Brian Walker – Page 100 – Slugger O'Toole

Peter survives and pledges to try to deliver J&P by year end

Brian Walker on January 11, 2010, 11:00 pm

| Readers 2

I was no better a prophet than Mick, though I’m glad Peter bowed to the inevitable and asked for standards inquiries himself, rather than wait for a complaint to be made against him. So the DUP and Sinn Fein have looked into the abyss and stepped back from the brink. It feels like a remarkable turnround.The doomsday atmosphere seems to have lightened already. Had the party sacked Peter as ruthlessly as they dumped Iris, they would have looked panicky fools …

If there has to be a next time after this week…

Brian Walker on January 11, 2010, 6:16 am

| Readers 3

The gist of Paul Bew’s analysis in the Times will be familiar to Slugger readers. He rightly concludes: There is still majority support in both communities for the power-sharing institutions but in the complex crisis that is unfolding it is not immediately obvious how that reality can express itself If this Assembly implodes, two firm messages should become clear.First, there will be a next time, if this time we fail. The idea that some great constitutional movement is next in …

The drip feed isn’t over

Brian Walker on January 11, 2010, 1:44 am

| Readers 830

Suzanne Breen in the Tribune has more allegations about Iris’s private life. After Friday, although they kick the Robinsons when they could hardly be further cast down, I regret to say these claims although unsubstantiated are in the public interest. And with her reputation in tatters they are most unlikely to be challenged in court. David Trimble who is taking his revenge cold is surely right about the unforgiving nature of her fall. Meanwhile Sammy Wilson, the nearest the DUP …

Which collapse scenario do you prefer?

Brian Walker on January 10, 2010, 8:07 pm

| Readers 7

On Inside Politics, collapse scenarios loomed ever larger. Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly refused to answer Mark Devenport’s question posed twice – if Robinson resigns will McGuinness be renominated? SF’s Urgent Question to Robinson tomorrow is clear evidence of breakdown already. If FMDFM was functioning at any level, it would be dealt with between the two leaders privately and a joint statement would follow. Did you imagine for a second that would ever happen?. Kelly gave credibility to what I’m hearing, …

If not Armageddon, it looks like limbo

Brian Walker on January 9, 2010, 10:42 pm

| Readers 23

I’m hearing that Martin McGuinness will in effect pull the plug on powersharing next week by facing the DUP with an ultimatum they can’t accept on justice and policing. The uncompromising tone of Gerry Adams’s announcement of the postponment of their Friday ard comhairle due to bad weather seems only to have delayed the grim message. So Sinn Fein will give the DUP no quarter over the Robinson crisis and will rather seek to exploit it. That is the depth …

To save the Assembly, we’ve got to reform it – starting now

Brian Walker on January 9, 2010, 7:02 pm

| Readers 2

At the heart of the hurricane, people may be too excited to pay much attention to the wider political crisis lurking just round the corner. But people would be wrong. Collapse could be upon us as soon as next week, as Gerry Moriarity reminds us in the Irish Times: What all the political protagonists must also consider are the implications if Robinson walks away or is forced to leave office, and they are serious. If Robinson stands down, then there …

What’s the answer to Jim Allister’s point?

Brian Walker on January 9, 2010, 4:51 pm

| Readers 12

Mick quotes Jim Allister QC saying “Obtaining counsel’s opinion comes no where close to “independent investigation”, yet, strangely, no media correspondent seems to have challenged this audacious claim.” Well, Slugger did and laid out an alternative approach which could produce an interim result quite quickly. Whether that could be quick enough to settle the perfect storm now raging is a different question. Focusing on Peter Robinson’s direct involvement in the money issue, Eamonn’s interview underlines the question – why didn’t …

Mr Robinson’s QC is not good enough

Brian Walker on January 9, 2010, 1:17 am

| Readers 8

So the First Minister is defying his critics and demanding a speedy resolution of the crisis swirling around his head. In doing so, he is attempting to keep as much control as he can over events. But what he’s actually agreeing to do in response to the investigation is far from clear. Is he implying that he might resign or withdraw if a QC’s investigation he himself has asked for finds he broke the law or the parliamentary rules by …

Summing up the morning – waiting for Peter

Brian Walker on January 8, 2010, 7:34 pm

| Readers 2

By lunchtime, doubts from across the political spectrum that Peter Robinson could survive hadn’t hardened into clear calls for him to quit. Quite a lot depends on whether he can find a temporary platform to stand on this afternoon when the talks with his lawyers are over. While he insists he will contest “unsupported “ allegations in Spotlight, he would be well advised in his own interest to withdraw any threat to sue the BBC. Politicians who sue in such …

Are the British and Irish really ” two different civilisations?”

Brian Walker on January 8, 2010, 3:59 pm

| Readers 4

If you want a break from the Robinsons as I do – although keeping one ear on Nolan’s mawkishness in spite of myself – try this from that Slugger favourite John Waters in the Irish Times, who makes the provocative case for saying that future trends in Ireland “ can be picked up from Radio 4. ” That is, what happens first in Britain happens next In the Republic. Is this a local version of the old saying, when the …

Did Peter break any rules?

Brian Walker on January 8, 2010, 7:19 am

| Readers 7

From the BBC News report of the Spotlight Special The programme said that while he pressed his wife to return the money, he failed to tell the proper authorities about the transaction, despite being obliged to act in the public interest by the ministerial code. Questions arise whether Mr Robinson himself breached any rules ( his lawyers deny it ); whether his alleged failure to report his wife’s conduct was unethical, or excusable because he is said to have urged …

School selection ideas from England may offer a way out of deadlock

Brian Walker on January 7, 2010, 1:22 pm

| Readers 1

A renewed debate on school selection in England offers clues on how to proceed in Northern Ireland without the present transfer tests. The debate appeals to the Conservatives who have been forced to deny their instinct to restore grammar schools by the weight of public opinion against existing tests, never mind reviving the 11 plus. A Guardian piece makes the obvious point that other secondary schools should be improved without destroying the small number of remaining grammar schools. As criteria …

And now the fall-out

Brian Walker on January 7, 2010, 2:55 am

| Readers 11

How remarkable that the leaders of both Northern Ireland’s two main deeply divided parties have been engulfed in personal scandals they’ve been concealing for some time. It would hard to make up more dramatic evidence of how mores and lifestyles in Northern Ireland have changed even in the puritan parties. Adultery in the DUP! Confessions of dire perversion in Sinn Fein! To be fair – and what else can we be? – and to deploy natural human sympathy, the Adams …

Respect survives where it’s merited

Brian Walker on January 6, 2010, 5:43 am

| Readers 10

When I was a small boy fifty years ago, I went with my father to see the arrival of Cardinal D’Alton on a visitation to Derry. We were standing in Waterloo Place craning for a decent view when suddenly everything cleared. An open topped limousine entered the square with the cardinal inside, wearing a big round red hat and waving serenely at the faithful. In that second the crowd had seemed to vanish. In fact everybody had fallen to their …

British-Irish relations have come a long way in 30 years

Brian Walker on January 4, 2010, 7:09 pm

| Readers 14

Amid a wealth of interesting material, the British and Irish State papers for 1979 show for me how good both governments were for much of the time at diplomatically concealing the depths of their disagreements, even at the onset of the Thatcher period. This you remember, was when the UK suffered two blows that naturally coloured the new prime minister’s outlook: INLA’s murder of Airey Neave in the Commons precincts just before the election that brought her to power, and …

Northern Ireland news providers in ITV bids

Brian Walker on January 4, 2010, 4:29 pm

| Readers 10

It’s great to see Northern Ireland-based media enterprises bidding to become ITV regional news suppliers elsewhere in the Celtic area. UTV, with its NI core is already all-Ireland and into GB commercial radio, is bidding for a Wales franchise and Macmillan Media is part of a consortium bidding for south Scotland. Please forgive more personal reminiscence, but this gives me particular pleasure. Michael Macmillan was an old colleague, a distinguished former ITN correspondent and the original contract supplier of TV …

BBC’s New Year fight back – and Grade’s farewell

Brian Walker on January 4, 2010, 3:33 pm

| Readers 0

Not only political parties but the BBC has started a New Year campaign, according to the Guardian leak (link corrected). …the licence fee generates £7.2bn for the UK economy by supporting the independent production sector and other parts of the “creative economy” – more than twice the value of the licence fee. The figure rises to £7.6bn when the value of joint ventures, such as UKTV, owner of cable channels that run repeats of BBC programmes, is included. It will …

Chinook crash ” cover-up due to huge RAF embarassment”

Brian Walker on January 4, 2010, 2:51 pm

| Readers 31

A former defence secretary and other defence experts at Westminster normally relied on to support the MoD have returned to the fray to repeat their call for the verdict of gross negligence against the pilots of Chinook ZD576 to be overturned. I had a ringside seat to observe the first top level reaction to the crash in June 1994. That day the Prime Minister John Major had come into BBC Westminster to take part in an Election Call phone-in for …

Opening shots fired in election campaign

Brian Walker on January 3, 2010, 5:37 pm

| Readers 3

Skirmishing has begun in what we’re told is the start of the UK general election campaign. But odds things are happening. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson who might be expected to be a leading Cameron attack dog accuses the Conservative leader of spouting “ vapid nonsense” at his odd little campaign launch yesterday. Fraser’s campaign in favour of grim Tory realism over taxing and spending was boosted by Ken Clarke in the Telegraph, cautiously forecasting a need for tax increases. Cameron …

Melchett the frustrated pioneer

Brian Walker on January 2, 2010, 4:03 pm

| Readers 17

The release of the 1979 papers reveals the acknowledgement of defeat over the last major attempt to get rid of academic selection. The champion was a long haired youth in his twenties, Lord Melchett, a Labour peer and NI minister at the time. Now heading up the Soil association and a militant opponent of GM foods, the old Etonian boy wonder of the day pressed ahead with a comprehensive Green Paper which described the proposed new fate of every secondary …