Brian Walker

Colonel Tim, with his usual Napoleonic self-confidence, puts the question in the Daily Mail.“ So why has Britain’s political establishment so shamefully weakened our defences against terrorism to the extent that this murderous minority seems to think it can strike with impunity?” Adds. Another Ed Moloney piece, “This attack will be a recruiting call in the Bogside”, following up on his “Four Courts moment” for SF, discusses what he believes is the fertile recruiting ground for resurgent violent republicanism. Plausible, …

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In the Irish Times Frank Millar noted the abiding area of controversy about policing, that the shock of the murders may have temporarily buried – the earlier deployment of special forces “Labour and the Conservatives combined at Westminster yesterday to affirm their support for “the operational independence” of the Chief Constable of the PSNI, and to assert this would be in no way diminished by the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Stormont Assembly….He will, if he sees …

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The big political question now is whether Sinn Fein will use the Massareene murders to try to force an end to the British army’s back up role. The attack seems to have reinforced rather than weakened their opposition to it. On the Today programme this morning Gerry Adams extended his warning before the attack that deployment of “unaccountable “ army groups was risking republican support. In the 8.10 slot. he began by denying it was “an easy thing” for Sinn …

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BBC NI are annoyingly slow to update their website on such a big story, so here’s my take from Radio Ulster. In his response on Radio Ulster’s 7 Days to the Massareene barracks murders, Shaun Woodward the NI Secretary of State made some interesting points. Despite the high threat level, “ we did not see this attack on the barracks coming” even though it was a clearly a “ premeditated attempt at mass murder.” The killers “ feared we would …

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The arrest in the Sergeant Campbell murder case at Cushendall has never been regarded as a conventional terrorist incident, so it’s unlikely to presage a flood of Troubles cases heading back to the 70s. Nor does it disturb my belief that as far as paramilitary cases before 1998 are concerned, we have already reached a de facto unofficial, unacknowledged amnesty for paramilitaries associated with the GFA. From statistics quoted by Eames/Bradley Unlike the remit of the HET, that of the …

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So the SNP’s bid to hold a 2010 referendum on Scottish independence is off. No surprise there, with a 60% majority in the Parliament in favour of the Union. Gordon Brown is blasting the SNP’s “obsession” with independence at the SLP conference in Dundee today, but as the Guardian points out, Alex Salmond may be in for a longer haul than Brown. Privately, Salmond will be disappointed but not surprised. He did not expect to win next year’s proposed referendum. …

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“Horribly flawed” say the Scottish Tories and “ an unworkable mess” according to Scottish Labour, while those well known civil libertarians in the drink trade are busy deploring the impact of higher prices on the deserving poor. And yet the force seems to be with the bold move of the minority Scottish government to become the first in Europe to try to introduce minimum pricing for strong drink. A good move politically too- it grabs wider attention and it’s something …

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Ed Curran in the stand… “On Saturday night, the grandstand first named after him in 1924, echoed to the words ‘God Save our gracious Queen … send her victorious … long to reign over us … God save the Queen.’ I still needed to pinch myself that this was for real, that somehow we, the British and the Irish, had buried the battle axes to the point where we could all stand together and respect one another’s very different cultural …

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Liam Clarke’s piece in the Sunday Times is a not so much a wake-up call but a (metaphorical) bomb under the arse of the Executive, who are still living in chugger land, at least in public. The moment of truth will come around Budget Day April 22. You’re in for water rates like the rest of us, guys, and if you’re lucky, a slow-ish increase in rates. What I wonder are the people’s candidates for cuts? And on what do …

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In a era of alarming newspaper decline, it’s great to see the transformed Irish News thriving, as noticed by the Independent on Sunday. In the long ago of my youth, the Irish News eerily interspersed parish notes with IRA battalion statements – not out of any particular editorial sympathy but because of a lack of resources to meet the challenge of the Troubles and I suspect, a certain hedging of their bets over where the readership might be going. When …

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So was it all talk and no substance? Little more than an awkward clash with the 6 Nations? Probably a bit more than that, judging from the early press coverage. Civil liberties offer a welcome respite form recession. Yesterday’s Convention on Modern Liberty fielded an impressive line up of speakers on 8 centres including Belfast, from the left to the libertarian right, the former senior law lord and the last English DPP. One of the conference weaknesses was the failure …

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Under FOI, the latest disclosures in the Guardian about the workings of the notorious Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act (RIPA). Sir Christopher Rose, the Chief Surveillance Commissioner, was particularly critical of Defra. In a letter to Helen Ghosh, the department’s most senior official, he said that his findings from one inspection made “lamentable reading”. He found it impossible to discover which senior officials were in charge of making sure the surveillance powers were used lawfully and found the department had …

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Amid the universal approval for cancelling Prime Minister’s Questions over the sad death of Ivan Cameron, the odd dissident. Notably, Times columnist and former Tory MP Matthew Parris was worried about setting a precedent and contrasting the tributes for Ivan with the short formula for week’s tally of soldiers killed in Afghanistan or Iraq. Times Comment editor Danny Finkelstein demurred. But Terence Blacker in the Independent works on the theme of the new public “chumminess” encouraged by “the twitterati” and …

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To balance the ecclesiastical with the secular, Philip Pullman that scourge of Christianity in his wonderful allegories The Dark Materials has written a scorcher to mark the Convention on Modern Liberty on Saturday ( locally at Queen’s). The irony is that the freedom agenda looks like working well for the Tories. Pullman writes: We are so fast asleep that we don’t know who we are any more. Are we English? Scottish? Welsh? British? More than one of them? ( Ed …

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The likelihood that, after his imminent retirement, Cardinal Murphy O’Connor will be given a seat in the House of Lords marks a big step in the UK’s eccentric constitutional arrangements and in the Church’s attitude to the State. It would remove one of the last stigmas against Roman Catholics as heretics and potential traitors. . It’s good to see the constitution catching up with Ian Paisley senior. Yes, I know, there’s still the Act of Settlement but we’ll have to …

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A Commons row broke out yesterday over the Government’s decision to rush the Bill transferring Police and Justice powers to the Assembly in a single day next Wednesday. The Bill I mean, not the transfer. Why the rush? As MPs on all sides regardless of their views on P&J pointed out, the Assembly hadn’t asked for a transfer timetable, as we well know. This is the British Government up to its old tricks of bouncing NI business through both Houses …

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Well, I might have spoken too soon. The BBC’s Nick Robinson points out that PMQs were suspended because Gordon Brown identified with David Cameron’s loss. It doesn’t happen often that Parliament is suspended, however briefly, over a little boy’s death. “The two men spoke tonight – they don’t normally get on – but they have never been closer.” Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC …

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The devolved “summit” with Gordon Brown failed to reach any conclusions, so to that extent their lobbying against £1 billion of cuts for the three regions combined was effective. Something more tangible will happen by mid March though, when we will see how effective joint action by the devolved administrations can really amount to when the chips are down. As the Guardian reports, the three claim that the cuts – part of Alistair Darling’s plans for £5bn worth of UK-wide …

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Lord Eames and Denis Bradley confronted some of their tormentors in the Commons Northern Ireland committee this afternoon over recognition payments. True to form, a row broke out as soon a opening statements had been made.“Your credibility is so badly damaged that it renders all the other parts of your report difficult” said Iris Robinson. “Contaminated” David Simpson called it and ratcheted up the temperature by recalling that Lord Eames had buried four of his relatives: “ I was disappointed …

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If their past relationship is anything to go by, the apparently sudden death of David Cameron’s severely disabled son Ivan is unlikely to forge much a bond between him and Gordon Brown, who so tragically lost his premature first born Jennifer nearly seven years ago. Apart from rare photocalls when his son John was born in 2003 and Fraser in 2006, Brown has made a virtue of shielding his family from publicity, even unfavourably contrasting his stance with Cameron’s. If …

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