Politics
British Labour contemplating a radical change agenda?
Tweet Of Irish Labour can offer a cautionary tale to its British cousins it is, that whatever you do do not land yourself in government without a credible plan of action in a time of internationally imposed austerity. Perhaps looking for strategic gains in tackling some of the long term damage of the Thatcher era [...] more »
Team Jasil – that’s John and Basil – say: “Get off your backsides and vote for people that are trying to make a difference”
Tweet Basil McCrea and John McCallister were the invited guest speakers at a Friday lunchtime Politics and Change in Northern Ireland seminar run by the Institute for Research in Social Sciences at UUJ. The room was mostly full of academics and postgraduate researchers. It was an opportunity to hear John and Basil deliver what might [...] more »
Death of CSI: If we can’t have a strategy what about asking better questions?
Tweet I have some sympathy with OFMdFM for the cold reception for their announcement that their CSI strategy document is dead, but long live CSI. Promising that peace walls will hauled down within 10 years is laudable, but how likely is it since the core constituency of both parties don’t want it (and what they [...] more »
Ferguson’s departure: Rivals must work to burst “the incumbency bubble” of the EPL
Tweet I always had it in mind to write something about three exceptionally long term and successful leaders in three very different fields. Now Alex Ferguson has gone, here’s the gist in short blog order… - Gerry Adams, who came to lead his political party from the fringes of constitutional politics in Northern Ireland to [...] more »
“during the Derry visit, Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson were nowhere to be seen, surely mindful of their upcoming trade mission to China.”
Tweet According to an Irish News report today …OFMDFM has refuted any suggestion that the Stormont leaders snubbed the Dalai Lama when he visited Derry last month. A spokesperson for OFMDFM said the ministers were unable to attend “due to prior diary commitments”. Which is fine… After all, “diary pressures” was the same excuse Tony Blair [...] more »
Irish Justice Minister: “a tribute to how far we have come as a society”
Tweet As promised by the Irish Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, in June last year, legislation has been passed by Dáil and Seanad providing for the granting of an amnesty and apology for the way the Irish State treated members of its Defence Forces who left to join the Allied Forces during World War II. I’ve noted previously the historical [...] more »
Poots’ residential care home fiasco shows risk aversion brings its own troubles
Tweet So last week it was the Health Minister’s turn to get burned. Yet at the end of the week, it is not at all clear as to how the Health Trusts came to interpret ‘at least 50%’ of all Trust residential care homes as 100%, in the case of the Northern Trust, over the [...] more »
OFMDFM spokeswoman: “The Defamation Bill was never considered by the Executive”
Tweet In the Belfast Telegraph, Liam Clarke has a glimpse behind the curtain at ministerial manoeuvring around the failure to consent to the UK Defamation Bill. From the Belfast Telegraph article UK-wide legislation like the Defamation Bill can be extended to here by a motion of ‘Legislative Consent’ passed at the Assembly. A minister, though, must [...] more »
Shared future means “free and equal access to public and residential space”
Tweet I’m sure there is some glib joke to be had along the lines of “how many social workers does it take to change a lightbulbs” about the peace processing parties that have inherited leadership in this post Belfast Agreement era.. As Duncan Morrow notes in the Irish Times today, things are immeasureably better than [...] more »
“A lot of Northern Irish funding rewards bad behaviour” (with few positive outcomes)
Tweet Pete Shirlow was in Washington last night, briefing staffers on Capitol Hill about the current situation in Northern Ireland. The US – Ireland Alliance site has his report, which in turn draws on insight and data from two different surveys. Here’s how he opens: the peace process appears to be moving at two speeds [...] more »
Uniting Ireland: no #abortion, no #equalmarriage
Tweet Some revealing attitudes in the debates on equal marriage and abortion either side of the border this week. Last night the heads of the proposed Protection of Life During Pregnancy Act 2013 were published in Dublin (full details here courtesy of the Journal.ie). Initial reaction has been mixed on both the pro-choice and anti-abortion sides, with [...] more »
Draft CSI document contains yawning gaps. OFMdFM parties fear criticism.
Tweet Interesting snippet from Mark Devenport which says an awful lot… The layman might think that the obvious big gesture for Stormont to make would be to publish the long delayed Cohesion Sharing and Integration strategy, a draft of which the BBC obtained back in January. However, publishing the whole document might be fraught with [...] more »
Adams’s extended RTE interview on political murder turns the southern clock right back for Sinn Fein…
Tweet On Twitter last night the jury was split over Gerry Adams’ performance in a Prime Time interview with Miriam O’Callaghan. It wasn’t an elegant affair by any means. But then again, nor was the subject. No matter how well he handled it, it was always going to go badly with potential future voters and [...] more »
Canning pleads guilty on 2011 Easter Monday charges
Tweet The BBC has a report on the on-going trial of one of the three Londonderry men charged, along with Marian Price, in relation to a 32 County Sovereignty Movement Easter Monday parade in the city in 2011 – the charge is of managing a meeting in support of a proscribed organisation, the IRA. And we [...] more »
Fianna Fail’s ‘new’ leader building for a ‘new era’ Fianna Fail?
Tweet So, beige says Miriam of the Fianna Fail leader’s closing speech to his party’s Ard Fheis. Not wrong, of course. Steady as she goes, the weekend’s national conference was business like and not prone to much in the way of story telling or narrative. More like a business meeting, in fact. If anything the [...] more »
Futile Border Poll campaign to launch
Tweet What is presumably a Sinn Fein border poll initiative is to launch on Friday with mock polls planned for Crossmaglen and Creggan Upper (in County Louth) We are officially launching our campaign on Friday – come along if you’re available! twitter.com/UnitedIreland/… — United Ireland(@UnitedIreland) April 28, 2013 Presumably taking a leaf out of the [...] more »
If you live in a glass house, don`t throw stones…at UKIP
Tweet Much ado about Ken Clarke`s comments on `UKIP clowns, closet racists and fruitcakes` over the weekend. It is amazing however what turns up when you Google various configurations of the words Labour, Tory, racist, nazi & BNP. For example, BNP leader Nick Griffin’s father was a Welsh Tory aide to Ian Duncan Smith in 2001, [...] more »
Fianna Fail’s bonds with the Republic are deeply rooted and emotional (as well as political)…
Tweet John Drennan got an interview in with Micheal Martin a few days before yesterday’s Ard Fheis. He therefore had some time to properly consider the position the leader of Fianna Fail finds himself: Others in the party may be stepping around Leinster House like fellows who have put too much ginseng in their tea. [...] more »
Icelandic dinosaurs, elections and the fate of their crowd-sourced constitution … and a link to equal marriage
Tweet Slugger should take a look at Iceland more often. An article in yesterday’s Guardian described intriguing democratic and constitutional processes. About a third of the North Atlantic island’s population live in the capital city of Reykjavík, another third live in the greater Reykjavík area. Apparently two thirds of the island’s population are on Facebook: [...] more »
Only united challenges from civil society to government and grass roots campaigns will bring about a shared future
Tweet It’s amazing isn’t it, how all the parties are now singing the praise of sharing, integration and Mammy and apple pie? And yet when it comes to agreeing what that might actually mean they stay stuck in deadlock, their real comfort zone. “A shared future” risks becoming debased as a piece of Orwellian double think, [...] more »
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Books
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Talking to a brick wall: how to make politicians listen?
Tweet It took me a long time to warm to advertising agencies. The first time I worked with one I was working in sales management on Fairy Washing Up Liquid. I was due to attend a meeting at which I was to be told what consumers really thought of the brand. I remember my reluctance [...] read our review »
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Kevin Myers’ ‘Watching the Door’: Book Review
Tweet This reads as if a mad picaresque tale. Myers as first a reporter for RTÉ and then as a freelance journalist with no real experience, finds himself wandering into savagery as he hastens north as the Troubles explode. A soldier dies next to him; he witnesses an IRA ambush; he sees children shot to [...] read our review »
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Manchán Magan’s ‘Oddballs: A Novel of Affections’: Book Review
Tweet A skilled chronicler in travel narratives and documentaries of those who wander the fringes, Manchán Magan’s debut novel follows four characters on the fringe. Two of them, teenaged Rachel and her quasi-aunt Charlotte, collide after a long estrangement in New Hampshire, and take off on Charlotte’s Wiccan pilgrimage to ye olde England of, as [...] read our review »
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