Brian Walker – Page 62 – Slugger O'Toole

It takes the threat to Cameron’s survival to wake Westminster up to the threat of Scottish independence

Brian Walker on April 3, 2014, 9:51 am

| Readers 49

Signs are emerging that the Westminster village, which usually treats north of Hampstead Heath as terra incognita, is at last waking up to the real threat of Scottish independence. The contrast couldn’t be starker between the obsession of the English right wing with a phantom referendum over Europe and the real one in Scotland that is almost upon us. The Times (£) reports pressure on David Cameron to ban Scottish candidates from the 2015 General election if Scotland votes Yes in …

The Scottish referendum. The British identity that dare not speak its name

Brian Walker on March 30, 2014, 7:42 pm

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The best article I’ve seen about the dearth of a cultural identity debate in Scotland by Alex Linklater, son of the great Magnus. Could Scots learn a thing or two from the Irish? Or maybe not? You’d have thought the Scottish cultural air would be thrumming with an accrued history of intellectual fighting and flyting over who we are, dating back to the unions of crowns and parliaments, through the Enlightenment and into all the scientific and artistic legacies …

Lamentation over the Boston tapes does not prevent us dealing with the past

Brian Walker on March 30, 2014, 2:19 pm

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Newton Emerson ‘s bleak assessment of how to deal with the past deserves serious attention (£). The Boston College tapes make a mockery of all high-blown talk about “dealing with the past”. The idea that a formal process of investigation, truth recovery and historical assessment into 3,700 Troubles deaths could work at all, let alone satisfy all sides, looks absurd given the saga over one 42-year-old case. As far as personal testimony is concerned the chilling effect of the use …

Reliance on the Boston tapes would be a long term mistake

Brian Walker on March 22, 2014, 6:56 pm

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I have no particular sympathy for this frail 77 year old grandfather. There may indeed be short term gains in bringing the case to court. The reliability of the Boston tapes as evidence will be tested. Will corroboration in any form be produced? If the tapes are regarded as sufficient in this case what are the implications of the others referred to, including Gerry Adams? Like lots of other people I have copious extracts from the tapes and an account …

Face it – Anna Lo and the Alliance Party are the only show in town

Brian Walker on March 22, 2014, 3:51 pm

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Anna Lo’s remarks show how Alliance can still impale themselves on the old cleft stick. Anna tilted in the right direction but overbalanced, provoking a bit of electoral frothing at the mouth by the usual suspects. Never mind. She must be doing something right to attract 240 Slugger comments even if many of them are private chats as usual. Personally I welcome a bit of overbalancing in a progressive direction for a change. Who doesn’t like Anna for heavens’ sake! The party’s best bet is …

Bell’s arrest may put new pressure on Adams and produce new cracks in omerta

Brian Walker on March 22, 2014, 10:24 am

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The arrest of Ivor Bell in connection with the murder and disappearance of Jean McConville is I’m sure already releasing a flood of speculation about new pressure on Gerry Adams and is perhaps the most dramatic sign yet of a final breach between Sinn Fein and old comrades who are opposed to their current political strategy. The timing and the IRA status of the arrested man are all significant but it will take time for the exact significance to become …

Talking of shifts of opinion, what’s happening in Scotland?

Brian Walker on March 19, 2014, 11:14 am

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Even after several visits to Scotland to talk to political elites I confess I never quite twigged what the core appeal of Scottish independence actually was. Now from reports like this by Severin Carrell, I’m beginning to get it. The Yes campaign would say all that wouldn’t they, but all the same.. Margie Maxwell is no Scottish nationalist. But she is Glaswegian, and intensely loyal with it. It never occurred to her she would vote for independence. But then the threats …

Faint echoes from Ukraine reach home

Brian Walker on March 19, 2014, 10:25 am

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From Timothy Garton Ash’s piercing analysis in the Guardian. Start by abandoning the labels “ethnic Ukrainians” and “ethnic Russians”. They mean almost nothing. What you have here is a fluid, complex mix of national, linguistic, civic and political identities. There are people who think of themselves as Russians. There are those who live their lives mainly in Russian, but also identify as Ukrainians. There are innumerable families of mixed origins, with parents and grandparents who moved around the former Soviet …

Jimmy Ellis RIP

Brian Walker on March 11, 2014, 6:15 pm

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Is it nearly a year since I joined James Ellis and a bunch of oldies for a London revival of Sam Thompson’s seminal Belfast play Over the Bridge? That night he was in fine form as he congratulated the cast for their performance and reminisced about his own experience as director in resisting attempts to tone down the anti sectarian message of the play. From Z Cars on the BBC TV of the early 1960s, the first police drama …

Is Villiers’ warning to OTRs the cue to launch a whole new search for fresh evidence?

Brian Walker on March 7, 2014, 6:08 pm

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Theresa Villiers has delivered her solemn warning to recipients that their comfort letters are not get out of jail cards. They will not protect you from arrest or from prosecution and if the police can gather sufficient evidence, you will be subject to all the due processes of law, just like anybody else. The letters do not amount to any immunity, exemption or amnesty something that could only ever be granted by legislation passed by Parliament. They were statements of …

If the DUP overdo their anti-OTR campaign, they risk losing more face

Brian Walker on March 1, 2014, 12:14 pm

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Now where are we? On the basis of Mick’s posts and other comment let’s try to find out. On the face of it the terms of the inquiry are broadly drawn. The aim of the inquiry is to: To produce a full public account of the operation and extent of the administrative scheme for ‘On the Runs’ (OTRs) To determine whether any letters sent through the scheme contained errors To make recommendations as necessary on this or related matters that are …

How the system of “comfort letters” developed. Secrecy was important, Hain admits

Brian Walker on February 27, 2014, 3:36 pm

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Much of the ammunition Peter Robinson needs is already in Mr Justice Sweeney’s lengthy judgment in the Downey case. Key points in this Belfast Telegraph summary. The administrative scheme began in 2000 to rectify the anomaly because as on the runs, they weren’t eligible for the early release scheme. The overall picture is of Gerry Kelly as Sinn Fein’s point man with the British government on the issue, coming forward regularly with new names and the legal authorities led by successive …

More than ever, the “crisis” shows the need to face up honestly to the end of Troubles prosecutions

Brian Walker on February 27, 2014, 11:40 am

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Fair enough. There are genuine grounds for shock and anger but there is a good deal of grandstanding too. The pity of it is, the growing recognition among unionists of the case for limited immunity tied to truth recovery will be set back. Taking the optimistic view (somebody has to), the full extent of de facto amnesty will emerge a lot more clearly and can no longer be denied. The pretence should end, that “ justice” is attainable were it …

If you want an excuse to bring the house down, you’ve got one now

Brian Walker on February 26, 2014, 2:39 pm

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It’s too much to hope for that politicians should act with restraint over the Downey debacle. It gives them a heaven sent opportunity to jump up and down. Look, at one level the Downey case is an obvious anomaly. He was wanted. He wasn’t not wanted. Unless you think that the 180 letters were a cynical ploy to let any old warriors off the hook at random. Why stop at 180 republicans? But the core problem is not the one exposed …

David Cameron and love bombing the Scots

Brian Walker on February 7, 2014, 10:11 am

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The tempo is picking up at last with maybe just a hint of panic? The BBC, the Times£, the FT, even the Sun are splashing David Cameron’s defence of the Union in the patriotic venue of the Olympic Park. The future of the United Kingdom is up in the air, David Cameron will warn today as he urges every Briton with a friend or family member in Scotland to persuade them to vote against independence.. My argument is that though …

United Ireland’s struggle against gay rights wins RTE damages

Brian Walker on February 4, 2014, 6:45 pm

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Is it defamatory to accuse opponents of same sex marriage of homophobia? Or are they fairly exercising their consciences in declining to recognise equality with heterosexuals? Irish Times columnists are on opposite sides of an argument which is part of the Republic’s slow emergence into the modern era. Sadly though the columnists haven’t gone head to head over it yet; let’s hope they do. The issue arose when John Waters and Breda O’Brien, both Irish Times columnists as it …

The Scottish referendum campaign: personal relations are affected as the arguments become keener

Brian Walker on January 30, 2014, 12:24 pm

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Both sides of the independence referendum campaign are busy spinning Bank of England Governor Mark Carney’s warning to Alex Salmond that “some ceding of national sovereignty” would be necessary as the price of independent Scotland’s desire to keep the pound. The Nats are treating it with all the appearance of calm acceptance; the No campaign, championed here by former Scotsman editor Iain Martin, that Carney has spiked Salmond’s guns. The Nats’ case has rested forever on the allegation that the Westminster parliament …

No, the PSNI Chief Constable hasn’t “the toughest policing job in the world”

Brian Walker on January 28, 2014, 12:34 pm

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Here we are, still sold on the idea of how exceptional we are. Comment on Mick’s post on the appointment of a chief constable failed to notice that there’s a wider world out there. It’s no longer the case that the PSNI have “the toughest policing job in in the world” and other superlatives. Try the Met which has gone through three commissioners in five years. Race issues, jihadist extremism and flash rioting in today’s human rights culture make it very tough for …

Ian Paisley: a word in favour of a fading patriarch

Brian Walker on January 21, 2014, 2:22 pm

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Eamonn Mallie has always preferred the bludgeon to the rapier. In Episode One he confronted Ian Paisley with some the most unsavoury quotes of an agitator’s past. Did you really mean it, Mr Paisley? In episode two he faced him with other people’s hesitant mutterings of rejection. How did you feel Mr Paisley? What did he expect the old man to say? Repudiate the past in the first case and turn the other cheek in the second? That is not the Old …

The Irish archives are a partial model for information retrieval today – if the politicians ever let it happen

Brian Walker on January 17, 2014, 5:09 pm

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The release of papers about the rank and file – and the women – of the 1916 Easter Rising should prompt greater depth and detail in the writing of history you might have thought had been well turned over already. But you’d be wrong. The eminent historian Diarmaid Ferriter explains the crucial role of the Bureau of Military History, the archive of accounts of veterans recorded mainly in the 1940s and 50s well after the main events. The bureau began document release …