Profile for Turgon
Latest posts from Turgon (see all)
Turgon has posted 683 times (5 in the last month).
Crown Prosecution Service consider Chris Huhne case
There has been a slow burning story going on for months now about Chris Huhne the Liberal Democrat Energy Sectary. Huhne who was one of the challengers for the Liberal Democrat leadership both against Ming Campbell and Nick Clegg (by whom he was only narrowly defeated). Huhne’s problem has been the claims that whilst he [...] more »
The solution to hospital bed crises: not necessarily more beds
The problems surrounding the Emergency Department at Antrim Area Hospital have made the news several times this week and led to one general practitioner stating that he would not want to go there as a patient (well no one actively wants to be an A+E patient as no one wishes ill health on themselves but [...] more »
Twentieth anniversary of Teebane
Almost any date in Northern Ireland is the anniversary of a death from the Troubles. Often the less iconic are forgotten about. As such marking one event may be unfair to the relatives of the less well known about deaths. Sometimes, however, the anniversary is such that is should be marked. This is the 20th [...] more »
Stepping Hill Hospital, nurses, the police and the media
After all the recent scandals involving the press one might hope that they are being careful to avoid the assorted pitfalls they fall into with such frequency. More likely, however, than a collective discovery of higher journalistic and editorial standards is that the fear of the current Leveson Inquiry is temporarily keeping them from the [...] more »
Cryptozoology: Unionist outreach to Catholics
Cryptozoology according to wikipedia is “the search for animals whose existence has not been proven.” Here in Northern Ireland we have our own version of this: not monsters in Lough Erne (though the pike can get pretty big) but rather the political version. The two most sought after fantasy animals are the fabled Garden Centre [...] more »
David Cameron boardroom pay and putdowns
The coverage of David Cameron’s views on any Scottish independence referendum have been analysed in detail. Those comments did rather eclipse the coverage of his interview with the Sunday Telegraph. The Telegraph is obviously the most pro Tory of the broadsheets but they do seem to be even more sympathetic than usual in their coverage [...] more »
Thoughts on Prescription Charges
Hidden away amongst the discussion of the Compton Review Edwin Poots again mentioned the prospect of reintroducing prescription charges. There is a certain irony in this in that although it was Michael McGimpsey who ended prescription charges the DUP repeatedly claimed this move as one of the successes of devolution and claimed much of the [...] more »
Northern Ireland’s roads remain safe: possibly not at 111mph
Some good news was published by both the BBC and News Letter yesterday. There were 59 deaths on the roads in Northern Ireland last year, a rise from 55 the year before, but still vastly lower than in the past. Prior to 2010 the lowest number of deaths was in 2008 at 107. As the [...] more »
Why is it so difficult to downgrade local hospitals?
The response to the Compton Report has thus far been remarkably low key. In part this may be because the Report is so comprehensive and so well argued, backed up by studies and statistics at every turn. Furthermore it says very little that anyone with any significant interest in health policy has not known for [...] more »
Godot arrives: Compton Review delivers
Last week I suggested that Northern Ireland health reform was like waiting for Godot. Now Godot has arrived, told us he is sorting out major changes and that he will be back soon. The Compton Review (pdf) is a large and highly impressive document. Despite having been carried out in only a few months it [...] more »
Latest comments from Turgon (see all)
Turgon has commented 2,150 times (12 in the last month).
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Books
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What has The Third Man got to say about Northern Ireland?
Short answer: very little, other than he enjoyed the environs of Hillsborough Castle, enjoyed working with the local politicians, and has Gerry Adams to thank for Bobby his dog. Peter Mandelson’s book The Third Man has captured media headlines in recent weeks as the Times serialised the most juicy bits. But what did he have [...] 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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Help me with the West Wing: Essential viewing or Party Political Broadcast?
Having somehow managed to avoid watching a single episode of the widely praised West Wing TV series I was delighted to discover the entire Box set in my Christmas stocking – and with enough spare time over the holidays to give it a good lash. But with 10 episodes of the first series under my [...] read our review »
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Comment on The Dean’s last stand over the paper thinness of Irish ecumenism…
on 23 January 2012 at 9:51 pm
wild turkey,
Fair comment. Though the issue of how to access salvation is different between Christian faiths.
However, in a way this is not a theology discussion. I just find the idea of a Catholic chaplain to a Protestant cathederal very odd nay a bit silly. Catholic priests may be very friendly with their Protestant counterparts but why take a semi formal role with a different church. It does not make a lot of sense. Good relationships and friendships do not require such formalisation.
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Comment on The Dean’s last stand over the paper thinness of Irish ecumenism…
on 23 January 2012 at 7:08 pm
The dean does sound pretty cross with all sorts of people. I know little enough about him but on his point about ecumenism I think he may misunderstand how many Protestants in NI (and the RoI) and I suspect Catholics think.
The outworkings of a Christian’s life: things like being decent to one’s fellow man, turn the other cheek etc. are entirely common to Protestants and Catholics. We are not especially good at those things but we have a standard (our Lord) and know what we should do. In that out living of religion we are of course little different to most secular ideologies and other mainstream, religions. Jewish people, Hindus, Buddhists most of Islam etc. etc. have much the same views.
Where committed Protestants and Catholics part company and indeed also part company from other religions is in the mechanism of personal salvation. For Protestants and Catholics the means of salvation: getting to heaven and avoiding hell is absolutely central. The Roman Catholic Church teaches different things from the Protestant churches both Anglican and the others. Put simply we Prods regard Catholics as in grave error and vice versa.
As such it is entirely reasonable to be nice and friendly to one another but entirely unreasonable to suggest ecumenism, RC chaplains to Protestant cathedrals etc.
Actually the Catholic Church in Ireland should be lauded for standing pretty solidly behind its analysis of the message of Christ: anything else would sell its message short. Clearly Protestants are the same. Hence, actually most of us are happy being civil and non ecumenical to one another. I have no desire to attend a made up joint theology service with Catholics (or Muslims, Jews, Hindus etc). I respect their position and respectfully disagree with them. I respect them the more because they do not try to pretend we all believe the same thing.
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Comment on John Kyle on faith and loyalism
on 23 January 2012 at 1:46 pm
Alan,
That is fair. There is not no support but there is little support. If they cannot get into the top 5-6 of an STV election the person giving them the 6th or 7th preference is expressing very little support for them. I vote all the way down my ballot paper excluding Sinn Fein and any loyalist parties. I may well put Alliance / SDLP 5th or 6th: that does not mean I have any significant support for them.
Very few people support the PUP as their 1st preference and placing a 4th 5th or 6th beside the PUP is not really expressing any sigbnificant level of support for their policies.
Hopwever, you are correct: they do not have no support; they have very little support.
The PUP pride themselves on speaking for working class unionists whom they claim have been abandoned by mainstream unionism. They have something of a point re abandonment though the DUP in East Belfast at the last election seemed to be beginning a serious effort to change that.
There is, however, inadequate support for the PUP to be a serious political force in Northern Ireland or even in East Belfast and that is a hot bed of support as compared to the large unionist towns and country areas both of which have many working class unionists.
My fundamental thesis on this is not that working class unionists are all disinterested in politics or that they are somehow hoodwinked. I suspect most feel the DUP reflect their position better than any other party. The DUP manage to be surprisingly left wing in some ways and remember not all working class unionists are left wing.
Quite a number, however, will be left wing and two generations ago the NI Labour Party did well. There are a large a number of reasons why the PUP do so much less well than the NILP did. However, the PUP is massively hobbled by its involvement with the UVF. Kyle saw that and tried to change it but failed. With the link in place and the DUP with its vastly superior resources making serious attempts to reconnect with working class unionists I do not see much future for the PUP. Also that means they can achieve little for working class unionists. I really think that the UVF link is the single largest impedement to the PUP. Any attempt to analyse the PUP which fails to adress that link it practically pointless. It is not the elephant in the room: it is the room.
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Comment on John Kyle on faith and loyalism
on 23 January 2012 at 12:30 pm
The probelm with Dr. Kyle’s position is always the same.
To be fair unlike some loyalist politicians he seems able to condemn specfic actions by loyalists. Indeed he claims to be trying to help move people away from violence and to help loyalist communities.
The problem is that the working class unionist communities Kyle claims to speak for reject the PUP (the PUP have two councillors Kyle included). Furthermore one of the biggest blights on working class communities are the loyalist paramilitaries. Yet the PUP will not sever their link with the UVF terrorists and are amongst their most vocal when protesting about arresting loyalist criminals for criminality – usually nowadays against working class unionists.
The rejection of the PUP by working class unionist communities is likely to be related amongst other things to the fact that they (the PUP) are so frequently seen in suport of the loyalist criminals who blight their lives.
Kyle has attempted to sever the link with the PUP: he made it a key plank of his leadership and he failed. Yet he did not walk away.
it is difficult to avoid man playing here but Kyle has been a member of a party which is linked to loyalist terrorists. Although Kyle may oppose their past and present criminality the PUP institutionally holds a position that the murders committed by the UVF were justified – they include some of the most foul crimes of the Troubles and a number of more recent murders.
Kyle has stuck with the party despite it seems his views being rejected and his proposals spurned at every turn.
Maybe Kyle had honourable motives for joining the PUP but his ability to minimise the relevance of behaviour he thinks is “unacceptable” – which the rest of us call crimes including murder- is breath taking.
Sometimes with some groups or vehicles to help society the other baggage makes honourable people refuse to join. I have always held that view of the PUP as have most people in the unionist community. Kyle, however, was willing to join, quite probably for honourable motives. There must come a point, however, where the honourable thing to do as a Christian and indeed as a decent person is to leave. The fact that Kyle seems unable to see such an option as a realistic possibility would be worrying in a normal organisation. The fact that he still cannot see it after the number of crimes the UVF have committed and the PUP’s craven attitude to the UVF is breath taking.
There comes a point where trying ones best and ignoring a few issues beome hopless naievity. There is then a point where that naievity becomes a form of dishonesty and hypocrisy. Most would suggest that in regard to the PUP that time past long ago.
Kyle himself may be a honourable man but his remaining in the PUP seems to be doing society no good, working class unionist communities no good his own honour and integrity no good. The only group it seems to be helping is the PUP. Kyle may not care about how others view him but for the good of society in general and working class unionists in particular he should leave.
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Comment on Thread under temporary review…
on 22 January 2012 at 3:20 pm
This is not man playing (sort of) but can I note that whatever else and whatever his motives for it Mr. Duffy has a brilliant beard. I wish I could grow a beard like that. Sadly mine would be useless so I do not try.
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Comment on Sanctioned ‘Gay Cure’ Psychiatrist on Board of Organisation Behind ‘Leper’ Conference
on 18 January 2012 at 11:54 am
cynic2,
“Counselling for what?
If they are homosexual or bisexual that is the way they are- for those who have a friend in the sky, the way God made them. Those who have problems with this should get over it. It doesn’t impact on them and really should be none of their business.
“
Rory Carr,
“Think of it this way, Turgon: how would one expect a psychiatrist to deal with a patient who and asked for help to stop being black, or Chinese, or Irish (or Ulster-Scots for that matter) and to become perfect little middle class Englishmen instead ?”
I have significant sympathy for those views. However, what if a man came to a psychiatrist saying he felt he should be a woman or vice versa? What should the psychiatrist do in such a case?
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Comment on Sanctioned ‘Gay Cure’ Psychiatrist on Board of Organisation Behind ‘Leper’ Conference
on 18 January 2012 at 10:31 am
Gerry,
I have never taken any position on this site or elsewhere on homosexuality. I usually deliberately avoid the issue.
I am, however, interested in what you think a psychiatrist or anyone else should do if a person came to them and asked for help to stop being homosexual / having same sex attraction. Are there any circumstances in which you think it would be appropriate to try to help a person cease to be homosexual?
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Comment on Newt hears echoes of Lawrence in PSNI probe of sectarian attack; UUP mixed messages exposed
on 15 January 2012 at 1:47 pm
I would say this is a shocking crime but of course it is not shocking. We have these sorts of loathsome criminal incidents perpetrated against predominantly young working class men on a regular basis. This one made the news because it was a sectarian attack and the victim was involved in making a film. This attack is wholly wrong but it would have been just as wrong had it been within one side of the community.
The most significant wrong is the violence visited upon the young man not the utterly spurious reasoning behind that violence.
What is worrying is the fact that some few in the working class loyalist community will see this as a less serious issue (or even a non or a positive issue) because of the religion of the young man assualted. The overwhelming majority of working class unionists have rejected this sort of thuggery time and again. However, for far too long loyalist paramilitaries have been treated with kid gloves by all sections of society: the media who report on Jackie McDonald like he was a legitimate public figure; the police; the liberal establishment and yes the politicians.
It is long past time that the parasites of the loyalist paramilitaries were removed from the back of the working class unionist population and prevented from attacking them or for that matter Catholic young men who happen to be in “the wrong area.”
This thuggery is not confined to loyalist areas but is also prevalent in some republican areas. That is has not been taken on in an aggressive fashion in either community is one of the most vile compromises the so called peace process has visited upon us. Such foul bigotry occurs accross the water and is probably not dealt with sufficiently aggressively there either. We tend to hear much about these sorts of attacks if there is “an angle”. In this case it was the filming and the young man’s religion though I suspect mainly the former.
I differ from Chris Donnelly that this is not an example of institutional sectarianism by the police it is just one more example of the results of years of institutional disinterest in the criminality of paramilitaries against “their own community” which has now as it does from time to time cut across to the other community.
Until we all of all sides empower the police, courts etc. to root out these paramilitary thugs this sort of thing will recur. The media stopping treating criminal godfathers like minor celebrities would help begin that process.
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Comment on What if David Ford and the Alliance ruling council did walk away from justice? Allister? Agnew? Hay?
on 12 January 2012 at 11:08 pm
Alan,
I doubt Ford is actually that terribly annoyed. He probably needs to be seen to be annoyed for internal consumption and to perpetuate the myth that Alliance are not SF / DUP lackeys. Farry’s job is a price he would very likely pay to keep his own position. After all Alliance has a history of doing the opposite of what they say they are going to do such as when they twice ruled out taking justice before promptly taking it.
Indeed Alliance leaders also have a history of doing the opposite of putting party before self such as when the last leader Alderdice took the first speaker’s role.
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Comment on Cameron to Salmond: “Right, now I’ve got you right where you want me…”
on 11 January 2012 at 10:00 pm
RoC,
Indeed and you on the other hand are an Irishman from Connaught: making you much better placed to assess the views of unionists?
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