Slugger O'Toole

Latest posts from Brian Walker (see all)

Brian Walker has posted 1,326 times (11 in the last month).

‘Do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country?’

Wed 25 January 2012, 4:47pm

24

Well, the essential question proposed by Alex Salmond in his consultation paper is surely good enough to satisfy the UK government’s requirement for a clear question on independence. That’s one stumbling block out of the way, I reckon.  But Westminster ‘s rival paper is clearly opposed  to a second question on anything like devo max. These [...] more »

Latest comments from Brian Walker (see all)

Brian Walker has commented 734 times (17 in the last month).

1. Comment on Red Squirrels of Prehen Woods: Under imminent threat from planners and developers?
   on 11 February 2012 at 11:00 am

   Just a note of local history. Prehen House at the heart of the area now occupied by the Pecks ( related to the late film star Gregory) was the home of the Knox family, descendants of the great Scots Presbyterian John.

   Mary Ann Knox in the 1760s was accidentally shot dead in her coach by a thwarted suitor “half hanged” MacNaghton, so called because in remorse he hurled himself down on the rope in his eagerness to die. The rope broke but he submitted to be properly hanged the second time.

   In the 1790s Alexander Knox was private secretary to Castlereagh and an architect of the Union.( See John Bew’s fine biography of Castlereagh)

   In 1910 Prehen House passed to a German grandson Baron von Scheffler Knox. In 1914 he was warned by the local gentry to leave quickly or face internment as enemy alien. The property and Prehen Woods around it were forfeited after 1918.

   Much of it was given over to housing development as I understand it, before the Pecks acquired some of what was left and opened the house to the public

   I attended the baron’s interment in the 1960s in Derry city cemetery in a sarcophagus festooned inside with Prussian banners. His son, wounded in the eastern front during WW2, retained connections in the Derry area.

   At least they would probably looked after the woods better than the state.

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2. Comment on Red Squirrels of Prehen Woods: Under imminent threat from planners and developers?
   on 10 February 2012 at 12:45 pm

   A role at last for the SDLP if Alex Attwood has the power and desire to do the right thing.

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3. Comment on What is Britishness anyway? – latest
   on 8 February 2012 at 8:14 pm

   Mark asks: “The values that he associates with britishness ( openness , freedom , tolerance , fairness ) are surely values that any normal society aspires to . Why does it have to be britishness?

   Easy one, Mark. Because it’s OUR openness, freedom fairness etc! ( Or do I mean THEIRS?)

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4. Comment on So what’s the formula for a referendum, Owen?
   on 8 February 2012 at 8:08 pm

   More expert analysis is badly needed about the NILT surveys. it not surprising if so many people are still reluctant to admit support for Sinn Fein after years of the peace process? This doesn’t easily square with growing nationalist confidence particularly among the young. The answer I suspect may be more complex. Drill down into political attitudes replies year after year beyond voting intentions or support, and we find healthy numbers on both sides of the divide willing to tolerate either a United Ireland or continuing Union. Political allegiances are undoubtedly weakening. . Remember too that polls take in public opinion as a whole, not just voters whose numbers have been declining (although more the unionist side than the nationalist). Might growing indifference combined with a healthy desire not to rock the constitutional boat after so many years of violent instability have swung majority opinion in favour of the status quo, even if passively? I admit this may not be the whole answer either. The NILT survey itself should address these questions in future.

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5. Comment on “Failure to deal with the past is the Achilles’ Heel of the current arrangement”
   on 7 February 2012 at 8:49 pm

   Tim Garton Ash is talking about the transition of the Poles, a mentally free people, from a native version of externally imposed totalitarianism. He is calling for a more deliberate learning of the lessons for the sake of the new democracy. But Northern Ireland is not like eastern Europe after 1989.

   Even if all sides of have not fully acknowledged past faults from unionism to republican insurgency, they are surely starting to live those lessons and they have plenty of instructors. And does anyone in their heart of hearts see any prospect of a major calling to account for Martin McGuinness, and hundreds if not thousands of lesser figures on both sides, even the marshalling of indictments without prosecutions?

   I admit I’m far from the action but I don’t share Robin Wilson’s progressive pessimism. Is it seriously being argued that there is a major upsurge of demands to renew the search for justice on both sides? How much has been stimulated by the new Attorney General and DPP? How if at all will this be picked up by the political establishment or will it burn itself out in more failures to find evidence and in disillusion and Claudy-like anger?

   Leaving legal process aside, no doubt may people who lived through the Troubles would welcome it of the records of the police, the army and the security service were laid open and the paramilitaries confessed. But if there has been trouble over Boston College, just think of the furore legal and otherwise if t was proposed to open the files that point the finger to people still alive. Article 2 the right to life and Article 6 the right to a fair trial of the ECHR for a start.

   Such proposal as exists as I understand it, contemplates the possibility of a phased disclosure of cleared records under a 40 year rule – meaning that the 70s could have started now but the openness would not be complete until the 2030s.How many stories would be conclusive? Would those conclusions be accurate and command public confdence without names? Don’t many peole want to know who dunnit now?

   Is this what we want for ourselves, our children and our grandchildren? Maybe it’s the best that can be managed. But none of it has much to do with building a better society today.

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6. Comment on “Failure to deal with the past is the Achilles’ Heel of the current arrangement”
   on 7 February 2012 at 6:17 pm

   There’s plenty to say about it all but we might first ask:

   Where does responsibility lie for taking dealing with the past the past forward?.

   If further legal process including holding new inquests is and perthaps trials are required, can a wider exploration of the past take place until iegal process is exhausted?

   Is it not the case that the main parties in London and Belfast are quietly opposed to exhaustive legal process?

   Although there are good arguments for pursuing as many cases as possible to the end, what are the likely consequences of not doing so? How would community relations be affected?

   In view of the likely fact that evidence of long ago will,. be unevenly accessible, is anything approaching all round justice deliverable?

   Would the interests of truth telling be served by a legislative decision not to prosecute scheduled offences committted before April 1998 ( the GFA?) .

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7. Comment on So what’s the formula for a referendum, Owen?
   on 7 February 2012 at 9:57 am

   We might assume (!) that referenda north and south would be needed. Unity would surely require fundamental changes to the Republic’s constitution to acquire jurisdiction in a new state whether federal or unitary to transfer rights and obligations.

   It’s interesting though that the GFA etc left it to general formulae, leaving it to another day if ever, to decide how it would actually be done.

   I would guess that the trigger woud be if/when a majority of Assembly seats were won on specific manifestos to ask for a northern referendum,

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8. Comment on Some secondary schools get better results than selective grammar schools
   on 6 February 2012 at 3:25 pm

   These tables tell a depressing tale. It makes the claims of the Association of Quality Education ring very hollow . But it would be as well not to set secondaries against grammars; that way secondaries tend to lose out. And no one wants to wreck any good school. Other clear results: Catholic secondaries tend to fare better than Protestant (controlled) secondaries , Catholic grammars are surpassing mainly or traditionally Protestant grammars (Lumen Christi in Derry is No 1). Two categories other than GCSE results are available to tell us more: the A-Cs per school in the transfer tests and the number of pupils per school (smaller schools will tend to score higher). These results provide a good argument for: league tables, making clear value added ; introducing rigorous randomly timed inspection on the new Ofsted model ; substituting choice at 14 for selection at 11 and streaming and setting from the off; enhancing the vocational standards that were the purpose of the techs, which also lost out to grammars post- 1948.The education system cannot bear the whole burden of increasing social mobility but it can and must take on the early crucial stages of upskilling. Despite an failry encouraging start compared to his hapless predeccessor, Mr O’Dowd will be guilty of bigtory if he refuses to learn lessons of all kinds from the English experience of reform – as well as of course, others..

   One advantage NI has over bigger systems is that people have a picture in their heads of all or most of the schools in the system, They should use that as a focus of inspiration and aspiration for better leadership.

   Why the DUP as a core working class party puts up with this record beats me. The usual fear of change and still wanting to ape their former betters I guess, now they’ve come into their own. Maybe the fear of the Catholics (and women!) outstripping Prods altogether will compel change. But what a pity, if fear is the spur.

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9. Comment on Another go at transformation at the Maze
   on 5 February 2012 at 11:30 am

   Chris,
   For me, Long Kesh ( let’s not forget the old aerodrome!) is a particularly intractible “shared space” as the stories of the dirty protest and the hunger strike are more complicated than a simple State v paramilitary or oppressor v victim topic. And surely the site is no more credible simply as a nationalist memorial to offset all the British/ unionist ones, than it is as a centre of reconciliation or “transformation”. Might I actually be wrong about that? Is the poltical class up to the effort of finding what all sides, apart from both sets of paramiliitaries can “share” there? I’d like to see the evidence but I fear another futile cycle of whataboutery.

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10. Comment on Another go at transformation at the Maze
    on 4 February 2012 at 3:34 pm

    No no Chris. This is knee jerk stuff. There is a difference between living with existing symbols and creating new ones. I wouldn’t tear up the republican plots either or destroy hunger strike or IRA iconography.I’d welcome some all- Ireland and nationalist symbolism at Stormont- there’ll probably the odd statue some time in the future. At least three sides have to be commemorated at the Maze. How? And to do so cheek by jowl with the farmers is a tall order. Apart from “peace “ art which tends to anaemic, have we got the artistic vision to pull it off? You tell me.

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