but he seemed pleased, which was more than we deserved.

I haven't had that feeling since until watching poor Gordon Brown.

And that's just the beginning...

The Tories had been briefed to ask humiliating questions. As the only member with experience of unseating a sitting prime minister, asked Shailesh Vara with galumphing sarcasm, how long did he think he had got? Nigel Evans said polls showed people wanted him to step aside for a "younger, fresher and more charismatic leader". Even James Grey, of whom John Major said "I seem to hear the flapping of white coats," joined in. "Does the prime minister ever wonder why on earth he took the job?"

Instead of ignoring him, Gordon piteously banged on about jobs, reducing poverty, public services, and so forth. It was the political equivalent of "Please, will you be quiet, oh please?"

When the boys are in full mob cry, everyone joins in, even nice, obliging people like Plaid Cymru's Elfyn Llwyd. Ken Livingstone had said that he was going to do some gardening and take his children to school. "What is the prime minister looking forward to when he leaves office?"

Things can only get worse, remember.

Et in Purgatorio ego?

Thanks to Ross Douthat for alerting me to this trailer for the forthcoming movie of Brideshead Revisited:

As Ross says, this may not bear much resemblance to the novel you read. But come on, isn't this just delightfully over-the-top and wonderfully trashy? I doubt it matters that the adaptation - Emma Thomson as Lady Marchmain notwithstanding - seems certain to be utter tripe.

I remember that when Andrew Davies announced that his adaptation would take the view that the book's really about how catholicism ruins everyone's life, there was much umbrage and outrage at this desecration of Waugh's intent. But there's little necessity for an adaptation to be faithful to the original author's intent. And Davies' view is far from untenable even if it ain't how Waugh would have seen his novel.

And in any case, if we're honest, Brideshead is ripe for a Dynasty style makeover. Brideshead is a soap opera after all and, frequently, a contrived, over-written, nonsensical drama to boot. That's part of its charm of course - itself, natch, the novel's fatal flaw...

Matt Zeitlin, on the other hand, suggests one should weep over this trailer. Now there's something to the argument that given the great success - indeed brilliance - of John Mortimer's Granada adaptation there's no need for a new film. But then again, what damage can there really be? Anyone who loves Brideshead - and it's one of those novels that despite its brilliance attracts too many too passionate defenders - has no monopoly or veto on how the book must be interpreted. In fact some of them need winding up... 

In passing Ross makes mention of Waugh's "more serious novels". Does he mean to say that Scoop isn't a serious commentary on journalism? Surely not. Now there's an adaptation that might be fun - provided, of course, that it was played seriously and not milked for laughs...

Referenda Agenda

Steve Richards in the Independent today:

I wonder still if the referendum will ever be held in Scotland. Precedent suggests something or other will get in the way. What a titanic moment it was in British politics when in 1991 John Major persuaded his Chancellor, Ken Clarke, to support a referendum on the Euro. Mr Clarke has regretted conceding the ground ever since, one of those moments when the Euro-sceptics proclaimed a significant victory. Of course the referendum was never held, neither by the Conservatives, nor by Labour who also offered one.

As Richards says, this was a significant victory for the euro-sceptic cause. It didn't just commit the Tories to a referendum on the single currency, it forced Labour into committing to one too. And it's that commitment that has kept Britain out of the eurozone. The "something" getting in the way here is, well, public opinion and the risk of humiliating defeat. So the absence of a referendum can be just as telling as a vote itself.

Richards concludes:

Referendums are the clumsiest and least democratic of tools. Leaders only offer them when they think they can win. Quite often they are proposed to avoid an argument. Sometimes they are offered to make mischief...

In Scotland the dance over a referendum will have its own profound consequences. Already it makes waves down in Westminster. What precisely did Mr Brown know about Ms Alexander's ploy? What did she really want to happen when she said bring on a referendum?

It will be a long, hot dance in Edinburgh and London. Do not count on a referendum being held at the end of it.

Well, in one sense Richards is right. There may not be an independence referendum in 2010. But there will be one by 2020 I'd bet. At some point the stars will align and the question - or questions - will be asked. Scotland is the new Quebec you see, and Alex Salmond has, in this sense, scored another goal in persuading Scottish Labour that a referendum is, in principle, not the worst idea in the world.

McCain's Coming Media Hurricane?

At TAPPED Paul Waldman hails this Arizona Republic piece questioning MCain's "maverick" credentials and then asks:

One thing I've noticed lately is that there are a bunch of Chicago reporters (like Lynn Sweet and Jim Warren, for instance) who have become regulars on cable TV, presumably because they know a lot about Barack Obama. But the reporters who have known John McCain the longest and know him the best -- the ones from Arizona -- are nowhere to be seen. Why do you think that is?

Clearly, we're supposed to impute some pro-McCain or pro-conservative bias here. But it's much more likely that the truth is that while the BHO vs HRC stramash continues no-one gives a damn about John McCain. Now of course it's true that McCain gets a very generous press (partly because - canny man! - he gives the press greater access than do other candidates) but it's also true that November is a very long way away.

It's also true that McCain has, until now, generally (though not always) been the upstart outsider and upstart outsiders almost always receive more indulgent press than do front-runners. He's never received the attention a nominee must endure however, and I suspect that McCain will have to endure tougher press coverage than he's ever received before. One reason for that is, as I say, that he could actually be President now; another is that having been pretty soft on Obama for some time, the press knows it can't be soft on McCain too. Equally, the memory of past cheerleading for McCain will prod some editors to redouble their "vetting" efforts this time around.

In other words, expect to see Matt Welch, author of McCain: The Myth of a Maverick on TV a lot this summer.

Who Governs Scotland?

Not to harp on about this too much, but this item from Benedict Brogan's (excellent) blog deserves a response:

About 10 years ago a friend and I were discussing Scotland with Tony Blair. We asked him who was the leader of the Scottish Labour party. He looked puzzled and said "Donald Dewar?" Alastair Campbell, who was there, shot back "No, you are". My friend reminded me of the exchange earlier today as we tried to make sense of the row over the Wendyendum. Ms Alexander leads the Labour group in the Scottish parliament, but Gordon Brown is the leader of the Labour party, and that includes Scotland. And constitutional affairs are reserved to Westminster and the Prime Minister, as Ms Alexander well knows given that she wrote the White Paper that set up the "wee pretendy" parliament a decade ago. Objectively, she has no authority to set policy on this either politically or legally.

Objectively speaking, that may be the case. But be that as it may, the political reality is very different. Alastair Campbell was wrong then, just as anyone who claims Gordon Brown is also Scottish Labour's leader is wrong now. Firstly, it is Wendy Alexander, not Gordon Brown, who has to respond to Alex Salmond on a daily basis. Secondly, Scotland's future will be decided in Scotland not London, no matter how unfair on England or illogical that may be.  To pretend, or worse, insist, otherwise is to play into the SNP's hands.

As evryone knows, Scotland is, politically speaking, semi-detached from the rest of the UK already. The question that has yet to be decided is whether or not Scotland settles for what one might call 75% independence (which can be arranged, obviously, in myriad ways) or will, in the end, plump for complete independence (albeit, equally obviously, within the EU). I doubt many of us can predict which will happen. Salmond is sensible enough to know that gradualism is his friend and that he can't get too far ahead of the electorate but the point at which the electorate - and what one might call a national sensibility - decides that the country has enough control over its affairs without needing to go any further remains to be determined.

It's in this context that Conservatives in London need to - or rather, should - acknowledge that increased powers in Edinburgh can be Unionism's friend, not its enemy. (A secondary point for Scots Tories, of course, is whether they calue the Union more than a revival of centre-right politics in Scotland). Subject to certain obvious anomalies (hello West Lothian!) being settled, a fiscally autonomous Scotland might, in the end, be the best way of preserving the Union, not a stepping stone to "divorce".

That's a gamble, of course, but what isn't these days? Equally, arrangements of this sort would seem most likely to insulate the Union from the threat posed by a Tory government in London and an SNP (or Labour) ministry in Edinburgh. Such a Union would necessarily be looser than the pre-1997 article, but that's the way the oatcake crumbles isn't it?

Those Unemotional Italians...

Milan beat Inter 2-1* and, well, just watch the rest of it yourself. Great stuff. Thank you to Tiziano Crudeli...

Milan 2-1 Inter commentaire Italien
by t_m

Hat-tip: Andrew and Rizzo Sports.

*An important result, in fairness, since it puts the Rossoneri in line for a Champions' League place next season. Tough week for Fiorentina...

How did she manage to ignore "Float like a butterfly, sting like a bee"?

Good lord. Thanks (er, I think) to Kevin Drum for pointing me to today's Maureen Dowd column. It is, as they say, a doozy.

Even though people at diners kept trying to fatten up Obama — he drew the line at gravy — he looked increasingly diaphanous, like anti-matter to Hillary’s matter. She’s more appealing when she’s beaten down; he’s less imposing...

Obama is like her idealistic, somewhat naïve self before the world launched 1,000 attacks against her, turning her into the hard-bitten, driven politician who has launched 1,000 attacks against Obama.

As she makes a last frenzied and likely futile attempt to crush the butterfly [Obama], it’s as though she’s crushing the remnants of her own girlish innocence.

If someone were to produce a mash-up of Dowd and Polly Toynbee, leavened with a dollop of George Monbiot we might have the world's most compellingly-appalling columnist.

Gordon's Folly Compounds Wendy's

Silly me for daring to presume anything competent could emerge from Downing Street these days. And, yes, it was reckless to suppose that the Prime Minister might acknowledge that the question of Labour support for a referendum should be decided by the Labour leadership in Scotland. That, of course, would be the sensible thing. But here's how the BBC Brian Taylor describes the days developments:

So where's your referendum now? At Prime Minister's Questions, Gordon Brown offered an entirely different interpretation of the scenario offered by Wendy Alexander.

According to Mr Brown, Ms Alexander had not demanded an immediate referendum on Scottish independence.

"That", he opined in response to David Cameron, "is not what she said."

Rather she intended to review matters after - and only after - the cross-party Calman Commission has produced its ideas for the revamp of devolved powers.

So let me get this straight. When Ms Alexander deployed an unaccustomed demotic touch by declaring "bring it on", she was actually saying that this was an issue which should await the outcome of an extensive and lengthy review.

Mr Cameron said the Prime Minister was "losing touch with reality". Alternatively, one might suggest that he has apparently lost patience with Ms Alexander.

Far from endorsing her standpoint, he went out of his way to dilute it.

Well, indeed so. But this is more stupidity from Brown. he does not seem to appreciate that he risks turning Scottish Labour into a 21st century version of the 1980s and 90s Conservative party. With the SNP in power it is more important than ever that the other political parties - ie, the Conservatives as well as Labour - are seen as fully-fledged Scottish organisations and not merely branch offices of HQ in London. That perception helped kill the Tories in Scotland and it will damage Labour too if wee Wendy is seen to be humiliated by the Velcro Prime Minister.

Perhaps Brown doesn't realise that things have changed. Scotland is semi-detached from the UK; that requires that its politics be quasi-independent too. Controlling matters from London is a way to boost the nationalists, not defeat them. The public retains an open mind on independence, but I doubt it wants to see our domestic politicians taking orders from London. On the contrary, there's a widespread, if perhaps still shallow, consensus that "standing up for Scotland" (however you want to define that concept) is what the public wants, not kow-towing to London bosses.

Then again, given his troubles in England, you can understand that Scotland is the very last thing Gordon Brown wants to talk about.

UPDATE: James forsyth thinks that, hang it all, Brown might as well go for a referendum.

Taxing Questions

From the Adam Smith Institute:

Once again, Ireland seems to be the destination of choice for companies driven out of the UK by high taxes. Last week, reports Dominic White, WPP, Glaxo, International Power and AstraZeneca all hinted that they could follow Shire and United Business Media's plans to switch domicile to Ireland.

As the ASI point out, Ireland offers a corporation tax rate of 12.5%, compared to the UK's 30%. Attractive indeed. But what of Scotland you ask? Well, the SNP is a hybrid party as any analysis of its taxation policy reveals: Alex Salmond looks longingly to Ireland and dreams of a low tax Scotland that will be a business haven (as seems sensible, if only to offset some of the costs of being on the periphery). It's quite possible that an independent Scotland would favour a pro-corporation tax regime. If nothing else, it would be suicidal to implement policies that drove, say, the Royal Bank of Scotland out of Edinburgh.

How you square that with the SNP's milk and honey promises on public spending  is a different matter. At some point the money seems likely to run out, even if Salmond is a fan of the Laffer Curve. Hence, perhaps, the SNP's attitude to personal taxation:keep it high. I'm not sure why Salmond is never asked why he's in favour of lowering taxes on companies but not on individuals? One might think that the logic of tax competition might apply to individuals as well as corporations, after all...

UPDATE: A piquant issue given the rumour that Aberdeen Asset Management might leave Scotland for Ireland.

Wendy's Referendum Problem

A reader has chided me for failing to publish more political comment lately. But what more - despite the acres of newsprint devoted to the matter - has there been to say about the Obama-Clinton match-up that was not said six weeks ago? Precious little. She still can't win; her continuing campaign makes Obama's job in November more difficult.

Meanwhile, in Scotland Wendy Alexander, the pocket-sized Scottish Labour leader, announces that she's fed-up with Alex Salmond winning all the headlines month after month and, consequently, says she's quite happy to have a referendum on independence after all. This, despite constant assertions that it was the last thing the country wanted or needed. In London, this has been interpreted as a humiliating blow to Gordon Brown. Wee Wendy, after all, is one of his creations. Doubtless there is some truth to this and Brown, whose ministry is probably over anyway, could have done without this extra blow to his authority.

But then again, Brown has accepted - or, more probably, been forced to accept - the new political dispensation with greater equanimity than much of the press. He's leaving the Scottish Question to the Scottish Labour Party. This is probably sensible: the electorate north of the border is not, I suspect, likely to take kindly to lectures from Brown in London. He may speak for Britain, but he doesn't speak for Scotland. Secondly, this looks like being a tough fight and ever since Labour entered power in 1997 Brown has made it his business to be absent without leave whenever there's an awkward or embarrassing political dilemma that requires resolving.

So if Brown has disowned Wendy, what of Wendy herself? Alas, her conversion to the referendum cause looks, well, positively Brownian. It's a tactical move not a strategic shift; it smacks of panic not strength. On the one hand it seems clear that she felt the need to distance herself from the crippled Prime Minister - a necessary move since she's unlikely to land many blows on Salmond if each time she jabs he can move away and say "there she goes again, doing her master in London's bidding"; on the other it seems she could have chosen a better target for her fire than her own foot.

Labour and the Tories like to accuse the Nationalists of being "opportunists" and of course that's exactly what they are. They're slippery, awkward southpaws boxing against ploddingly predictable orthodox fighters. The public seems not to mind this since, as they know what the SNP are actually about, they hold them to a lower standard of consistency than they do the older, "traditional" parties who, much to their vexation, must sometimes wonder if they are playing to the same set of rules at all.

But there you have it. Wendy must have thought she'd called Salmond's bluff. After all, the widespread suspicion is that he doesn't really want to have a referendum in 2010. How better to confound him then that to press for one now?  alas, poor Wendy, the time for this has passed. This was exactly the ploy you should have seized last May. But no, back then you talked about hwo a referendum was a waste of time, how there was no demand for it and you pilloried the nationalists' talk of having a vote.

But they were bluffing then and hold stronger cards now. For one, you've permitted the Labour party to be outflanked on the populist left; for another the nationalists are happier about their referendum prospects than they were last year. This poll puts support for independence at 41%.

And of course you look like either a) a fool or b) a headless chicken right now since, before you talked about a "snap" referendum you endorsed your own tri-party constitutional review process that will, in time, deliver its views on what, if any, additional powers Holyrood needs if it is to work more effectively. Assuming that the upshot of that process was a three question referendum - independence, more powers, status quo* - it was generally thought that Labour would campaign on the "more powers" platform.

Now although that policy necessarily bought a degree of nationalist logic - which is, after all, also the prevailing drift of the electorate - it at least made some sense. Now there's this lunge to find the last remaining magic bullet that might kill Salmond. But it looks panicked and hasty: a spur of the moment decision, not one borne of wisdom or calculation. What happens to Wendy's own constitutional review policy now?

The moment, as I say and said then, for the Unionist push for a two question - independence or status quo - referendum was after the election. It's foolish to believe that moment is still there. It isn't. The game has moved on. So, wee Wendy gave up a favourable position last May and won nothing for doing so, now she seeks to fight the same point on ground markedly less favourable to her.

Verily, she's a Brownite.

*The Nationalists should press for a fourth option: "dissolution of the Scottish Parliament" since that will attract support from the "status quo", making it more likely that independence or more powers get over the 50% winning line. win a plurality. (Thanks reader, Andrew. You're right.)

Like MTV but with music you enjoy

Speaking of country music, I'm going to guess that this is the sort of thing that's not news to anyone but me. But did you know that you can create your own music TV station? If you have a lastfm account*, just enter your user name here and, by the magic of youtube, you'll get a stream of music videos chosen to fit your lastfm preferences. That's too cool for me really.

*Even if you don't, just enter a band name and you'll get all their youtube goodness delivered straight to your screen.

What price books?

Megan hails Amazon's e-reader, the Kindle* and makes a pretty persuasive case. But what happens when you lose or break your Kindle? Does that mean you've lost your library too? James Joyner is not quite so convinced and complains:

And the fact that e-books are still priced at 50-80 percent the sticker price of the hardcover books strikes me as outrageous, given that the cost of materials, production, transport, and so forth have gone away and one doesn’t end up with a nice objet d’art for one’s shelves.

Not so fast! Authors have to get paid too! Now if every book were sold electronically I doubt you would see much of a price drop for consumers - at least not in the case of still-in-print and copyright material. e-books should, theoretically, be excellent for out-of-copyright classics since these books can be sold for, well, practically nothing (or even given away) while costing no more to carry around than, well, any other book. Equally, some readers may find it easier to make it to the end of the great classics since they may not actually be able to see how many pages they have to go before completing the task.

So, good news for the classics? Perhaps so. But not necessarily bad news for writers either. In fact, the Kindle - and its competitor products - might prove a boon to writers. Readers generally vastly over-estimate how much an author receives from a book sale. Suppose, for instance, that a customer pays £10 for a book in Borders or Waterstones. Well, the author ain't going to see much of that. To begin with, the major chains routinely insist upon a 50% discount. So the publisher is only receiving £5. The author may, if he's lucky, receive 10% of that. But only once all other costs have been met: ie, printing, distribution, marketing, emplyoment costs and so on. Oh, and the author's advance. All this being the case, it's not a great surprise that most books fail to cover their advances (of which the author only receives 85% before tax, anyway since he needs, quite properly, to pay his agent something too).

On the one hand you could say that publishers are being generous to authors; on the other you could argue that this helps publishers since if it weren't the case that a few popular successes subsidise all other production publishers might have to be more creative, hard-working and innovative in terms of actually pushing and selling and marketing books. As the system currently stands, authors can do well if their book is a surprise best-seller, but publishers do disproportionately better still.

As it is the person who does the most work - the author - receives the least, and final, reward.

The Kindle could, at least theoretically, change that if authors begin to sell directly. I don't quite know how this would work, but you can at least envision a future in which it is publishers who are squeezed as authors are able to sell directly  - or via Amazon and so on - to the public who'll download their books onto their e-readers.

Now you might say that this might not be great news for writers whose books don't earn back their advances, but again it's not clear how much this failure is their fault at present and how much represents the failure to find the market in the first place, let alone build it.

And how much is expensive anyway? Would you be willing to pay £5 for an e-version of a book if you knew that 80% of that money was going to the fellow who actually spent a year writing the book? That doesn't seem very unreasonable to me now, does it?

*Weird name: or do they mean to suggest that the Kindle is actually some kind of book-destroyer like, er, fire?

Why blog?

A friend asked me that question this weekend. There are, of course, plenty of answers to that, but this screen shot showing the location of recent visitors to this blog helps explain part of the appeal I think:

Hello World! The last 25 visitors alone have come from: the UK, the USA, Canada, Pakistan, South Africa, Poland, Belgium and Germany. Obviously there's a certain egotism to this sort of exercise, but it's also kinda cool to think that, for whatever reason, folk from all manner of different countries and of all kinds of different persuasions can stumble into the same tiny corner of the blogosphere.

[Hat-tip: Englishman in New York who once, I think, answered this question the same way.]

Department of Britishness

When I lived in Washington, I sometimes forgot that one of the things I missed about Britain was actually the weather. Sure, there'd be glorious spring and fall days in DC but much of the time the climate was boringly predictable and frequently oppressively unpleasant. The variety of the British climate provides for a refreshing contrast even if such happy thoughts are necessarily fleeting in, say, November or March. No wonder we talk about it so much*.

All of which is one way of noting that today - with temperatures still in the giddy 70s - 70% of my British Facebook friends' status updates concern the weather and either a how sunburnt they are, b) how they are loving the warm weather or c) how they would be enjoying it if they weren't imprisoned in an office. By contrast, two DC friends are currently lamenting the fact that the Washington summer, now in full-blast, has another four months to run. (Five actually, lads).

A rural park: sheep take the place of humans on the Philiphaugh Estate near Selkirk this afternoon.

*The weather, of course, also allows for polite small talk with no expectation that any personal information need be volunteered at any stage of the conversation. That's another good thing about the British climate.

The Best Country Music?

A reader asks polymathic Tyler Cowen for his country music recommendations and Tyler responds here, cautioning, mind you, that:

I might add the whole list comes from someone who was initially allergic to country music, so if that is you give some of these recommendations a try.  Just think of it as White Man's Blues.

Well that was me too, once upon a sad old time ago. Then I saw the light and everything's been better since. Tyler says you have to start with Hank Williams Sr and then move on to the Gram Parsons trio of: The Byrds, The Flying Burrito Brothers and, finally, Grievous Angel. That, plus Johnny Cash, Patsy Cline, Dolly etc etc will see you right. All sound advice.

And like Tyler, I think that George Jones and Merle Haggard, mighty fine though they be, can sometimes be a little over-rated. A couple of names he doesn't mention however: if you need Dolly Parton you also need, in my view, Emmy Lou Harris. I'd start with Roses in the Snow and take it from there (though Norm is really the man to ask about this).

You also need some grunt: so Waylon Jennings' outlaw albums, Dreaming My Dreams and Honky Tonk Heroes have to make the cut. Americana never sounded sweller.

Also, on the country-folk divide: Townes van Zandt who despite a posthumous resurrection of sorts still  often seems to be overlooked and even forgotten these days. I love the lean, spare arrangements on Rear View Mirror which contains most of his greatest songs and is, consequently, a grand place to be introduced to his wonderful, melancholy, beautiful songs.

Finally, a curiosity, just for fun: The Kinks' Muswell Hillbillies. It's not all that often that a British band makes a kinda-sorta country album and, frankly, it's an uneven piece. But I'd still recommend it on oddity gorunds alone. And some of it is fantastic: witty, yet also loving; capable of acknowledging the daftness of the project but also treating the idea with enough, but not too much, respect and, in the end, providing a deliciously curious British take on country music.

Picture of the Day

Back from Ireland and, whaddyaknow, it's like summer has finally arrived here. By which I mean that temperatures have soared into the 70s. Regular blogging to resume soon. Meanwhile, here's a picture two of my mother's hens...