Kicking off, Damien has a piece on the tag team tactics of Fianna Fail TDs when the local wind is blowing a direction inconvenient to an incumbent, though to be fair to Jim McDaid, he is a GP with a practice in Letterkenny that’s signed up to deliver the newly launched Cancer screening process. He may be genuinely embarrassed at the government’s penny pinching on a crucial health matter. As another Damien notes, the matter has stirred some local controversy. – Still on other health related matters, Celtic Donkey is a jobbing journalist who reckons ‘spin’ (from all sides) is making people ‘stupider’…
– Calum is narked by Robert Peston peddling tittle-tattle…
– Gerard notes that the Republic comes 15th (two spots behind the UK) overall for Healthcare in Europe, but drops to 24th out of 31 for value for money spent…
– And Michael Taft bursts some lefty bubbles over Friday/Saturday’s Irish Times polls. It’s not about Labour; it’s about Fine Gael:
They have put forward a clear and consistent line; they have produced documents and briefings; their several spokespersons have all been on-message; their Finance Spokesperson, Richard Bruton, speaks with knowledge and confidence on a range of issues; and, of course, Fine Gael is the historical alternative – inertia alone gives them pole position.
– Garibaldy notes that unemployment is up as is bankruptcy. But the Executive is still down…
– The NI Assembly feedback forum is telling them to “Get back to work” (117 votes), and is slowly populating with some good new questions…
– Scottish Unionist spots some nationalist spin…
– Ideas of Civilisation takes a long look at the issue of Scottish taxation and the Barnett Formula and concludes:
If the plan is to ensure greater responsibility for public finances then the Scottish Parliament cannot to be restricted to slightly varying income tax levels and should have powers beyond this (at the very least the ability to change all levels of income tax, corporation tax and possibly even VAT).
– O’Neill takes umbrage on the part of Afrikaners and suggests this is one in a long line of embarrassing outbursts from Sinn Fein leaders…
– And Suz with this week’s Britblog round up… The Scottish Round up is pretty good too…
– Alan notes that George Best Airport may be about to get its runway extended, which means bigger planes longer haul flights and lower approaches. Ahem, No Pasaran, as we sometimes say in Holywood…
– And finally, it looks like the G20 have turned the clock back eight or nine millennia and transformed The Archipeligo into a post modern blob…
Mick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
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