DUP – Page 24 – Slugger O'Toole

Leaders issue a joint statement on Cantrell Close

David McCann on October 2, 2017, 5:38 pm

| Readers 2314

The following is a joint statement on behalf of the leaders of the DUP, Sinn Fein, SDLP, UUP, Alliance Party and the Green Party; We as political leaders condemn all forms of sectarianism, intolerance and threats of violence. Four families have been forced to leave their homes in South Belfast. This is wrong. Any threat to these families should be lifted immediately. There is also an onus on the PSNI and the statutory agencies to provide immediate and appropriate support …

Slugger TV debates is it game over for mandatory coalition?

David McCann on September 28, 2017, 12:06 pm

| Readers 1508

We debate the role of mandatory coalition in our devolved institutions with our own Chris Donnelly and Statagem’s Grainne Walsh. David McCannDavid McCann holds a PhD in North-South relations from University of Ulster. You can follow him on twitter @dmcbfs

Unionism isn’t ready for a deal anytime soon

Daithi McKay on September 22, 2017, 10:47 am

| Readers 6400

Stormont is staring into the political abyss. It already was I hear you say, but over the past week the tone of compromise that gave a faint flicker of hope has all but disappeared. Unionism has marched right into a cul-de-sac nudged along by the current leader of the Orange Order who has about as much political wit as Jolene Bunting. Edward Stevenson said that “when language is used as a cultural weapon by political republicanism it clearly becomes a …

The serious business of statistics

Sara McCracken on September 20, 2017, 9:40 pm

| Readers 2147

When something you hear makes you burst out laughing, you know it’s time to write a blog. In this case, I was listening to “the biggest show in the country” on the subject of Boris Johnson and his peddling of the myth that once Brexit is achieved there will be £350m a week available for the NHS. Indeed, Sir David Norgrove, the Chair of the UK Statistics Authority took the unprecedented step of writing to the foreign secretary to say …

Environmental Governance Failure in Northern Ireland: High Time to Turn Over a New Leaf

Peter Doran on September 20, 2017, 9:02 pm

| Readers 1206

By Ciara Brennan, Ray Purdy and Peter Hjerp Recent scandals including the RHI debacle and the discovery of illegal dumping on a massive scale (most notably at the Mobuoy Road ‘super-dump’) have catapulted Northern Ireland’s environmental governance failures into the public eye. The divergence from what can be considered ‘good’ environmental governance is clear and the environmental, economic and socio-political consequences of these failures cannot be overestimated. Protecting the environment is not a one-way cost and there has been very little …

Unionists should welcome Irish Language Act with open arms

Concubhar on September 10, 2017, 7:57 pm

| Readers 3120

As I read the latest contributions regarding the Irish language from UUP leader Robin Swann and its echo in the Newsletter’s Morning View, it seems to me that they have tied themselves in a knot about Acht na Gaeilge. A Gordian knot is a phrase that occurs to me. It seems impossible to loosen but is easily unravelled with the judicious use of logic and good sense. Unionists like Robin Swann, Jim Allister and the writer of the Belfast …

Is it too late to transfer James Brokenshire?

Daithi McKay on September 4, 2017, 1:04 pm

| Readers 1295

Schools back. There is much talk already about the inevitability of Direct Rule and the fact that the talks are “going nowhere”. Let’s just wait for the parties to get their feet back under the desks and see how the land lies now that the summer is over. Something does need to change though, if the same formula is applied over and over why expect a different result? The management of the talks by James Brokenshire has hardly been Premier …

How new is the Foster offer?

David McCann on September 1, 2017, 11:46 am

| Readers 2844

There has been some debate doing the rounds about how new the proposal from the DUP Leader was last night about a parallel process. Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill argued this morning that such an offer is not new from the DUP and had been proposed before. On the core of the proposal, she is actually right as the lead negotiator for the party Edwin Poots proposed in June the following Speaking to the BBC on Tuesday evening, Edwin Poots, the …

Foster makes a pitch to Sinn Fein to get Executive reformed

David McCann on August 31, 2017, 8:29 pm

| Readers 2109

The DUP Leader, Arlene Foster has made a pitch to Sinn Fein in a bid to restore devolution with a proposal to deal with the Irish Language Act. Speaking tonight she said; How then do we resolve these issues and establish the Executive and have the Northern Ireland Assembly sitting to do the business the people elected us to do? Well we can enter into another round of talks. Parties can state and restate their positions. All the while waiting …

Adams says no Assembly without an Irish Language Act

David McCann on August 30, 2017, 2:13 pm

| Readers 2880

The Sinn Fein President, Gerry Adams was speaking at an event organised by Conradh na Gaeilge. Also at the event supporting an act were the SDLP, Alliance, PBP and Green parties (combined they make up 50/90 MLAs). In the lead up to remarks expected by the DUP Leader, Arlene Foster tomorrow night about the future of devolution, Adams said; “The British Government and Unionist parties have failed to fulfil their commitment to an Acht Gaeilge and to the full implementation of …

Ulster Scots now being ‘weaponised’

Concubhar on August 25, 2017, 11:16 am

| Readers 2643

I’ve been following with interest the coverage of the Ulster Scots Agency’s funding plan since the story was first brought to light earlier this week in the Belfast Newsletter – and subsequently refried by other outlets. It was clear from the outset where the story was going as the Ulster Scots Agency CEO used a duplicitious figure ascribed to funding the Irish language, which had been used in a DUP press release – as the basis for the funding he …

Michelle O’Neill proposes a resumption of talks

David McCann on August 20, 2017, 10:45 pm

| Readers 3482

Michelle O’Neill has proposed the formal resumption of talks to begin on 28th August; “With limited engagement since the talks concluded on 4th July, I am keen to formally re-engage at the earliest opportunity in order to re-establish an Executive and power sharing institutions on a proper and sustainable footing. “Moreover, I do not believe there is much public appetite, or need, for another drawn-out phase of talks. “In this context, and with an eagerness to resolve outstanding issues, I …

The 70th anniversary of the 1947 Education Act has lessons for the DUP

Brian Walker on August 15, 2017, 5:23 pm

| Readers 1740

On a different tack the Bel Tel recently published a second article showing unionists in government in a more favourable light. This time it’s an article by Prof Graham Walker of QUB on the 70th anniversary of the the passage of the 1947 Education Act. Would that today’s Stormont could agree on effective measures to replace that Act’s 11 plus and advance the cause of genuinely secular integrated education. But in its time the ’47 Act was a real advance …

Are we seeing spin to reduce the scale of the RHI scandal?

Brian Walker on August 11, 2017, 2:04 pm

| Readers 2090

It seems moves are afoot to massage down the estimate of the RHI overspend and thus presumably the damage to Arlene Foster and her official and party advisers. The “ new” information reported by Jonny Bell in the Bel Tel dates from January and is therefore not new but newly exposed, we’re told. (Stand by for a chorus telling us they knew it all along). The scaling down rests on the presented fact that the costs of installing “combined heating …

You know things are bad when Stacey Dooley comes to town…

Brian O'Neill on August 9, 2017, 12:43 pm

| Readers 9663

You get the feeling they must be tripping over camera crews in loyalist areas. The recent DUP/Conservative deal has turned the eyes of the UK media towards Northern Ireland. A steady stream of film crews has been making the trip recently. You know the format by now: lots of footage of explosions, the obligatory standing in front of a peace wall, marveling at bonfires, the arty shot at the end as flames leap into the sky. The latest documentary is …

The DUP heartland: who are the supporters? – Video from The Guardian…

Brian O'Neill on August 4, 2017, 4:54 pm

| Readers 4443

Very slick video from The Guardian, well worth a watch. From The Guardian post: East Belfast is the heartland of Protestant, unionist politics and therefore, one would believe, the natural support for Northern Ireland’s Democratic Unionist party. The Guardian travelled to East Belfast to meet the core support for the party – which has just completed £1bn deal to prop up Theresa May’s government – and ask what they truly believe and what they want from the DUP whose main …

Sharper words from Varadakar but no change in substance. But here’s a new idea.

Brian Walker on July 29, 2017, 9:00 am

| Readers 1671

It’s hardly a surprise that the Dublin government’s latest expressions of concern about Brexit are focused on Ireland. But why should the Irish expect greater clarity and urgency from London on the border when London has been so vague about everything else? By itself, lack of clarity needn’t be taken as a sign of indifference. Leo Varadkar’s comments may be a mite sharper than Enda Kenny’s, but in substance there is not an iota of difference between them. Mr Varadkar, …

A border down the Irish Sea is a straw man

Brian Walker on July 28, 2017, 11:15 am

| Readers 2650

The Times of London lead “Irish want sea border after Brexit” is probably plugging a line from Dublin harder than it deserves, in claiming that the Irish government under new leadership is calling for an economic border down the Irish Sea as the only viable alternative to an unacceptable hardening of the land border. Sir Jeffrey immediately shot down that kite on behalf of the DUP on the Today programme, (although BBC NI’s habitually sleepy news website has yet to …

Pressure on Sinn Fein to return to the Assembly was the message from the Dublin establishment at the Magill

Brian Walker on July 24, 2017, 11:45 am

| Readers 2919

As the John Hewitt gets under way today, the summer school season had already been launched in Glenties. I spent a few days in the area the previous week so I missed out on this year’s Magill summer school which was as usual these days, highly political. On Brexit you can have too much of a good thing especially when Narin strand and Nancy’s bar down the road in Ardara are beckoning. The School will publish speakers’ papers shortly but …

Ulster Scots, Ulster Irish, Irish Scots, Ulster Gaelic, Gaeilge Uladh

Concubhar on July 20, 2017, 8:36 am

| Readers 3296

As Summer rolls on and disputes rumble regarding the possibility (or not) of the enactment of an Irish Language Act – or a Languages Act – or a Culture(s) Act, we seem to be stuck in a labyrinth of ever decreasing circles or some Byzantine entrapment from which there is no escape. As Christy Moore once sang: For all of our languages we can’t communicate. As an Irish speaker I’m conflicted about Ulster Scots. It’s clearly a dialect of English …