Government

Why Conor Murphy’s Budget is failing our people

Soapbox on May 26, 2021, 9:54 am

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Sinéad McLaughlin is an SDLP MLA for Foyle and is the SDLP spokesperson for the economy For the last 14 years, Northern Ireland has been led by joint first ministers from Sinn Fein and the DUP. This leadership was supposed to deliver prosperity after the peace that was delivered by the leadership of John Hume and the SDLP. But instead of prosperity, the North continues to have some of the worst economic outcomes anywhere in Western Europe. My city of Derry …

Well, well, well-#AE2022 and that Lucid Talk poll

Sarah Creighton on May 22, 2021, 11:06 am

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It’s early days, minds could change later, but the Belfast Telegraph’s latest poll will send shivers down the DUP’s spine. According to Lucid Talk, support for the DUP has dropped to 16%, the same as Alliance. Sinn Fein sits at 25%. Doug Beattie will take comfort from the figure for the UUP, up two points to 14%. A Sinn Fein First Minister has been a possibility since the 2017 Assembly election. Based on these figures, Sinn Fein will clinch the …

Can Citizens’ Assemblies help us?

Paul Gosling on May 21, 2021, 9:05 am

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In all the dozens of podcast interviews broadcast by the Holywell Trust, one idea to strengthen our society has been put forward repeatedly – citizens’ assemblies. They are not universally popular – both DUP and Conservative Party politicians have expressed concerns they would undermine the link between elected representatives and their constituents, threatening politicians’ legitimacy. But the experience of Ireland’s citizens’ assemblies has inspired many. Assemblies provided routes to resolving politically challenging issues: same sex marriage, abortion, climate change and, now, gender inequality. And in …

Northern Ireland today is different from 1998

Paul Gosling on May 14, 2021, 10:51 am

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Northern Ireland is a different place today, than when the Good Friday Agreement was signed in 1998. It is not just that many more people here today do not feel aligned to the traditional unionist and nationalist/republican identities, but we have many more ‘new citizens’ from other places. Lilian Seenoi-Barr is a well-known advocate for black and minority ethnic communities in Northern Ireland, as director of the North West Migrants Forum. In the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast Lilian …

David O’Sullivan: The EU at 70 – still going strong?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on May 10, 2021, 10:20 pm

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Watch back this evening’s Hume Foundation inaugural European Spirit of Peace Lecture, delivered by David O’Sullivan (former EU ambassador to the US) which looked at the EU 70 years on and asked whether it was going strong. He had cautionary words for those conflating the Irish constitutional issue with practical aspects of the NI Protocol which he said was “unhelpful” and could “destabilise many in the Unionist community”.

Vocational skills: Northern Ireland’s core economic weakness

Paul Gosling on May 7, 2021, 9:04 am

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Never mind Bill Clinton saying, ‘it’s the economy, stupid’, the answers to Northern Ireland’s difficulties are instead perhaps Tony Blair’s mantra, ‘education, education, education’. In fact, the main way to tackle the economic problems of Northern Ireland are arguably to focus on education and skills. Seamus McGuinness, research professor at the Economic and Social Research Institute, discusses the weaknesses of Northern Ireland’s education and skills system in the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast. Although ESRI is based in Dublin, Seamus …

Education is the key to progress

Paul Gosling on April 30, 2021, 9:05 am

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Education is the key to moving our society forward, says Tony Gallagher in the latest Forward Together podcast interview. But that has to mean much more than encouraging as many students as possible to go to university and obtain a degree. Our society has become fixated with university education, at the expense of school pupils who do not aspire to higher education. More has to be done to support children from deprived families, to encourage them through careers guidance and …

Lecture – Rory Montgomery: ‘The Good Friday Agreement and a United Ireland’

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 29, 2021, 7:45 pm

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The former Irish ambassador to the EU, Rory Montgomery, delivered his inaugural lecture as honorary professor of practice at the QUB Mitchell Institute on Tuesday evening. His topic – The Good Friday Agreement and a United Ireland – had a contemporary feel as the civic conversation intensifies around whether to and how to hold border polls. The 45 minute lecture was followed by half an hour of questions from the audience moderated by Professor Christopher McCrudden. While Belfast Agreement …

The GFA brought peace – but paramilitaries haven’t gone away

Paul Gosling on April 23, 2021, 9:05 am

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The Good Friday Agreement ended the bitter conflict, but failed to eliminate the poison of paramilitarism. In the latest Forward Together podcast interview recorded before the loyalist street riots protesting against the Brexit Protocol and the latest paramilitary shootings in Derry, Duncan Morrow considers the limitations of the GFA. Northern Ireland remains overshadowed by paramilitaries that claim a political motivation, yet are engaged in criminal enterprises that include the drug trade, protection rackets and loan sharking. Can the GFA now …

Scottish hustings … via NUS Scotland

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 21, 2021, 1:11 pm

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Election anoraks in need of a regular fix of political argie-bargie may want to dip into last night’s NUS Scotland’s Big Election Debate last night with Anas Sarwar (Scottish Labour), Carole Ford (Scottish Lib Dems), Douglas Ross (Scottish Tories), Nicola Sturgeon (SNP) and Ross Greer (Scottish Greens). Compared with any similar encounter with NI politicians, it felt remarkably calm and devoid of simple point-scoring.

A new series of conversations on the future

Paul Gosling on April 16, 2021, 9:05 am

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Holywell Trust’s third series of Forward Together podcasts is launched today. As with the previous series, the focus is on how to make progress in Northern Ireland and heal our divided society. In these latest podcasts we consider some of the ideas that emerged from previous interviews – which were edited together into the book, ‘Lessons from the Troubles and the Unsettled Peace’. Unfortunately, recent events make these ideas even more relevant for urgent consideration. Suggestions discussed further in the …

The tone and economics of Northern Ireland’s political debate has to change.

David McCann on April 8, 2021, 8:21 am

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Well here we are again. Not for the first time, Northern Ireland hits the headlines for all the wrong reasons. Rioting, damage and disorder are being broadcast across our TV screens again and the familiar sound of the police helicopter in the sky. It’s hard to try and rationalise why these instances of violence erupt. Moreover, the sense of helplessness as you struggle to figure out how to stop it. Often this place feels like the USA, violence erupts, we …

A primer for the Scottish Elections.

David McCann on April 7, 2021, 5:19 pm

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Lucky people in Scotland and Wales are heading to the polls next month to elect their devolved parliaments. We would be heading to the polls too had our Executive not collapsed in 2017, so we get that treat next year. However, I thought it would be useful to set out some of the things to look out for and keep in mind when watching the campaign and election results. Scotland Voters will elect 129 members to the Scottish Parliament, but …

Space to Police

Soapbox on April 2, 2021, 1:30 pm

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Simon Byrne is the Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland. Today he writes for Slugger about the policing challenges during the COVID 19 pandemic 2021 is a defining year for policing. The Police Service of Northern Ireland will have been around for two decades. The world around us has changed so much in those 20 years and whilst new opportunities and issues have emerged, the challenges of the past still remain very much in the present for …

Slugger TV-The Centenary Edition.

David McCann on April 1, 2021, 5:23 pm

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Slugger TV this month with Tim Cairns and Sarah Creighton looks at the politics of commemorations. David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs

There is an appetite for change. The current context provides the opportunity to do just that.

Soapbox on March 26, 2021, 10:10 am

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Jennifer Wallace (Head of Policy, Carnegie UK Trust) and Hannah Ormston (Policy and Development Officer, Carnegie UK Trust). With the consultation on a new Programme for Government now closed, the Carnegie UK Trust discusses what’s next for how the Executive reflects and responds to the consultation submissions and the broader need to place wellbeing at the centre of public policy and services The Carnegie UK Trust welcomes the focus on societal wellbeing in the new draft Programme for Government Outcomes …

The road to Brexit – part two…

Robert Campbell on March 24, 2021, 7:26 am

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You can read part one here… The Conservative Party and Brexit In her Bruges speech on 20 September 1988 Margaret Thatcher said[1]: We have not embarked on the business of throwing back the frontiers of state at home only to see a European superstate getting ready to exercise a new dominance from Brussels. The speech exposed the divisions in the Conservative party between Europhiles and Eurosceptics. The date is conventionally taken as the start of the Brexit process[2]. In a …

The road to Brexit – part one…

Robert Campbell on March 23, 2021, 8:00 am

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Introduction The United Kingdom joined the Common Market (EEC) on 1 January 1973[1]; the prime minister responsible was a Conservative, Edward Heath. Two years later two-thirds of voters agreed with this in a referendum called by a Labour prime minister, Harold Wilson. In 2016, a Conservative prime minister, David Cameron, called a European Union (EU) referendum and narrowly lost. What had happened to the UK and the EU in-between for this to happen[2]? Why did the EEC/EU become such an …

To 2031 and beyond … Neil Hegarty’s vision of this island in ten years’ time #imaginebelfast

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 19, 2021, 9:01 am

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Talking to writer and novelist Neil Hegarty about the talk ‘2031’ he will deliver at next week’s Imagine! festival, imagining what this island might look like in a decade and asking whether we’re prepared for the political, societal, environmental changes that will surely have a huge impact on the way life is going to play out?

How Britain Ends: Gavin Esler in conversation … coming up on Saturday 27 March at #imaginebelfast

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on March 18, 2021, 5:40 pm

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Chatting to Gavin Esler ahead of his appearance on Saturday 27 at this year’s Imagine! Festival. He’s enthusiastic to be back talking about his book How Britain Ends, though is disappointed not to have the excuse to meet up with old friends and walk the streets he knows so well from living and working in the city.