Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) – Page 55 – Slugger O'Toole

50:50 is back … for arts festivals

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 24, 2011, 10:00 am

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Nelson McCausland speaking about unionist culture the night before the main November 2010 DUP conference

Should arts festivals (that receive public funding) display a balance across their programming of musical tastes and political opinion? Nelson McCausland is in the news again. It’s a question that’s raised once more as the BBC lead their bulletins with the results of an FOI request to DCAL that has revealed the local minister’s directions to the Belfast Festival. This morning’s BBC report explains: The email is part of an exchange between the director of the Belfast Festival at Queen’s, …

Remembering the Future

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 21, 2011, 11:23 pm

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Belfast City Councillors Ian Adamson and Tom Hartley

The Community Relations Council and Heritage Lottery Fund today jointly staged a conference in Belfast City Hall. Over 150 delegates spent the morning listening, discussing and thinking about Remembering the Future. There are a flood of political and social history anniversaries coming up in the next ten years or so: the Plantation of Ulster; signing of the Ulster Covenant; sinking of the Titanic; World War One, including the Battle of the Somme; Easter Rising; War of Independence; partition of Ireland; …

The (last) Irish Blog Awards (in Belfast)

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 19, 2011, 11:49 pm

| Readers 63

Tonight, the Irish Blog Awards travelled north to Belfast and the Europa Hotel. At the same time as Rev Jesse Jackson was addressing victims and survivors of the troubles up in the twelfth floor suite, bloggers filled the ground floor conference hall. Rick O’Shea guided the gathered crowd through the umpteen categories, handing out the glass trophies and polystyrene objects. Unfortunately, many of the category winners weren’t in the room to receive their awards. Cedar Lounge Revolution beat Slugger to …

The NI Green Party Lord who never was

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 18, 2011, 5:25 pm

| Readers 36

After last May’s Westminster election, political parties across the UK will be given a chance to make political appointments to the House of Lords. The Liberal Democrats, partners in the coalition, have been pushing for the allocations to be proportional to the share of the vote each party received across the UK. So the Green Party are gearing up to appointing six or more Lords. (Not that the Green Party unanimously supports the House of Lords, but some see merit …

That future meetings of the Assembly be held in the city of Armagh

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 15, 2011, 11:47 pm

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Colourful bookshelves in NI Assembly Library

One of the unexpected treats on tonight’s tour of Parliament Buildings was the stop-off in the Assembly Library. The “tweet-up” had been arranged by the Assembly’s Engagement team to encourage photographers, facebookers, tweeters, bloggers et al to come and explore the delights of Stormont – a legislative first in the UK or Ireland. The library has an enormous set of political biographies and Irish political history section. In an annex to the main library, a small room with colourful bookshelves …

The Detail goes live

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 14, 2011, 7:13 pm

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After a few months of recruiting, training and building their website, The Detail has gone live with a front page full of stories and columnists. Police and intelligence stories dominate the site at present, along with pieces about property, finance and child protection in sport. Serious stuff, with links to follow-up pages discussing aspects of each story at the bottom of the main articles. There’s also a Malachi O’Doherty photo story and an excellent comment piece by Newton Emerson with …

PPS not to prosecute Iris Robinson

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 11, 2011, 6:31 pm

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The DUP, and the Robinson family in particular, are slowly closing the book of horrors that opened up last January. Numerous investigations were kicked off after the (multi-award winning) Spotlight programme aired in January 2010. The Belfast Telegraph neatly summarises the programme’s findings: The BBC probe revealed how Mrs Robinson, who was then an MP, MLA and a member of Castlereagh Borough Council, obtained two £25,000 contributions from property businessmen. That money was then paid to Mr McCambley, then aged …

Positive/negative campaigning

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 9, 2011, 10:45 am

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Political parties have choices in the run up to elections. They have to balance the mix of different sets of messages: celebrating past successes; selling their vision; denigrating their opponents. While local parties often start off election season talking about running positive campaigns, it feels inevitable that they’ll all be provoked into name calling and angry exchanges with their nearest competitors as the weeks go by. And with 48 hours to go before polling, they may even resort to dirty …

Catching up with Brian Ervine

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 6, 2011, 8:45 am

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Brian Ervine emerged as the Progressive Unionist Party’s leader last year after Dawn Purvis quit in the aftermath of UVF members’ involvement in the murder of Bobby Moffett. I caught up with Brian in the PUP’s Newtownards Road office on Thursday afternoon. Serving in the shadow of his brother – and physically, sitting under a photo of David Ervine – he talked about his political beliefs, party policy, election hopes, and was happy to discuss the PUP’s relationship with the …

Do local student sabbatical election winners go on to pursue political life post college?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 3, 2011, 8:30 am

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With all this talk of Irish general elections and cricket victories, Slugger missed the chance to look at one of Belfast’s annual electoral events – the campaign leading up to the election of QUB Student Union sabbatical officers. The Gown has been following the process in detail with some great coverage in a series of blog posts looking at hustings, debates, interviews, turnout and the results. As often is the case, the campaign was brutal and emotional, and involved claims …

Ireland win by 3 wickets with 5 balls to spare

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 2, 2011, 5:07 pm

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Kevin O'Brien - Getty images screenshot from BBC Sport

Following on from Pete’s excited live blogging in his earlier post (which I’d missed) … I don’t do sport. But colleagues tell me that Ireland have beaten England in the Cricket World Cup and that doesn’t happen every day. If you leprechauns can’t get over the line now, I don’t know… My mum could win it from here; you’ve done the hard work. (Geoffery Boycott) Should I expect cricketing images to adorn gable walls in West and East Belfast in …

DUP announce Assembly candidates, including a new face in East Belfast and two double-jobbers

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 28, 2011, 10:15 am

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Political parties have been slowly announcing their council and Assembly candidates ahead of May’s elections. This morning, the DUP are announcing their full slate of Assembly candidates, which includes two MPs. There will be interest in the three man DUP line up for East Belfast. The party’s council candidates attracted attention a couple of weeks ago as Orangeman and Belfast County Grand Master Tom Haire displaced an irate David Rodway in the Victoria ward. The East Belfast Assembly candidates are: …

Hold the Front Page: “Three serious daily newspapers in Belfast”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 23, 2011, 8:45 am

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News Letter Belfast Telegraph Irish News

To finish off what O’Neill started on Sunday night with Tele takes a hiding and the discussion around the circulation graphs, former editor Steve Dyson dissected the morning editions of the three local papers over on Hold the Front Page. With his eyes set on the Wednesday 24 January morning editions of the News Letter, the Irish News and Belfast Telegraph:am, he comments on the “calm” headlines that accompanied one of that week’s main stories, the evacuation of 100 homes …

Newspaper sales: could the Irish News overtake the Belfast Telegraph in 2012/3?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 21, 2011, 6:00 pm

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NI newspaper sales 2004-2010 - Belfast Telegraph, Newsletter, Irish News (and Irish Times for comparison)

To add some longer term data to yesterday’s Tele takes a hiding post by O’Neill, the graph below outlines the performance (using the six monthly Audit Bureau of Circulation figures) of the Belfast Telegraph, Irish News and News Letter. I’ve added in the the Irish Times sales for comparison. The overall trend is one of decline. However, it is significantly more pronounced for the Belfast Telegraph. In fact if simple linear trend lines are added to the graph, sales of …

two pennies for your thoughts on the Irish election

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 20, 2011, 5:05 pm

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Simon McGarr has been publishing short, 1-3 minute long, podcasts each day during the Irish election campaign, summing up his thoughts on the issues and debates (of which he’s not that impressed). For anyone like me with an all too sparse working knowledge of what’s going on, it’s a good listen. And it has been the merit of being short and personal. You can find the podcasts on tuppenceworth.ie/blog, Audioboo or iTunes. Do let me know in the comments below …

Brian Wilson running as independent against Green candidate in Bangor West

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 18, 2011, 8:55 am

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A couple of weeks ago, the (Bangor) Spectator ran a story about UUP councillor Roberta Dunlop’s resignation from the party after not being reselected to stand for her Abbey Ward seat. Her husband and fellow North Down councillor Harry Dunlop had defected from the UUP to the DUP in January, But the other half of the short article is much more intriguing. Brian Wilson, the Green Party’s only MLA, is standing down from the Assembly in May, and new NI …

Looking back at RICS Hustings and talking to Elliott and Ritchie about water charges, budgets, programmes for government and culling departments

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 18, 2011, 12:42 am

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Panel at RICS economic hustings

The RICS Hustings event wasn’t a damp squid, but there were few surprises. Peter Weir (DUP) shone through as the most economically literate politician on the panel. He related the importance of the husting’s theme and the need for economic stability so that students wouldn’t “wander the world” like many of his peers had done to escape Northern Ireland. Margaret Ritchie (SDLP) slouched in her seat with her arms folded, and leaned in towards ringmaster Jim Fitzpatrick when she answered …

Catching up with Dawn Purvis

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 16, 2011, 11:39 pm

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Often it feel like Slugger has a love/hate relationship with Dawn Purvis. The annual judging process is quick to give her awards, while critical commenters are even faster to cast doubt on her political credibility, particularly over the timing of her departure from the PUP last year to become an independent MLA. If you ask me, deep down Dawn Purvis is a political anorak who could carve out a career as a party strategist or advisor. While conveniently fitting her …

Tom Elliott kicks off campaign with UUP ideas on how to reform Stormont by 2015

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 16, 2011, 1:30 pm

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Gathered for breakfast in The Mount conference centre in East Belfast, the local business representatives, UUP candidates and Young Unionists were nearly all decked out in dark pin-striped suits and dresses. Tom Elliott looked confident and relaxed as he arrived in the room and got up following Danny Kennedy’s introduction. It was clear that the UUP were launching their election campaign as Tom Elliott stood at the perspex podium and delivered an end of term report on the past four …

Swearing on a Bible to claim your vote on 25 February

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 14, 2011, 5:45 pm

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I swear by Almighty God that I am the same person as the person whose name appears as _____ on the register of Dáil electors now in force for the constituency of _____ and that I have not already voted at this election and that I have reached the age of eighteen years. What do you think you need to run a polling station? Tables, leaflets, ballot papers, pencils … oh, and if you’re a voter in the Irish general …