Brian Walker – Page 68 – Slugger O'Toole

We could be entering an era of referendum politics. Will it be destructive or creative?

Brian Walker on January 19, 2013, 8:56 pm

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Sinn Fein’s very reason for existing requires that they will call for a border poll during the life time of the 2015-19 Assembly. The tactic is about more than bravado. SF can afford to lose one poll and yet do well enough for another to be called within the prescribed seven years. It might be thought that here is another example of a party refusing to accept the sectarian consequences of their politics. But do not doubt that Sinn Fein …

Robert Kee, hero of journalism and the television history of Irish nationalism

Brian Walker on January 14, 2013, 12:13 pm

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Slugger should note the passing of Robert Kee, historian, TV and print journalist and RAF bomber pilot, who has died aged 93. In this age of revisionist debate, his TV history series first shown in 1981 and The Green Flag, the written history of Irish nationalism which accompanied it, were well timed and still stand up today. It was a stellar achievement to produce such a magisterial work on a hot topic at the time, when so many critics were waiting to pounce …

Why are Sinn Fein’s ratings in political game higher than the Unionists’?

Brian Walker on January 11, 2013, 9:05 am

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The perception filling the airwaves that Sinn Fein do a better job of representing the people than the unionist parties needs examination. On the one hand everybody seems to believe it or explain it by claiming SF had the easier task – “Catholics had it all to gain; the Prods could only lose.” The most fervent believers in SF superiority are of course the loyalists, following the old rule of political behaviour that alienated people believe their opponents more than their own side. …

Stormont needs to raise itself above the level of events

Brian Walker on January 10, 2013, 4:23 pm

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If nothing else the flags trouble has exposed the dearth of genuine engagement over grievances that are the expressions of low morale. They’re not all about making excuses for rioting and grabbing fifteen minutes of fame with egregious and calculated exercises of disinformation and distortion. I’ve listed below two sets of grievances carried in separate Newsletter reports arising out of the disturbances. Whatever you may think of them and their spokespersons, it has to be admitted that they have remained in the …

BBC DG dies who was brought down over Martin McGuinness and ” the oxygen of publicity”

Brian Walker on January 10, 2013, 12:05 am

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The Jimmy Savile affair and Iraq and the suicide of Dr David Kelly were two BBC editorial crises which cost BBC directors general their jobs. But the first in the sequence came in 1987 when DG Alasdair Milne was abruptly sacked two years after Real Lives: On the Edge of the Union, the documentary which featured Martin McGuinness as an ordinary person without horns, while at the same time being the IRA leader in Derry. The DG Alasdair Milne died yesterday. …

Now here’s a thought. The Union Jack is not the flag of Unionism

Brian Walker on January 9, 2013, 12:12 pm

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The raising of the Union Jack for a day over the City Hall (not “City Hall”, BBC) creates a welcome moment of reflection for the political parties. Looking around them, they can surely see that the protests do not have the oxygen to ignite a real crisis, as Eamonn has reported. The persistence of disorder and protest is of course damaging but recoverable. The already narrow ground of serious disaffection has been exposed as getting narrower. Everyone understands that escalation that can …

On the lack of unionist leadership – what would Paisley in his prime made of it?

Brian Walker on January 8, 2013, 12:20 pm

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As Paul Bew has pointed out in the Times(£), with the NIO a rump and now lacking historic memory in depth, there’s not much Theresa Villiers can do to affect the flags disturbances directly, with day to-day responsibility for law and order devolved to Stormont. Unless that is, the protests gain wider political traction as a result of Willie Frazer’s exercise in protest tourism and other spasms. This seems unlikely as the “People’s Forum “ seems as rickety as the unionist …

We need fresher thinking than this

Brian Walker on January 3, 2013, 11:17 pm

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Two New Year articles worth noting which struggle with the abiding theme. Given prime billing in the Irish Times, Robin Wilson laments the anti-democratic and physical force elements in both of our traditions as we move further into the decade of commemoration. His historical sweep of a century reinforces his determinist case against the GFA accommodation, leading to his usual bleak conclusion. For Bertie Ahern and Tony Blair, the Northern Ireland “peace process” was defined by a realpolitik where moral …

The BBC has no business making a silly unionist dig at Martin McGuinness

Brian Walker on January 3, 2013, 12:04 pm

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Just a bit of New Year harrumping. I see the Bel Tel couldn’t resist joining the tease that Martin McGuinness took on an “English aristocratic title” when he had to go through the traditional form of accepting an office of profit under the Crown in order to quit as an abstensionist MP. The BBC website even put up a headline with the “aristocratic “ tag which with a bit of searching you can still find. It’s all very well for the …

Memories of 1982, a strange year

Brian Walker on December 31, 2012, 6:49 pm

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According to what’s appeared in the papers, the archives of 1982 have produced few surprises. Perhaps Wally Kirwan’s suggestion of cross border internment put (safely) to Garret FitzGerald comes close but it was never going to happen. The two governments had allowed themselves to be pushed apart by the 1981 hunger strike and a key initiative had been handed to the IRA and Sinn Fein for years. I missed an early chance of enlightenment. After snatching a TV interview with …

The PSNI investigation into Bloody Sunday is mistaken. Try them for perjury

Brian Walker on December 21, 2012, 11:16 pm

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Many people will say that if ever there was a suitable case for prosecution, it’s Bloody Sunday when paratroop soldiers shot 14 people before the eyes of many of us around at time. But challenged on whether I approve of the opening of a police inquiry into Bloody Sunday that will take four years , I’ve decided to come clean and say I think it’s fundamentally mistaken. How disillusioning is this development for the many who deceived themselves when they thought closure had been …

After “closure,” the reopening of Bloody Sunday for at least four more years

Brian Walker on December 20, 2012, 9:29 pm

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In a statement, police said that for the investigation to be as “comprehensive and effective” as possible, they would be asking witnesses who gave evidence to the Saville inquiry to make statements to detectives. “This is because police are precluded from using Saville testimony in a criminal investigation. Details on how this process will be facilitated will be made available in the near future,” the statement said Press Release from Madden & Finucane Solicitors regarding Bloody Sunday Inquiry Report …

“Heads must roll” is not a quick fix for the BBC or the cabinet

Brian Walker on December 20, 2012, 9:31 am

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What’s there to trust in public life? A new Hillsborough inquiry into a dreadful police cover up of how 23 died in the same year as Finucane ; UBS in the latest bank scandal over fixing the Libor rate, amid unresolved rows about big banks and bankers’ pay. Off with all their heads? But also comes a reminder that it should not be so easy to sack cabinet ministers such as Andrew Mitchell and Peter Mandelson, “the comeback king”. Where …

The modest case for the Assembly in 2013

Brian Walker on December 19, 2012, 11:54 pm

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Later.. I’ve now made it to 20 points by adding a couple on managing the economy ( how could I have left them out?). These create a dialogue with Mick, although not quite along the same lines. Working with the available material and far away from Nirvana. To adapt Mario Cuomo, you rebel in poetry but govern in prose. 1. Might it just be that the fact of power sharing has helped create more flexible identities? 2. A near 20% fall in …

Clash over inquests between the coroner and the Attorney General to be resolved in High Court

Brian Walker on December 19, 2012, 6:39 pm

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Good news for the families, that a new inquest will be held on the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, on application by the Attorney General for England and Wales Dominic Grieve to the High Court in London. The lord chief justice said it was “inevitable” that the emergence of fresh evidence about how and why the 96 victims died made it “desirable and reasonable for a fresh inquest to be heard”. “However distressing or unpalatable, the truth will be brought …

Urgent BBC explanation needed for pulling Panorama on army undercover squad ( Now updated with BBC explanation)

Brian Walker on December 18, 2012, 12:44 pm

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Update My old colleague John Ware of Panorama has rung to say he’s waiting for some new information in order to complete the programme. So conspiracy theorists can stand down. Thanks to Galloglaigh for getting this reply from Panorama earlier Apologies for any confusion caused, but we do need to change planned programmes on short notice from time to time owing to various editorial issues. Best wishes for the Christmas season. The Panorama Team This has been a perfect example …

After Finucane, “a new disaster waiting to happen, ” warns Justice lobby group. But why not a new inquest?

Brian Walker on December 17, 2012, 1:51 pm

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The de Silva report presents a challenge to the legal establishment and others in Northern Ireland over how to proceed in the light of the UK government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry. Accountability concerns are not confined to history. They remain a live issue today since the devolution of policing and justice. One of the key issues is to how to subject the police and security service’s covert operations to critical examination to prevent such gross abuses in future. “Moving …

A referendum on Irish unity is more likely than you think

Brian Walker on December 15, 2012, 5:37 pm

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The flag riots have shown sectarianism to be as potent as ever while the census may have shown that the old easy equivalence between Protestant/ unionist and Catholic/nationalist has gone. What are we to make of the contradiction? Can we have it both ways: to be dismayed by the upsurge of sectarian violence yet encouraged by the decline in bottom line sectarian identities? Has the trouble been “the spasm of a dying cause”, as Bill Neely put it from comfortable …

Finucane allegations – put up or shut up

Brian Walker on December 15, 2012, 2:42 pm

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Ruth Dudley Edwards, quoted approvingly in the News Letter, has exposed the posthumous indictment of Pat Finucane in the Daily Telegraph that deeply offends the family and repels more than supporters of a public inquiry. It’s important to say that the Prime Minister accepted the findings of the de Silva report following Stevens, that he was not a member of the IRA. I post her article because it is a valid part of public discourse however unpalatable to many …

Are our versions of history sundering or reconciling us?

Brian Walker on December 13, 2012, 2:43 pm

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Martin Kettle in the Guardian pens a lament for the ignorance of the English about their own history. The outcome, he claims is a” loss of national self respect” and the threat of a disintegrating Union. For once, the term “English” is used deliberately. It’s a long time since AJP Taylor’s superb English History 1914 -1945 simply equated “ English” with “British,” and referred mischievously to “ the Scotch.” Could the opposite apply to us non-English , that overheated versions of …