Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) – Page 25 – Slugger O'Toole

Profiling “cheeky sod” Nigel Dodds: Radio 4’s take on “possibly Britain’s least well-known Westminster leader”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 22, 2015, 10:30 am

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Listening back to Radio 4’s recent Profile of Nigel Dodds is an opportunity both to find out more about the DUP’s deputy leader, and to discover what mainland Britain makes of Northern Ireland politics and politicians. It is clear that the BBC struggled to find material, and lengthy contributions from Diane Dodds and the News Letter’s Sam McBride filled in much of the background detail of the (mostly) loyal North Belfast unionist politician. And of course it was an excuse …

Green Party Conference: growth, contrition, ambition & creating a surge in NI … for the common good

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 21, 2015, 5:22 pm

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Membership of the Green Party in NI has doubled in the last six months and there was an increase in attendance at todays party conference in the centre of Belfast. In his conference speech, leader Steven Agnew welcomed new members and explained his priorities in the NI Assembly. For eight years there has been a campaign to see joined-up government in relation to children’s services. Too many failures have been made; too many opportunities wasted; and the lives of too …

Simon Hamilton: We should improve how government works: smaller but smarter, cheaper but better

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 19, 2015, 8:08 pm

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Speaking at NICVA’s Innovation – development, design and delivery conference to launch their Fostering Innovation Through Public Procurement report Simon Hamilton said that “Innovation in Public Services’ wasn’t an oxymoron. We should have vision and look to a future that is better. The DFP minister’s vision is that NI’s public services should be amongst the most innovative in the world. He said that “while the Chancellor may have slightly taken his foot off the austerity pedal in the budget yesterday” …

Belfast Festival at Queens is dead … long live Belfast Festival (without QUB funding)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 19, 2015, 5:50 pm

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Queen’s University, Belfast have today announced that they are ending their financial support for the Belfast Festival. The Ulster Bank Belfast Festival at Queens received 13% of its funding from the university, which also hosted many events on its premises over the last 52 years. While QUB blame the significant cuts to the public purse and their finances, the also point to the results of a recent strategic review of the festival “which endorsed the need for a redesigned and …

TUV fail Ofcom’s ‘major party’ test for automatic PEBs; are PEBs actually useful or necessary?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 16, 2015, 1:38 pm

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Ofcom have ruled that there is not sufficient evidence to designate TUV as a ‘major party’ in Northern Ireland and hence Jim Allister’s party are not automatically eligible to two Party Election Broadcasts on UTV in the run up to May’s General Election. Back in January I blogged about the consultation which asked whether UKIP, Green Party and TUV should be rebadged as ‘major parties’. Today’s statement from Ofcom [in detail] comes to the common sense conclusion: After carefully accessing …

David Ford: we are more committed to transforming Northern Ireland than you, Mr Robinson #ap2015

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 14, 2015, 11:29 pm

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This year’s Alliance Party conference was focussed on party members and supporters rather than reaching out to the public at large. Delegates were reminded about the core party values and principles. There were no visiting clerics or representatives of loyalist band forums. No one from the Syriza Greek government. Instead, Alliance heard from friends in the victims, integrated education, science, arts and environment sectors. While Peter Robinson was criticised for making DUP victory in East Belfast his number one priority, …

‘E’s a stiff! Bereft of life … Rethinking the Public University (Prof John Brewer) #ImagineBelfast15

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 13, 2015, 8:58 pm

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The public university is dead … a slow and lingering death, … and its corpse lies lifeless in every senior managers’ meeting, in every classroom and every tutorial venue … in every boarded up common room and every closed bookshop. QUB’s Prof John Brewer argued over lunchtime that neo-liberalisation and a marketisation of higher education – as much a Thatcher and Blair process as a ConDem coalition one – has destroyed universities. Surprisingly, those responsible for the patient’s care were …

Gender Quotas & Politics – candidate quotas can improve competency of candidates of both genders! #imaginebelfast15

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 12, 2015, 4:00 pm

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Prof Yvonne Galligan introduced the topic of Gender Quotas at an Imagine!2015 Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics session up at Queen’s University earlier today. Looking across national parliaments in Europe, women make up >40% in Finland, Sweden, Belgium and Spain. The UK manages a shade over 20%, and Ireland just 15%. See the slides under this post. Yvonne looked at a four-stage journey from citizen to representative and the obstacles that face someone being eligible -> aspiring -> nominated …

The Role of History & Historians in Dealing with the Past after the Stormont House Agreement #ImagineBelfast15

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 11, 2015, 4:48 pm

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Today’s lunchtime debate in the UU’s Belfast campus was the best attended of the week – so far – and also the most fractious. Grainne Kelly chaired a panel of Adrian Grant (historian), Cillian McGrattan (politics) and Susan McKay (journalist and writer) who discussed the Role of History and Historians in Dealing with the Past after the Stormont House Agreement. Adrian Grant started by looking at definitions of history (objective truth? or an artform based on narratives of the past?) …

Who Cares about Gender and Dealing with the Past? #ImagineBelfast15 (updated with audio)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 11, 2015, 12:41 am

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Carmel Roulston and (a rather hoarse) Fidelma Ashe presented a lunchtime seminar entitled Who Cases about Gender and Dealing with the Past. Part of the Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics, the lunchtime sessions at UU and QUB are intended to be accessible to the general public and not too academic. Carmel and Fidelma’s material looked at why gender has tended to be left out of many processes that are looking at the past, and contrasted them with the Haass/O’Sullivan …

Who cares about Voting and Identity? Nicholas Whyte explains the stats … #ImagineBelfast15 (updated with charts)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 9, 2015, 5:19 pm

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Nicholas Whyte spoke at a lunchtime event being run under the umbrella of Imagine!2015 The Belfast Festival of Ideas and Politics in the Ulster University’s Belfast campus: Who cares about Voting and Identity. You can listen back to his half hour presentation and follow along with the slides below. He broke down census results for national identity and looked at the most British / Irish / Northern Irish / Other wards and constituencies. He asks which parties are engaging with …

Martin McGuinness accuses DUP of “reneging on their commitments to protect the most vulnerable”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 9, 2015, 11:58 am

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The warning is there in Martin McGuinness’ speech to his party’s ard fheis on Friday evening. Of course, as George Mitchell famously pointed out, the most difficult phase of any agreement is the implementation. That is the phase we are now in but let me give you this commitment: The welfare protections we agreed are an absolute red line issue for SF. No matter how difficult the implementation process may get, we will not – under any circumstances – tolerate …

James Molyneaux (1920-2015)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 9, 2015, 10:30 am

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James Molyneaux (Baron Molyneaux of Killead) died this morning, aged 94. He led the Ulster Unionist Party from 1979 to 1995 and was a prominent member of the loyal orders. Opposed to the Good Friday Agreement and critical of David Trimble who succeeded him as leader of the UUP, he later endorsed DUP candidates (including Jeffrey Donaldson who inherited his safe Lagan Valley Westminster seat for the UUP before defecting to the DUP). Born in Killead, the village closest to …

Brian Kennaway: “[The Grand Master’s speech] achieved one purpose only: it made Gerry Adams sound good”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 8, 2015, 10:55 pm

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Brian Kennaway isn’t someone from whom the Orange Order will appreciate advice. On his blog he’s issued a response to Grand Master Edward Stephenson’s statement at Saturday’s Twaddell Avenue rally: … encourage Orange brethren and our supporters to demonstrate their displeasure at the current situation by holding peaceful and legal protests across Northern Ireland, at times and locations of their choosing, over the coming weeks. (Grand Master Edward Stephenson) The former member of the Parades Commission asks: Have the Grand …

#sfaf2015 Gerry Adams: “our challenge … to unite Orange & Green in equality and mutual respect”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 7, 2015, 9:38 pm

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Over the last few years, Sinn Féin have made a clear shift to a party that is putting its energy into growing in the south. The NI Assembly and Executive – stable or unstable – no longer requires too much word count from the Ard Fheis stage. Elected reps all got their chance to speak during the “live session” (a series of three-minute speeches that roll one after the other and are televised by RTE) or during the debate around …

#sfaf2015 Martin McGuinness, Rev Steve Stockman, Fr Martin Magill, Declan Kearney – Reconciliation, Ubuntu & grace

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 6, 2015, 8:52 pm

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Martin McGuinness took to the stage of Derry Millennium Forum on the opening night of Sinn Fein’s Ard Fheis. listen to ‘#sfaf2015 @m_mcguinness_sf addresses 2015 @sinnfeinireland Ard Fheis’ on audioBoom He said that “for almost two years the political institutions in the north stagnated” triggered in his opinion by Belfast City Council’s flag decision and unionism’s refusal to accept the decision of the Parades Commission in relation to Ardoyne. So-called republicans also remain intent on dragging us back to the …

Review: From Protest to Pragmatism: The Unionist Government and North-South Relations from 1959-72 (David McCann)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 28, 2015, 12:53 pm

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From Protest to Pragmatism charts the ups and downs in north-south relations as well cross-border cooperation as political capital ebbed and flowed in the Northern Ireland’s unionist government between 1959 and 1972. David McCann [Ed – name sounds familiar?] has worked his way through government archives in Belfast, Cork, Dublin and London, along with newspapers, Hansard, interviews and documentaries to piece together what at times feels like an all male soap opera set in Belfast and Dublin, with a long …

The Alternative Manifesto: what policies would you like to see included? #ImagineBelfast15

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 28, 2015, 12:14 pm

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In the run up to the general election we want to hear from people about what they would like to see changed. As political parties polish their election manifestos and get ready to bombard us with inducements to vote for their representatives, we think it’s an opportune time to think about what we would change if we were in charge. As part of the Imagine! Belfast Festival of Ideas & Politics, we would like to kick off a conversation on …

Briefing about NI Barriers to Accessing Abortion Services launched by Amnesty #MyBodyMyRights

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 26, 2015, 4:38 pm

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The law governing abortion in Northern Ireland is one of the most restrictive in Europe both in law and in practice … It also carries the harshest criminal penalty in abortion regulation in Europe – life imprisonment for the women undergoing the abortion and for anyone assisting her. A snippet from the executive summary of an Amnesty briefing report launched this morning that looks at Northern Ireland Barriers To Accessing Abortion Services. (Belfast Bar Man mentioned the launch in his …

Presbyterian Church stops short of endorsing but supports principle of “conscience” bill, calls for reasonable accommodation & debate

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 25, 2015, 10:00 pm

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Yesterday, Catholic Bishop of Down and Connor Noel Treanor was part of a delegation that met Paul Givan and others in the DUP to discuss the “Conscience Clause” Private Members Bill. Tonight the Presbyterian Church’s Council for Church in Society (the body within the denomination authorised to deliberate and speak on matters of public policy) has published their 22-point response to the consultation. The full text and accompanying statement is on the denomination’s website. The Council’s document is broadly in …