Brian Walker You can feel the waves of anxiety coming at you from the lively Tory house journal the Spectator, hit by the Indy’s ComRes poll that the Conservatives are only (only!) nine points clear – and with holes. And who says the Americans are indifferent to British politics? The Wall St Journal, no less, gives Cameron a solemn lesson. … if he wants to convince Britain that he deserves to be its Prime Minister with a proper parliamentary majority, Mr. Cameron …
The Irish Times’ Mary Fitzgerald makes a brave attempt in CIF to set the Strasbourg abortion case in a wider Irish context – paedophile scandals, recession and so on. Her point is this: Until very recently, Ireland’s progressive social change went hand in hand with economic liberalisation – and now that the resulting boom from the latter is over, reasoned political debate over the former seems paralysed Hmm.. maybe so… but I should have thought the Lisbon Treaty re-run and …
I’m not at all surprised that the SNP are threatening a legal challenge to the historic decision to have three-way leaders’ debates in the UK general election. In 1995, like most London-based BBC editors I was taken aback when, after an injunction the BBC pulled a Panorama interview with the PM John Major a few days before Scottish local elections. The contexts seemed so different that we didn’t suspect a clash but the ruling went against us. Nick Robinson, then …
Friends and foes alike of the monarchy (and there are plenty of both in Slugger I’m certain) will be keen to learn many more baroque details of the Palace’s never-ending claims for more public spending on crumbling palaces, thanks to a long running FOI campaign by the Indy. The Government have 35 days to comply with the new Information Commissioner’s ruling ordering disclosure at last, in the teeth of silent but fierce royal opposition for many years. As scores of …
Two Conservative iconoclasts offer pronouncements for the end of 2009, Max Hastings in the FT on Britain and the recession, and Nigel Lawson on Copenhagen, both Tories of different kinds. Both are too lugubrious to be of much use to a party expecting to take office in 2010. Ironically, they remind me of the great fin de regime anti-Tory slogan of 1964 : Thirteen wasted years”. Arch climate change critic Nigel Lawson is at his most supercilious in the Wall …
With all the magnificent perversity for which it’s renowned, the Roman Catholic Church has confirmed moves to make saints of two Popes, Pius X11 and the John Paul 11, both fabled for putting first their absolute defence of the Church as an institution. This is the very posture that incubated the world wide paedophile cover-up scandals, contributed to the world Aids crisis and led to the catastrophic failure (shared by Lutherans and others ), to challenge the rise of Hitler …
The fun stuff was the lunch with the FT. Not a word about a shift of strategy. Eventually, I make out the words on the wrapper and blurt: “Oh! A bagel!” “It’s got pesto,” says O’Leary. “It was either that or McDonald’s. I figured you for a bagel girl.” The staff get another pasting as he moves on to talk about management consultants (“should all be euthanised”) and MBAs (“bullshit”). “MBA students come out with, ‘The customer’s always right,? he …
Thank goodness for some old fashioned power brokering to dramatise the issues of Copenhagen – US-China deadlock, EU standing apart, Third World accusing the First world of planning a Holocaust to come. You have to make some allowances. Everyone’s very tired and emotional. The crucial omission? Without a strict timetable for verifiable cuts, the 20% goal for 2020 lacks backbone. The BBC accepts there was a climate deal of sorts; the Guardian proclaims failure, the Times, a poor fudge. (At …
So the Independent and its Sunday stable mate in London may go to a Russian oligarch and become a London freesheet. Changed times for what began as a glorious hacks’ co-operative. Roy Greenslade points out the new synergy, as it shares a building with the Evening Standard ( and even some hotdesks I hear). While it’s the end of a dream for the retired Sir Anthony, where does it leave his family’s faltering control of the parent Dublin group? It …
Through gritted teeth no doubt, Education Minister Caitriona Ruane recently sneaked out an unpublicised Assembly written answer disclosing the results of the unregulated secondary school transfer tests, area by area, school by school, (from page 33 of written answers for 11 December; selected details below the fold). Now if we adopt the standard of notionally reclassifying as a comprehensive, every grammar school whose latest 11plus intake falls below 50% A grade, we reach some interesting conclusions. 17 out of 56 …
As we know, Northern Ireland opinion surveys are almost as controversial as the opinions themselves, and the latest, on what to do about the Troubles legacy won’t be an exception. ALMOST TWO-THIRDS of the community in Northern Ireland believe that it must deal with the legacy of the conflict to allow it to move on as a society, writes Victims commissioner Patricia MacBride in an Irish Times article commenting on a Millward Brown Ulster opinion survey on the Troubles legacy …
Why are very important subjects like personal finance and climate change so mindnumbingly boring? For two reasons I suggest. We’re frightened of them and the waywardness of human nature robs us of easy answers. I defy you to tell me what the real story is coming out of Copenhagen, leaving aside the demos and the shuffling over the size of the conference table. I think it may be a political poker game between China straddling the First and Third Worlds, …
With deadlock and blocking being the dull keynotes at the macro level of the North-south institutions, political scientist Elaine Byrne’s view of practical cooperation in the Irish Times provides a cheering note. Even more worth noting was George Quigley’s grand overview of 10 years of the institutions and how to take them forward. Towards the end of his lecture he opts for an eventual Irish confederation, with the preservation of British citizenship for those who want it, but his constitutional …
The people of Northern Ireland, he suggested, are not as divided as the politicians. On this one, I feel like the guy at the back of the crowd whose shout isn’t heard. I’ve been saying this for years and hoping it’s true. The sentence comes from Liam Clarke’s reflective piece in the Newsletter, where he quotes the businessman/blogger,/ and now new SDLP politician Conall. The trouble with the quote is (a) it’s desperately hard to prove and (b) such evidence …
Not a bad prediction. “Biffo’s efforts to nudge along P&J will mainly be interesting I suspect, because of the body language afterwards. Will Marty and Peter stand together etc? “ And stand together they did after a fashion – at least no boats were burned by either party. They could hardly have avoided the joint appearance, as the Taoiseach was standing just out of shot, wisely avoiding playing piggy in the middle. Yet the contrast with the post-Massarene standing together …
Are the wheels coming off the Chilcot inquiry? The Lib Dems aren’t the only ones to accuse it of failing its first test with former JIC chief John Scarlett, he of the notorious 45 minute claim. I admit this badly knocked my own confidence in the panel. The gap between Blair lying and Blair self-deception is narrowing as the inquiry progresses. Now former DPP Ken Macdonald, a top lawyer whose very job was to know the exact weight of words, …
There’s a substantial agenda for today’s North-South ministerial council at Limavady. Biffo’s efforts to nudge along P&J will mainly be interesting I suspect, because of the body language afterwards. Will Marty and Peter stand together etc? Both leading parties have been rival champions for NAMA protection, Marty receiving “assurances “ that no “fire sale” will threaten northern stability and Sammy nominating advisory board members. Who ever said north-south was useless? Some relief must be felt that northern assets at risk …
The Sunday Business Post claims that 4.1% cut in Welfare will “push Irish youth abroad.” Where to? Unless it’s to look for scarce work. On welfare they’re still a lot better off than in UK including NI. Take two rough comparisons. They’re crude, they may not compare like with like and I offer them only in the hope that others will pitch in with valid and comprehensive comparisons and what the respective financial measures may mean for the whole island …
The Sunday Times The Conservatives have opened up a polling lead of 17 points, bringing an abrupt end to recent Labour hopes that the next election could result in a hung parliament. Only the Chancellor’s plan to impose taxes on bankers’ bonuses is backed by voters, with 66 per cent saying taxing high earners is fair. And Mr Cameron and George Osborne, the shadow Chancellor, have yet to convince voters that they have the right prescription to get Britain out …
With fastidious care but still with a provocative edge, Matthew Parris has called for a end to the extreme sentimentality in the public debate and news coverage over British army casualties in Afghanistan. He does so in a spirit of deep respect for the troops and their families. But he points that this is a volunteer army and that a young person’s decision to sign up for the Armed Forces has not invited a greater career risk of death or …
