Interesting analogy from the BBC’s outgoing Washington correspondent Justin Webb in his last report from the US for Radio 4′s From Our Own Correspondent . Having described the country as “little more than an eating competition, a giant, gaudy, manic effort to stuff grease and gunge into already sated innards,” he goes on to analyse the origins of the global financial crisis:
You could argue that the sub-prime mortgage crisis – the Ground Zero of the world recession – was caused mainly by greed: a lack of proportion, a lack of proper respect for the natural way of things that persuaded companies to stuff mortgages into the mouths of folks whose credit rating was always likely to induce an eventual spray of vomit.
As one of Justin’s American friends might say: Eww! Gross!
Richard Vinen’s trashing of Stephen Pollard’s new book in the Sunday Times concludes with this memorable putdown:
… even the most Cromwellian republican among us might — on reading Pollard’s description of Prince Charles’s public statements as “the inappropriate rantings of a singularly ignorant bore” — feel that the words “pot” and “kettle” come to mind.
Interestingly, Pollard draws attention to this review on his blog – making the point that if you dish it out, as Pollard has done on many occasions in the past, then you should be able to take it.
Rod Liddle, former editor of the Today programme, claims his erstwhile colleague Andrew Gilligan was
the first journalist to uncover the plans for a European Union constitution.
This sounds weird to me. Did those plans need “uncovering”? When were they ever a secret? It took months to draft that damn thing, and Giscard and his pals in the “Praesidium” never tried to hide what they were doing. Perhaps Liddle actually means Gilligan was the first to “notice” the plans. He would still be wrong, but his claim might at least make sense.
This is typical of UK reporting of the EU. We generally ignore everything that is being planned in Brussels until it’s too late to make any changes, and then try and claim there is some kind of secret plot to sneak measures through without telling us. Charlemagne makes a similar point today about the EU’s plans to regulate hedge funds. Pesky foreigners, eh?
Disappointing news for Internet startups:
“… in the main, it has been the well-established retailers that have profited from the rising popularity of internet shopping, rather than the brash newcomers.”
That’s according to this article in today’s FT. With hindsight, it seems amazing that anyone ever expected it to be any other way.
