Martin Kettle is all worked up to learn that Michael Gove is either a cynic or an extremist, now his extremism, or cynical pose of same, affects an issue he cares about. Where was Kettle when Gove wrote a whole book about the secret rulers of the world’s scheme to hand Europe over to the…
Read More Yes, Michael Gove is an extremist and has been for yearsSpeaking of political reptiles, here are some more, dinosaurs this time: One female Conservative MP tells a story about how, in the weeks after the influx of new female Tories into the House of Commons at the last election, some of her male colleagues struggled to tell them apart. Instead they resorted to calling any…
Read More The Guardian is not a good newspaper, it is merely the least bad newspaperChina’s neo-con blogging fever-swamp, via (of course) Jamie K. For instance, Gao Yi, a well-known music critic, tweeted: “Compared with a war, US$7 billion is much more worthwhile. Right now, we lack the off-shore staging capacity for a mid-intensity war. A well-known music critic? Now that’s special. You don’t get detailed comment on the Royal…
Read More as for the Mahler, I think it could do with a helipadSo there was Martin Kettle, talking about “bright Tory shadow cabinet minister Greg Clark” (he’s the one who is now the central government’s Minister for Decentralisation). Now here’s Kettle claiming that David Cameron “wins this season’s golden boot” because, well, he’s really nice. In fact, Kettle actually seems to have been handed this nanosecond’s version…
Read More Martin Kettle is still a worthless old hackShorter Martin Kettle: Both the state Tony Blair left the Labour Party in and the failure of European centre-left parties that adopted a Blairite compromise with neo-liberalism show that we need still more Blairite compromising with neo-liberalism Jesus wept. I am not joking. Meanwhile, I wasn’t aware of this: Martin Kettle & Lucy Hodges (1982)…
Read More death or glory becomes just another storyThe Grauniad asked 21 of its opinion writers to make predictions for 2009. As a service, and to force Daniel Davies’ hand into starting his planned Predictions-L mailing list, I’ve shorterised each one and reflected briefly on it. The full texts are here. 1) Jackie Ashley thinks the Lib Dems may be powerbrokers in a…
Read More predictions are difficult, except about Martin KettleThere hasn’t been much progress on my long-term beef with Martin Kettle for a while. But it’s worth remembering that if the Guardian has a major leading article that isn’t a business/economics story, it’s probably him. And Saturday’s second lead (behind a rather competent finance story) bears the Kettle hallmarks. Forty years ago the Royal…
Read More The Guardian Is Not Serious About CVFMartin Kettle can fuck off with this: The bright Tory shadow Cabinet Office minister Greg Clark asked recently why politicians are so ready to discuss antisocial behaviour but so poor at discussing its pro-social equivalent. Bright? Christ, we’re in a bad way. The first thing that needs discussing here is that “pro-social behaviour” is a…
Read More Blog de frappe tous azimutsIt used to be reasonably commonplace that bloggers, especially American ones, would say that at least in Britain there was enough diversity in the press that no equivalent to the classic US pundit wanker existed – no-one like David Brooks or David Broder, essentially content-free and heavily invested in the self-regard of the political class.…
Read More Martin Kettle Is a Worthless Old HackIt’s quite well-known that I don’t think very much of Niall Ferguson’s intellectual credibility. But this is special, in the sense of “I’m not different…I’m special.” I’m not going to take issue with his bizarre contention that saying sorry for the slave trade is why the Iranians grabbed the boarding party from Cornwall. I am,…
Read More Here Comes the Equestrian Statue