Politics
Basil and John need a name for their New Party: Can you help?
Tweet Renegade former Ulster Unionist MLAs Basil McCrea and John McCallister have now publicly announced that they intend to set up a new political party for those disaffected with the political direction of the UUP under Mike Nesbitt’s leadership. At this point, the new party still needs a name. As both Basil and John lived [...] more »
Italy’s Five Star Movement – is this what The End of History looks like?
Tweet In 1992, Francis Fukayama predicted in The End of History that the end of the Cold War would impend not only an era of triumphant liberal-democratic capitalism, but one where political evolution had reached its final form. Western democracy, he argued, was the best form of state organisation practically achievable by humans. The folly [...] more »
What remains valuable about the middle ground in Northern Ireland?
Tweet It’s a commonplace wisdom in Northern Ireland that the middle ground of politics is exactly where you don’t want to be. Both nationalist and unionist politicians who have taken up middle positions have long been subject to the kind of death threats and physical attacks the Alliance party is being subjected to. The animus [...] more »
Donald Trump movie and the ill-defined concept of the ‘public interest’…
Tweet If you have watched You’ve Been Trumped yet, you should. There are many strong points to this documentary on not just how Donald Trump threw his weight around with local residents whose homes bordered his development in Aberdeenshire. But of most interest to me is the degree to which the Scottish media and Scottish [...] more »
Place-names, Politics and Conflict
Tweet In a series of four posts over the coming weeks Ciarán Dunbar will explore why the single most important event in Irish place-names study and a significant event in Irish history, the 1st Ordnance Survey is almost universally misunderstood – But how do such simple everyday things such as place-names become involved in politics, [...] more »
Ard Comhairle to sign off details of the forthcoming ‘Martin meets Elizabeth’ gig…
Tweet One of the stories that’s been hanging in the air for the last few weeks has been will Martin McGuinness meet the Queen, or won’t he? Well, it seems he will. Though the i’s and the t’s remain to be dotted and/or crossed. In recent weeks Slugger understands that the leadership within Sinn Fein [...] more »
“For much of the time, the Stormont Assembly looks more like a talking-shop.”
Tweet With the announcement on Girdwood [and any other business? - Ed] as a stark example of the semi-detached polit-bureau back in action, Ed Curran looks ahead The mark of the Stormont Executive has been its ability to take longer than could be imagined to arrive at decisions on many important issues. No agreed legislation means little, [...] more »
Iain Dale’s Total Politics moves right into the heart of Westminster…
Tweet Not everyone is hampered by the demise of print journalism. Ian Dale’s Bite Back media has bought Parliamentary Brief, a sort of house magazine for Westminster with an impressive array of writers and political topics far beyond Westminster. As usual the acquisition was engineered by local lad Shane Greer: Parliamentary Brief has been on [...] more »
Quote of the Day…
Tweet From The Great Stagnation, quoted by Martin Wolf… “…politics is very difficult in an America without much low-hanging fruit”. As in America, so in Ireland where pork is also the chief political commodity? more »
#Aras11: How the Press got it wrong on Gallagher (and failed to admit it)
Tweet Whilst it was perfectly legitimate to probe Martin McGuinness on his paramilitary past in the course of a Presidential election the key reason (character) for doing so was rarely crystalised by the many good journalists who did so. To be blunt, you cannot make political murder a reason for not taking office in state [...] more »
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. [...] more »
Great Big Politics Quiz kicks off tomorrow Night (Black Box, Belfast)…
Tweet Last chance to book your place… We have a stack of great prizes, courtesy of our old friends and consistent supporters Stratagem… All proceeds go to charity, in aid of rebuilding homes in Haiti… In fine old Northern Irish tradition the much revered office of Quiz Master will be rolling (d’Hondt has not been [...] more »
“Put aside the rhetoric…”
Tweet A perfect example of how an overly-sound-bite-led politician can undermine his own credibility by refusing to stray from the script. Indigenous politicians take note. Via Toby Harnden at the Telegraph blogs. And the Guardian has a report based on the interviewer ITV News’ Damon Green’s response In the two-minute 30-second version of the interview [...] more »
Social Media and the Assembly Election
Tweet A number of people have referred to this week’s Assembly Election as the “Twitter Election”. This can be looked at in a number of ways: the number of politicians and parties on Twitter/Facebook, the number of journalists now using social media, as well as members of the public discussing politics and election through these [...] more »
#AE11 Open Thread: West Tyrone (#wt11)
Tweet I had thought about moving on to Foyle, but considering the resignation of former MLA Eugene McMenamin (after he failed to get selected as the official SDLP candidates), things have gotten nicely complicated over in West Tyrone. He’s expected to be one of two former SDLP candidates in the race. Ross Hussey is running [...] more »
“Redoubling your effort, when you have forgotten your aim”
Tweet Brian Feeney in the Irish News this morning uses a couple of quotes from George Santayana to point to the essentially apolitical nature of the recent attacks by so called ‘dissident’ Republican paramilitary organisations: “Don’t call them mindless. They are devious and dangerous, armed and ruthless. They are unable to articulate a political purpose. [...] more »
Liberal democrats: by elections, Faustian Pacts and Lord of the Rings
Tweet The Barnsley by-election was caused by the conviction of former Labour MP Eric Illsley for dishonestly claiming parliamentary expenses. It has been a safe Labour seat for almost a century but one might have expected a bit of a back lash. Of course there was a back lash: against the Liberal Democrats. The Liberal [...] more »
Is Fianna Fail the new Woolworths of Irish politics?
Tweet It’s not published until 3rd March, but one book I recommend you place an advance order for from Slugger’s Bookstore is James Harkin’s Niche. Belfast émigré Harkin examines a number of stories from business, culture and politics and comes to a single insight: everywhere the broad middle is collapsing. He offers Woolworths as an iconic [...] more »
Fred Cobain on the UUP / Tory link
Tweet Sam McBride, the political editor of the News Letter has an interesting article covering an interview with UUP Chief Whip Fred Cobain. Cobain is a trade unionist and a former member of the NI Labour Party which might sort of make him a civic unionist of a generation or more ago. In his interview, [...] more »
Slugger Awards: Give us your political pitches…
Tweet Right, so I have been away for a few weeks and accordingly we seem to have lost a bit of steam on the Slugger Awards front. Now I’d like to inject a little bit of energy into it. But first let me recap on what we’re doing and why we are doing it in [...] more »
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Books
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Children of the Revolution (Bill Rolston)
Tweet What was life like for children of political activists during the Troubles? A new book by Bill Rolston and published by Guildhall Press during the summer has collected together the stories of twenty Children of the Revolution whose parents’ activities – and in many cases, imprisonment – had a significant affect on childhoods and [...] read our review »
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The Written World
Tweet Here’s something to keep you occupied over the weekend. [Will there be a quiz? - Ed] Possibly… The BBC magazine has an short and interesting, but un-embeddable, audio slide-show of Melvyn Bragg’s Radio 4 five-parter, In Our Time: The Written World. The British Library has more online information about the texts and technology featured in [...] read our review » -
“It was a trivial problem that… occurs every year”
Tweet 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 [...] read our review »
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