England – Page 14 – Slugger O'Toole

Richard III, history and the pressing needs of a modern university…

Mick Fealty on February 5, 2013, 11:18 am

| Readers 65

I don’t know if you watched it, but C4 had a documentary on the uncovering of Richard III last night. R3, it seems, may have been more significant as a fictional character in Shakespeare than as an significant monarch in the history of the English state. A mere punctuation between prolonged civil war (as the natural condition of English public affairs) and the construction of a modern centralised state under Henry Tudor. Freakiest of all (isn’t that the trademark of …

In the UK housing market it’s back to the 1970s

Brian Walker on February 2, 2013, 11:54 pm

| Readers 96

The ever widening gap in regional property values is spelt out in Mail Online is even more remorseless detail than the news section of its source, the upmarket estate agents Savils. Homes in the ten richest London boroughs are worth the combined total of houses in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland, it emerged yesterday. And in a dramatic illustration of the growing wealth gap between the South East and the rest of the UK, a survey has revealed that Elmbridge, a …

“Why can’t Great Britain look Northern Ireland in the eye?”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on January 25, 2013, 11:15 am

| Readers 362

That’s the question Emer O’Toole asks in her Guardian Comment is Free article today. She reckons that “the media have been strangely reluctant to cover eight weeks of intense rioting in Belfast, yet this is a major UK event”. Great Britain’s attitude towards Northern Ireland has been puzzling me lately … There is a very strange reluctance to give due attention to newsworthy Northern Irish events in Britain. Trying to follow the recent happenings in the papers, I found myself …

“The items seem to be very similar in style, form, shape and design as the previous hoard”

Pete Baker on December 19, 2012, 9:04 pm

| Readers 56

Very similar, indeed… Over 3,900 artefacts in the Anglo-Saxon hoard discovered in Staffordshire in 2009 now belong to Stoke-on-Trent City Council and Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery jointly – Staffordshire Hoard website. The independently assessed price at the time was £3.3million, which included £900,000 raised through public donations. Now, after recent ploughing, a further 90 pieces of gold and silver have been recovered from the same field. As the Guardian reports More gold and silver, including a gold and garnet cross, an eagle-shaped mount, …

Clash over inquests between the coroner and the Attorney General to be resolved in High Court

Brian Walker on December 19, 2012, 6:39 pm

| Readers 29

Good news for the families, that a new inquest will be held on the victims of the Hillsborough disaster, on application by the Attorney General for England and Wales Dominic Grieve to the High Court in London. The lord chief justice said it was “inevitable” that the emergence of fresh evidence about how and why the 96 victims died made it “desirable and reasonable for a fresh inquest to be heard”. “However distressing or unpalatable, the truth will be brought …

Kelvin argues the rich should declare independence from the poor…

Mick Fealty on December 13, 2012, 11:30 am

| Readers 38

Picked this up a few days ago during the local storm when there wasn’t much time or room on Slugger, but it’s a good take on Kelvin McKenzie’s supposed call for the south of England to kick the north of England out. The Blighty blog at the Economist highlights what he really means: Every example he offers of London and the south being attacked takes the form of taxes on the rich—stamp duty for example—which also apply in the north. …

“It was like Belfast in the 1970s out there”

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on December 11, 2012, 6:47 am

| Readers 38

So far I’ve only found one mention of Belfast (or Northern Ireland) in this morning’s Daily Mail. [free at the airport – don’t judge!] On page 13 a neighbout was describing a Facebook party that had got out of control next door to his house in Essex: It was like Belfast in the 1970s out there. It was terrifying. There were hundreds of people out to cause trouble. 1970s? How out of touch … Maybe GB aren’t paying attention to …

Leveson report: the self-regulation carrot with the legislative stick

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 29, 2012, 4:59 pm

| Readers 49

It may be some time before Slugger posters finish reading the 1988 pages of Lord Justice Leveson’s report into his Inquiry into the Culture, Practices and Ethics of the Press. So here’s a short post in the meantime! [48 page Executive Summary; four volume full report] He said that the press had “wreaked havoc in the lives of innocent people” for many decades and called their behaviour (at times) “outrageous”. The report’s executive summary comments: Phone hacking is most decidedly …

A UKIP breakthrough in 2015?

Gerry Lynch on November 28, 2012, 5:25 pm

| Readers 269

UKIP has been consistently polling in the high single digits and low double digits across Great Britain for well over a year now. This is the most significant and sustained burst of polling for a fourth party in Britain since at least the Greens’ post-Euro election surge in 1989. Arguably, the UKIP surge is more significant than that, as it has not depended on the positive publicity generated by an unexpected breakthrough in an off year election fuelled by protest …

No chance of a Sinn Fein Scotland

Brian Walker on November 21, 2012, 10:30 am

| Readers 55

Jim Gallagher in his days as a civil servant one of the architects of developing Scottish devolution and still a leading authority on the Scottish Question discusses rival scenarios for Scotland’s future in the Scotsman, concentrating on the bottom line issue of control over tax and spend. Either way, whether the outcome is “devo more” as he calls it, or independence, he makes it clear that the English can’t be left out of the Scottish story. The detached reader might …

Society of Editors meeting in Belfast – Leveson, distribution, tablets, journalism training and dead trees #SOE

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on November 12, 2012, 7:53 pm

| Readers 19

The Society of Editors – representing newspaper, broadcast and online editors – is holding its annual conference in Belfast. Lord Leveson’s report is due out within weeks and discussion about the possible models of regulation and how editors would live with them was set to dominate the agenda. The BBC’s difficulties have cast their shadow over proceedings too. The outgoing President of the Society of Editors – Fran Unsworth – filmed a quick video message to welcome delegates to the …

Blessed are the newsbreakers; but which ones can you trust in the age of Twitter?

Mick Fealty on November 12, 2012, 3:13 pm

| Readers 40

There’s a number of great pieces online about where new authority is emerging to challenge the older models, particularly in the wake of the US election and superstorm Sandy. Forbes had this to say in response to a mainstream anchor thanking people for ‘helping out’: News flash for my local news anchors: the “amateurs” aren’t “helping out” the “professionals.” They are mostly ignoring them. They are mostly sending their pictures to their friends, not to you. And we’ve seen the …

Mail names BBC NI Director as the weak link in latest crisis…

Mick Fealty on November 12, 2012, 11:54 am

| Readers 169

Suddenly the vast and inscrutable machine of the BBC is under intense investigation, and the hunt is on for whomever it was at Director level that signed off on the Newsnight. The Daily Mail believes it has found the weak link in the chain. The person they now claim was responsible for sign off at the highest level was the Director of BBC NI, Peter Johnston. Johnson, whose core competence is audience development, found himself with executive responsibilities for national …

#DigitalLunch: Barriers to Social Innovation…

Mick Fealty on October 30, 2012, 11:51 am

| Readers 9

Today’s #DigitalLunch asks what are the barriers to innovation? Not just in Northern Ireland, but generically. We go live at 1pm, with a rolling panel to discuss not just what the barriers but also how they may be got around. As ever, we’re looking for your questions for the panel to chew over. We already have a couple over at the associated Google Moderator page: “How can the personal risk that social entrepreneurs take be reduced? We need to eat …

Bangor born David Montgomery plans return to regional newspapers

Brian Walker on October 28, 2012, 11:33 pm

| Readers 18

Sky News’ City Editor has “ an exclusive” which on the face of it promises new investment in hard pressed regional papers under Bangor boy and staunch Unionist David Montgomery. Iliffe News & Media, owner of the Cambridge News and Hertfordshire Mercury, and Northcliffe Media, the regionals arm of Daily Mail & General Trust (DMGT), are in advanced talks to pool their assets into a new vehicle spearheaded by David Montgomery, the former editor of the News Of The World …

Setting a gold standard in how to govern

Brian Walker on October 25, 2012, 11:17 pm

| Readers 38

I’d like to offer a few thoughts from the chapter How To Be a Reformer in Andrew Adonis’s new book Education, Education Education. These impressive conclusions, also culled from recent exchanges with him, are based on his career as a historian, academic, journalist, Head of Tony Blair’s Policy Unit and the Minister of State for Education for England who introduced academies to transform “ bog standard comprehensives” and remove them from local authority control. I’ll leave the CV and profile …

Will the Scottish independence debate ripple south of the border and across the Irish Sea?

Brian Walker on October 16, 2012, 11:04 am

| Readers 75

At last, it’s game on for the Independence Debate. London based comment has decided that on balance David Cameron had the best of Round One, or the “Edinburgh Declaration, “ as Alex Salmond dubbed it with typical initiative-grabbing grandiosity. Salmond of course hasn’t conceded any such thing. Leaving the wording of The Question aside for later debate, some of the wider ripple effects have been noted. Tory opposition means 17 year olds will be able to vote in the Scottish referendum, which is …

Liverpool’s Bloody Sunday

Brian Walker on September 14, 2012, 4:56 pm

| Readers 91

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, …

IPC to scrutinise future media deals with the US and other ‘under-performing’ Paralympic nations…

Mick Fealty on September 11, 2012, 12:01 pm

| Readers 47

Okay, so there’ve been pages now written on how great the Paralympics were in #London2012. But to give praise where it is undoubtedly due, it was probably Beijing that first raised the bar and the status of the Paralympic games to, if not equal status, then a great deal closer to the Olympics than at any time before. London’s achievement was to repackage and reengineer it as a product, not least by giving it the time and public attention that …

Is Labour’s route to regaining national trust through ‘foreign policy’?

Mick Fealty on August 21, 2012, 7:09 pm

| Readers 53

One way of looking at the 2010 UK general election is that it was one that Labour needed to lose, but as many Tories look back on the 1992 election on the one they might similarly have better lost. Ah but, history never quite repeats itself in the same way twice… Janan Ganesh in the FT has a go though.. the scenario he comes up with is a great deal less sanguine for Labour: There is an undulating rhythm to …