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Total Politics: Top 20 NI Blogs…
Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year… We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans… I’ve [...] read our review »
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Debating the Churches’ Role in the Peace in Northern Ireland
This morning’s Sunday Sequence featured a substantial debate (about 35 minutes into the recorded programme) on a new book,Religion, Civil Society and Peace in Northern Ireland (Oxford University Press 2011), written by sociologists John Brewer, Gareth Higgins and Francis Teeney. The debate was framed in an opening vignette by presenter William Crawley in uncompromising terms, [...] read our review » -
“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year”
Just your average family gathering at Christmas, with a bit of an argument about the seating cleaning arrangements… Scuffles have broken out between rival groups of Greek Orthodox and Armenian clerics over a turf war in Bethlehem’s Church of the Nativity. Bemused tourists looked on as about 100 priests fought with brooms while cleaning the [...] read our review »
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Comment on Euro crisis: “With that we buried the Maastricht Treaty, the legal basis for currency union”
on 22 May 2012 at 7:15 pm
So Pete is the Troika decision making process blinkered by the conception that the lack of fiscal or political union is the root cause and solution to the debt crisis or is it a tool to engineer greater fiscal union? Or have I misunderstood the politics of it again. I’m currently thinking the former but the last one is more likely.
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Comment on Sectarianism in Northern Ireland is common (and popular) across all classes…
on 21 May 2012 at 11:34 pm
The rest of my prejudices are being unfairly discriminated against.
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Comment on Grammar schools and social mobility: a Northern Ireland contribution to the debate
on 21 May 2012 at 11:20 pm
“Why the catholic population of NI want to restrict their childrens’ future is a mystery to me.”
The point is (we?) don’t want to restrict our childrens future in order to benefit the few.
The measurement is wrong. A school should be measured on how much it improves it’s students. To measure on the top results when schools can choose the players is just bad statistics. It’s like claiming Man City won the league because they have the best coaches.
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Comment on “I do apologise for anyone who misunderstood the way I was using the metaphor…”
on 19 May 2012 at 12:44 am
I see no issue with the comments that the middle class have sectarian elements. Clumsy maybe. I laughed at the DUP and SF talking about sectarianism. What colour was the elephant? Then the retractions, grow some. In some ways it points to housing as the big sectarian sore that no-one wants to tackle head on as the middle class ghettos don’t paint kerb stones and keep the sectarianism to quiet mutterings, which has got to be an improvement. I’m always telling my kid to watch out for other kids who stir trouble and then sit back to watch the mayhem. It’s in every playground.
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Comment on Euro crisis: “Tis agoreuein bouletai?”
on 18 May 2012 at 12:09 am
Interesting to read the links from a year ago. Nothing much has changed except a few good opportunities to buy shares. That is where the art is (or the software model). I listened to experts on Today FM saying JP Morgan was a good buy just before the news turned sour for them.
I’m missing the bit after Lenihan guaranteed the deposits for a second year? Was that part of Troika’s deal?
The politics around the debt crisis is coming more to the fore and Greece may create some big divisons in the ECB/IMF before the elections. What if the parilment is hung again? Rather than a straight yes or no. Surely the most likely outcome. My money is on a pro Euro vote and the boil to fester on for another while until there is a run on the French banks. Nobody know eh. But I notice nobody talks about Ireland anymore outside of this island,
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Comment on Not everything you hear about Greece is true…
on 17 May 2012 at 4:57 pm
He was the economic advisor to Greece! So don’t blame the Greeks, it was his fault. lol. It will all be fixed by telling our politicians to go easy on the printers and letters. Great. Sorry, working to many hours to pay off my economic deficit. My house is a European model, I scrimp, she accumulates and neither better for it.
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Comment on Greece: “good luck for the next restructuring…”
on 15 May 2012 at 10:17 pm
Ah, screw them, the feckless Greeks. Nice. Sure they don’t like paying taxes, nor do I. Lots here think public sector workers should get well paid have nice big pensions and the more the merrier. (I don’t) I would contest the EU were feckless allowing Greece in, the global financial sector was feckless for letting everyone borrow to their hearts content and the EU was again feckless in managing the EU debt crisis, managing to grow the sovereign EU debt and chiiping in with a half assed debt reduction for Greece. The Germans will pay either way as they stupidly lent Greece the money. Feckless Germans forgot due diligence. Business/markets need to see a path to plan on, it isn’t there yet.
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Comment on Greece: “good luck for the next restructuring…”
on 15 May 2012 at 6:42 pm
Maybe a sign that the Greek administration have given up and they are just blowing the ECB’s money before defaulting on it anyway. Either that or the path of least resistance, a sympton of the politics that helped get Greece into this position in the first place. The people of Greece would suffer greatly in a default outside the Euro and I wish them well. Do the Eurocrats care about the human element to the Greek crisis? Doesn’t look like it to me from the hard positioning.
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Comment on #EUREF: Sentiment swings towards a Yes vote (whilst FF and SF consolidate)…
on 14 May 2012 at 6:40 pm
I was a bit taken aback by how party politics rather than the issue seems to shape the vote and I was intrigued by Adams comment that he has never put party politics before Ireland. There is more interest in what they avoided saying that what was actually said.
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Comment on Euro crisis: “Hold your sides and laugh out loud, otherwise you’ll have to cry.”
on 13 May 2012 at 10:53 pm
@Malcom, thanks, Interesting read from Henderson. The No team should note it and Ireland, North and South needs to be competitive in Europe and be looking over their shoulder at other eu countries like our Polish friends who have demonstrated work ethic, skills and lower wages. A No vote in my mind would still require austerity to compete. I would see a brain drain from the private sector to the public sector mainly due to wages and benefits.
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