Brian Walker Labour pessimists are starting to contemplate the wreckage of the Labour party they fear will be their lot after the general election, we’re told. Ben Brogan, (restored to the Torygraph after a sojourn at the Mail and once my next desk neighbour in the lobby’s Burma Road offices), is no friend to Labour, and has picked up Labour displacement activity he likens to “ moving the chairs on the Titanic”. The left –leaning think tank Demos had published a paper, …
I see The Irish Times has at last discovered the academic selection row and has run a long, mainly factual and descriptive piece by Dan Keenan. (Incidentally, its about time the much vaunted newspaper of record for the whole island upped its game in reporting and commenting on NI social and economic issues – but that’s another post). What is truly amazing about the academic selection crisis is that civil society ( that is, “ordinary citizens”) remains largely mum about …
A cut in the number of Irish home brands will hardly boost jobs in the Republic. Will it stem the flood of shoppers north? Will a 20% cut in Tesco Ireland prices produce a net gain to the Irish economy or to Tesco? Are we about to see the end of the trek north, as described by the Tele? On Saturday three of the Dublin to Belfast morning trains were sold out, many seats taken by shoppers who can pre-book …
My view that the next big crunch moment for Gordon Brown will come if the BNP performs well on June 4 is shared by super psephologist John Curtice. The real threat to Brown therefore could come from the limited number of English council elections being held on the day, rather than the elections to the European Parliament. As Curtice says about the Euro poll in the Indy: Even the most recent opinion polls still suggest the party stands at 27 …
When a government is in deep trouble, everything is up for grabs, from lynching the leader to electoral reform. In the Republic, Irish Times Political editor Stephen Collins recently used his bully pulpit to call for a wholesale reform of the political system which has bred cronyism and one party rule for most of the State’s existence. The air of unreality that still pervades Leinster House in the face of the biggest crisis to face the country since the second …
On the thirtieth anniversary of Margaret Thatcher coming to power, the Torygraph is running a whole section today canonising the Prime Minister who was ruthlessly toppled by a spectacular cabinet and backbench revolt. Without a hint of irony, the Telegraph is also salivating over Gordon Brown’s similar troubles. In the cabinet ranks, serious damage limitation is the name of the game to try to forestall freefall. This time, with four weeks to go to the Euro-poll and a year to …
Just to throw in my own penn’orth after Belfast Gonzo’s and add Suzanne Breen’s own testimony now that it’s available on line, how interesting that somebody in the PSNI – the Chief ultimately I guess – has thought it might be clever to take a punt at Suzanne under the Terrorism Act to proclaim they mean business in bearing down on the Real and Continuity IRA. This is downright silly, pointlessly oppressive, self-defeating and dreadful PR. The police cannot fail …
After “ A Cold Home for Unionists,” we now have “Nationalists feeling lonely and unwanted.” Denis Bradley’s curious and gloomy little analysis in the Irish News of the unease billowing through NI politics is the most original I’ve seen in a long time, but is it right? Do unexpressed fears lie behind it? Are bad boys in the Brandywell and Creggan getting to him, perhaps? In a sense, his analysis complements Jim Fitzpatrick’s comments below, as noted by Pete. All …
Although I know I’m departing from blogosphere conventions, I’m getting fed up with the gadarene rush to proclaim the end of the world, every time politicians do something stupid. Take two former finance ministers, both shoo-ins as party leaders after a decade of rule by dominant predecessors, both now slated for incompetence on political grounds and in their area of expertise, both facing meltdown, we’re told. You can take your pick from a tsunami of polemic. But hold on a …
The elections for the European Parliament in June will inevitably be regarded a referendum on the performance of governments coping with recession. This is a pity, and will create great confusion over public attitudes on the future of the Europe. Even in the Republic where the EU has a much bigger profile than in the UK and where issues have traditionally been debated on merit, the Euro-vote will be cast as a referendum on the beleaguered government. But the Euro-dimension …
The picture looks ominous for Gordon Brown. The two opposition leaders together flanking the victorious Joanna- the shape of politics to come, perhaps? I still think Gordon Brown has a sporting chance of election victory if the turndown turns up quicker than the jeremiahs think, but the odds are lengthening – longer even than 66 to 1 perhaps, as security minister Lord West insisted he didn’t wager. But a very different book may be about to open on the opposite …
OK, Slugger is about NI politics and culture, I’m from there and this is culture and..damn! the Times has stiffened my resolve and made me stretch a point – (sorry, just can’t help the doubles entendres ) . As the piece says: “ Keeley Hawes’ Eighties detective in Ashes to Ashes is so straightforwardly fabulous that I defy anyone to resist her” Ashes to Ashes, BBC1. Mondays at 9 p.m. You can learn more about lovely Keely right he-eere! And …
Northern Ireland will need three times the number of highly skilled than low- or un-skilled new workers over the next ten years than it did in the last “golden era, ” but the total number of new workers required is unlikely to match 2008 levels until 2017, says a stark report by Oxford Economics for the Department of Employment and Learning. The report was posted by the lobby form Strategem on the NI Crunchtalk website. The current economic environment could …
Have English victims of Islamist terrorism received a better service than victims of all violence in Northern Ireland? The acquittal of friends of the 7/7 bombers casts deep doubt on the competence of the police and security services to deliver. There are echoes of Omagh, with suggestions that a security service withheld or overlooked crucial evidence, of demands for a public inquiry that will never be granted and a huge multi-million pound cost. Above all the cravings of victims for …
Does anyone remember the brilliant Irish Times column ( expensive digital archive sub required ) and book Nell McCafferty wrote in the 1970s, In the Eyes of the Law? Each week she gave a deceptively simple account of how very ordinary people in trouble often had their difficult lives messed around even worse by the majesty of Dublin’s lower courts where the interests of the system were usually and unthinkingly preferred to the those of the hapless citizen. That’s how …
Today, an Equalities Bill is published by Harriet Harman the Minister for Women that among many other things requires all firms employing 250 workers or more to publish their hourly rates of pay. This is to put pressure on firms to close the 20% pay gap between men and women that still exists in the UK, 40 years after Barbara Castle’s Equal Pay Act. For GB, equality issues are still mainly a Westminster matter. The Scottish government has its own …
George Best- his Mother’s Son (BBC2 last night) managed the considerable feat of failing to capture a single hint of the man who said “”I spent 90% of my money on women and drink. The rest I wasted.” Sure enough, this George was a pretty boy but one that would have blown over in a puff of wind. The film spurned the easy option of the legend of Icarus from East Belfast who flew too close to the sun. It …
Last Thursday – St George’s Day, in case you hadn’t noticed – Henry V111’s latest historian David Starkey scorned the idea of making April 23 a proper national holiday on the BBC’s Question Time and added: “If we decide to go down this route of having an English national day, that means we become a feeble little country, just like the Scots and the Welsh and the Irish. Welsh and Scottish MPs were among those who duly rose to the …
At a dinner tonight, the First Minister took on the sceptics who doubt that reform of the political institutions would/ would/ might/ be among the efficiencies the Executive should make in response to the recession – even though the UK Budget was broadly neutral in its impact on Northern Ireland this year, thanks to Barnett “consequentials”.”That is one reason why we have suggested that the number and structure of departments is looked at again. Not just to save money but …
How will the Assembly parties deal with the recession? They’re in a new type of dilemma that goes with devolution. If they start a blame game with the UK government as Nigel Dodds seems to be suggesting, they’ll look impotent to their own voters. If they take the tough decisions within their own range of powers, they risk unpopularity. Political reform would be a good start but have they really the stomach for it? it’s a great idea to cut …
