Jay Burbank

Less spotted deal provisions – ‘Fiscal Council’

Jay Burbank on January 15, 2020, 8:41 pm

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Lesser spotted deal provisions can be interesting when picking apart a new political settlement, especially as the underlying funds threaten to pick it apart anyway. It has been commented upon that this is a good deal, indeed Newton Emerson used more colourful language in describing the “identitarians” who would turn down this deal. Possibly extra cash, difficult issues ‘oven ready’ to be dealt with and significant changes to the cultural policy of our public institutions here. I would have liked …

Last chance saloon…

Jay Burbank on January 4, 2020, 8:09 am

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On talkback this week there was a fair but cutting analysis of the many manoeuvrings of the 1990s to bring about the peace settlement and the near universal condemnation of how its inheritors in today’s politics have failed at the mission statement set out at this time. Brian Rowan quotes sources calling it a ‘last chance’ for Stormont to prove that it can actually work. For if an institution fails in its adoption of rules of change it becomes finite. …

Representation with others Taxation – Fiscal Powers for NI?

Jay Burbank on December 30, 2019, 11:32 am

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In the talks to restore power sharing, much focus has been placed on the need to reform the petition of concern (“PoC”). In the wake of financial incompetence and questions over the entire structure of the Stormont apparatus, the PoC was invoked over 100 times from 2011-15 to simply block legislative and procedural progress at the assembly. There was even an invocation of the PoC to avoid ministerial scrutiny, something unheard of in any other modern democracy. The PoC has …

The landslide on the Foyle

Jay Burbank on December 19, 2019, 11:27 am

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Colum Eastwood’s victory in Foyle was a momentous occasion in the history of our politics here. In surpassing even Hume, the founder of the SDLP, Colum now has the weight of a City and history itself on his shoulders. If his victory is to mean anything then it shouldn’t be used solely as a launch pad to building a revitalised SDLP across NI. This is of course within the remit of every party leader, but in changing hands in 2017, …

Where does the buck stop with the health service?

Jay Burbank on December 8, 2019, 8:22 pm

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With the ongoing crisis in our public health infrastructure it is important to remember one key element which is not examined in depth, especially in periods of strike action; accountability of management. The media narrative being spun by some that a disgruntled workforce of nurses have exacerbated a crisis ought to be heavily countered and discredited as it is simply untrue. As documented by every outlet during a sitting Stormont administration and since then during the hiatus, the health crisis …

Ulster University and where to find 100 more doctors?

Jay Burbank on November 28, 2019, 7:55 pm

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It has been an argument raging on for 50 years, it briefly united Unionist and Nationalist elected reps in a period of violent division but it has yet to be resolved; a University for our second city. When the Stormont government attempted to shutdown the Magee University College (as it then was) campus and divert its resources to the New Ulster University in Coleraine which was recommended by the Lockwood Report. The City rose up in unity with Brian …

Losing Belfast City – the Unionist retreat?

Jay Burbank on November 22, 2019, 8:00 am

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Losing the City of Belfast at the forthcoming election will do massive psychological damage to unionism. After the calamity of RHI, many in my family happily told of how they would not be exercising their vote at the Assembly election held after Martin McGuinness’ dramatic resignation in 2016 and especially in the second election called the next year. When the tally had come through in the 2017 election it was like a punch in the gut to some in the …

Beware of conflating the issues…

Jay Burbank on November 18, 2019, 8:53 pm

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Politics can often be the art of conflating problems and offering simple solutions. Thus far the Brexit debate has been clouded with such conflation, left and right pundits are drawing totally disparate issues most of which have nothing to do with Europe or the UK’s place in it. I was at a debate for young people last week, it demonstrated the worst kind of narrative conflation. Mostly left wing liberal/green types coloured with the odd nerdy Marxist in a hoody …

From Enoch Powell to Nigel Farage. Brexit and the Atlantic Wedge…

Jay Burbank on November 11, 2019, 6:32 pm

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Hobsbawm’s account of history at the Cold War’s end makes for stark reading now in 2019 – our world being the one that this old one birthed. American hegemony is not secured, economics is no less clear and international relations have melted from their bi-polar “Communist/Capitalist” freeze. The European Community, originally created in the 1950s because of the mutual fear of communist overrun in the minds of US technocrats and Western European elites, made its effective declaration of independence from …

The ‘darkest day’ school controversy. Is there a tension between those who stayed in NI and those who left?

Jay Burbank on October 25, 2019, 8:01 pm

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The latest headline in the culture war this week was the ‘darkest day’ school controversy. Dalriada Grammar School had hit the headlines because a teacher had reportedly pinned a ‘darkest day’ poster onto a notice board. This then became a ‘tug-of-rip down’ match between liberal pupils and a conservative scripture union teacher – so the simple narrative goes. On Nolan the inevitable debate began; one side was the liberal commentator (not arguing for censorship apparently) who argued that a school …

New Economy – for better or for worse?

Jay Burbank on October 6, 2019, 8:00 am

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The ‘delivery centre’ is a uniquely 21st century project and another manifestation of how technology has radically changed the global economy. Delivery centres have been set up in nearly every industry, as I am part of the legal services industry, I have experienced most of them there. In his book ‘Tommorrow’s Lawyers,’ Susskind describes nearshoring as being: “…[s]imilar to off-shoring but the work is carried out in a neighbouring, low-cost jurisdiction that is in a closer time zone to the …

Brexit or not, the borderlands are changing…

Jay Burbank on October 4, 2019, 7:40 am

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Recently amongst all the usual Brexit coverage, the Economist took a different angle when assessing the impact of any sudden change to the border here. They went to Derry/Londonderry and presented a story very different to the doom and gloom of a hard border. The City Deal package, currently still under negotiation, was planned not just with the city in mind but the entire cross-border region. The Derry/Strabane district including the northern Donegal area have a combined population of over …