Brian Walker

We’re having the election in June next year,” Peter Mandelson, the business secretary, told journalists at a drinks party last week, with a stage wink. In case anyone missed it, he added: “That was a joke.” But around Westminster, the idea is now being discussed with utmost seriousness. It was the long time Brown mentor and bank roller Geoffrey Robertson who fuelled the speculation with the Evening Standard, said Standard stable mate Mail pol ed Ben Brogan in his blog …

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From the FT’s report on the implications of devolving policing and justice. this Gregory Campbell quote: “If the government does not agree to cover all this over the next three years, I cannot see how we can go ahead with the devolution of policing and justice. We are not prepared to put up the money.” No doubt there’s a proper financial case to be made. Fair enough. But MLAs don’t fully realise how badly this sort of hollow backmail threat …

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With that particular intelligence community’s capacity for getting it wrong, the US’s intelligence assessment of the dispersal of power in the world by 2025 might deserve a cynical reaction, were it not for the fact that much of it is a statement of the glaringly obvious. Remember the health warning though, that it’s the role of intelligence agencies to warn about threats rather than present opportunities or give a balanced view. “ It is not a prediction…. “Nothing that we …

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No, not a surprise warm-up for the All Blacks match… It can be done. The Welsh Assembly supports it, the UK government supports it. The fact that a Welsh-speaking minister was representing the entire UK ( at an EU Council of Ministers meeting) added to the sense of history. But tolerance does not come cheap. It costs European taxpayers more than 1 billion euros ($1.26 billion) a year just to translate speeches and official texts. But apart from travel to …

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Mixed news about TV. Do you support Joan Bakwell’s protest about the coarsening of TV and her call for less swearing? I do. It puts me right off those TV chefs who use it as a verbal garnish. It’s not exactly a new theme. Remember Michael Grade then head of Channel 4, dubbed “pornographer in chief” by the Daily Mail? One person’s pornography is another’s art or authentic voice. Joan is probably right. Swear for a purpose, not like the …

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An important corrective to the Sun’s hue and cry from Polly Toynbee. Did you know this? You wouldn’t if you depended on the tabloids. Surprisingly few children are murdered, given how many parents are drug addicted, psychotic, violent or profoundly inadequate; 29,000 are on the child protection register and another 300,000 are reckoned to be “in need”, with concerns about their quality of life. Yet last year of all those children in danger, 68 were killed (15 of those by …

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Well done John, absolutely the right decision. Your PR has been brilliant throughout. “If the joke wears thin, if in fact people begin to take it very seriously, and if people really are getting so wound up that it’s very difficult to carry off the joke, then I think it is time to go.” …even though it leaves the Beeb with another problem to do with phoning in….. BBC One controller Jay Hunt told journalists the BBC had “every intention …

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Following on from his grim assessment of the English Indy’s future, media guru Roy Greenslade today instances the bad example of the Scotsman to show how important websites are becoming to a newspaper’s future. I must say though that judging from my occasional scans, Scotsman owners the notably lean ‘n fit Johnston press aren’t doing a bad job with the Newsletter whether you agree with its editorial line or not. Overall though, the press and the regional daily press in …

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Sweeping job cuts at the Independent in London mean Tony O’Reilly is committed to the two titles, says media guru Roy Greenslade. Otherwise, he’d sell the youngest, smallest and most expensive of the English quality papers. The Belfast Telegraph is more than ever relied on take the company into very modest profit, offsetting the Indy’s losses, not always to the delight of the Bel Tel staff. The Independent is loss-making but has been backed by profits generated by the Belfast …

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After Hunger, faint echoes are evident in the Baader –Meinhof Complex, the movie about the spate of terrorism in Germany in the late 60s and 70s. Is the movie truth or terrorist chic? Produced by the producer of “Downfall”, the brilliant film on the last days of Hitler, it’s a bit of both but the chic, as chic often does, turns sour and evaporates. The film (too long at three hours) traces how fanaticism breeds an increasingly nihilist violence its …

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The Irish Times poll on a new Lisbon referendum is a close call, too close for comfort but heading in the right direction. 43 per cent now saying they would vote Yes, 39 per cent No and 18 per cent having no opinion. When the “don’t knows” are excluded this gives the Yes side 52.5 per cent, with the No side on 47.5 per cent. It compares to the referendum result in June of 53.4 per cent No and 46.6 …

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When it comes to John Sergeant I’m breaking a self-imposed rule not to blog about people I know. I’ve been a colleague of his for over 30 years. I’m a bit younger and a bit less overweight but we have a background in common. Now all has changed and mentioning him seems like name dropping. For the first time in my life I’ve voted in a talent show and naturally, it was for him. By voting week by week for …

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I just know Slugger will want to mark the 60th birthday of the Prince of Wales. As I’m a year and three months older, I resent all this talk of retirement. “I think he is finally coasting home, perhaps coming to the realisation that he will never be king or, if he does, he’ll be like one of those elderly leaders at the end of the Soviet era – a sort of royal Andropov, with only a few years.” Let’s …

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Keynes today, the subject of all our thoughts and the topic of a learned seminar in London yesterday. Tax cuts and more borrowing, yes. Keep your debt in your own currency. Be reconciled to the end of lending from China. And yes, print money and a little inflation is no bad thing. This was from the round of recipes offered by a panel of economists at the Royal Society for the Arts, just one of the bouts of economic agonising …

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If justice and policing are the big headache for the deadlocked Executive, the future of secondary schools is the running sore. But behind the political paralysis, there are growing signs already noted by Pete, Fair Deal and others that key interest groups are moving ahead with their own solution. At first glance, the breakaway of at least six Catholic schools to join the rebellion of 30 mainly Protestant ones seems like a significant victory for retaining academic selection at 11. …

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The official ceremonies for the 90th anniversary of the end of World War One are all but over. Against all expectations interest in the world conflicts is increasing rather than subsiding as the last living links fade way. Surely it’s impossible that our society could ever fight such wars again, with losses like the UK’s 900,000 lives or even a third that number in WW2? In the digital age hard censorship is impossible and people would revolt against such death …

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I’d written this before seeing Mick’s post with a slightly different take… If the top judiciary want to protect individual judges from growing press attacks they ‘d be well advised to share libel cases more round the bench instead of loftily ignoring the fall-out. And oh, fees of £7,000 a day are obscene. But with Paul Dacre’s unprecedentedly personal attack on Justice Eady, you’ve got to look on in wonder at how parts of the MSM can mix sheer hypocrisy …

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Jonathan Powell can only be right, even though he was a prime supplier of the drug of access he now wants to replace with cold turkey. And remember, not everybody was equally appreciative. Tony Blair’s secret negotiator with the IRA has called for an end to crisis summits involving Irish and British Premiers and Northern Ireland’s parties. That is not to say there should never be talks to end the paralysis. What is Shaun Woodward for? Malachi is listing as …

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The Bloody Sunday inquiry is as endless as Penelope’s burial shroud. The ways of lawyers are unfathomable. Lord Saville is sorry. Now 72, he has blighted his career by spending almost the whole of his time as a law lord on it. Because of the unconscionable time taken and the mind-blowing cost, the patience of government broke and they passed the Inquiries Act which has made a future inquiry into the Finucane test case impossible. All this we know. The …

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“The police assessment is, in fact, that the dissident threat is at an all-time high.” This is the theme of a major report by David McKittrick in today’s Independent. It follows up evidence given this week by the Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde to the Commons NI select committee. McKittrick quotes: MI5 and the Special Branches in both parts of Ireland pour huge effort and huge resources into combating the dissident republicans, with some success. Efforts to smuggle in weaponry …

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