England – Page 11 – Slugger O'Toole

Open Government Partnership: How to start the ball rolling…

Mick Fealty on May 15, 2014, 8:39 am

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After Tuesday’s #DigitalLunch on Open Government Partnership and ahead of Friday’s event in Belfast, for those of you thinking of how you might roll up your sleeves and get involved in making government smarter and more open, here’s your Survival Guide to OGP in Six Memos: Paul Braithwaite sets the scene on where we are… Fred Logue on what OGP is and what it isn’t… Davy Sims on the critical importance of participation… John Kellden on collaborative sense-making… Matilda Murday on how to do it… If you are keen …

Abortion turndown is a constitutional issue

Brian Walker on May 9, 2014, 10:41 am

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The ruling in the English High Court against free abortions for Northern Ireland women in England comes as no surprise. Have campaigners legally examined the situation in Scotland? This now seems like a case for the Supreme Court where the issue would be: Are devolution powers superior to UK equal citizens’ rights? An aspect of the judge’s comments intrigued me: He ruled that Health Secretary Jeremy Hunt’s duty to promote a comprehensive health service in England “is a duty in relation to the physical and mental …

#IndyRef: “Nationalism breaks things and they are things not easy to fix.”

Mick Fealty on April 23, 2014, 2:03 pm

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On the subject of Scotland and the clear failings of the No campaign (such as it is) Hugo Riftkind’s column in yesterday’s London Times is worth looking at (if you have a subscription). He deals with the impossibility clause currently being pushed by Labour, up front… …as we all know really, an independent Scotland, would be mostly fine. Poorer than now, perhaps, both culturally and economically, but no great disaster. But more damaging than its prospect, for all of us, …

“Lesson One. Never, ever, agree to take over from a legend. Someone is bound to end up disappointed.”

Mick Fealty on April 23, 2014, 10:58 am

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So Manchester United let go their decent man manager David Moyes after just ten months in the job. And with him goes the myth that somehow United where above the petty desperation that has infected other Premiership clubs (he’s the tenth to lose his job this season). Like the idea that the club was founded on a base of home grown players, the generous time of grace Alex Ferguson had was rooted in the past and a completely different league …

Scotland, “England” and the post colonial struggle for warmth and freedom between porcupines…

Mick Fealty on April 10, 2014, 8:32 am

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Melanie McDonagh writing in London based Evening Standard thinks Michael D “…isn’t so much a foreign dignitary; more like a friendlier version of Alex Salmond”. Aha, now it would be tempting to go with the ‘well if Scotland was independent…’ line, but it’s probably better to point out that as President Michael D is supposed to stay clear of politics. In fact, London is probably the least advantageous point to understand the nature and perhaps even the merits of the …

Commons [empty] threat to remove Royal Assent from Prince Charles?

Mick Fealty on March 26, 2014, 12:06 pm

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I cannot think this is serious, except as a rhetorical warning across Prince Charles’s bows for not being good constitutional monarch in waiting… The role of the Queen and Prince of Wales in signing off new laws is “arcane and complex” and could be abolished, MPs have said. The Commons’ Political and Constitutional Reform committee warned that the process is “fuelling speculation” that the monarchy has an “undue influence”. The MPs said there is “no evidence” that the law has …

In modest praise of… Bob Crow, RIP

Mick Fealty on March 11, 2014, 10:21 pm

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If Bob Crow had had an Irish double in the trade union movement he would have found a way to duck any sort of social partnership that limited his capacity to negotiate for his members, and shrug off the inevitable offence taken by his union colleagues. He kept it simple. He was out for everything he could get for his members, and as much as it caused officials in rival unions to grumble into their pints at the bar at …

A parent’s love of language: “you have to take your inspiration from where you find it…”

Mick Fealty on March 2, 2014, 4:36 pm

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Back in the 80s, I remember an elderly aunt in Beechmount telling me about the day her mother told her to fetch my grandad from the Donegal shore of their small farm, and her remarking that ‘she spoke us, as she always did, in Irish, and we replied in English’. It was only then it struck just how immersed my own father must have been in a language I sweated tears to get my head round as a kid and …

David Cameron’s bid to go it alone could open up the debate on the UK’s future on the EU

Mick Fealty on February 25, 2014, 7:45 am

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NOW this is interesting. James Kirkup at the Telegraph broke the news last night that as well as having its manifesto writen by five old Etonians (and one former pupil of St Pauls, and I don’t mean the one in Beechmount!), the Tories will be going into the next election determined not go into coalition. Bold move by the Cameroons. Though as Mike from Political Betting notes, it is one that could swing both ways. It would certainly clear the …

Green Party propose sacking climate deniers: Vegetarian Stalinism?

Turgon on February 15, 2014, 9:04 pm

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Northern Ireland may have been spared the absolute worst of the weather this year (though the last couple of days have been bad) but the South West of England and South Wales have been extremely badly affected with the Somerset Levels heavily flooded. Then more recently the Thames Valley has been affected. Whether this flooding is actually worse than previous years has been disputed and the suggestion (made on Question Time on Thursday night) that the media only started to …

David Cameron and love bombing the Scots

Brian Walker on February 7, 2014, 10:11 am

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The tempo is picking up at last with maybe just a hint of panic? The BBC, the Times£, the FT, even the Sun are splashing David Cameron’s defence of the Union in the patriotic venue of the Olympic Park. The future of the United Kingdom is up in the air, David Cameron will warn today as he urges every Briton with a friend or family member in Scotland to persuade them to vote against independence.. My argument is that though …

United Ireland’s struggle against gay rights wins RTE damages

Brian Walker on February 4, 2014, 6:45 pm

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Is it defamatory to accuse opponents of same sex marriage of homophobia? Or are they fairly exercising their consciences in declining to recognise equality with heterosexuals? Irish Times columnists are on opposite sides of an argument which is part of the Republic’s slow emergence into the modern era. Sadly though the columnists haven’t gone head to head over it yet; let’s hope they do. The issue arose when John Waters and Breda O’Brien, both Irish Times columnists as it …

Road Traffic Accidents: Accidents not crimes

Turgon on February 1, 2014, 3:03 pm

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A few weeks ago I noted the slight rise in road deaths in NI during 2013. I also noted the worrying tendency to regard all accidents as someone’s fault: often criminally someone’s fault. Hence the inappropriate change in routine terminology from Road Traffic Accident to Road Traffic Collision. A couple of tragic cases have recently pointed to the overenthusiasm of the authorities to prosecute those involved in accidents and in one case the good sense of the general public (and …

SDLP leader’s register of interest lapse ‘due to an administrative error…’

Mick Fealty on January 31, 2014, 5:09 pm

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So after some ribbing on Twitter for not covering this story (try Googling it guys?), John Manley reports this morning that Alasdair McDonnell is in a bit of bother again, this time over not reporting income from a rental property he bought in London in 2005 when he was first elected: The South Belfast MP and MLA blamed “an administrative error” for the failure to declare his London apartment on the House of Commons register of interests. Dr McDonnell has …

Merry Christmas and (barring any more mega scale bank robberies) I’ll see you in the new year…

Mick Fealty on December 24, 2013, 8:59 am

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So the people of the Republic contemplate the reality of post bailout Ireland (a rush at the Christmas tills will help no doubt), Scotland takes further steps towards greater political agency (regardless of the result of the IndyRef), Wales’s quiet and popular evolution of its assembly, and England’s creaks under the weight of some pretty draconian welfare. Meanwhile, Richard Haass struggles manfully with Northern Ireland’s politics of small differences, that exist primarily but not entirely between the two senior DUP and Sinn …

HM’s rep to Prez: “…do whatever you like, they all do anyway, she’s a professional, it won’t bother her…”

Mick Fealty on December 19, 2013, 4:40 pm

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H/T to Jude for pointing me at a little gem for the weekend. He starts by quoting from Mary McAleese’s address to the the Royal Edinburgh Society, and he highlights this little gem: “I don’t do that. I don’t kiss bishops’ rings, I don’t curtsey to popes and I don’t curtsey to monarchs. It is part and parcel of the make-up, the strong egalitarian sense that runs through me”. “Neither do an awful lot of us, Mary”, says Jude. But …

“a party that does not understand for what it is fighting has no right to win…”

Mick Fealty on December 19, 2013, 4:09 pm

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Ever since spending nine hours in the basement of Belfast central Library scouring the pages of the News Letter over the Famine periood, I’ve been a big fan of the direct style of Victorian journalism. This extract is from page 9 of The Spectator magazine in August 1891: We suppose it is not, on the whole, disadvantageous for each party to have its turn in Opposition and in Office, in the responsibilities of criticism and in the responsibilities of administration. …

Local authority control of schools: not such a bad idea?

Turgon on November 23, 2013, 8:39 pm

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We are used to rows about education in Northern Ireland. England, however, has been having its own rows over Michael Gove’s Free Schools. Free schools are free to attend and also free from the control of the local authority. This is presented as a good idea freeing schools from political control – usually the implication being of control from “loony left” councils (if there are any of them left). Gove’s plans recently suffered a minor set back when a Muslim …

Could new councils be more transparent from the start? Pickles, Castlereagh & a journalist ejected for tweeting

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 14, 2013, 12:16 pm

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In England … Local government secretary Eric Pickles issued a guide in June to remind English local authorities that under The Local Authorities (Executive Arrangements) (Meetings and Access to Information) (England) Regulations 2012 they must allow the public to film and record meetings. He said: Every decision a council takes has a major impact on the lives of local people so it is crucial that whenever it takes a significant decision about local budgets that affect local communities whether it …

John McCallister says Sinn Fein already have a “new Ireland” while Gerry Adams calls for “an entirely new dispensation”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on October 19, 2013, 9:59 pm

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By coincidence, while John McCallister didn’t have the opportunity to speak at the UUP conference today, he did get an invite to address Sinn Fein’s Towards a New Ireland – A new phase of the peace process conference in London this afternoon. He started a little apologetically … If my comments at any time seem unduly harsh or perhaps unfair, be assured that such is not my intention. I am here in good faith to promote political dialogue and debate …