Brian Walker I salute Fair Deal on the last of his magisterial contributions. I marvel at his ability to bring so much insight to what seems to me the politics of the dead hand. “Politics in NI is a blood sport,” is how he sees it. Perhaps, but this blood sport resembles more a bag of struggling ferrets than the primordial passions of bullfighting. It’s long overdue for this blood sport to come under pressure to wrap up, like all the rest. …
A sum-up from me on the very interesting threads following the European election. 1. Breast beating about party performances is inevitable, but take heart. 2. STV goes a long way to ensure that a multi-party system will survive. 3. The Assembly is much more than a political chess board. The TUV phenonemon, the surge of violent republicanism and persistent sectarian attacks are reminders that the political settlement is a guarantor of peace and stability that cannot rest on its laurels. …
It’s now very clear that the effects of yesterday’s momentous ruling against Real IRA members stretch far beyond the precincts of the Belfast High Court. The words of Michael Gallagher, the dauntless campaigner whose son Aiden, 21, was one of the Omagh bomb victims, will ring down the years: ‘We have sent out a message to terrorists that from now on you don’t only have to worry about the authorities – the families of your victims will come after you”. …
I’ve watched the bitter rejoicing that has always accompanied hard line unionist victories for 40 years. And victory of sorts is what Jim Allister has achieved, a victory against expectations if not against worst fears, just as the young Ian Paisley almost toppled that most modest of reformers Terence O’Neill in February 1969. Peter Robinson would shrink from the comparison but that is how he has been cast. 1969 was the one and only election in 40 years when hopes …
Michael Gallagher for the families has just said: We have sent a message to terrorists that the families will come after you. And to government/s that if you won’t. we will” While there is no substitute for criminal convictions and long sentences, the result of the civil action was a small triumph for justice, We hope the four found responsible will stay in gaol for a very long time, one way or another. We hope too that the families now …
The fortunes of the London and Dublin governments continue on parallel lines until we get to the reckoning. Brian Cowen must thank his lucky stars he doesn’t have to go to the polls until 2012, unless the Greens who seem to have been tainted by their coalition partners, quit the government. The one consolation of the Euro poll is that it looks like Ireland will vote “yes” this time in the autumn referendum and so save the UK Tories from …
Peter Preston, former Guardian editor and life-time student of Spin, gapes “ open mouthed” and the antics of a Master. “Sometimes, open-mouthed, you see a supreme spin doctor at work and gasp at his brilliance. The more O’Leary effs and blinds and introduces teeth-grindingly improbable charges – say, having to pay £5 merely to check in for a flight or a £40 demand if you turn up a the airport without a pre-printed boarding pass – the more the travelling …
If you lot are waiting impatiently for the Euros, just imagine what it’s like for the increasingly suicidal Labour, tearing itself to pieces before our eyes in the torrent of Sunday morning political shows. Tony Blair’s old flatmate Charlie Falconer is the latest to join the chorus calling on Gordon to quit. Charlie I’m sure is perfectly sincere in making his case but he has a personal grudge against Gordon who denied him the full pension of the last old-style …
The Sunday Times is gunning for our multi-millionaire SoS Shaun Woodward for allegedly avoiding “a capital gains tax bill of up to £1.5m on one of his London homes, which he sold to Sting, the singer.. However, although questions were submitted to him by The Sunday Times last Wednesday afternoon, he failed to clarify whether he declared different “main” residences to the taxman and the Commons authorities in May 2003. The paper pursued him remorslessly up to early news deadline. …
Isn’t it depressing that the two main parties have this desperate need to top the poll and then read too much into it? Chris Donnelly on the differential positioning of the DUP and Sinn Fein is as insightful a commentary as I’ve read for some time. While I think Chris is too pessimistic in believing that the European results on a low poll spell doom for the Executive, it’s a fair question to ask: can the Assembly system survive the …
I’ve just heard Shaun Woodward saying on Radio 4’s Any Questions that he asked Gordon Brown “some weeks ago” to stay in Northern Ireland “ to complete the peace process” ( I assume he’s referring to the devolution of justice and policing). As I was having a bit of fun at his expense earlier, I thought it only fair to report this. I still think he’s pretty oily, though). Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, …
Caroline Flint’s “stiletto” tells us as much about her as Gordon Brown. For me, the self exposure at his Downing St news conference was far more important. In his scripted statement I thought he made a fair fist of setting out a future agenda but in the Q&As he was dreadful. Times sketch writer Anne Treneman picked up on the reflex lying over Alistair Darling: “I’m here to be totally candid, to accept my responsibility and to set out what …
It was a patchy day for the Grand Lodge of NI Secretaries of State. Can you believe it, in the list of cabinet rank quitters (7), they actually forgot about Paul Murphy. Can you believe that? Nice man, too nice maybe, Paul must win the award for most obscure cabinet minister ever. He was the comeback kid nob Paul Murphy?ody ever noticed both times. Very unlike his successor/predecessor. There they go, out the swing doors of the Welsh Office and …
It was a patchy day for the Grand Lodge of NI Secretaries of State. Can you believe it, in the list of cabinet rank quitters (7), they actually forgot about Paul Murphy? Can you believe that? Nice man, too nice maybe, Paul must win the award of most obscure cabinet minister ever. He was the comeback kid nobody ever noticed both times. Very unlike his successor/predecessor. There they go, out the swing doors of the Welsh Office and back again, …
What sense does it make for Labour to try to pluck a new Prime Minister out of this chaos? Whoever he might be, with a launch like this, he would make Gordon Brown at his worst look like Alexander the Great. A second Prime Minister born without an election would make an early election inevitable – at the worst possible time. It’s a choice between a no brainer or suicide. They might just balk at suicide. Declarations of loyalty have …
Monica McWilliams the Human Rights Commissioner delivers a riposte to David Adams’s scathing dismissal of the commission’s recommendations for a NI Human Rights Act. On the formidable main obstacles, she bites her lip as a public official who is no longer a party politician. David Cameron wants to incorporate any NI specific clauses in a new general UK Bill. Labour is cool on the scope of the Bill and is dragging its feet on a response. What happens next in …
Simply by existing , Sinn Fein on election day can rock the political balance in the Republic. The Indo’s sketch report calls the furore over a putative Fine Gael- Sinn Fein deal “ Enda’s banana skin.” Enda Kenny himself splutters denial of any pre-election pact, but what were his people thinking they were doing, speculating about a SF role in any would be coalition with the Greens? It seems a very long shot appeal for last transfers in the Euro …
If ever proof were needed that it’s usually politicians themselves and not the media who create political firestorms, you find it loud and clear in the events of the past 24 hours. The politicians obligingly act out key moments of the crisis for us; Hazel Blears sports her “rocking the boat” brooch for the cameras after resigning at a moment of maximum damage a couple of hours before PMQs, and Cameron duly tries to clean up. But this is mainly …
A new Northern Ireland Secretary could be one of the outcomes of the political turmoil, according to the Downing St vultures. Shaun Woodward and John Denham were both seen going into Downing Street earlier, suggesting they could be in for a promotion It takes me back to that stunning moment when Mandy quit a second time and John Reid rode to the rescue. It won’t be so easy this time. I still think there’s a comic side to the conventional …
It’s bound to be taken as another sign of Gordon Brown’s lack of political nous that the normally impeccable diplomatic machine got snagged over something as obvious and appropriate as the Queen’s presence at the D Day commemorations on Saturday. It should never have been on to allow Sarzoky to grandstand with Obama at Omaha Beach with only Gordon tagging along. How amazing that it took Obama to sort out an invitation for Charles in the end. To bend over …
