Brian Walker – Page 70 – Slugger O'Toole

Bangor born David Montgomery plans return to regional newspapers

Brian Walker on October 28, 2012, 11:33 pm

| Readers 18

Sky News’ City Editor has “ an exclusive” which on the face of it promises new investment in hard pressed regional papers under Bangor boy and staunch Unionist David Montgomery. Iliffe News & Media, owner of the Cambridge News and Hertfordshire Mercury, and Northcliffe Media, the regionals arm of Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), are in advanced talks to pool their assets into a new vehicle spearheaded by David Montgomery, the former editor of the News Of The World …

Northern powersharing is faring better than the southern version, says Emerson. Can this be right?

Brian Walker on October 28, 2012, 1:02 pm

| Readers 54

In the Sunday Times,(£) Newton Emerson, apparently unabashed at being dropped by the BBC, strikes a counterintuitive note by offering a few words of support to the powersharing Executive at the expense of that other coalition in Dublin. Ignoring the recent Kearney-Robinson dingdong, he bounces his critique off Micheal Martin’s Bodenstown speech deploring the southern coalition’s failure to pay enough attention to the North, and turns it on its head. Stormont is appallingly slow at making decisions, not just on the …

UK City of Culture launched with confidence and flair

Brian Walker on October 27, 2012, 12:54 pm

| Readers 77

Aside from our own unique brand of cynicism, there is bound to be angst on a smaller scale to that which foreshadowed the London 2012 Olympics. For Derry, the word “transformational “ is already familiar and will soon be overworked. But transformed already is what will become the main events venue, the old Ebrington Barracks ( see above, the arena depicted is pending). This is now linked to the old city via the Peace Bridge, for which the word “iconic” however also overworked, seems …

Londonderry passes muster with Hitchens shock!

Brian Walker on October 26, 2012, 12:33 pm

| Readers 105

Just as the final programme for UK City of Culture is announced, I can’t resist posting a piece by the polemicist Peter Hitchens on my native city – and Cof I cathedral. I was ready to wince and play the pedantic fact checker throughout. But Peter interrogated himself as unsparingly as he did the history and captured the essence of the old city at least, well enough. Unusually for Peter, he even ended on a note of reconciliation. Brian WalkerFormer …

The welfare debate has regressed by generations

Brian Walker on October 26, 2012, 12:07 pm

| Readers 52

Iain Duncan Smith’s plan to restrict child benefit to the first two for new claimants is compared in the Independent to China’s one child policy. My own comparison is much closer to home. In my 1950s childhood it was commonplace to hear lots of Prod grumbling about payments to all those big Catholic families – “breeding like rabbits, they won’t have the Crown but they want the half crown” etc. Even as child this struck me as a futile argument. …

Setting a gold standard in how to govern

Brian Walker on October 25, 2012, 11:17 pm

| Readers 38

I’d like to offer a few thoughts from the chapter How To Be a Reformer in Andrew Adonis’s new book Education, Education Education. These impressive conclusions, also culled from recent exchanges with him, are based on his career as a historian, academic, journalist, Head of Tony Blair’s Policy Unit and the Minister of State for Education for England who introduced academies to transform “ bog standard comprehensives” and remove them from local authority control. I’ll leave the CV and profile …

“For the first time, Alex Salmond has been made to look ridiculous”

Brian Walker on October 25, 2012, 9:29 am

| Readers 72

Alex Salmond has had his worst week in years. The SNP annual conference revealed a split over continuing membership of Nato. Then he was exposed for, shall we say, stretching a point to its limits by claiming he had legal approval for insisting that an independent Scotland would smoothly inherit EU membership from the former UK. Small wonder that David Cameron, no mean connoisseur of omnishambles himself, crowed at PMQs yesterday. Iain McWhirter in the Herald, explains why Salmond’s spinning …

Kearney of Sinn Fein’s “reconcilation” pitch deserves a considered response

Brian Walker on October 25, 2012, 1:28 am

| Readers 152

The pitch made within the precincts of Westminster last night by Declan Kearney the up and coming Sinn Fein chairperson, for “national reconciliation within Ireland through uncomfortable conversations” was more than the usual rally cry for exiles and republican sympathisers. It was a pull-together of the Sinn Fein package for the future, carefully and not unattractively wrapped. Cynics will dismiss it as a cracked record and it can be pulled apart (and no doubt duly will be). But cumulatively and …

Stalling on abortion law reform North and South

Brian Walker on October 22, 2012, 2:21 pm

| Readers 43

Let me try to offer some context on abortion law, with the health warning that I’m not a lawyer. The law on abortion in both parts of Ireland is in question because of a judgment of the European Court of Human Rights almost two years ago which I among others drew attention to at the time. Does that ruling compel the Republic and the North to legalise abortion on demand up to 24 weeks or anything like it ? No …

Don’t play legalistic games with abortion

Brian Walker on October 20, 2012, 7:28 pm

| Readers 64

Strange – or maybe not so strange – that the overwhelmingly male Slugger blogosphere tends to prefer the sectarian dingdong to difficult social issues like abortion which the Assembly and the legal establishment between them actually affect. But if constitutional issues are your bag, there’s now something in the subject for you too. After the opening of the Marie Stopes clinic in Belfast under an actually progressive unionist Dawn Purvis, the Attorney General John Larkin weighed in with an offer to …

Will the Scottish independence debate ripple south of the border and across the Irish Sea?

Brian Walker on October 16, 2012, 11:04 am

| Readers 75

At last, it’s game on for the Independence Debate. London based comment has decided that on balance David Cameron had the best of Round One, or the “Edinburgh Declaration, “ as Alex Salmond dubbed it with typical initiative-grabbing grandiosity. Salmond of course hasn’t conceded any such thing. Leaving the wording of The Question aside for later debate, some of the wider ripple effects have been noted. Tory opposition means 17 year olds will be able to vote in the Scottish referendum, which is …

Paisley jnr, Andrew Marr and a case of mistaken identity

Brian Walker on October 16, 2012, 9:50 am

| Readers 52

Guido flashed it, so to speak. Then Quentin Letts, a graduate of TCD and therefore qualified to comment on all things Irish north and south picked it up in his sketch. Mr Paisley rose. Tall fella. He has his father’s shoulders and skull-shape and Northern Irish accent. As I say, the larynx does not yet have the entrancing, papery creak but it is still a strong, clear voice, the Ulster uplift giving it a tone of disbelief. He asked Mrs …

Corporation tax: put us out of our misery

Brian Walker on October 15, 2012, 2:18 pm

| Readers 40

The Financial Times (£) carries a blunt warning from Bombardier, Northern Ireland’s largest employer, that it will lose its ability to invest in the province unless the end of regional aid at the behest of the EU is offset by a cut in corporation tax. This gets down to the bottom line after years of teasing on the subject. (Incidentally has any other news organisation bothered to report this? I can find nothing on line). The FT also reports: Long …

Stop pretending over welfare cuts

Brian Walker on October 10, 2012, 9:27 pm

| Readers 71

In practice because of the funding straightjacket, welfare is not devolved to Holyrood, Cardiff Bay or Stormont. So are the objections to the new universal credit in both Holyrood and Stormont any more than political grandstanding? Differential welfare payments make little or no sense without extensive tax raising powers. And there is no sign of Stormont wanting the responsibility of creating a small tax base apart from Westminster. Not even from Sinn Fein. Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in …

Deal announced on Scottish referendum

Brian Walker on October 10, 2012, 11:10 am

| Readers 55

The deal between the UK and Scottish governments on the referendum is done and will be sealed on Monday. The Scotland Office and the SNP government seem to have jumped the gun on Downing St by announcing agreement on a single “yes, no question,” but with votes for 16 year olds added, if the Scottish Parliament approves. That detail might be thought to favour the “yes” camp if you believe kids favour change pretty automatically. There’ll be lots of detail to fight …

Bursting Boris’s bubble

Brian Walker on October 10, 2012, 8:50 am

| Readers 44

I’m not normally a great one for polemic – there’s more than enough of it already. But I can’t resist posting Max Hastings’ verdict on Boris, which my own experience echoes tamely. I have known the mayor for more than 20 years. He worked for me as EU correspondent of the Daily Telegraph and then as a columnist when I was the paper’s editor, and I have seen plenty of him since. He is a magnificent journalist and showman. He …

Radical Assembly reform. Going through the motions?

Brian Walker on October 9, 2012, 3:46 pm

| Readers 46

“The costs of division remain far too high”. Not a bad reason for wanting a shared society but not the best either. The new Secretary of State Theresa Villiers’ speech to the Conservative party conference was squeezed into a slot along with the other territorial cabinet ministers. Corporation tax had not actually been removed from the agenda and oh yes, there was Assembly reform. Good cause but is anybody actually interested? As politics in Northern Ireland move forward, it’s only …

Britain’s divergence from Europe does not necessarily benefit traditional unionists

Brian Walker on October 8, 2012, 11:12 am

| Readers 47

Ed Curran’s column comparing the Ulster Covenant era with today’s is full of good sense. His message is that no State, least of all the Republic, is fully independent in the era of globalisation and bailout. But the state of flux in Europe is beginning slowly to form into a new political landscape. Budgetary and fiscal union combined with closer political relationships seems inevitable for the Eurozone. Britain, historically on the edge of Europe, is sworn never (“never, never, never?”) …

What is the point of the Northern Ireland Secretary?

Brian Walker on October 7, 2012, 11:48 am

| Readers 70

These days the Northern Ireland Secretary of State has little to do except polish her or his credentials for a better job. The tactic seems to have worked well enough for Owen Paterson who remained a favourite of the Conservative right by positioning himself on a number of subjects like an EU referendum and climate change a step away from, but not actually at odds with David Cameron. Paterson’s positioning incidentally, highlights Cameron’s fuzziness over a number of issues that is making his …

Eric Hobsbawm: a tarnished or triumphant reputation?

Brian Walker on October 2, 2012, 8:57 am

| Readers 215

How is it possible to be a major historian and an apologist for communism? It may depend on the breadth of your horizons. Without tackling the question head-on, Eric Hobsbawm who died yesterday at the age of 95 explained himself in his own terms on this fundamental point in the introduction to Age of Extremes :The short twentieth Century 1914-1991 he called The Century: a Bird’s Eye View. His synthesis on this most terrible and most transforming of centuries that …