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Alex Massie

@alexmassie.bsky.social
9.9K followers 491 following 969 posts

Columnist for The Times and The Sunday Times, specialising in Scottish affairs. Also, co-host of The Ponsonby & Massie podcast, available on all pod-platforms.

PostsRepliesMedia
Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 21/07/2025
The Mess We're In : The government won't tell the truth and voters won't hear the truth either. open.substack.com/pub/alexmass...
open.substack.com
The Mess We're In
The government won't tell the truth and voters won't hear the truth either.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 13/05/2025
It hasn’t rained for a month. Which means it is time, once again, for ‘Scotland’, by Alastair Reid.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 05/05/2025
S.T.R.A.M.A.S.H
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 01/05/2025
The ruling determines what the law IS and, indeed, what it has always BEEN.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 28/04/2025
This "people will kill themselves" blackmail is increasingly popular (now seen in multiple policy areas) and utterly disgraceful.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
This is madness. No way we can trust Ohio State with nuclear weapons.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 24/04/2025
When ‘Sorry’ is the impossible word. www.thetimes.com/article/6b46...
thetimes.com
Complacent and cowardly ministers are still failing Scotland’s women
The Scottish government continues to shirk responsibility for its past mistakes with no apology
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
The Vindication of Women. open.substack.com/pub/alexmass...
open.substack.com
The Vindication of Women
The mills of truth grind very slowly but they do grind exceedingly well
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 22/04/2025
The Vindication of Women. open.substack.com/pub/alexmass...
open.substack.com
The Vindication of Women
The mills of truth grind very slowly but they do grind exceedingly well
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Good lord, hasn’t even California suffered enough?
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Sam Bagenstos @sbagen.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
This is extraordinary given the ideological diversity of the participants.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 21/04/2025
Five days after FWS vs Scottish ministers & far too many people still need to be reminded that the govt position was that quotas for women could be filled by men. How can that be anything other than marginalising, downgrading, even erasing, women?
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Kerry Howley @kerryhowley.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
as soon as someone attributes an opinion/ attitude to an entire jurisdiction (the people of this town “cherish their way of life”) you can stop reading
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Robert Shrimsley @robertshrimsley.bsky.social · 19/04/2025
Classic Guardian correction
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Longstanding peeve: I do wish people citing Teddy Roosevelt like this understood that “bully” in “bully pulpit” means “very good”.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 18/04/2025
Interesting, perhaps, but of zero legal or statutory relevance. However expert, the views of a policy official about what a law is ‘intended’ to be are as nothing when set beside the ruling of judges who determine what it actually *is*.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Boss move. Marvellous. No fucks given.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
A question of supreme irrelevance. The court’s job is to rule on the law, not to rule with a mind to how their ruling will be interpreted by others. This should not be a difficult thing to understand.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
This would be a great argument if sex and race were analogous. But they ain’t!
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 17/04/2025
Sex is immutable. Sex is not the same as gender. This is only difficult to understand if you prefer to believe birth certificates are some kind of random sorting hat.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Very good job here: News Editor for The Times & The Sunday Times in Scotland. (One downside: the successful applicant will from time to time have to deal with me.) www.newscareers.co.uk/vacancies/38...
newscareers.co.uk
News Editor, Scotland | News UK
The Times and The Sunday Times represent a combined 400 years of covering news and providing comment and analysis on the UK and the world. We are authoritative, credible, responsible, trusted and a p...
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
An era of magical thinking comes to an end and vindication is a dish to be enjoyed at any temperature. So three cheers for the ladies of For Women Scotland. www.thetimes.com/article/d5f2...
thetimes.com
The hateful and bigoted bag ladies have been proved right on sex
Politicians at Holyrood and Westminster owe women’s rights campaigners an apology after victory in their campaign to define what a woman is
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Morten Morland @mortenmorland.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Thursday’s @thetimes.com cartoon times.newsprints.co.uk/morten-morla...
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
No I am not. Because it is not.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
An era of magical thinking comes to an end and vindication is a dish to be enjoyed at any temperature. So three cheers for the ladies of For Women Scotland. www.thetimes.com/article/d5f2...
thetimes.com
The hateful and bigoted bag ladies have been proved right on sex
Politicians at Holyrood and Westminster owe women’s rights campaigners an apology after victory in their campaign to define what a woman is
1322035
Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
Very good job here: News Editor for The Times & The Sunday Times in Scotland. (One downside: the successful applicant will from time to time have to deal with me.) www.newscareers.co.uk/vacancies/38...
newscareers.co.uk
News Editor, Scotland | News UK
The Times and The Sunday Times represent a combined 400 years of covering news and providing comment and analysis on the UK and the world. We are authoritative, credible, responsible, trusted and a p...
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
LOCK HIM UP!
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
One shouldn't laugh but actually it's fine to laugh.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
It is a considerable sadness that HL Mencken is not around to write about this.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 16/04/2025
A good day to be writing a column for tomorrow's paper.
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Sam Taylor @staylorish.bsky.social · 15/04/2025
When the refineries at Coryton in England and Milford Haven in Wales closed, without being nationalised, was that anti-English or anti-Welsh? No. Only Scottish nationalism has a cult of victimhood which allows its politicians to so debase themselves, apparently without shame.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Who cares about fish? European defence and security is just a little bit more important than sole and haddock. www.thetimes.com/article/6905...
thetimes.com
Fishy business is crazy, even by EU standards
In equating mackerel with arming Kyiv, France is showing itself to be unserious about defence
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Who cares about fish? European defence and security is just a little bit more important than sole and haddock. www.thetimes.com/article/6905...
thetimes.com
Fishy business is crazy, even by EU standards
In equating mackerel with arming Kyiv, France is showing itself to be unserious about defence
72710
Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 14/04/2025
Who cares about fish? European defence and security is just a little bit more important than sole and haddock. www.thetimes.com/article/6905...
thetimes.com
Fishy business is crazy, even by EU standards
In equating mackerel with arming Kyiv, France is showing itself to be unserious about defence
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 13/04/2025
John Swinney’s anti-extremism summit won’t work (and targets the wrong party). www.thetimes.com/article/c049...
thetimes.com
If there’s to be an anti-extremism summit — why not target the Greens?
The SNP’s attempt to curb Reform UK’s surging popularity in Scotland poses questions over whether they should be targeting voters on both sides of the political spectrum
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Column: Scotland is becoming Britain’s granny flat and it can’t afford it www.thetimes.com/article/4251...
thetimes.com
Scotland is becoming Britain’s granny flat and it can’t afford it
Without growing the economy the burden of funding the NHS will break the government
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 10/04/2025
Column: Scotland is becoming Britain’s granny flat and it can’t afford it www.thetimes.com/article/4251...
thetimes.com
Scotland is becoming Britain’s granny flat and it can’t afford it
Without growing the economy the burden of funding the NHS will break the government
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
Anyway, still a very good day to watch ‘Margin Call’ again.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 09/04/2025
A 10% global tariff is still bad news and still stupid on an epic scale. Price in the uncertainty caused by having a baboon* in the White House and no sane person would decide to make any major investment now. Anywhere. Sub-optimal. (No offence to bona fide baboons).
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Look, we have to take what entertainment we can these days. So, yes, it is important to note the names of all the very smart people who assured us Donald Trump would not do all the things he said he would do. Note their names and remember them. alexmassie.substack.com/p/what-are-y...
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Trump is doing what he said he would do and reminding us, once again, that the moral of the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that, in the end, THERE IS ALWAYS A WOLF. alexmassie.substack.com/p/what-are-y...
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Trump is doing what he said he would do and reminding us, once again, that the moral of the fable of The Boy Who Cried Wolf is that, in the end, THERE IS ALWAYS A WOLF. alexmassie.substack.com/p/what-are-y...
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
@norcrosscricket.bsky.social The final item here might (maybe) amuse you.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Come for Trump and Le Pen but please stay for what I (immodestly) think is a rather good TS Eliot joke open.substack.com/pub/alexmass...
open.substack.com
What are you going to do, stab me?
Yes, actually you are going to be stabbed. Sometimes it is wise to pay attention to warnings offered for free.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Look, we have to take what entertainment we can these days. So, yes, it is important to note the names of all the very smart people who assured us Donald Trump would not do all the things he said he would do. Note their names and remember them. alexmassie.substack.com/p/what-are-y...
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Sam Taylor @staylorish.bsky.social · 08/04/2025
Audacious page layout in today’s @scotnational.bsky.social. Positive story about John Swinney pushing for closer economic ties with the US. Immediately adjacent: a story lambasting Anas Sarwar for doing the exact same thing.
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Alex Massie @alexmassie.bsky.social · 07/04/2025
Kim Il Trump announces new Great Patriotic Initiative.
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