Brian Walker With ten days to go to the Glenrothes by election Labour have edged ahead of the SNP in Scotland as a whole, according to a YouGov poll in the tartan edition of the Sunday Times. Support for Labour at Westminster is up by six percentage points since the start of last month, on 38%, with the SNP nine points behind on 29% (-5%), the Conservatives on 20% (+3%) and the Liberal Democrats on 11% (-2%) For the Scottish parliament the …
One of the pleasures of Slugger is the ability to go counter-intuitive, to go “agin” prevailing wisdom. Is the 2008 US election campaign the most earth-shattering, the most vital ever? Nah, only if you’re about 14. Are you really saying if it had been Gore rather than Dubya it would have made no difference? And you sure can’t have been around in ’68, baby. The big thing now is to fight the predictability. Obama now looks such a shoo-in the …
As expected, Danny Morrison’s conviction is quashed, with perhaps more to come.. Lord Chief Justice Kerr “There is nothing in the papers which intrinsically militates against the delivery of an open judgment detailing the reasons for our decision,” he said. “We will, however, give the parties the opportunity, if they wish to avail of it, to seek to persuade the Court not to deliver what I might describe as an open judgment.” Always remembered as the coiner of the “armalite …
On officially entering the recession which everybody knew had arrived already, UK economists are surveyed. If you don’t want to know the results, look away now”Not only do Q3’s GDP figures confirm that the UK has entered a recession, but the 0.5% drop (consensus 0.2%) is truly shocking. “This figure is worse than we expectedŔ Ӆany significant recovery currently seems unlikely before 2010, and even then growth is likely to be below trend.” “For the services sector to shrink for …
Frank Carson’s catchphrase “It’s the way I tell ‘em,” applies in spades to the tabloids’ treatment of “ sex lessons for five year olds. ” The Sun is fearless and frank as usual “KIDS as young as five will get compulsory sex education in a drive to cut teenage pregnancies. Schools will be forced to teach them the facts of life from day one under new rules unveiled yesterday. Compulsory lessons on the dangers of drugs and booze are also …
We have Jeffrey Donaldson to thank for inspiring the Sun’s rubbishy news story on the embryology research Bill which passed the Commons last night. “Democratic Unionist MP Jeffrey Donaldson conjured up the spectre of a monster from Greek legend, saying: “The image that people find most abhorrent is of scientists producing GM babies or cloned adults or minotaurs.” This takes us back to the “hobgoblins and foul fiends” of John Bunyan in the seventeenth century, the ideal period for many …
Latest from Glenrothes… Brian Taylor is hedging his bets, wisely no doubt. We’ll keep watching! 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
Northern Ireland is not the only place grappling with the problem of the disappeared, one of the starkest proxy issues for the whole horror of the Troubles. About 30,000 people were “
In the light of fairly unfavourable comment recently about the performance of the smaller nations, it’s only fair to give Alex his say in Stand Alone Scotland Could Look After Itself ,” including: “Ireland was also able to act quickly and decisively to bring stability to its banking sector by guaranteeing all deposits. It was to Ireland that many in Britain turned when the UK Government did not offer a parallel guarantee. Dublin’s actions were a clear demonstration of just …
Not only is the Republic suffering from the worst of all possible worlds but there appears to be a yawing gap between Irish and British handling of the crisis. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling are so far refusing to sue the “R “ word and promising to spend their way out of recess….-sorry negative growth. “How will all these projects be paid for if taxes do not go up and there are no cuts in state spending totals? Inevitably, by …
Update. The Observer thought this subject right for an editorial, rather than the Executive deadlock. It’s testimony to the strain of infantilism in NI politics that bishops are now echoing the politicians’ bleat that the “political process” could be damaged if Westminster voted to legalise abortion in the province this week. Not that Westminster will do any such thing. If local parties across the divide are united against abortion, how can it affect the future of the Assembly? Only if …
Which small country will come out of the recession better, sovereign Ireland or home rule Scotland? The unionists cite Iceland and scoff at Alex Salmond’s now broken “arc of prosperity” than includes Iceland and Ireland. The SNP point admiringly to oil-rich Norway. The blows dealt to the Scottish independence cause are affecting the balance of the debate, but like those over Gordon Brown’s personal fortunes – “ yesterday a BBC poll showed that the lead Labour had over the Tories …
It was very wrong of Queen’s to pull Australian Dr Philip Nitschke’s lecture on assisted dying. A university above all has a duty to promote free speech and is well able to provide a context for difficult subjects. What is there to fear from discussing it? Nitschke has had bad luck before, although his last ban was not in a university environment. One of the best debates I’ve ever heard was in the House of Lords three years ago, on …
To what extent should the teaching of history act as an aid to reconciliation? It’s a theme with plenty of local echoes. The contemporary European historian Timothy Garton Ash has written this important piece in the Guardian announcing a campaign against official state sponsorship of positive thinking about the past. It starts with good motives – Never Again the Holocaust continues with imprisoning Holocaust deniers and ends us with contrary laws in different countries about the same event. “In Switzerland, …
Hope is alive for Turgon’s wee friends ( the nut gatherers not the nutters). There seems to be a border for squirrels who seem according to this to be unionists, although nice liberal ones, with a good neighbour policy and even an all-island plan. 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. …
After the bail out, new problems emerge – wouldn’t you know it. It was too good to be true. First the Peston version. “ Treasury may have to abandon its stipulation that no dividends can be paid to shareholders in RBS, HBOS and Lloyds until these banks have repaid preference shares which they are selling to the state… The prohibition on dividend payments has spooked our big investing institutions. It’s wreaking havoc in particular on Lloyds TSB’s share price, because …
What a glorious piece of parochialism from Irish Voice: “With less than a month to the presidential election, the question of where Senator Barack Obama stands on Irish issues is still up in the air.” This almost reaches the level of the famous Skibbereen Eagle headline: ” Skibbereen has its eye of the Czar.” We recall the row over the (non) appointment of a special envoy.. The penny must surely have dropped by now that such interventions are tokenism. Bertie …
Just taking another look at how the financial crisis is affecting Union politics… With the Scots reeling at the scale of the crisis that enveloped their once proud banks, the tartan editions of the London heavies have renewed their attacks on Alex Salmond. The Daily Telegraph: “Alex Salmond was counting another likely cost of the unprecedented action – the body blow it delivers to his hopes of achieving an independent Scotland. The Times: “There has never been a more opportune …
While Gordon Brown and the British economy are far from out of the woods yet, there’s a striking difference between the cautiously favourable comment on the British bank rescue and the previews of tomorrow’s Irish budget. Searing criticism of the Ahern and Cowen regimes pours out of the industry website Finfacts which rounds in the government for years of improvidence. “The results of political failure will be thousands of damaged and destroyed lives while in or out of office, the …
The Sunday Telegraph has broken a long suspected story which could alter the shape of politics in the medium term as much anything else. For such a workaholic to cope with failing eyesight must be a terrible strain. 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 …
