Dan Payne – Slugger O'Toole

The Conservative Party and their Identity Problem

Dan Payne on July 2, 2022, 6:00 pm

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direction, road, look

Once upon a time, the British political movement with the simplest ideology was the Conservative Party. Whether you liked them or not, you broadly knew where you stood with them. Since the Tory Party of the 1670s was officially renamed in 1834 by its then leader Sir Robert Peel, its underlying fundamental message had been Don’t Rock The Boat. Put more broadly, the Party traditionally stood for protecting existing institutions, such as the Church (of England, of course), the family, …

The First O’Neill

Dan Payne on May 1, 2022, 1:00 pm

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This Thursday voters in Northern Ireland will go to the polls for the latest Assembly elections. Then, around 2-3 days later we will know the full results, and soon after that – if the polls are right – there could well be the waving of the first “O’Neill Must Go” protest banners for 53 years. Of course, “If the polls are right” is something of a crucial caveat, given how they have, at times, proved to be erroneous. Nonetheless, the …

Abimael Guzman (1934-2021), Monster of the Peruvian Andes

Dan Payne on September 13, 2021, 1:00 pm

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A brutal military conflict scourged the land in the 1980s and early ’90s, with guerrilla fighters based out in the countryside seeing themselves as freedom fighters rather than terrorists, and a central government often resorting to dubiously legitimate means to combat the insurgents. The scenario straightaway sounds depressingly familiar. Then again, it must be said that a lot about the history of Peru is depressing, as the country this year marks the bicentenary of its declaration of independence. The death …

Bernie Sanders and the States He’s In

Dan Payne on September 7, 2021, 6:00 am

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Bernie Sanders, Rally at Pittsburgh University, Sunday April 14.

Tomorrow one of America’s most recognizable public figures will turn 80. He is a former mayor of Burlington, he has been an independent senator for fourteen years, and has twice made an unsuccessful bid for the Presidency, via the Democratic Party. He is, it is fair to say, unlikely ever to become President. Whatever you think of Bernie Sanders, though, it is undeniable that he has had an impact on his country. What is more, it is an impact that …

In Search of “Globo Cop”

Dan Payne on August 31, 2021, 8:00 am

| Readers 1075

A Great Power has been humbled, and its leader’s reputation has suffered. It has had to retreat in the face of successful military manoeuvres from a much less powerful state, and it has come in for a lot of criticism from its allies about its actions. This Great Power is discovering, in quite stark fashion, that it cannot just expect to send its soldiers anywhere in the world, lay down the law, and expect things to go swimmingly just because …

The United States’ Democratic Party – America’s Jackasses…

Dan Payne on July 21, 2021, 8:00 am

| Readers 1356

The thing about political symbols is that they can work for you as often as they work against you. The United States’ Democratic Party is a classic example of this rule. The party’s founder Andrew Jackson (president in 1829-37) was dubbed by his opponents in the press as a “jackass”. Whether they meant he was stupid or stubborn is unclear, but, far from being offended, Jackson actually found it funny, and started using the image of a donkey on his …

The Jazz Musicians’ Jazz Musicians’ Jazz Musicians’ Panel-Game Chairman

Dan Payne on May 23, 2021, 10:30 am

| Readers 1478

For some reason or other, many of us on this side of the Irish Sea tend to prefer our heroes being low-key, understated, and with a blow-dried sense of humour. Such was the case with a great English gentleman born exactly a century ago. Humphrey Lyttelton may not sound like the name of someone you’d expect to have a cape and superhuman strength, but he certainly managed to inspire and lighten up the lives of millions in a long and …

Popcorn-tastic, mate

Dan Payne on May 20, 2021, 1:30 pm

| Readers 2113

In his 1994 autobiography My Tune, the veteran disc jockey Simon Bates remarks of his amazement of how low the murder rate inside radio stations has historically been. Bates evidently knew whereof he was writing, as his book came out a year after his very high-profile resignation from the BBC’s flagship national radio channel Radio 1, and at a time when the station was going through the biggest and most controversial personnel shake-up in its history. At least one of …

The Ted Hastings Question

Dan Payne on May 2, 2021, 6:00 am

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Only a few hours to go until the resolution of (at least) the sixth season of what has easily been the BBC’s best TV drama show of the last 20 years. Speculation has been rife as to whether there will be a seventh season of Line of Duty, or whether writer Jed Mercurio will call it a day with tomorrow’s finale of this one. Perhaps he could do a Star Wars-type prequel series called Line of Duty: Ted Hastings – …

Who Hired Cock Robin?

Dan Payne on April 3, 2021, 2:53 pm

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It’s something of a running open secret about British politics that being a politician is one of those jobs with no actual job description, and for which you need no qualifications. Another aspect of this open secret is that the higher up a statesman or -woman climbs the greasy pole, the less they ultimately have to do for their job. This characteristic of our constitution Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn famously noted in their acclaimed 1980s sitcom Yes Minister, which …

The Real Reason Why Britain Still Has a Monarchy

Dan Payne on March 15, 2021, 6:00 am

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If you were designing, or aiming to design, the perfect form of government from scratch, then the verdict on monarchy (in whatever form it came) would be, to cite an old Irish cliché, ‘I wouldn’t start from here.’ Whatever view you take of Meghangate, and its ongoing outworkings, there is no easy way to defend a system where the job of Head of State is reserved for just one family. I don’t know the full details of what was said …

It Wasn’t A Sin

Dan Payne on February 19, 2021, 6:00 am

| Readers 1715

One of this country’s top television hits this year arrived in America last night. Arguably the most powerful televisual way in a long time of conveying the message ‘Some people are gay. Get over it‘, Channel 4’s It’s A Sin premiered on the channel HBO Max yesterday evening, and the show’s considerably high ratings (Channel 4 say that it has been their biggest-ever drama launch on their All 4 streaming service) and favourable critical acclaim (Rotten Tomatoes have given it a …

The Battle of Handforth – a subject for future murals…?

Dan Payne on February 5, 2021, 1:06 pm

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The world of Lockdown has certainly proved to be a weird one over the past year. When you’re confined to your home there are only so many activities with which to amuse yourself. Many of us have binge-watched Netflix box sets, binge-read books, binge-listened to entire CD collections – or just binged, generally… Parents have had to learn home-schooling pretty rapidly, Eurovision, the Olympics and Wimbledon were suspended, and Joe Wicks became an international hero in a way that wouldn’t …

What happened to the Republican Party?

Dan Payne on January 10, 2021, 4:05 pm

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In ten days’ time, despite the best efforts of the Republicans, Joe Biden will be sworn in as America’s next President, and its political system will continue to operate unimpeded – again, despite the Republicans’ best efforts. Yes, the events of Wednesday in Washington DC were shocking, and Donald Trump has been a chief executive like no other, having, over his four years in power, plumbed the depths somewhat as to what an American president could or should be allowed …

Partition at 100: the British Problem

Dan Payne on November 23, 2020, 6:00 am

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Northern Ireland and its history have fascinated me continuously pretty much ever since I first learned how to use an atlas when I was a kid. Looking at political maps, I would internally wonder why this corner of the island of Ireland was a different colour from the rest – though it took me a little longer to query what a “political map” was, and what a “relief map” was, and what exactly is so “relieving” about seeing the outlines …

Happy Birthday Emmanuel Goldstein

Dan Payne on August 12, 2020, 8:00 am

| Readers 1291

Scapegoating is always so helpful in politics, is it not? It’s so cost-effective, and saves so much trouble. Rather than admit to your audience that there are no easy solutions to the problems facing your people, and that things are a lot more complicated than was previously thought, all you need to do is affect some fake moral outrage and point the finger at [insert identifiable target here]. The practice has been used as long as politics has existed, of …

A Short History of the “L” Word

Dan Payne on January 1, 2020, 2:00 pm

| Readers 2070

The American poet Robert Frost was only partly joking when he said a Liberal was definable as ‘a man too broad-minded to take his own side in a quarrel.’ Liberals of both (or more) genders have of course historically taken a side: their own. Now that a new decade has begun, and another important anniversary is being marked today, and there are question marks over how much longer liberalism is likely to last, now seems as good a time as …