Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) – Page 27 – Slugger O'Toole

The People’s Referendum: Why Scotland Will Never Be the Same Again (Peter Geoghegan)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 31, 2014, 5:53 pm

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The last book I completed reading in 2014 also turned out to be my favourite of the year. Peter Geoghegan’s The People’s Referendum has been published recently and tells the story of his journey through Scotland and further afield getting under the skin of the independence campaign in the run up to September’s referendum. In Geoghegan’s own words: … the independence referendum changed not just Scottish politics but the nation’s people, its sense of itself and its future. This is …

7 NI political hot potatoes for early 2015

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 31, 2014, 9:05 am

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1. Expect Mitchel McLaughlin to be finally elected as Speaker of the NI Assembly. If the Welfare Reform Bill passes its Consideration Stage by the end of February (as the financial package requires), will the DUP withdraw their objection and allow Sinn Féin’s Mitchel McLaughlin to be elected as Speaker? They’ll surely not wait until the Bill receives Royal Assent? Mitchel’s elevation will create a vacancy for a Deputy Speaker. Who will the DUP nominate from within their ranks? Realistically …

Stormont House Agreement (reduced to 750 words, then further digested to 350 and 140 words) #StormontTalks

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 23, 2014, 4:15 pm

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For those who don’t want to read the full document here’s an easy to digest 750-word summary!. (At the bottom you’ll find an even more concise 350 word digest, along with downloadable versions to re-use.) Final balanced budget to be agreed in January 2015. Legislation before Assembly in January 2015 to push through Welfare changes; no new money for ‘flexibilities and top-ups’ added to address local Welfare need. The £114m welfare reform deduction to be proportionately reduced if implementation of …

Stormont House Agreement (in full) #StormontTalks

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 23, 2014, 3:09 pm

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The NIO have published the text of the Stormont House Agreement, along with the financial annex. (I’ve also summarised the key bodies, dates and funds down to 750 words [and then just 350 words] in a separate post.) STORMONT HOUSE AGREEMENT Finance and Welfare  The participants agree: 1. Early measures are needed to address the longer term structural financial difficulties in the Northern Ireland budget. 2. In particular there is a need for measures to improve the efficiency of the …

“We, Too, Sing Belfast” … perhaps subtitled “We, Too, Snap @NewBelfast!”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 18, 2014, 6:07 pm

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364 days, an estimated 2,000 engagements, thousands of handshakes, around 25,000 tweets, and goodness knows how many selfies … that was a year in the life of Máirtín Ó Muilleoir as Lord Mayor of Belfast. I’m sure many people rolled their eyes or tutted when they heard that the Lord Mayor had agreed to allow a professional photographer to follow him around. From August 2013 through to June 2014, Donal McCann captured images wherever Máirtín Ó Muilleoir went, including travelling …

CitizenFour – humanising the whistleblower Edward Snowden while letting his secrets speak for themselves #nihrf

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 14, 2014, 7:40 pm

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When reaching out to journalists prior to leaving the NSA along with gigabytes of secret documentation, Edward Snowden signed off his emails as ‘CitizenFour’. It’s also the name chosen by Laura Poitras for the third film in her post-9/11 surveillance trilogy. We are building the greatest weapon for oppression in the history of man, yet [NSA] directors exempt themselves from accountability. NSA director Keith Alexander lied to congress, which I can prove. Poitras and Glenn Greenwald travelled out to Hong …

Prof Noel Sharkey on Autonomous Robots: “we don’t want to sleepwalk into further technological disasters” #NIHRF

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 9, 2014, 10:53 pm

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Northern Ireland-born Prof Noel Sharkey from University of Sheffield’s Centre for Robotics addressed a crowd of forty who had managed to battle through the disrupted Belfast traffic to St Mary’s University College this evening. (Older readers may remember him from BBC Two’s Robot Wars!) As part of the NI Human Rights Festival, he delivered a talk on From War to Surveillance: Human Rights and Autonomous Weapons Sharkey began by explaining the scale and scope of military drones which he described …

Cllr Johnny McCarthy elected new NI21 Deputy Leader + short interview with Basil

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 6, 2014, 5:55 pm

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Shortly after this afternoon’s special meeting – or AGM – of NI21 finished, the party’s leader Basil McCrea MLA, chair Olive Buckley and newly-elected deputy leader shadow Councillor Johnny McCarthy agreed to a short interview. It was a joint interview with Adam Kula from the News Letter, so you’ll hear his voice at times. [audio|video] listen to ‘NI21 chair Olive Buckley @Olive1309, deputy leader @paralisamour & leader @BasilMcCrea after AGM’ on audioBoom This afternoon’s meeting of NI21 members was characterised …

Confusion whether NI21 meeting later today will include a leadership election

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 6, 2014, 12:21 am

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NI21 have been out of the headlines in the six months or so. But this afternoon’s meeting of members will be the first opportunity they’ve had to gather in the one place and talk as a party since the events of May 2014. Why hold an AGM now? With only 26 days to go before the beginning of 2015, NI21 had to hold an Annual Conference (or AGM) given the current constitution’s stipulation that “there shall be at least one …

NI Human Rights Festival (8-13 Dec): drones, lectures, libel and Snowdon #NIHRF

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 5, 2014, 11:26 am

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Some highlights from the programme of Northern Ireland’s third Human Rights Festival which is running next week from 8th to 13th December. Tuesday 9 December From War to Surveillance: Human Rights and Drones // 7-9pm // St Mary’s University College // Free // Professor Noel Sharkey (University of Sheffield) specialises in robotics and the ethics of military robotics. In his lecture, he’ll discuss what human rights commitments exist under conditions of war and conflict and the use of new technologies …

The PSNI Historic Enquiries Team is dead; Long live the Legacy Investigations Branch

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 4, 2014, 5:56 pm

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There was a clue in the Chief Constable’s speech this morning to the Dignity and Rights conference. Addressing the NI Policing Board this afternoon, George Hamilton outlined how he planned to address his responsibilities for reviewing legacy cases. LEGACY REVIEWS AND INVESTIGATIONS In my October Report, I outlined the effective closure of HET as a result of the end of our temporary workers contract. As Chief Constable, I have a number of statutory responsibilities regarding the past. These include the …

Chief Constable at #DignityAndRights conference: Delay increases hurt & erodes trust in PSNI’s ability to deal with past

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 4, 2014, 4:21 pm

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What is Northern Ireland’s vision for progressing and protecting human rights in Northern Ireland in the years ahead? How do the principles of participation, accountability, transparency, dignity and equality underpin human rights? Dignity and Rights: A framework for the future is a two day conference running in the Stormont Hotel in East Belfast, jointly hosted by a variety of organisations who have worked on human rights and equality issues in Northern Ireland for many years: Age NI, CAJ, Children’s Law …

Platform for Change (4¾), requiescat in pace

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 3, 2014, 5:10 pm

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Platform for Change launched in February 2010 to push “a positive political agenda which does not endlessly replay arguments linked to Northern Ireland’s ‘troubles’”. It wanted politics and politicians to serve the entire community and not to stymie progress and development. … the politics of recent years has too often looked backwards rather than forwards, inwards rather than outwards to the wider world. This makes no sense to a new generation of voters. In a blog post reflecting on the …

A re-energised John McCallister on expenses, his Assembly and Executive Reform Bill, and the role of independents

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 1, 2014, 9:00 am

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John McCallister may be ex-UUP and ex-NI21, but he’s not planning to be ex-politics. I spoke to the South Down independent unionist late last week. He’s rebuilding his profile and perhaps also his reputation after been seen as the person who pulled the plug on NI21 a day or two before the May 2014 elections. On top of “a fairly hefty workload of constituency work” he’s ploughing effort into a Private Members Bill to address Assembly and Executive Reform. After …

Heenan-Anderson Commission launches with appeal for ideas to tackle economic marginalisation & deprivation

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 26, 2014, 4:39 pm

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Shadow Secretary of State Ivan Lewis launched his Heenan-Anderson Commission at lunchtime. The co-chairs – academic Deirdre Heenan and businessman Colin Anderson – were announced nine weeks ago and together an expert panel will examine the reasons for economic marginalisation and deprivation in Northern Ireland and provide recommendations to address the long-standing issues and improve opportunities for those who “currently have no stake in the economy and are at the margins of their communities”. With expectations being actively managed downwards …

Round-up of press reaction to DUP conference #dup14

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 24, 2014, 12:58 pm

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So what did the Monday papers think of the DUP’s weekend conference in La Mon? In an Irish Times opinion piece under the headline of “DUP leader’s subtle message of co-operation to end gridlock” Gerry Moriarty pulled out Peter Robinson’s statement – buried in his speech – about the need for the DUP and Sinn Fein to do business together. There is still a bitter rump in the party that hates hearing that line but Robinson realised that, in the …

Noisy DUP conference focuses on election and a one-sided understanding of respect and tolerance #dup14

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 22, 2014, 9:21 pm

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The DUP were in election mode at their annual conference this year. Gone was any outreach to soft unionist voters. Faced with a first-past-the-post election in May 2015, the DUP reverted to core values for core voters. Attendance in the main hall of La Mon Hotel for Peter Robinson’s address was a little down on the previous couple of years: the seats were all taken but there were fewer people standing at the back. New members I’d noticed a few …

Northern Ireland Independent Network seeking support for an independent representatives’ umbrella group

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 20, 2014, 10:51 pm

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sorting Belfast West assembly votes - May 2011

One of the interventions people frequently call for in Northern Ireland politics is the creation of new parties. It came up again last night as one of the first questions at Platform for Change’s event: “Why can’t the [middle ground] politicians sitting around the table unite and form a new party?” I’m not so convinced that we’re ready for new parties. Even before NI21 launched and fell apart, I’ve longed for a surge of independents to flood the local government …

Platform for Change panel of politicians fails to inspire about how to overcome political inertia

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 20, 2014, 9:00 am

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Platform for Change’s latest – and perhaps last – panel event was hosted last night by Mark Carruthers in the Crescent Arts Centre. Around 40 people attended the session with its bizarrely worded title: Political Inertia to a Flourishing Society – How? The six panellists from centre-ground parties made four minute opening statements before the discussion was opened to the floor. Alasdair McDonnell (SDLP leader, MP & MLA) had come straight to the venue from the airport. He said there …

Local press reflect on SDLP conference, support for McDonnell, abortion & other NI leaders

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 17, 2014, 9:55 pm

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The Belfast Telegraph published the results of their straw poll survey of 50 delegates at the SDLP party conference on Saturday. When walking through the exhibition space outside the main hall I declined the opportunity offered to answer the interviewer’s questions. 32% of surveyed delegates did not want Alasdair McDonnell to lead the SDLP into the 2016 Assembly election. And only 36% positively did want him to, leaving 32% undecided (or unwilling to express an opinion). From the mood of …