Profile for Lee Reynolds
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Latest posts from Lee Reynolds (see all)
Lee Reynolds has posted 1,002 times (0 in the last month).
Unionist cause in Scotland should fight from a position of strength
Grasping defeat? The Unionist cause in Scotland fighting an independence referendum campaign should be doing so from a position of inherent strength. Support for the Union has consistently outpolled support for independence. In more recent years any spikes in the support for independence have been just that, unsustained for any significant period of time. Also [...] more »
Debate within Unionism: Thorough, Intense and Constructive
This is a cross posting of Fair Deal's contribution to Open Unionism's ongoing debate on the future of unionism. He argues that all parties to the debate must resist the temptation to the shape of the solution in their own preferred image, but rather they must allow the debate be 'thorough, intense and constructive'. more »
The DUP knocked to the canvas
A massive right hook was delivered by the TUV squarely on the DUP’s chin. It put the DUP on the electoral canvas so as it gets to its feet to receive its 8 count by the referee what should be going through its mind? NOTE: The following is written with hindsight at full value. Even [...] more »
Euro 09 and the DUP – Part 2
The ‘Who’ question for the DUP and the European Election has been answered with Diane Dodds selected as the European Election candidate but what should the party’s message be? (H/T to those who reviewed earlier drafts/parts of this article.) Part 2 continues the examination of the main candidates and how the DUP message should be [...] more »
Euro 09 and the DUP – Part 1
The ‘Who’ question for the DUP and the European Election has been answered with Diane Dodds selected as the European Election candidate but what should the party’s message be? (H/T to those who reviewed earlier drafts/parts of this article.) Part 1 examines the broader battle and begins with an examination of the main candidates.The Unionism [...] more »
Results to suit every position
According to Policing Board research confidence in the PSNI has never been higher. “Eighty six per cent of respondents have some, a lot or total confidence in the PSNI’s ability to provide a day-to-day policing service for everyone in Northern Ireland,” According to the ICR, confidence in the policing in working class loyalist communities is [...] more »
The new ‘decommissioning’?
Over on Our Kingdom I argue that the devolution of policing and justice in the St Andrew’s Agreement has become the equivalent of decommissioning in the Belfast Agreement with the roles of Unionism and Republicanism reversed and that the recent deal faces two tests in 2009; the reaction of republicans if it does not happen [...] more »
A Road to Croydon conversion
A Conservative Party councillor, Maria Gatland (nee McGuire) has resigned as the Croydon Council Education Cabinet member after her past involvement in the PIRA was revealed. She detailed her involvement in a 1973 kiss and tell book about the PIRA called “To Take Arms: My Year with the IRA Provisional”. (Hat tip Guido Fawkes). more »
Freeze the district rate?
The one tax in the ‘control’ of local parties is rates. The DUP has put strong emphasis on the significance of freezing the regional rate and all parties have worked to hold back water charges. However, there is the matter of the district rate. At the moment discussions are beginning within councils about next year’s [...] more »
Latest comments from Lee Reynolds (see all)
Lee Reynolds has commented 146 times (1 in the last month).
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Books
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The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday (Neil MacFarquhar)
With perhaps the longest title of any book I’ve read this year, The Media Relations Department of Hizbollah Wishes You a Happy Birthday: Unexpected Encounters in the Changing Middle East gives an insight into the lives of people living in Middle East through the eyes of journalist Neil MacFarquhar. MacFarquhar’s father was a chemical engineer [...] read our review »
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Ulsters Last Stand?: Can Unionism Move Beyond Insurance Policy Politics?
How has Ulster unionism arrived at where it is today – fractured and uncertain, yet dominated electorally by the DUP, a party that tells us it offers unionists sure footing in uncertain times? In his latest book, Ulster’s Last Stand? Reconstructing Unionism after the Peace Process (Irish Academic Press, 2010), Prof. James McAuley from the [...] read our review »
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Unionists, Loyalists, and Conflict Transformation. A book about how things are changing.
Unionists, Loyalists, and Conflict Transformation in Northern Ireland is a new academic tome by lecturer and researcher Lee Smithey. In the book the Pennsylvania academic outlines his findings based on 67 interviews over eighteen months with grassroots activists in unionist and loyalist communities and organisations. This is largely a book about men, even though they [...] read our review »
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Comment on The need for a Bigger Picture
on 28 April 2012 at 7:42 pm
Congrats BP on getting on board with slugger.
My advice would be this:
You’ll learn a lot from the experience if you let it.
You’ll probably find your first couple of dozen threads will be rough. This is normal ‘blooding’ of new contributors with the site users testing ur abilities. It generally isn’t personal.
Don’t feel the need to write long screeds with every post. (In fact if you just blog matter of factly about a topical news story users seems to appreciate it but by highlighting particular stories you still drive the narrative). I did write some monster posts in my day but they were the exception not the rule.
It can be time consuming but engaging in the comments is often worthwhile plus it allows you to develop an argument or message to its full. You’ll get to see every angle criticism will come from.
And of course don’t feed the trolls.
With a bit of luck maybe the BT will get over its DUP comment phobia and you end up with a paying gig (even if a very poorly paid one). Enjoy.
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Comment on Sinn Fein’s seven goals towards unification?
on 8 April 2012 at 12:31 pm
This is plain rehash of what has been said over the last decade or so. Some of it even echoes the so-called TUAS document. It hasn’t worked in the last 15 years so little sese it’ll suddenly bear fruit in the next 15 years.
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Comment on NI Tories: “You have to wonder on which planet the new UUP leader is living”
on 3 April 2012 at 11:04 am
The Raven
“I will admit I should have said “your party” as opposed to “you”.”
Thank you for the clarification if somewhat contradicted by
“But things weren’t *that* bad in your Coleraine days, now, were they?”
Again you’ve strayed into the personal. There were families who endured worse than ours in Ballysally but we did not, especialy in my younger years have an easy time.
“I wonder, as I have read elsewhere today, that Nesbitt – for all his faults – is a just an eensy bit scary for you lot, gimmicks or no. ”
It’s wishful/conspiratorial thinking like that has delivered the past 15 years for the UUP. So much for MN being a break from it.
The party that has been chasing garden centre prods for the last 15 years has been the UUP. They haven’t turned out for them because unlike mondeo man they are the stuff of demographic fiction rather than electoral reality. The demographic which regularly uses garden centres would be well-represented under the voting section of the public.
“He’s not a farmer. He’s not from Fermanagh.”
No he isn’t but you overlook that the remaining places of strength for the UUP are Border Unionism so Nesbitt ‘nots’ are an additional opportunity for the DUP.
Also MN’s vote getting record is poor. The Strangford UUP result in 2011 lost all its 2010 gains despite Nesbitt being on the ballot both times. Where did the votes go? To the DUP and the Alliance party. Something John McCallister failed to make enough of in his campaign.
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Comment on NI Tories: “You have to wonder on which planet the new UUP leader is living”
on 2 April 2012 at 2:45 pm
The Raven
“Yes, it’s outright gimmickry”
Which was my point, and pretty shallow gimmickry at that.
“100,000-odd non-voting Unionists aren’t turning out for you.”
They aren’t turning out for anybody and gimmicks won’t work to get them out either.
“for you to criticise what Nesbitt is doing”
If you want to go down the personal route I’d point out I don’t need to visit such a family as I grew up in a family of working poor, lived my entire life in three different communities all of which are officially defined as deprived communities, have had to live on benefits (for abt 9 months after Uni) as well as doing 15 years work in the community sector (both paid and unpaid). So I don’t need to read an income chart to get an inkling of the issues or to become a poverty tourist either.
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Comment on Lagan Weir footbridge safety report / Irresponsible Drinks Promotions Regulations
on 12 March 2012 at 1:19 pm
“Yet this shouldn’t have needed to be a knee jerk reaction”
It wasn’t. Work on this preceded the incident. The tragedy simply meant the media paid more attention to it and their attitude changed from Stormont kill-joys to Stormont must act.
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Comment on The PSNI, illegal road blocking charges and prospective New Year’s resolutions
on 29 December 2011 at 5:21 pm
Joe
No I don’t have the time.
CD
Ignoring my questions and challenges and then trying to shift the topic, I wonder why? Care to respond to why the Robinson case slipped your mind and why the different attitudes at Stormont and Ardoyne?
No it wasn’t the same as Sammy’s conference speech a living breathing actual child was discriminated against.
“at least the Mayor had the decency to apologise for his regrettable actions”
Sorry the Lord Mayor took days to apologise (after SF had publicly said he wouldn’t) and did it so hamfistedly the first time he had to issue a second one. On the same day as the apology he told a journalist he wouldn’t rule doing the same again (cutting the legs from under the apology).
Asked three days later to say he wouldn’t behave the same way he refused and his group leader said to ask him to do so was to ask him to become a Unionist. Yet the next morning his group leader promised on the radio the Lord Mayor would not do the same again (this was mysteriously achieved without him changing into a Unionist) so what was too much to ask the night before became possible within hours. This was a SF media mess not a Unionist conspiracy.
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Comment on The PSNI, illegal road blocking charges and prospective New Year’s resolutions
on 28 December 2011 at 7:44 pm
CD
If you are so interested how did such a prominent case slip your mind? The twaddell protest occurred after a number of white line pickets on the crumlin road by republicans so the psni bascially facilitated two sides of an argument to protest rather than discriminate against anyone. Never mind the disjoint of repulicans sharing power at stormont but can’t share a roundabout on the crumlin road.
Your stuff is so much better when you don’t parrot connolly house lines. There was nothing faux about the anger at an act of political discrimination against a child by a mayor under orders from party superiors. The claim this is to get alliance votes back really is from another planet without the first clue about non-nationalist voting patterns in the city. Just shows how the unionist outreach has made zero impact on republican analysis with the same tired and wrong conclusions reached.
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Comment on The PSNI, illegal road blocking charges and prospective New Year’s resolutions
on 28 December 2011 at 7:03 pm
You omit the detail of a parades commission ruling applied to the protest on which charges were made unlike the other examples.
Also there is the matter of the first minister and a DUP councillor being convicted of this offence a number of years ago but that wouldn’ fit the story very well would it? Was that case a shift in psni policy?
I realise that Sinn Fein in the city are trying to ‘toughen up’ their image to counteract the dissidents but a lesson the DUP learned from tackling the TUV is that such approaches are the wrong path.
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Comment on “…it’s not actually the economy, stupid, after all.”
on 29 November 2011 at 3:08 pm
CD
“Sinn Fein’s Unionist Outreach initiatives?”
Just as the UUP provide much of the manual of how not to do politics SF provide the section on how not to do outreach.
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Comment on Spiteful Peter launches broadside at Nolan during Party Speech
on 28 November 2011 at 4:21 pm
Lionel
It was in the 2011 DUP manifesto
“bring forward legislation to increase the maximum period of
imprisonment for offences involving violence or neglect directed against the elderly or vulnerable”
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