Slugger O'Toole

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Latest comments from Alanbrooke (see all)

Alanbrooke has commented 119 times (5 in the last month).

1. Comment on Grammar schools and social mobility: a Northern Ireland contribution to the debate
   on 22 May 2012 at 7:30 am

   aquifer

   tosh . Do you think a child elsewhere doesn’t get prepped and tutored up when he applies to Oxbridge ? It’s the fact the grammar schools and their parents will do this, that is to NI pupils advantage. Only the private sector and the remaining grammar schools in the rest of the UK bother.

   zig70

   while equality is all very commendable, changing a system which enhances social mobility to one which kills it stone dead isn’t the right way to go about it. Give it 10 years and the private sector in NI will start to expand as the politicians will need somewhere to send their own children as prospects for everyone else decline.

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2. Comment on Grammar schools and social mobility: a Northern Ireland contribution to the debate
   on 21 May 2012 at 3:42 pm

   The difference is even greater than presented, NI exams are “harder” than english ones generally speaking, since academic standards in England are less ambitious. Catholic grammar schools have been best placed on results within NI, when I was younger the BBC quoted there was statistically a better chance of a child from the Falls getting in to Oxbridge than a child from England. Why the catholic population of NI want to restrict their childrens’ future is a mystery to me.

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3. Comment on #EUREF: Souveraineté ou survie du déluge?
   on 17 May 2012 at 8:49 am

   The irony is that Irish can vote and be as “good” europeans as the commission wants, but the whole Euro project can still fall apart for reasons that have nothing to do with Ireland, leaving the country back where it was 4 years ago.

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4. Comment on Mr Cameron might be well advised to do the decent thing quickly, and ‘proply’?
   on 30 April 2012 at 1:55 pm

   Mick

   if I understood what you were asking me I might have chance of answering you.

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5. Comment on Mr Cameron might be well advised to do the decent thing quickly, and ‘proply’?
   on 30 April 2012 at 11:52 am

   Iain Martin is a man with time on his hands. He loves to tell the English Tories where they are going wrong but never seems to want to go back to Scotland to give everyone there the benefit of his wisdom. Perhaps he and Fraser Nelson can stand at the next election and show everybody how to win.

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6. Comment on For Unionists Only: What would you relish in a United Ireland?
   on 19 April 2012 at 5:26 pm

   salgado

   certainly from my school days the curriculum in a NI state school was UK centred. History, Geography, English were about 80% based UK and the Ireland element was the balance. These are the social subjects you learn most about where you live; the South tended to be covered more for how it impacted NI. Needless to say the school didn’t teach Irish though it was offered if you wanted to go classes at the local Catholic school. In my seven years at school I can think of only one person who took up the option.

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7. Comment on For Unionists Only: What would you relish in a United Ireland?
   on 19 April 2012 at 4:58 pm

   BP

   I think this thread only shows how little northern prods know about the South. In part it’s because they show little interest outside NI, I would also say there is very little taught in school about the outher 80% of the island. Even the basics from my days were not really touched. Geography consisted of there’s the Shannon, Liffey, Dublin and Cork, er that’s all you need to know about down there.

   The nationalists on the sister thread have a point about Nordies not having much to say on RoI however I’d suggest much of that is based on Nordies having a much lesser knowledge of the South. If there’s a theme from the two threads it’s that while people share an island they need to spend a bit more time looking at what else is going on about them.

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8. Comment on For Unionists Only: What would you relish in a United Ireland?
   on 18 April 2012 at 10:15 pm

   Golden Fleece.

   The question is to some extent harder for Unionists to answer than for Nationalists. Nationalists already have experience of what it’s like living in the UK and know what they like and what they don’t based on every day life. For Unionists there is more conjecture since most Unionists take their view on RoI from a mixed bag of sources but very little of it based on actual experience. Most of the comments on this thread reflect how Unionists see life under SF rather than a grasp of what living with the Southerners would be like.

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9. Comment on For Unionists Only: What would you relish in a United Ireland?
   on 18 April 2012 at 11:30 am

   Irish language and culture could stop being a political football and would find their own place. Female Presidents. St Patrick’s Day as a worldwide party. Leaving the EU – we’d have to as the country couldn’t afford to stay in. Old style look after our own government instead of outsourcing everything. A change in the electoral system – the civil war split couldn’t survive. Rugby matches. A single football team. TG4. Watching Jim Allister in the Dail !

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10. Comment on “To preserve a distinctively open-handed Scottish social model”, the UK may be the safest choice…
    on 15 April 2012 at 1:13 pm

    JPJ2

    good to see you’re still alive ! I assume you’re still sulking with Mike Smithson as you haven’t posted for a while.

    As for history on your side well all we’ve seen is that the SNP have always a great view of the past and are noticeably quite about the future. Just about every bandwagon Salmond jumps on has it’s wheels fall soon after.

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