Britain – Page 5 – Slugger O'Toole

Decent government will sort the Constitutional question…

Mick Fealty on August 2, 2010, 12:40 pm

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I’ve a piece in Saturday’s News Letter, as part of that paper’s focus on Unionism in 2021. At its core, I argue that Unionists, and Nationalists for that matter, in Northern Ireland have been living vicariously off the virtues of their own ideas of their mother state for years, but that: Increasingly, our politics will be about being good in government, and making strong coherent choices that enhance rather than blight the future. As 2021 dawns, our choices should be …

Now Derry has to deliver

Brian Walker on July 16, 2010, 11:51 am

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I’ve haven’t been listening in but I bet euphoria and cynicism in equal measure are greeting the news of Derry’s selection as the first UK City of Culture . A sentimental pat on the back for coming out the Troubles. A bouquet of apology for Bloody Sunday. Probably, up to a point. A sense of guilt should be mutual. The bad old past lingers. The Bogside, Creggan and Shantallow contain stubborn seed-beds of republican dissidence and the wider problem of aimless youth; the Fountain still …

Thoughts old and new, on the Battle of Britain

Brian Walker on July 11, 2010, 12:08 pm

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So it all began in Orkney, not over Sussex and the weald of Kent! The Scots are bidding for a share of the Battle of Britain, held semi-officially to have begun on July 10 1940. As Patrick Bishop (btw a historian with Eamonn on the IRA) explains, analysis of the battle featuring the Few has failed to dislodge its place, secure in the pageant of British history. I was dramatically reminded of the anniversary yesterday in the baking heat of Osterley Park, …

Lost opportunities the common theme of Labour, past and present

Brian Walker on July 9, 2010, 11:42 pm

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Blair looking back and David Miliband .looking in both directions- it’s been a week of contemplation for Labour in unfamiliar opposition, as the coalition absorbs the pressures of government. Ironically the common theme of the former and the most likely future leader was lost opportunities, under Blair and under Brown. From Blair a confession; from Miliband a bold attack on Brown. At the Institute of Government the former Prime Minister laid out his mistakes with some frankness and gave advice to …

The Assembly is not even in the debate over public funding

Brian Walker on July 7, 2010, 12:22 pm

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In GB, devolution is moving on to another stage. Northern Ireland is being left behind. Today the call has gone out for the Welsh Assembly to take on tax varying powers of 3 %. It comes on foot of a request for law-making powers. Wales is bidding to follow Scotland, where the coalition government is legislating to award the Scottish government new income tax varying powers of 10%, as recommended by the Calman commission. The Welsh report, by economists Gerald Holtham and David Miles, …

AV referendum stokes row with devolution

Brian Walker on July 6, 2010, 11:59 am

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Trouble is brewing over the decision to hold a referendum on the Alternative Vote for the Commons on May 5 2011 , the same day as elections for the Scottish parliament and the NI and Welsh Assemblies, and council elections in England and NI. Despite the agreed coalition split over AV, the referendum may well become a public opinion poll on the coalition as a whole as the spending cuts bite. The devolved administrations fear getting dragged down with it. Alternatively if …

Salmond backs off independence

Brian Walker on July 1, 2010, 9:20 pm

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We’ve been neglecting Scotland lately but the Economist has come to our rescue. Cutting through the thicket of Alex’s latest manoeuvres, the posh paper notes that the wily First Minister has put independence on the back burner- even though he’s still formally committed to holding a referendum on independence before next May’s elections – if only the Holyrood majority would let him, which they won’t. Instead, he’s playing a longer game. Scotland, he argues, should be responsible for setting and …

Let’s keep the debate on cuts open and honest

Brian Walker on June 30, 2010, 11:27 am

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When the true impact of cuts is being analysed, gloomy spinning isn’t any better than the Panglossian kind. The Guardian’s exclusive that the “hidden” costs of the budget will be the loss of 1.3 million jobs, according to a leaked Treasury will bring satisfaction only to the coalition’s most relentless critics. …500,000 and 600,000 jobs to go in the public sector and between 600,000 and 700,000 to disappear in the private sector by 2015. From Economics editor Larry Elliot’s analysis: ..there …

When England are smashed, take comfort in Northern Ireland

Brian Walker on June 28, 2010, 10:57 am

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I’m old fashioned enough to support England casually as the big team, when the tiddlers have been eliminated in the qualifiers. Those Irish – unionists among them, I know – who put England last rather than support England second are sad bastards as far as I’m concerned. But I have to say that Northern Ireland qualifying twice in my life time has given me more pleasure than the entire England record, bar watching the disputed England victory in 1966 in the …

The ‘Englezes’ V ‘The Boche’ and our complex ties with ‘de udder’ island

ItwasSammyMcNally on June 27, 2010, 1:49 pm

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This afternoon at 3pm and the latest round of the conflict will kick off when the old war and soccer-ball adversaries take to the football field. Perhaps the bestest football chant of all time Two world wars and one world cup provides the sporting and historical context for the tie – although the damned Boche might quibble that the chant needs updating to take account of their 1970 and 1990 World Cup victories over their deadliest rivals. And we can …

Austerity budget must prompt radical approaches in Northern Ireland

Brian Walker on June 22, 2010, 8:52 pm

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　We are facing the first truly austerity budget for a generation. Cuts of 25% over 4 years in all departments except health (why ringfence Health?) are truly frightening and require radical reform in delivery. We need a radical approach that challenges the shape of our politics. Peter Robinson has already warned: A fundamental reassessment of spending commitments will be required as Northern Ireland seeks to meet £128 million cuts imposed from Westminster…This does not include almost £400 million of separate spending …

McDowell takes golf’s crown

Brian Walker on June 21, 2010, 9:03 am

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It’s a small family legend that at the age of two in 1951, I interrupted a crucial putt in the sole British Open to be played at Royal Portrush with the cry: “What’s that man doing Daddy?” Hundreds of others probably tell the same story. That’s my sole personal link with Portrush’s Graeme McDowell who has just snatched victory in the US Open. To an ingoramus like me, he seemed to come from nowhere, after years of agonising from British …

Derry now in final stages of UK City of Culture bid

Brian Walker on June 17, 2010, 12:59 pm

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Martin McGuinnness’s next engagement after his modest role before the Guildhall on Monday is a wonderful irony and needs little further comment. He will have noticed it himself. So well done, Martin. 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 Parliamentary Programmes, BBC Westminster; former London Editor Belfast Telegraph. Hon Senior Research Fellow, The Constitution Unit, Univ Coll. London

Bloody Sunday and the legitimacy of the Republican insurgency

ItwasSammyMcNally on June 17, 2010, 10:45 am

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Political reaction to Saville has been largely predictable, Unionists indulging in whataboutery and deflection, the ill-informed British public shocked by the appalling savagery of our boys and Nationalist Ireland, already well acquainted with the horrible facts, delighted that they have been officially admitted. What was a little less predictable was David Cameron, standing up in parliament and sounding like he was reading a press release from Connolly House and the incredible scenes in Derry where the watching crowds cheered when a family member …

Saville: A good day for reconcilation

Brian Walker on June 15, 2010, 10:41 pm

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For those who don’t remember or haven’t studied the history, the only false note was struck when the claim was repeated several times on news channels, that Bloody Sunday marked the end of the civil rights era and Derry’s association with the northern State. Culled from some news cutting, no doubt. In fact, whatever the banners said on the day, the original civil rights campaign had long ago been superseded by a war of attrition and armed insurgency. The SDLP had …

I want to plug the humble Comber potato and the Portavogie prawn

Brian Walker on June 8, 2010, 10:37 pm

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By tradition in a maiden speech, an MP is supposed to praise his constituency and his predecessor. The new DUP for Strangford Jim Shannon proved he was a traditionalist to the core, giving a name check to almost every town and village in Strangford. He managed a gracious word about Iris Robinson without embarrassment in a list of past members. But in one respect Jim as a trailblazer. As promised, this was the first time that part of a Commons speech …

Radical political reform needs fallbacks against failure

Brian Walker on June 8, 2010, 7:42 pm

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The Con Lib coalition are pledging to complete by 2015 the programme of political reform that faltered under Labour. So promised yesterday the deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, in charge of the reforms. It is a jumbo programme, taking in the big ticket items of the Alternative Vote to elect MPs to a Commons smaller perhaps by 100, more power to the Commons itself, an elected Upper House to replace the Lords first promised a full century ago, a British Bill …

Brian Cowen: “let’s go on a journey and forget about the destination”

Pete Baker on April 21, 2010, 11:49 am

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As the Irish Times’ Deaglán de Bréadún reports, Taoiseach Brian Cowen, picking up from where Bertie Ahern left off, has been telling the Journal of Cross-Border Studies in Ireland that the political journey is what is important, not the destination. And he’s not wrong. From the Irish Times article “The ultimate destination of any political project is a matter of time working itself out. Therefore the destination is not the thing to be talking about. That will be for other people …

“The package aims to deliver £225m in total…”

Pete Baker on April 13, 2010, 5:05 pm

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According to the BBC report, the Presbyterian Church general assembly is to meet to discuss the details of the OFMDFM-proposed “alternative solution” for the troubled Presbyterian Mutual Society – although not necessarily alternative to the administrator’s solution. Apparently that solution would include a £1million contribution from the church – and some £225million from the general tax-payer. But the details, according to the News Letter, reveal a focus on larger creditors, not smaller savers investors. From the News Letter report We …

It’s only science fiction, but…

Pete Baker on April 12, 2010, 1:49 am

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Whereas in 1990 a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, “The High Ground”, boldly posited Irish unification by 2024, in 2010 the second episode of the new series of the BBC’s Doctor Who, “The Beast Below”, has featured the “Starship United Kingdom” – “Britain and Northern Ireland” as the Doctor says – in the 29th Century. Apparently Scotland wanted, and got, their own spaceship… ANYhoo… At The Guardian Dan Martin has been blogging the appearances of the latest Doctor, Matt …