I have never made a secret of the fact that I am no expert on politics outside of Ireland. I watch elections in other countries in a disinterested fashion. The systems are strange and I find it gives you an insight into just how bizarre politics can look when you are not involved. The UK election is probably the most interesting one in my lifetime. Up until now all I have ever seen is a strange and undemocratic voting system …
As the 2015 British general election campaign gathers momentum, the prospect of a hung parliament looms large. Concerning Scotland, the 2014 Scottish Referendum may have produced a result that was to the satisfaction of supporters of the ‘no’ campaign, but the Scottish National Party’s subsequent rise as an extremely decisive contender in national-level politics could be described as the seminal consequence of #Indyref. Irrespective of the ultimate election result, the SNP, led by the articulate Nicola Sturgeon, is definitely set …
Of all the ink and wind spilt over Pastorgate, surely Alex Kane has it best (The View, BBC, 29.5.14): “[Peter] Robinson is the leader of unionism in Northern Ireland. His primary job in that role alone is simply to promote the values of a multi-cultural, multi-national state. He makes people living here feel like they’re not quite part of the country and that’s very dangerous.” Brigid Brophy wrote in the Spectator in 1981: “The Northern Irish have indeed made …
The Herald on Sunday is the first Scottish newspaper to come out clearly in favour of independence. The front page designed by the artist Alasdair Gray makes quite a splash and the editorial arguments are balanced and reasonable. (The case for independence) seems to us to be a more exciting, imaginative and inspiring proposition than the alternative proposed by the No campaign. That it has been remorselessly negative need not detain us here. Its leaders have told …
For Scotland on Sunday to strike such a headline shows it’s time to panic says the Speccie. “Mr Darling and his allies in Better Together have to wake up to the fact that they have managed to blow a 20-point lead in a few months and the gap between the two sides looks like it is now within the margin of error for polling companies. Not only does the Yes camp have the momentum, it has the foot soldiers on …
What we saw in Windsor Castle this week was a delayed act of official reconciliation that should have taken place fifty years ago but was held up by the Troubles. It was in reality the unfinished business of closing a sequence of turmoil that began over a century ago, whose shadow is finally lifting only now. Carping like that below fails to recognise that such formalities can only be afforded when the reconciliation they celebrate is safely secured. So what …
Brian SpencerBrian is a writer, artist, political cartoonist and legal blogger. Actively tweeting from @brianjohnspencr. More information here: http://www.brianjohnspencer.com/ www.brianjohnspencer.com/
Statement released by Sinn Fein tonight We also seek an agreed, united Ireland which accommodates those who define themselves as British. It is within this context that I can confirm that deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness will accept an invitation to attend all events as part of the State visit. This decision by a confident republican leadership is in keeping with the transition that is ongoing within the island of Ireland and between Ireland, including the North, and Britain. There …
Malachi O’Doherty is magnificently right. The best result for the Maze project would have been/ still should be to provide an unsparing and comprehensive account of the Troubles, murders, conspiracies and weasel politics, including the narratives without which it is a meaningless recitation of horror. Conflict resolution could come in the last gallery just before the shop. What a powerful statement it would be coming from the post-Agreement generation of parties and what avenues it would open for collective cognitive therapy. …
48, 48, and 48 – those are the nightmare numbers for Unionism. Not necessarily for the Union, but for Unionism the political ideology as we have understood it for the past century or so. In the 2011 Assembly election, only 48% of the population voted for Unionist candidates, interpreting that term as generously as possible. In the 2011 Census, only 48% of the population were classifiable as ‘Protestant’ by community background, even given the statisticians’ remit of allocating the non-religious …
Not the incident itself but the official cover up. For once Chris Donnelly treads more lightly than he might have. Even in the Leveson era, this is much bigger than a media travesty. Even if the Liverpool inquiry has delivered the plain unvarnished truth, to treat scores of Liverpool football fans almost as sub humans apparently unworthy of rapid emergency treatment was surely the worse crime committed in Sheffield that day and subsequently. Later, two senior judges although critical of police negligence, …
Ian Jack has a fine nostalgia piece in the Guardian – no, better than that, a piece about the collective memory of passing generations – linking the not altogether compatible elements of the Dickens bicentenary to the monarchy. The link he made was not with Empire or English images of national virtue so often disputed in Slugger, but with a workaday industrial world now vanished, which a visit by the Queen memorialised for those who saw her. Make no mistake: …
Stephen Moss in the Guardian adopts the least analytical approach imaginable to the identity thing, a random journey. It’s like an intro to a report that that doesn’t actually appear. A bit like Britishness itself maybe? Quite unlike our own passions. Might uncertainty and toleration be its saving graces? As I stood in freezing temperatures in Bradford’s Centenary Square trying unsuccessfully to get twentysomething Muslim women to tell me how they lived their lives, I started to have doubts about …
In that interview trailed by Pete below, the Examiner itself highlights the DPM’s soft voiced approach to an early referendum on unity. Have Alex Salmond’s tactics found their Irish imitator? The deputy first minister believes the Democratic Unionist Party can be persuaded to agree to such a dramatic move. Brian WalkerFormer BBC journalist and manager in Belfast, Manchester and London, Editor Spolight; Political Editor BBC NI; Current Affairs Commissioning editor BBC Radio 4; Editor Political and …
I may have spoken too soon about the clarity of Alex Salmond’s preferred referendum question : do you agree that Scotland should be an independent country? The Today programme took the trouble to ask a professor in Arizona who had never heard of Big Eck if the wording was fair. Sure, it was completely loaded he said. To be fair, the question had to be balanced with a “or not “ in some form. Closer to home the Times reports …
Well, the essential question proposed by Alex Salmond in his consultation paper is surely good enough to satisfy the UK government’s requirement for a clear question on independence. That’s one stumbling block out of the way, I reckon. But Westminster ‘s rival paper is clearly opposed to a second question on anything like devo max. These are two different issues, and should be considered separately. If these two questions were asked together, there would be four possible outcomes, and potentially four …
Make of the Sunday Telegraph ICM poll what you will. 43% of English voters approve of Scottish independence at this particular moment, but only ( only!) 40% of Scots. Of the three potential questions 26% of Scots voters prefer independence, 26% more tax and spending powers and 37% the status quo. How did we get to this point? Outsiders may well be rubbing their eyes in disbelief. In a neat synthesis of apparently irreconcilable ambitions, veteran Scots commentator on Europe and …
Professor John Curtice explains the complexities surrounding the referendum questions on the Today programme. Assume two ballot papers, one on devo max, the other on independence. If you look at some opinion polls, as many as 75% -80% might vote for devo max. Let’s say fewer, say, 51% vote for independence. Which would win? The Nats would say the radical option of independence, their opponents, devo max. Result, chaos. The alternatives? Vote 1, 2, 3 on all three options, status quo, …
I’m probably lagging behind on this so apologies if you’re au fait but I’ve just caught up with the Irish( republic) emigrant figures for the last year – 76, 400 to end of April 2011, up 17%, according to the Irish Times report. I decided to search for them as most of the news stories I saw last year highlighted the US and old Commonwealth countries as emigration destinations but barely mentioned Britain. Can that really be true I thought? …
So it’s game on for the early rounds of the referendum campaign. The Westminster government says Alex Salmond can have a binding referendum provided he sticks to a Yes, No question on independence. No fudging over devo max. The UK parties are uniting to save the Union, although the others would like Cameron and the Tories to take a back seat according to the Guardian, for reasons which Alex Salmond himself makes clear in the Independent. They have all but conceded …
