Synchronicity? Or cribbing?
A quick aside. I see Tommy Burns MLA quite regularly at our gaelic club and we have an occasional chat. We’ve never discussed Slugger to my recollection and certainly haven’t chatted about my posts on the costs of 11th July bonfires. I’m surprised to see that completely independently he has asked the exact same questions [...] more »
Député Dodds – a voice for Euro fascists?
The DUP are very proud of MEP Diane Dodds becoming a member of the European Parliament’s Conference of Presidents. The body while sounding very important is essentially a business committee come speakers’ office and is mainly concerned with timetabling parliamentary business. What the DUP did not point out is; Dodds is not a full member [...] more »
NI Water: Why open government is more than a slogan for the chattering classes
There’s a very sharply observed piece by Denis Bradley in today’s Irish News, which aside from lauding the work of John Dallat and others on the PAC, an intelligent whistle-blower and some fine words about Slugger, he also let’s slip a few fundamental truths about where the blame lies. And it is not with the [...] more »
“Their creation does not require the intervention of some supernatural being or god.”
Will Crawley’s response to the wide-spread reports of Stephen Hawking’s dissing of god was to head for the teleological ‘gap’. On the other hand The Guardian‘s science blogger, Jon Butterworth took time out from writing up an experiment at the Large Hadron Collider to have a rational, and reasonable, conversation on Channel4 News with a theologian. And he points [...] more »
General Election 2010 – UCUNF
Where to start? The four stage progression I suppose, thus: 1) The bright new non-sectarian dawn. 2) Look at us we have Catholic candidates. 3) Sorry no we haven’t. 4) Oh and we’ll change our mind on standing in every seat… Totally. Absolutely. Astonishing. I always thought that the money was important but was it [...] more »
Oppression through the policing of clothing
France’s lower house of parliament recently approved a bill to ban the wearing of a burqa or niqab in public. People caught wearing garments “that hide the face” will be fined 150 euro and those who force women to cover up could be fined up to 30,000 euro and face a one-year jail term. Some [...] more »
Show us the money (and its donors)…
Hugo Swire announced the NIO consultation on the exceptional confidentiality provision that only applies to donations to the northern political parties. The current arrangement has had it’s expiry date shoved out from 31st October 2010 to 1st March 2011 by the Control of Donations and Regulations of Loans Etc. (Extension of the Prescribed Period) (Northern [...] more »
DCAL cuts “widespread and unpalatable”?
The BBC reports on the evidence provided to a Northern Ireland Assembly Committee today by two Department of Culture, Arts and Leisure senior civil servants. From the BBC report Overall, the department’s current budget of £109m is projected to fall to less than £92m by 2014/15. Speaking at a Stormont committee meeting on Thursday, [DCAL director of finance [...] more »
Ask the right question! Dealing with the PSNI
Today the PSNI Chief Constable has been plastered across the media bemoaning costs associated to dealing with public disorder in the Ardoyne during July. He has been very forthcoming with the sums involved and what thay could have been spent on otherwise. However, I recently asked the PSNI several questions under FoI legisaltion in relation [...] more »
One small region, slightly damaged, several careless owners…
Mary Dejevsky has written a piece for the Belfast Telegraph that will go down well in some quarters and not so well in others. She is suggesting that it is time that the British government off-load Northern Ireland by one of several routes: including independence, secession or to offer to sell it to the Republic [...] more »
General Election 2010 – the TUV
Right, moving on to the TUV. 2010 represented the first General election to be fought by Traditional Unionist Voice. How did they do? A total of 26,300 votes over the 10 seats fought split: more »
Stormont must provide answers to severe social problems…
The Centre for Social Justice, Iain Duncan Smith’s smart new social policy think tank, have an impressive report (Breakthrough NI CSJ) out today… They are pouring it into something of a policy vacuum since the push you, pull me OFMdFM have still to decide on a common anti poverty policy. CSJ may be seeking to [...] more »
TORs under which Priestly is to be investigated
I have no comment to make, other than to note the very narrowness of the Terms of Reference and quote the glorious Yes Minister, wh0se insights pepper this whole story from start to finish: “We dare not allow politicians to establish the principle that senior civil servants can be removed for incompetence. We could lose [...] more »
NI Water: Minister failed to pick up Board’s early questions about Dixon?
Okay, another bullish performance from Minister Murphy here on the UTV report, though it is rare to see such a normally competent performer stuck for words in front of a camera. What’s complicated things for him was the robust nature of the questioning from Conall McDevitt, on the amount of work the Minister did to [...] more »
NI Water: “Recent revelations left us questioning whether we had been misled”
That quotation is from a rather more bullish statement from the NI Consumer Council CEO Antoinette McKeown than we have been accustomed to hearing as of late. The whole statement is posted below (courtesy of Nevin who chased them up on this), but several other things stand out. They pick out the Stakeholder Unit for [...] more »
Belfast’s ‘Magic Jug’ dropped
BBC NI Radio Ulster’s Evening Extra has reported that the Northern Ireland Department for Social Development have confirmed that the ‘Magic Jug’ public art sculpture, destined for Fountain Street, Belfast, has been cancelled. [added link to BBC report] Nothing to do with the campaign, apparently. The £100,000 cost has been cited as the main factor in [...] more »
General Election 2010 in Belfast
Trawling through the figures as you do it’s worth having a look at the combined votes of the 4 Belfast constituencies: more »
Political Innovation no1: Towards Interactive Government
This is a guest cross-post by Tim Davies – originally posted on the Political Innovation site here: The communication revolution that we’ve undergone in recent years has two big impacts: It changes what’s possible. It makes creating networks between people across organisations easier; it opens new ways for communication between citizens and state; it gives [...] more »
Former Welsh Permanent Secretary to investigate suspended NI Permanent Secretary
Former Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Assembly Government, Sir Jon Shortridge, is to lead the investigation into suspended NI Permanent Secretary, Paul Priestly, and his role in the NI Water saga. An iol report notes the terms of reference for the investigation Mr Robinson outlined Mr Shortridge’s terms of reference: “The report will include your comment [...] more »
Photograph of the Day – Disappearing Orange
On Sunday i spent the day covering the charity cycle ‘Lap the Lough’ (86 miles clockwise around Lough Neagh). I didn’t make a note of where i took this unfortunately. Anyways another of my bug bears is the flags issue. I think there should be more respect shown and that the flying of these fluttering [...] more »
Tony Blair: “I took horrendous chances in what I was telling each the other had agreed to…”
From Mick’s linked chapter on Northern Ireland in Tony Blair’s memoirs [pdf file] Such tactical manoeuvres were the warp and woof of the Northern Ireland peace process. Again at the last minute, after the negotiation over the St Andrews declaration of October 2006, up popped the issue of what oath would be sworn by those [...] more »
Tony Blair on Northern Ireland…
Tony Blair’s book has a site where you can download the text from the net… The section on Northern Ireland is here (thanks to Kate for the heads up)… He outlines ten principles he used in developing his policy in Northern Ireland (hint: the process was the policy)… more »
Total Politics: Top 20 NI Blogs…
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] more »
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