Brian Walker – Page 105 – Slugger O'Toole

Real parental choice could replace academic selection

Brian Walker on October 7, 2009, 6:22 pm | Readers 1

Anybody in NI seriously interested in improving schools’ performance at the bottom end, should pay attention to the reforms for England, heralded by the Conservative education spokesman Michael Gove. First thing to note is that his ideas for a big expansion of self-governing academies and technical colleges share a good deal of common ground with Labour. So ignore the party heat over this; the main English parties are not too far apart. And secondly, note well that Gove spurns any …

Will Tory plan for fewer MPs affect NI?

Brian Walker on October 7, 2009, 3:57 pm | Readers 3

At a stroke, the Conservatives may have “solved” the political equivalent of Fermat’s last theorem, the West Lothian Question. That’s the conundrum about what to do to remove the anomaly of Scottish, Welsh and Northern Ireland MPs’ right to vote on purely English (or English and Welsh) matters while English MPs have no say over matters devolved to Holyrood, Stormont and in a some areas, Cardiff Bay. The party must hope they’ve lanced a boil which was incubating an “England …

The cuts are coming – and Stormont’s response?

Brian Walker on October 6, 2009, 2:35 pm | Readers 0

So the battle of the cuts has begun. What will be the ailing local regime’s response to Alistair Darling’s freeze on senior civil service pay? While the freeze presumably applies to the NIO, what will be the impact on the separate NICS, for whom you’ll already have to pay an extra £100m next year because of the little matter of the staggering failure to apply equal pay rules?. I expect Stormont will be caught in the headlights. But welfare and …

Back the the future yet again?

Brian Walker on October 5, 2009, 2:50 pm | Readers 2

So fundamentalism is rearing its head on either side of the water, on the twin neuralgic themes of justice and policing at Stormont and UK membership of the EU at the Conservative conference in Manchester. Malachi (in a welcome return to the Bel Tel) projects the speculation all the way to a snap Assembly election . I leave detailed assessment to others closer to the action, but I can’t help feeling all we’re getting is some pretty rough sparring bouts, …

Cowen backs Blair for EU Council President

Brian Walker on October 5, 2009, 12:00 am | Readers 1

This is a specially scathing comment of referendum victor Brian Cowen’s declaration of support on Sky News for Tony Blair as first (semi) permanent President of the EU Council when the Treaty is finally ratified. Do people really think it proves Cowen is a British lap-dog? And that the Taoiseach’s praise the former PM’s achievements in the peace process is old hat now? Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; …

Standard’s cat is thrown among the media pigeons

Brian Walker on October 2, 2009, 10:47 pm | Readers 1

In the fluctuating fortunes of the MSM, this one is a real biggy. The London Evening Standard is going freesheet. Now owned by a Russian mogul who’s given it three years, the metro afternoon paper with national pretensions is dropping its 50p cover price and going for free. The shock has registered internationally where the Standard’s fortunes will be watched keenly. Yet the shift is not quite as big as the headline suggests. About half its 250,000 and falling circulation …

Newt on the continuing public sector bonanza

Brian Walker on October 2, 2009, 3:31 pm | Readers 9

Just to keep the chain going, I pass on via an email from Jeff Dudgeon Newton Emerson’s latest in the Irish News on the profligacy of public sector recruitment in the light of the tsunami that ‘s about to hit them. ( Irish News subs reqd. Three days after publication, I hope Noel Doran won’t object). “The front pages of the newspapers are filled with warnings of shortfalls, cutbacks and rate rises. Meanwhile, in the job pages, it is non-business …

On the Treaty, the Irish should decide it for Cameron

Brian Walker on October 1, 2009, 5:49 pm | Readers 2

Bill Emmott, former editor of the Economist makes the best case for the Tories to abandon their qualified pledge to hold a UK referendum on the Lisbon Treaty. The real case for voting Yes tomorrow comes from Dan O’Brien below. These two pieces are about authentic Big Picture politics neither Ireland nor the UK can afford to ignore, however poorly the Treaty is regarded. There is a bonus point for the Irish in shaping a big part of the course …

Lawyers’ body defies scepticism over Eames Bradley

Brian Walker on October 1, 2009, 4:10 pm | Readers 2

As the signs grow that a dying Labour government will gift Eames- Bradley to the Tories and the fundamentally divided local parties, the lawyerly independent group Committee for the Administration of Justice has come out with a bold “rights based “ approach to dealing with the past. The committee clearly fears that Labour in the form of the oleaginous Shaun Woodward ( with the very deepest respect”) will continue to push the soft options of story telling and clearing up …

Time to give the civil service a bolder hand

Brian Walker on September 30, 2009, 4:07 pm | Readers 9

At this distance in London, I’m getting mixed messages about the future of the Executive. On the one hand, I sit up and take notice when as seasoned a commentator as Ed Curran fears it may be sinking. On the other, when even Sammy Wilson declares the devolution of policing and justice to be a DUP objective , I’m not exactly comforted – there are plenty of gets-outs in that – but I chalk up a modest positive. The big …

Don’t hold your breath waiting for economic reform

Brian Walker on September 30, 2009, 3:57 am | Readers 1

So is there any prospect of the Executive actually taking action on the recommendations of Richard Barnett’s review of economic policy? You would think they ought to manage at least to create a single department of the Economy as this appears to involve only a realignment of responsibilities and not – horrors! -the disappearance of any actual department. Barnett diplomatically makes the familiar case against the risk averse strategy of Invest NI that should have been replaced years ago when …

Raw deal on Five imposed on NI viewers

Brian Walker on September 29, 2009, 1:51 pm | Readers 0

Make whatever sense you can of this rigmarole about receiving that poor relation of a terrestrial TV channel, Five . If you have Freeview boxes that aren’t specified here, can you continue to get ITV3 and 4 if you don’t bother to retune? It’s a lousy deal anyway. It means you lose the best sports coverage in the world – the Tour de France on IT4! And what about those re-runs of Morse and Cracker? Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and …

Armagh a likely venue for Pope’s state visit to UK

Brian Walker on September 24, 2009, 3:24 pm | Readers 3

Having just taken part in a BBC NI film When the Pope Came to Ireland 30 years ago, I’ve been thinking that a visit from Pope Benedict next year could hardly be more different. The film vividly recorded the contrast between yesterday’s faith and hope in grim days and today’s disillusion and fragmentation in otherwise better times. The expectation that a Pope will visit Armagh at last will no doubt be welcome. JP2’s plans were finally dashed by the horrors …

BBC judicious move

Brian Walker on September 9, 2009, 8:21 pm | Readers 1

“Around half of those asked would prefer the licence fee to be lowered by £5.50, compared to just six per cent who wanted additional money to be spent on regional news on other channels.” So concedes the BBC chairman, in the opening move to do business with a Conservative government. The BBC licence fee is £142. Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; …

Brown vetoed IRA bomb victims’ compensation bid – Sunday Times

Brian Walker on September 6, 2009, 1:59 am | Readers 7

Jeffrey Donaldson will surely have a good deal to say about the Sunday Times’ latest claims, that Foreign Office minister Bill Rammell wrote to him as long ago as January, implying that Gordon Brown forestalled compensation for IRA bomb victims because of oil interests and Libya’s new found cooperation in the “war” against terror. That at any rate is the interpretation the Sunday Times puts on the letter but if it’s right, why hasn’t Donaldson spoken out long ago?. However, …

Just a small gloat

Brian Walker on September 5, 2009, 9:00 pm | Readers 1

A two fingered salute to James Murdoch then. An overwhelming majority, 77%, think the BBC is an institution people should be proud of – up from 68% in an equivalent ICM poll carried out five years ago. As Guardian bright boy columnist Jonathan Freedland comments: Most, 63%, also think it provides good value for money – up from 59% in 2004. It’s surely central to the BBC’s raison d’etre that it will always be more reliable in providing truthful news …

Bradley’s latest pitch for nationalist unity puzzles me

Brian Walker on September 5, 2009, 8:33 pm | Readers 3

It’s apparently straight talk like Denis Bradley’s in today’s Irish News article,” Neither SDLP nor Sinn Fein has credible plan for unity” that intrigues me more than a hundred boilerplate party speeches. His conclusion is in a way unexceptional: “ Now that the IRA has gone, they might even consider working up a joint strategy for a new and better Ireland – and that might give all their supporters a bit of hope.” But what prompted the piece, the second …

Salmond angles for referendum on Scottish independence next year

Brian Walker on September 3, 2009, 5:11 pm | Readers 6

Crafty Alex Salmond has gone back to flirting with a multi option approach to a Scottish referendum next year. To try to stave off defeat in Holyrood where the combined opposition comprise a unionist majority, Salmond is prepared to include the Calman report’s recommendation for more powers for the Scottish Parliament, as well as the minority SNP government’s own bid for support to open negotiations for independence with Westminster. As the BBC’s Scotland political Editor Brian Taylor says: “ This …

Leaders’ debate latest- Sky tries to bounce Brown and scoop the BBC

Brian Walker on September 2, 2009, 6:07 pm | Readers 1

Dramatic and hilarious developments about a leaders’ debate in the forthcoming UK general election. Sky News have broken ranks with other broadcasters to “secure a leaders debate,” their redoubtable Political Editor Adam Boulton has just told Radio 4’s Media Show. “David Cameron and Nick Clegg have agreed and there will be a podium for Gordon Brown if he chooses to occupy it.” This is a clear high stakes gamble to bounce Gordon Brown. I’d give evens that it’ll work.Would the …

Apart from not liking Sinn Fein, the SDLP lacks a clear message

Brian Walker on September 2, 2009, 3:52 pm | Readers 6

The Irish News today hosts a blast from the SDLPs’ Alasdair McDonnell against Sinn Fein, adopting a line of attack familiar in Slugger. Sinn Fein has willingly thrown itself into a squalid axis of self preservation that has pushed the north to the brink of a virtual dictatorship – a counteractive dual dictatorship, which renders each side paralysed and fails to pay even the most cursory lip service to the framework of democracy. McDonnell’s critique may be all very well …