Brian Walker

Two landmark cases in the record of Sir Ronnie Flanagan as Chief Constable of the RUC have produced exonerating statements without getting to the bottom of the cases – the Omagh bomb and the murder of Lurgan solicitor Rosemary Nelson. Answering questions at the Nelson inquiry Sir Ronnie said: “I certainly did not consider Mrs Nelson to be a terrorist,” and he denied calling her “ an immoral woman.” It’s noteworthy though that the former civil service head of the …

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Sean Quinn the quiet man originally from Derrylin in Fermanagh and NI’s only rep in the Sunday Times Rich List ( 12th overall) is probably the biggest name in Irish business, running a maze of companies at home or abroad over the last 35 years, based literally on the foundation of Fermanagh and Cavan quarry stone. Until recently worth around £3.5 billion, Quinn fortunes may be in the balance as he was intimately tied up with Anglo Irish bank. in …

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This story goes to show there’s no end to the saga of the ill fated, ill-riveted colossus. It could inspire new life to the Titanic Quarter signature project, so diabolically cheated of lottery funding .but still supported by £65 million of public money . Why not dramatically recreate the national characteristics of English, Irish and American queues around a mockup of the ship as they scramble for the lifeboats? You could have different winners every day. There’d be no shortage …

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My head told me that Obama’s big day was history but my heart just wasn’t in it. The recession is too serious for that. US presidential politics are very important and all that but they’re also great escapism for the irritating chatter of the news channels. OK we noticed. Obama and the Chief Justice fluffed the oath between them. Then he got down to it. The rhetoric lifted but didn’t soar. There were no great soundbites. Thankfully there were no …

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Oh no not again! That must be the lay person’s reaction to this latest extraordinarily complicated bailout whose details – including how the insurance scheme will work without a cap – will not be fully available until well into next month. So far, only Will Hutton en passant is prepared to guess openly at the final figure – £100 billion and everyone’s picking it up. BTW, where did the first £37 billion go to since last October?. That powerful analyst …

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As I’ve posted over at NI Crunchtalk – A 16% fall in sterling in less than a year, a 25% fall in Barclay’s shares in a single hour last Friday, the scene is set for a new mega- banking insurance scheme bailout. Inside the turmoil of events come faint stirrings for the UK to join the euro which NI business will want to keep a close eye on. To the esteemed Observer columnist Will Hutton, “Britain is on the edge …

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It was launched on Facebook , the blogsphere is being mobilised, the libertarian Observer’s Henry Porter sets out the agenda in th e Observer, expert support comes from Unlock Democracy, a development from the serious constitutional reformers Charter 88. The Convention on Modern Liberty is a great first strike. There’s even a Belfast angle. Three big themes will indicate its worth. One, a wide constituency including government participation in the sessions. yes, box ticked, good; chiming agreement can harden into …

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Just about a full house of commentators opposing the “decision” to build a third runway for Heathrow. I can’t remember when a major government decision was not just opposed but so roundly dismissed as living in cloud cuckoo land. In the Commons announcement, all that greenness was guff. There will be possibly hundreds of thousands more flights a year when, or if the runway, is built. Instead Hoon talked of “green slots… green planes… toughest green targets” as if he …

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Can you argue with this? Christian refuses to drive bus with atheist advertisement Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London

Breaking news… The biggest airport expansion for 60 years will be approved today when the Government gives the go-ahead to a £9 billion third runway and sixth terminal at Heathrow. Ace columnist Kaletsky.. Why, then, do I suddenly hail Lord Mandelson as a saviour?… The less obvious reason is the inaction announced this week – over a new runway at Heathrow….I described on this page last year the overwhelming economic and business arguments against the expansion of Heathrow – and …

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Can it be a coincidence that the Foreign Secretary David Miliband waited until Dubya’s presidency had only six days to run before formally dropping the concept of “ war on terror?” Can it hell. Intended to foster the notion of an independent UK foreign policy, the timing merely reinforces the idea of Britain as America’s poodle, jumpin g easily from the lap of one master GW Bush to another, Barack Obama’s. Miliband’s new tilt on terrorism also allows the UK …

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An extraordinary intervention by the Irish Takeover Panel resulted in the cancellation last night of what would surely have been a riveting debate between Dermot Mannion of Aer Lingus and Ryanair boss Michael O’Leary on RTE’s Prime Time. Both parties are said to be “furious.” I’m no expert on the powers of the Takeover Panel but I can’t immediately recall another case of a quasi-judicial body intervening with a broadcaster to gag such a broadcast before. How could public opinion …

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The world is catching up with the Coalisland ghost. Great to know that the local youth are taking up a different old Irish tradition from that prevailing in the 70s and that today’s Sean-bhean Bhocht is defiantly non-political. Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution …

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The rise of Hamas adds to the idea, much loved by the BBC, that the authentic leaders of Muslim societies today are all political Islamists — the intellectual model being that of Sinn Fein: From Charles Moore, a mordant right wing critic of the BBC in the Spectator. Unfair, but the point nags at me. ( And the IRA were sort of/nearly on ceasefire before the serious talking started etc etc. but so what you may say). And from Melanie …

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Despite the prompt and predictable failure of the UN ceasefire resolution to impact on the ground, a rare note of optimism for the medium term was struck at a high powered panel discussion on the Gaza-Israel crisis at the Royal Society of the Arts. The debate centred on whether Hamas was being strengthened or weakened by the Israeli assaults. To the eminent strategic thinker Sir Lawrence Freedman, it seemed clear from the “only rhetorical support ” of most Arab governments …

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….there had been 86 successful prosecutions in terror trials since January 2007, and more than half of the accused had pleaded guilty…. That has had a chilling effect. We have probably seen fewer ‘late-stage’ attack plans over the last 18 months,” MI5 chief Jonathan Evans’ appearance before selected journalists is part of a trend by government agency chiefs directly to provide public assurance and objectivity for their work,outside the framework of ministerial accountability. By itself this can be seen as …

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It’s an ill wind that has boosted consumer spending north and south, as reported by the Irish Times and the Belfast Telegraph – although watch out for the time-lag in trend reporting. The good piece of digging in the Belfast Telegraph reveals more good news of the fall in fuel charges – reflecting the current global position in a notoriously volatile sector and the impact of shrinkage all round. No doubt it’s an incomplete and changing story. Let’s hope the …

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To highlight the plight of UTV staff when so many face redundancy elsewhere may seem like special pleading but it isn’t. The united joint statement from the Assembly leadership seems like a last ditch appeal against already authorised cuts. “The regulator (Ofcom) believes UTV should be permitted to cut news output from five hours weekly to four and non-news programming from four hours to just 90 minutes.” On the face of it, this sounds like UTV opting out of all …

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A UK nationwide survey of house prices in the Guardian reveals the size of NI’s burst bubble. After two years of massive growth, a correction in Northern Ireland was on the cards in 2008, and it came when prices dropped by a staggering 34.2% over the year, according to Nationwide…Realistically one might expect Northern Ireland to remain the worst affected region in 2009, given the especially severe overshoot of house prices relative to earnings in the province during the boom …

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Time magazine November 2007 We will have a completely different type of Waterford. Waterford Wedgwood will be a very profitable business in eight to 12 months. This was Tony O’Reilly’s prediction to the prestigious Time magazine, along with a bullish claim that the newspaper industry was “growing quite slowly, but it is growing.” Now the predictions have turned to sand. “Problems at Waterford Wedgwood come at a unfortunate time for Sir Anthony, who is also grappling with €1.4 billion of …

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