Brian Walker – Page 67 – Slugger O'Toole

Embarrassment over Stormont Executive’s shameful failiure to support UK wide free speech and libel reform

Brian Walker on March 13, 2013, 4:23 pm

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I’m obliged to Jeff Dudgeon for drawing attention to the latest failure by the Executive. It has come to light that the Stormont powers that be failed to agree on bringing Northern Ireland into line with the English Defamation Bill and so bring much needed reform to the libel laws – if the Bill isn’t messed up by confusing the issues with the quite distinct ones of press regulation and the Leveson agenda. No reason was given apparently. The Bill’s main plank is …

Chief Justice offers dialogue with politicians on bail decisions

Brian Walker on March 11, 2013, 11:25 pm

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The Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan has given a rare broadcast interview addressing head on the alleged “perception “of partiality in recent bail decisions. The interview opens a dialogue with the aim of educating politicians – in particular the DUP leadership – in the complexities of bail decisions on the Assembly’s own ground, the Justice Committee. The offer is also open for Peter Robinson to talk to him. The chief justice says nothing new of substance. But he …

A manifesto for enlightened Catholicism

Brian Walker on March 11, 2013, 12:24 pm

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From the always inspiring Hans Kung, one of two surviving theologians of Vatican 2, the other being Joseph Ratzinger. True ecumenism. One shouldn’t be misled by the media hype of grandly staged papal mass events or by the wild applause of conservative Catholic youth groups. Behind the facade, the whole house is crumbling. In this dramatic situation the church needs a pope who’s not living intellectually in the Middle Ages, who doesn’t champion any kind of medieval theology, liturgy or church …

How do Robinson and McGuinness explain their anti- EU stances to Brazilian and other would be overseas investors?

Brian Walker on March 11, 2013, 10:44 am

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The Financial Times (£) have another report warning of possible dire consequences if the UK voted to leave the EU in a 2017 referendum, not least for Ireland north and south. An UK exit from the EU would produce huge complications to cross border trade – you can just imagine trying to put in place bilateral arrangements,” said Steve Aitken, chief executive of the British-Irish Chamber of Commerce. “Businesses don’t recognise the national boundaries that politicians do and are extremely …

The judges are right to speak out against coat trailing politicians

Brian Walker on March 9, 2013, 12:17 pm

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The sequence of empty complaints led by Peter Robinson about the “perceptions” of partiality in the granting of bail only risks creating more trouble for the police and the courts to deal with, witness Glengormley last night. The gurning is unlikely to have the slightest effect on the PSNI and the judiciary. This is not because of unreasonable stubbornness on their part but due to the poverty of the criticisms. For the first time that I can recall the judges have hit …

Well meaning though it may be, I’m against teaching history to promote a shared identity

Brian Walker on March 7, 2013, 5:21 pm

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The historian Tristram Hunt has given a cautious welcome in the Times to Michael Gove’s controversial plans for the history curriculum in England, (£) a topic I raised last month. This is interesting because Hunt is also a Labour MP and pro-Labour reaction to the Gove proposals was generally hostile. Hunt writes: At the heart of the controversy is the question of Britishness. Critics suggest that in a modern, globalised world, dominated by China and India, it is backward and …

The political vacuum is compromising the standing of the PSNI

Brian Walker on March 5, 2013, 12:42 pm

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When criticism is made from both directions it’s often said that the subject of the criticism must be doing something right. I suspect that’s what Matt Baggott is thinking now over the rows about recent arrests on both sides of the divide. There is an alternative view of course; he may be getting it wrong across the board. Either way a small storm of whataboutery is blowing. It must not get out of hand. Willie Frazer is a hero to …

Ireland: Europe’s poster child for austerity or fall guy?

Brian Walker on March 4, 2013, 7:17 pm

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“The plan is working” declares the Taoiseach, in an article above his name in the Irish Times. While I acknowledge that we still have a long way to go, it is clear Ireland is headed in the right direction and there is light at the end of this tunnel .. Other banks have been recapitalised and restructured, with new boards and management teams. The bank guarantee has been ended, some stakes in the banks have been sold, deposits are flowing …

Sir George Quigley

Brian Walker on March 4, 2013, 11:22 am

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The sudden death at 83 of Sir George Quigley is a reminder of the underappreciated value of the really top class civil servant. No faceless bureaucrat during the long years of Direct Rule at the department of finance and elsewhere, he had an equally beneficial afterlife in the public and private sectors, serving among other posts as chairman of the Ulster Bank and Bombardier locally. Personally he was a warm hearted and easy communicator and a liberal minded Presbyterian …

Anti-abortion farce takes over Assembly

Brian Walker on March 2, 2013, 4:20 pm

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How sad and how typical it is that local parties are uniting to impose an unnecessary ban on a non-existent threat. The Marie Stopes clinic has said it will carry out medical, not surgical, procedures only up to nine weeks gestation and only within the existing legal framework of private abortions. They have made it clear they must operate within the NI legal framework and ” want to be regulated.” Fiddling while the place is burning is becoming the Assembly’s speciality. …

Press comment on the BBC’s Saville crisis is off beam. Pollard transcripts reveal individual errors more than cultural flaws

Brian Walker on February 23, 2013, 1:19 pm

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Reacting to the transcripts of the Pollard report on the “crisis” within the BBC, where do I start? Best to sum up and not get bogged down. For that, go to Steve Hewlett’s video in the Independent. To be fair press comment on Pollard today is fairly mild, perhaps exhausted after covering the affair as it happened. Yes, chaos and “faffing about” are revealed in the transcripts. Some of the faffing is about concealing full candour which Pollard for all its …

What is history for again?

Brian Walker on February 17, 2013, 11:26 am

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A growing row over Michael Gove’s proposed new history curriculum for England may well spark a bout of Brit bashing in Slugger and other places. Anything that seems to encourage the “great man theory “( History p 165 et seq)” of British history will be dumped on, but not only on this side of the water. One person’s theory of responsible British citizenship is another’s indulgence of imperial nostalgia and whitewash. On the row itself, the Observer report claims that even up …

Unionists be warned. Negative campaigning against Scottish independence is not enough

Brian Walker on February 14, 2013, 12:56 pm

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A warning shot against unionist complacency in Scotland… Backing for independence among voters aged 18 to 24 stood at 58 per cent, according to the latest Ipsos MORI survey on voting intentions for the 2014 referendum…There were 34 per cent who supported Scotland leaving the UK, the poll of more than 1,000 people interviewed between 4 and 9 February showed. Support for Scotland staying in the Union fell slightly, going from 58 per cent to 55 per cent over the …

A real chance to promote Assembly reform must not be lost

Brian Walker on February 14, 2013, 11:33 am

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Just a reminder if you need it -and you can hardly be blamed if you have noticed. You have until 28 March to submit your proposals to reform the politics of Northern Ireland. The Assembly and Executive Review Committee is carrying out a review of the GFA arrangements which is required by 2015. They are calling for evidence. This could mean you. This task was once a concession to the DUP but is now legally stipulated. So the Assembly …

Opening shots muffled in UK government’s fightback against Scottish independence campaign

Brian Walker on February 12, 2013, 9:11 am

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Significantly as PM and not as Conservative leader David Cameron launched on Sunday a “heart and head” campaign against Scottish “separation” as unionists like to call it, with a upbeat image of four happy partners. Britain is admired around the world as a source of prosperity, power and security. Those glorious Olympics last summer reminded us just what we were capable of when we pull together: Scottish, English, Welsh, Northern Irish, all in the same boat – sometimes literally Dave’s …

An Irish Borgen?

Brian Walker on February 3, 2013, 11:39 am

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Dyspeptic Scots columnist Kevin McKenna (now where did that name come from?) is so right when he says Scottish politics are too boring to mount a drama like Borgen. But then, Alex might reply that Scotland is not an independent country – yet. Staying glued to Borgen though fits perfectly into Scottish culture. Manfully, I’ve been trying to lower the life expectancy of Borgen fans by preparing for the Saturday night fix thus: watching Soccer AM; grabbing a few Bacardis; …

In the UK housing market it’s back to the 1970s

Brian Walker on February 2, 2013, 11:54 pm

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The ever widening gap in regional property values is spelt out in Mail Online is even more remorseless detail than the news section of its source, the upmarket estate agents Savils. Homes in the ten richest London boroughs are worth the combined total of houses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it emerged yesterday. And in a dramatic illustration of the growing wealth gap between the South East and the rest of the UK, a survey has revealed that Elmbridge, a …

Malcolm Brodie the magnificent

Brian Walker on February 1, 2013, 4:56 pm

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To a younger generation the spate of tributes to Malcolm Brodie, for a lifetime the sports editor of the Belfast Telegraph, may be a bit of a puzzle. “One of the greats,” a legend “ and so on may not be descriptions that you would easily associate with someone who gloried in the minutiae of Irish League football even in the heyday of Ireland’s Saturday Night. Malcolm pulled it off because he was three things. As a news journalist he was as …

Referendum blues

Brian Walker on January 24, 2013, 12:00 pm

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Bad news for the Yes campaign for Scottish independence, analysed by the psephological guru of gurus John Curtice. It’s a debate worth following not only for its own sake but for how issues wider than the border itself might feed into any referendum debate in Ireland. First off, the headline: just 23% now say that “Scotland should become separate, independent from the rest of the UK”. That’s nine percentage points lower than last time round in 2011…Going beyond that headline finding, there’s …

Bold alternative urgently needed to Scottish independence

Brian Walker on January 21, 2013, 2:29 pm

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In Scotland the Better Together campaign has deservedly come in for some stick. The pro-Union cause has so far failed to agree on devo-more, the alternative to independence many politically aware Scots seem to want. (Incidentally if it ever comes to an NI referendum, their website is not the model to follow: remarkably for a Save the Union umbrella organisation it’s trite and one dimensional. They key critique is made by my friend Alan Trench whose Devolution Matters blog is the …