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Books
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Against the use and promotion of ‘hate speech’…
Tweet Of all the reasons to write a book this one’s got to the most incongruous: i.e. the receipt of an email saying “YOU ARE A TOTALITARIAN ASSHOLE”. Nice piece from John Paul Stevens in the New York Review of Books, in which he reviews Jeffery Waldron’s theses that freedom of speech should be tempered [...] read our review »
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The Irish political journalist’s problem with partial disclosure…
Tweet The nod and wink politics of Ireland’s last two or three decades as practised par excellence by Bertie, Albert and Charlie is ultimately what has the Republic in the stew it’s in. Don’t get me wrong, the effective monitoring of those exercising of power does not demand full disclosure of everything all the time. [...] read our review »
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Trimble: Biography of an enigma
Tweet Just finished reading Henry McDonald’s biog of Trimble (US). One of those last minute impulse buys waiting for an early morning flight out of Aldergrove. And still Trimble largely remains the enigmatic creature he was before. However the book is a useful reference for some of the action we’ve had since April 1998 (though [...] read our review »
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Comment on Referendum blues
on 24 January 2013 at 10:28 pm
The problem is MU that having let the referendum cat out of the bag all sort of unexpected things can follow such as major international investors deciding that they want to be sure to invest in a country that will be within the EU in five years as opposed to one that may not be. And that is a problem for all of us in this troubled corner of europe.
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Comment on Fracking petition, debate and a cry of ‘liars and thieves’
on 20 January 2013 at 9:12 pm
Currently the vast majority of electricity used in Northern Ireland is dependent on imported gas. This allied to our reliance on imported petrol and diesel means that huge percentages of everyone’s take home pay is flowing out of Northern Ireland and towards Scotland or Saudi Arabia. I have not done enough research on Fracking to judge if it is safe or not but I do not consider watching a film to be research. Lets have a full and open scientific debate on the pros and cons of Fracking but if we have a resource lets consider it and not blindly shout no like some new age Luddite
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Comment on The end of the High Street as we know it…
on 20 January 2013 at 9:06 pm
The high street will evolve and survive as it has always done because some things are better done in person, a visit to the butchers or barbers for example. What killed a lot of high streets was a combination of high rates, high parking costs and all high streets being the same as an out of town shopping centre. Every high street in the UK has a Boots, Next, Waterstones, Laura Ashley etc etc. If there is nothing to distinguish your town from an out of town shopping centre then why visit your town? Until towns develop a USP ( that’s a unique selling point in the vernacular) then they will not compete. As someone above said we are run by rank amateurs and until we face some facts and ask why would people shop here instead of why are they not shopping here we will not get to grips with this issue.
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Comment on We could be entering an era of referendum politics. Will it be destructive or creative?
on 20 January 2013 at 12:08 am
In the next two years Scottish Nationalists will organize a referendum on splitting from England. In the next 5 years David Cameron and the English nationalists may organize a referendum on leaving the EU. So by the time we get round to a referendum the world may be a very different place. There is no doubt that some of the old certainties will be a lot less certain either way.
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