Open planning will decide if the “threat” to grammar schools is real

As final year primary school children sit the last regulated 11 plus tests, and a new Education Bill emerges, the Belfast Telegraph have run two articles for and against continuing academic selection. Professor Tony Gallagher, one of the frustrated architects of a non-selective system describes the rocky road to reform but ends limply, omitting to offer a solution to deadlock, presumably not wishing to get drawn into a political catfight. With the Executive meeting again we can only hope that …

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Freeze the district rate?

The one tax in the ‘control’ of local parties is rates. The DUP has put strong emphasis on the significance of freezing the regional rate and all parties have worked to hold back water charges. However, there is the matter of the district rate. At the moment discussions are beginning within councils about next year’s rate and the rumours are of above inflation rises (possibly multiple times inflation are doing the rounds) The issue of council debt has gained some …

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Bloody students

The Politics Show on Queen’s radio had David Gordon, award winning Belfast Telegraph journalist, and me, the poor man’s Fealty, in on Monday to discuss some aspects of the latest Stormont deal. It may have only been student radio with a listener-ship in the 10s but never having done any radio before I was nervous enough to make a complete horlicks of my first response before settling into the format. They’ve also launched a blog where they will host podcasts …

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“Mr Wilson’s interference in the scientific work of his department..”

Friends of the Earth have picked up on the Northern Ireland Environment Minister Sammy Wilson’s rescinding of the designation of ice-age glacial deposits at Lisnaragh as an Area of Special Scientific Interest – against the advice of the Council for Nature Conservation and Countryside (CNCC), and the newly formed, if not fully independent, Northern Ireland Environment Agency – and FotE director John Woods is warning of legal action. From the iol report Mr Woods added: “Despite the repeated assurances of …

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Woolies gloom seizes High Sts

What looks like the end of the line for Woolworth’s as we know it brings home to us what the recession really means. As Peston puts it: For the millions of us who have grown up on Woolworth pic’n’mix and bought Power Ranger toys from them for our kids, the collapse of the store chain will bring great sadness. And of course the pain and anxiety is much greater for the 25,000 employed in its stores. The shock waves may …

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“priority for countries like Ireland with relatively high deficits..”

Yesterday the US Federal Reserve announced an additional $800billion stimulus package while today the People’s Bank of China are reported to have lowered interest rates by 1.08 percentage points [after three separate drops of 0.27% since Sept 16] and according to the International Herald Tribune report – “The European Commission on Wednesday outlined a €200 billion wish list of measures for Europe to spend its way out of recession, and gave national capitals permission to temporarily break budget deficit ceilings …

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“that at any time a majority of members are councillors..”

UUP leader Reg Empey mentioned his party’s reservations over the Education Bill, and the way it appeared, on yesterday’s Stormont Live and today the Belfast Telegraph has more on the UUP opposition to the detail, but not the principle, of the legislation. Meanwhile, at the Assembly’s Education Committee, attempts by government officials to reassure voluntary grammars that, following the proposed transfer of employment of staff, the new body would not be “a big brother system” were somewhat undermined by Sinn …

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“scalding soup of charged particles..”

Fascinating, and musical, animation from the NewScientist channel of observations, by Jose Bonet using the Swedish 1-m Solar Telescope, of hurricane-sized whirlpools on the surface of Sol which confirms theories about “how material convects in the Sun’s roiling outer layers”. Pete Baker

Tory UUP reflections

The sole UUP MP Sylvia Hermon is taking time to reflect on the new pact (in the present circumstances this is a topic that can afford to wait). Meanwhile UU columnists are divided with Alex Kane a fan and Roy Garland displeased (although Chekov argues his displeasure is incoherent). Ignited wants a calmer approach all round with more focus, a better message and preferably with a bit more caution from the NI Conservatives. Lee Reynolds

And we’re off

Martina Purdy reviews the declared runners and riders for the European elections in June 2009 and provides some speculation on how Allister’s candidacy may affect the race. The DUP have yet to declare, Allister, de Brún and Nicholson go again, the SDLP have selected Alban Maginness and APNI say they will run if an agreed ‘unity candidate’ is not found. Given we seem to be in electoral mode already I have added some European Parliamentary statistics on our current MEPs …

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Who speaks for Alliance?

This morning Kieran McCarthy was on Nolan to complain about how useless the Executive is. He mentioned how they were doing nothing on home repossessions, so Nolan pushed him on what he would have them do. He said the Alliance would have the state pay for mortgages to prevent repossessions. Asked at least twice if this was Alliance policy, the answer was “yes”, despite being unable to say how much this would cost. At the end of the show, an …

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Nursing the Troubles

The September launch of Kate O’Hanlon’s autobiography passed me by but I’ve just learned about her from an interview in Radio 4 ‘s Midweek. A rare Catholic nurse in the Royal before the Troubles, she served most of her a time as a sister in A&E. The famous consultant William Rutherford once remarked that running casualty was simple: “You have to love everybody; you have to listen to everybody; and, when in doubt, you just do what Sister O’Hanlon tells …

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If you’re in Oxford today?

In case you missed my note last night, today I shall mostly be at Green Templeton College talking about “How the web is saving journalism and making it better”… I’ll post my presentation on Slugger tomorrow… Mick FealtyMick 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

testing

If this works on a Blackberry, I’ll be amazed. Belfast Gonzosluggerotoole.com

Billy Caldwell Neurological International Centre of Excellence to be Located in Omagh

Further to yesterdays post things are moving at the speed of light. International investors represented by GML Estates, Belfast, have announced through the Billy Caldwell Foundation www.billycaldwellfoundation.com that the building and funding has been secured for an International Neurological Centre of Excellence to be located in Omagh as part of the £350 million ‘Opportunity Omagh’ initiative. The Billy Caldwell Centre of Excellence will diagnose and treat more than epilepsy, through the use of the most advanced technology. See UTV News …

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Sterling in crisis – will it end in tears?

While some northerners see opportunity in the form of southern shoppers from sterling’s precipitous fall in recent months, others in Great Britain are less sanguine about the benefits accruing from the weakness of the British currency, not least because of Gordon Brown’s budget profligacy to try and encourage consumer spending in the UK as a whole. Willem Buiter, Professor of European Political Economy at the London School of Economics and Political Science highlights some of huge issues facing the British …

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“The new arrangements will see a clear separation of policy development from service delivery..”

I’m not sure how this is expected to work in practice in a centralised body.. nor if this was one of the objections mentioned earlier.. But according to the iol report – not yet announced elsewhere – there has, after all, been a development with the Education and Skills Authority. From the iol report [Northern Ireland Education Minister Caitriona Ruane said] “The original proposal was that the ESA would have between 8 and 12 members, with no positions reserved for …

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Did Stone draw inspiration from Slugger’s readers?

Michael Stone’s “It was Art” claim, rightly was thrown out of court. If it was an attempt to emulate those Leeds students, the use of viable devices gave it away as a decidedly non art event. It struck me as strangely familiar when it went big. Well, now I wonder if his defence team got the idea from our commenters on the day of the incident itself… Here’s Rory at 11.39am (Less than an hour after the incident): Never mind, …

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Slugger’s Daily Blogburst…

No blogburst tomorrow, since I’m in Oxford. And this being the second of the day will necessarily be a short one… Kicking off, Gerard, still sucking on that Red Pill, notes that all the Republic needs now is for the UK to join the Euro and that will make it retail wipe out, now the Irish southern shoppers have developed a taste for foreign northern bargains… Apparently we foreigners Nordies don’t like being messed around by our government… Though my …

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What kind of representative serves us best..?

With a once in a generation Speaker’s Conference being convened, Dan pitches five things that would improve representative democracy… Paulie suggests politicians who are genuinely local and don’t slavishly follow the party line and he nominates Dawn Purvis as a typical candidate… Who else would have the wit and courage to call for the legalisation of Prostitution in Northern Ireland… Check here for some reliable research on the matter… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers …

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