Brian Walker – Page 65 – Slugger O'Toole

England and Scotland – growing farther apart anyway?

Brian Walker on August 21, 2013, 11:11 am

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Good to see some real debate emerging over the Scottish independence at last. But is this happening to late, when the result is all over bar the shouting, with the No vote 20 points ahead, as American polling guru Nate Silver has been telling them at the Edinburgh Festival? Not so with 44 % registering undecided, according to Ipsos Mori. Looking behind the stats, commentators warn against relentless negativity from the Better Together campaign, including Andrew Marr recovering from his stroke, …

Free speech under pressure or action against inflammatory comments?

Brian Walker on August 20, 2013, 10:54 am

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Ought we to be a mite concerned about protecting free speech from officious prosecutions, even when the comments are “obnoxious”, in the opinion of a district judge? I hold no brief for Ruth Patterson’s “alleged” comments on Facebook which it’s customary not to repeat once someone is charged and for which she has apologised. This Derry case is a sign of changed times. Amazing to learn that a “youth” has been fined in Derry for making “ derogatory remarks” in …

Peter Robinson. Strongman or wimp? The spin continues

Brian Walker on August 19, 2013, 12:27 pm

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The headline” Robinson no pushover” doesn’t really fit Henry Patterson’s measured analysis of the first minister’s U turn from Florida in the Newsletter. ..It is remarkable how weak and undeveloped the DUP case was against those who argued that part of the Maze site would house a ‘shrine to terrorism’. The weakness of the DUP case for the Maze was amplified by the fact that apart from occasional interventions by Robinson the only other figure of substance in the …

Robinson U turn shows the urgent need for mediation

Brian Walker on August 18, 2013, 12:18 pm

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They must have put up Chinese walls inside Stormont Castle since I was there last. The sudden collapse of Peter Robinson’s position over the Maze peace centre strongly suggests that the joint leaders haven’t even managed to have frank exchanges about the past, much less wrestled with how actually to deal with it. But the bigger problem stretches down the hill to streets below. DUP electoral dominance has been again exposed as offering no protection against unionist fragmentation and a stampede …

Memo to Richard Haass: Greater openness in dealing with the past is long overdue

Brian Walker on August 12, 2013, 5:50 pm

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This call for a swift cross border public inquiry into the Omagh bombing by the British ambassador to Dublin at the time carries weight. But enough to succeed? “Material which the families presented to the British and Irish governments over a year ago, so far without response, suggests failings in MI5, the Garda and the FBI.” Fifteen years ago, Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern made clear no stone would be left unturned in the search for the perpetrators. This hollow promise …

The population continues to rise but so does the brain drain

Brian Walker on August 8, 2013, 6:26 pm

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The UK is experiencing a baby boom as the number of births hits the highest level in 40 years, according to mid year figures just out. Only a small fraction of the country’s higher population is now due to foreign immigration. In Northern Ireland where the population has continued to increase, more people left than arrived last year. But the facts about bouncing babies fail to conceal a continuing severe problem of emigration among Northern Ireland’s young people, which a …

Hesitant moves towards Anglo-Irish understanding in the State papers of 30 years ago

Brian Walker on August 1, 2013, 10:54 am

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The release of British State papers for 1983 as reported by John Bew in the Irish Times reveals the rocky road at the beginning of the journey towards the Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985. Thatcher was irritated by FitzGerald’s preachiness as he tried to build some trust after Haughey’s disastrous first administration. While FitzGerald was deeply frustrated by what he regarded as her narrow minded defence of endless Unionist political stonewalling, he detected enough potential flexibility in British official thinking to keep pegging …

How Stands the Republic? Grim verdicts at the MacGill summer school

Brian Walker on July 30, 2013, 5:57 pm

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During a visit to tropical Donegal a couple of weeks ago I picked up from Johnny Boyle in the Highlands Hotel this year’s programme for the Patrick MacGill summer school in Glenties, now just under way. Instead of the usual summer school diet of history, literature and nostalgia, for several years now, in the programme’s own words – “ especially since the sudden and brutal fall of the Celtic Tiger, the MacGill School has focused on reform of the …

The New York Times hails Game of Thrones boost for Northern Ireland

Brian Walker on July 8, 2013, 4:00 pm

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Great that the New York Times has noticed that Northern Ireland is now suffused with a different sorts of “ intrigue sex and moody landscapes” which is drawing then in rather than keeping them away.. Chronicling a war among dynasties for an Iron Throne in the imaginary land of Westeros, the HBO fantasy series is a cult hit suffused with intrigue, sex and moody landscapes. The latter is making Northern Ireland a magnet for fans who want to visit places like …

Should we live within our means, tax a bit more and depend less on Mother England?

Brian Walker on July 8, 2013, 11:35 am

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Meanwhile just as the Assembly has broken up for the summer (apart from the recall to debate Housing- gate) the Northern Ireland Council of Voluntary Associations announces that the time is right for a debate on tax raising powers and has commissioned a report from PWC. That should keep them all busy for what’s left of the marching season. Nevertheless full marks to an important part of civil society for raising a real policy issue. The deadline of 2014 for …

The Assembly shuns reform despite UK government pressure

Brian Walker on July 3, 2013, 12:21 pm

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The news from the Assembly and Executive Review Committee that the political parties in the Assembly have been unable to agree on reforming the political system will hardly shake the world. “No Consensus” is the mantra apart from minor concessions towards an opposition. There is not much here to tempt the SDLP or the Ulster Unionists into quitting the Executive, even in the proposals from those parties themselves, especially the SDLP. This will hardly impress the British government which was …

Sectarian wrangling over sharing and integration can only be averted by raising sights towards higher standards

Brian Walker on July 1, 2013, 3:28 pm

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A debate on the future of education has begun in confusion but at least it’s underway. Since Obama’s speech which was accorded more significance than it deserved, the debate on sharing or integration in education got into a terrible muddle straight away. Is sharing a big step towards integration or the very opposite? Since promoting its comment columns as The Home of Debate NI, the Belfast Telegraph has thrown its usual ”on the one hand, on the other – let’s …

Permanent revolution by facebook is replacing ideology

Brian Walker on June 22, 2013, 5:42 pm

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Why are demos and riots breaking out all over? It’s the economy stupid. But Newsnight’s Paul Mason has a contemporary twist, writing in the Independent to give a taster for his book Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere: The New Global Revolutions’ Velocity of information matters as much as action itself. It is striking how badly the incumbent elites in each case totally lose the information war. Whether it’s Greece, Turkey, Egypt or Brazil the unspoken truth is it is hard …

UK City of Culture is a success but what does “success” mean? Greater transparency is needed

Brian Walker on June 22, 2013, 2:18 pm

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What is UK City of Culture delivering for Londonderry and Derry for the rest of us? My fitful browsing and searches in journalism and the written public record doesn’t tell us much. No doubt there’s a buzz about the place with the opening of Ebrington Square and the Peace Bridge. You only need the evidence of your own eyes to see that tourism has become a major – the major? – source of investment. They are squeezing every last ounce of value …

The Catholic church is behaving as if it knows it does not speak for the Irish people over abortion

Brian Walker on June 21, 2013, 9:10 am

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Just a reflection or two on the issues of Mick’s post. When you see it written down so starkly out of the mouth of one Cardinal Burke from the real life perspective of the Roman Curia, the effect is breathtaking. Will Catholics now rush to contradict him? I wonder. Many people seem to want to defy the Church silently. and this is mightily frustrating for the Church establishment. It’s as if they’re being ignored. More and more Irish Catholicism is becoming a private …

Let’s praise David Cameron for creating a brilliant showcase

Brian Walker on June 19, 2013, 5:30 pm

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First of all there was the simple pleasure at Lough Erne looking wonderful, an English friend saying “didn’t Enniskillen look beautiful” and even the rain staying off, mostly. I admit I was chuffed to see Jon Snow presenting lakeside “fresh in from Iran.. on a beautiful Fermanagh evening.” And never mind Obama. Unfashionable as it is to praise any British Prime Minister for anything they do on this island, let’s hear it for David Cameron whose bold and imaginative decision …

Obama strikes a note of realism in making a cautious appeal to open a gate in the peace walls before tearing them down

Brian Walker on June 17, 2013, 2:09 pm

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While it causes a thrill to see Obama in town, lockdown bloated security hassle and all, visits by presidents, prime ministers and even popes are now subject to the law of diminishing returns. Timed to deliver a powerful boost the fledgling peace process in 1995, Bill Clinton’s impact at the City Hall was bound to be hard to beat. Obama had a less visionary message to deliver to the obligatory “youth,”- that at least you have a different context to work …

For the sake of the future, the Assembly needs reform

Brian Walker on June 13, 2013, 2:47 pm

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You could be forgiven for failing to notice that the Assembly’s Assembly and Executive Review Committee has been holding a review on “D’Hondt; Community Designation and Provisions for Opposition” over the past four months. As the committee is due to report about now we’ve not got long to contain our excitement. The sweeping nature of the inquiry contrasts with its brevity and limited response (according to information on the website) and has been held I suspect under Westminster pressure. It therefore augurs poorly for the …

If Ireland north and south can commemorate the First World War together, so should the Germans alongside the wartime Allies

Brian Walker on June 12, 2013, 11:03 am

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A piece in the Indy by Matthew Norman on the UK’s plans to commemorate World War 1 has to be read quite carefully to register the satire against the (English) Culture secretary’s smiley moral equivalence approach to the vexed issue of war guilt. Were the Germans the clear aggressors or “were we all to blame?” The subject will never die. In his magisterial “The Sleepwalkers,” written last year the Cambridge historian Christopher Clarke makes the case for shared guilt after an …

UK City of Culture rocks for Radio 1 Big Weekend

Brian Walker on May 25, 2013, 7:09 pm

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I’ve just been watching the video stream of Day Two of the Radio 1 Big Weekend in Derry for a few hours, on and off. (I fess up. My daughter is an executive producer of the event. For variety during the cultural initiation I opened up other windows to sound off in Slugger about political reform; that explains it ). That said the event won me over. It looks great, terrifically well staged, well filmed, good sound and really charged on video stream. …