Month: October 2002

Bob McCartney is an anomaly in NI politics. Having been elected with four other UKUP MLAs, he was left on his own after a row early on in the Assembly’s lifespan. He has created and broken alliances with an astounding variety of polticial figures, including the veteran Southern poltician Conor Cruise O’Brien and Ian Paisley. Norman Porter in his seminal work Rethinking Unionism, chooses McCartney as the quintessence of what he calls Liberal Unionism. Porter describes his fundamental position on …

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This well written on-line encyclopedia entry is worth perusing if your history of Northern Ireland is rusty. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Looks like Westminster is expecting a long negotiation period. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Soldier 027 continues to give evidence to Lord Saville. Sarah Brett reports: “Raymond Muldoon and Francis Creagh claimed they were abducted from the Divis Flats area by paras in February 1972. QC for the families of the Bloody Sunday dead, Seamus Treacy, today queried: ‘it would appear Mr Muldoon and Mr Creagh were ill-treated by members of the Anti-Tank Platoon, they were then abducted and then dumped on the Shankill Road. It appears from their statement that when they were …

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It looks like this is what’s happening. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

It looks like the first public moves are afoot to cut the official ties between the UUP and the Orange Order. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Roy Garland on the UUP’s conference at the weekend: “[the conference] was the most satisfying I have experienced. The chosen venue suggests that unionists were getting back to their roots but this was no regression into siege mentality. Rather, I found a confident, outward-looking and hopeful party reiterating a commitment to inclusive pluralist politics.” It also seems that calling meetings of the UUC may not be quite as easy for opponents of the leadership to call in future. Slugger O'TooleA …

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No, it’s not a launchpad for yet another rhetorical diatribe from a disaffected Irishman, this guy is serious. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

So much of the Letter’s focus has been on either the two sides of the debate, it gets surprising to hear something important coming from the centre. Two letters in last night’s Belfast Telegraph, highlight a forthcoming trip to South Africa. One from Michael Long, an Alliance Party councillor: “For the past couple of weeks in particular, we have heard nothing but righteous indignation from the DUP’s Peter Robinson about the need to exclude terrorists from Government and now we …

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Malachi O’Doherty suggests there is an inherited rigidity in the command and control mechanisms within the Catholic church that has had serious influence on Irish politics and its practice. There is already a lively discussion of this article on this unmoderated board. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

The first is by ‘revisionist’ historian, Roy Foster, who raises one interesting point; the shock Sinn Fein encountered: “…when they welcomed the Clinton administration on board the peace process, only to hear Nancy Soderberg declare, ‘I don’t really care whether there is a united Ireland or not; all I care about is that there not be violence and that the North gets developed politically and economically.’ This is really a book about Gerry Adams’ adoption of the Soderberg approach.” It …

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In answer to some critics, Gregory Campbell MP lays out his party’s conditions for re-negotiating the Belfast Agreement. He begins by rejecting the accusation that they are motivated by an anti-equality agenda: “Republicans have tried to portray this non-acceptance as a refusal to countenance the ‘equality agenda’. This is not the case at all. It is because unionists are convinced that the current process disadvantages them and assists nationalism/republicanism that they so strongly resist it.” He repeats his party’s challenge …

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Paul Dunne has been busy today. He has an extended piece on the dilemma faced by the IRA. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Thanks to Paul Dunne for this wee gem. If you still think it’s worth the effort and would like to start your own, Blogger has everything you need to get it off the ground. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

More on the shift in the game within the Unionist camp. David Trimble talking at the weekend: “He accused them [DUP] of using emotional rhetoric to cover their ‘moral cowardice’ and of hanging on to his party’s coattails. The DUP hung back at every stage ‘let others do the hard work, and then sneaked forward to take advantage of other people’s efforts,’ he said. ‘The DUP are no friends of Ulster Unionists. They are short-sighted political opportunists. Their own personal …

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This looks like a good call from British Spin. “…if I were to try and read between the lines, the lack of a hysterical response seems to indicate a basic (if coded) acceptance of the premise of the Prime Minister’s speech, that Sinn Fein and the IRA face a historic choice.” Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

Paul Bew suggests Blair’s speech is the kind of backing David Trimble has been looking for over the last few years. However instead of turning fire on Adams and Co, Professor Paul Bew, a close advisor of Trimble’s, looks to the DUP for targets: “Mr Robinson has been saying interesting things. His public remarks have been widely interpreted as signaling the necessity for a DUP-Sinn Fein understanding as the way forward in Northern Ireland. How credible is Mr Robinson and …

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Ian Duncan Smith, speaking to the UUP’s annual conference at the weekend, called for the expulsion of Sinn Fein from their offices in Westminster. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.

As if to underline the immaturity of the devolved institutions in NI, Friends of the Earth have gone on the offensive over the poor standards of its sewerage system. This immaturity was borne out in the paucity of NI’s contribution to the Earth Summit in Johannesburg last month. Slugger O'TooleA general account used for the daily threads and other things.