Britain – Page 11 – Slugger O'Toole

“It looks like a collection of trophies”

Pete Baker on September 24, 2009, 6:00 pm

| Readers 42

The Viking silver hoard found in 2007 dated to around the 10th Century, but the equally stunning 1,500 gold and silver Anglo-Saxon pieces found by metal-detectorist Terry Herbert in Staffordshire are believed to be older still. The treasure hoard, approximately 5kg of gold and 2.5kg of silver, shown in the BBC slideshow, may date back to the 7th Century. The gold strip pictured has the Latin inscription “Rise up O Lord, and may thy enemies be dispersed and those who …

Lisbon (17): Without the treaty Ireland cedes its interests to bigger fish…

Mick Fealty on September 23, 2009, 4:56 pm

| Readers 4

Senator Deirdre de Burca argues that for all the legitimate misgivings surrounding the beefing of a European foreign policy, not least round those concerns in LE4 and LE16, the mere act of the EU coming together in a single multilateral body to tackle issues like climate change, international terrorism or with wild hiccuping in global markets. Collective action is not a choice, it is a necessity. Without that capacity Ireland can have little hope that its own interests that will …

Vince Cable: Cutting public services in order to retain public value…

Mick Fealty on September 23, 2009, 12:16 pm

| Readers 3

Talk to a Tory of any standing and bring up the subject of Vince Cable and they all mumble something about him being in the wrong party or wishing for some kind of pact with the Lib Dems so he can be the next Chancellor. There is – comparatively speaking – very little confidence in the shadow Chancellor George Osborne, at least at the base. Cable launched this paper he’d written for the think tank du jour in London at …

Ashcroft swoops on PoliticsHome and the ‘liberals’ begin resigning…

Mick Fealty on September 23, 2009, 3:40 am

| Readers 4

Two big money men sit behind a huge chunk of Tory online real estate… Michael Lord Ashcroft and Stephan Shakespeare.. both committed Tories and both quite loaded… Stephan subbed Iain Dale’s Doughty Street TV project, and then pulled the plug to put his cash into Tim Montgomery’s worthy online venture… Conservative Home… Iain then moved on to the Ashcroft funded Total Politics magazine, which has since carved out a useful niche for itself… Now Ashcroft (by far the richer of …

“none of our elected representatives will be supporting..”

Pete Baker on September 21, 2009, 8:01 pm

| Readers 1

DUP leader Peter Robinson is trying to safely navigate his party between “a different world and different planet”, and the “adult world”. From his statement on the Libyan compensation campaign. It is clear from the reception for the Lockerbie bomber that Libya still has a long way to go. Consequently, none of our elected representatives will be supporting any future deployments of police personnel to Libya until they have reached a settlement on the payment of compensation to PIRA victims …

Slugger shortlisted for (non) Lib Dem blog award….

Mick Fealty on September 17, 2009, 10:33 am

| Readers 1

Here’s one nomination I never expected Slugger to attract, but it looks like we’ve been shortlisted for Lib Dem Voice’s Non Lib Dem blog of the year award… The winner is chosen by public vote… and as I’m a few days late with this, I’m sure we’ll be way behind the field… Do what you can (you know what I mean!!) to keep us in the fight… As it happens, I’ll be there for the award ceremony on Sunday night …

Lisbon Essay (10): Ireland’s opportunity to kill Lisbon in the water..

Mick Fealty on September 15, 2009, 3:00 pm

| Readers 15

Nigel Farage of UKIP has spent a lot of the last week trying to make up for something of deficit in credible speakers on the No side of the Argument. The UKIP leader here argues that the Irish people wider responsibilities than just their own futures. With less than 1% of the European Union’s population Ireland is only country that’s allowed a free vote on whether Lisbon goes ahead or not, and offers substantial evidence that a second No vote …

Parsley to leave Alliance at 3pm this afternoon…

Mick Fealty on September 11, 2009, 6:35 pm

| Readers 11

After meeting with his old party leader this morning it looks like Mr Parsley may on his way back to the Conservatives. Both Ian and the Alliance Party will issue statements at three o’clock. It’s a bit of a coup for the New Tories to peel off the Alliance party’s rising star from the European elections but it remains to be seen just what that adds up to in next year’s election steeplechase stakes. It may steel the hand of …

Lisbon Essay (6): A ‘No’ will re-assert the need for a renewed respect for subsidiarity…

Mick Fealty on September 9, 2009, 2:30 pm

| Readers 20

Brian Crowe is our first Northern Irish commentator on the Lisbon Treaty. He takes the view that the debate in the Republic has polarised between the mainstream parties on one side, the slightly constitutional Sinn Fein and what he calls the disreputable right… He takes issue with Michael McLaughlin’s view that the EU is a product of compromise between to great blocks of European opinion, arguing that beyond those two, there is a growing opinion, not least in the accession …

“There are economic advantages to buying Irish.”

Pete Baker on September 6, 2009, 6:47 pm

| Readers 12

The Sunday Times looks at the economic patriotism behind the Love Irish Food campaign. From the ST article Jim Power, the economist fronting the campaign, admits it is a commercial tactic by a food industry under pressure. “We are seeing moves from certain retailers about sourcing less product in Ireland. Exchange-rate movements, particularly against sterling, have been adverse for the last two years,” he says. “Disposable income is under pressure and consumer spending is down. “There are economic advantages to …

If information wants to be free, who’s still going to pay for journalism?

Mick Fealty on September 5, 2009, 10:53 am

| Readers 3

And on a related note, even the sainted Robert Peston is convinced the big newspapers are going to return to subscription models for their websites… The Mother Jones website in the US reckons that whilst information may want to be free, it actually comes at a price (and please note that neither Gav, nor the Dept of Finance are charging)… However as MediaShift has famously noted that journalism will find a way to outlive its dying institutions… (H/T to Jay …

Unanswered, and unasked, questions

Pete Baker on September 5, 2009, 3:03 am

| Readers 9

According to Cherie Blair, speaking on RTÉ’s The Late Late Show, the four children of the former UK Prime Minister, Tony Blair, have Irish passports – due to their paternal grandmother’s nationality. Cherie Blair wasn’t asked, and didn’t offer an answer to, the question of whether they also hold UK passports.. There were also no enquiries into the supernatural situation.. Despite the Faith Foundation. Nor were there any enquiries into any of those helpful international interventions.. nor of the examples …

When is a Whig a Tory? When Dave says so…

Mick Fealty on September 3, 2009, 12:49 pm

| Readers 3

Answer: when Team Cameron says he is… This elegant video starts with a seminal quote from that great Tory Irishman, Edmund Burke… then goes on to claim that the Whig Prime Minister William PItt the Younger was himself a Tory… That’s taking the principle of historical co-option too far: although he briefly led a weak coalition government towards the end of his life, he was never such thing… H/T Quietz… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written …

Lisbon Essay (1): The treaty would isolate Ireland – a ‘No’ vote would free her

Mick Fealty on September 2, 2009, 3:00 pm

| Readers 29

My post yesterday on the poor quality of the debate around Lisbon brought positive feedback from some unexpected quarters… It also brought in a short blog essay contribution from the young editor of the Eurosceptic European Journal, Jim McConalogue. It marks the first a series of guest essays on the broad subject of Lisbon that will run each morning here on Slugger from the No, Yes, and no fixed opinion camps right up until polling day on Friday 2nd October. …

Love Irish Food?

Pete Baker on August 31, 2009, 11:22 pm

| Readers 17

As reported here, the new “Love Irish Food” campaign could not have been launched at a better time. At least those Irish British chickens will no longer be, erm, confused. As for Máirtín’s turkey.. It’s the economy, stupid! To clarify, from the Notes to Editors in the press release [pdf file]. Love Irish Food is a privately funded independent organisation established to promote Irish food and drink brand to consumers. Membership of the organisation is based on strict criteria stating …

Murdoch blames the BBC for his incapacity to make money out of news…

Mick Fealty on August 31, 2009, 3:27 pm

| Readers 8

James Murdoch’s McTaggart Lecture at the Edinburgh TV Festival has caused a stir. Not least at the BBC. In brief, James Murdoch reckons that the BBC is responsible for the fact his company cannot make money online, because the BBC is unfairly using its licence base to dump high quality news content on the net, for free. He also quotes Orwell and warns sagely about the danger of state monopolies. The intellectual core of his pitch is pure Hayck: …we …

Some media advice on handling the TPA…

Mick Fealty on August 28, 2009, 6:14 pm

| Readers 2

In case you missed that big ruck over a piece of ‘research’ from the Taxpayers Alliance, the Other Taxpayer’s Alliance have it marked up as summer reading… along with their own media notes on how to deal with THE Taxpayers Alliance… Adds: And it’s not just the right who fall into Churnalism… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest …

We need more special advisors, not less…

Mick Fealty on August 26, 2009, 8:29 pm

| Readers 432

Talk to any political Special Advisor in any administration on these islands and they will speak endlessly of their frustration with getting senior civil servants to anything the Minister wants them to do… Even the best of them struggle with the institutional inertia… And the sheer bloody mindedness of it… Danny Finklestein argues there should be more of them with greater seniority and with a deal more clout: Cabinet government is not about holding longer or more frequent Cabinet meetings. …

Too much detail from Afghanistan…?

Mick Fealty on August 25, 2009, 1:43 pm

| Readers 5

This guy had his ‘embedded status’ revoked by the MOD after posting this detailed dispatch from Afghanistan… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty

A financial white paper with no figures…

Mick Fealty on August 24, 2009, 6:41 pm

| Readers 1

Bobballs has had a look through a UUP White Paper on Finance published right in the middle of the silly season on 11th August… The paper is widely attributed to David McNarry, and it is thought was not checked or put under the scrutiny of senior colleagues, despite the fact that it makes policy suggestions like policing and justice should not be devolved for another five years. Something David Cameron has said he may defer to, but there are indications …