England – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

Northern Ireland takes the elections more seriously than questioning what sort of politics we’re going to get?

Mick Fealty on April 29, 2019, 8:58 pm

| Readers 1968

I, along with many others, have made much of the fact that it is 21 years since the Belfast Agreement. That’s almost generation difference, and a lot has changed in that time. One of them being the general assumptions around democracy. For our benefit Dan O’Brien states the otherwise bleedin’ obvious right out loud: The Agreement, signed just over 21 years ago, was negotiated at a time of global decline in non-democracies and the emergence of a belief that democracy …

Big Votes, Big Mess

Chris McKee on March 28, 2019, 10:15 pm

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According to Lenin, there are decades in history where nothing happens, and then sometimes weeks where decades happen. If that is true, then Brexit seems to have given us a third category entirely: a weekly cycle of impossible drama and contradiction that merely feeds into another baffling cycle of the same, where weeks feel like years, years sometimes like weeks, where so many things change, and yet, finally, nothing ever does. It’s like UK has sold the rights of its …

A new British centrist party would likely benefit the Tories, just like the last time

Peter Donaghy (Salmon of Data) on March 5, 2019, 10:42 pm

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An unpopular Conservative government, a left-wing Labour leader with poor favourability ratings, and a breakaway faction of centrist Labour MPs joined by a Conservative defection a short while afterwards. The parallels between the formation of the Independent Group of MPs in February 2019, and that of the Social Democratic Party in 1981, are clearly apparent. Could a new centrist force make a breakthrough in a Westminster general election, as the alliance between the Liberals and the SDP famously failed to …

Ards and North Down Declare Climate Emergency

Claire Mitchell on February 28, 2019, 8:02 pm

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Yesterday, on 27th February 2019, an eerily summery winter evening, Ards and North Down Borough Council passed Northern Ireland’s first Climate Emergency motion. Led by Green Party councillors Rachel Woods and Barry McKee, the motion was agreed without changes in a full meeting of the Council chamber. This comes not a moment too soon for a region which is set to face major challenges over the next 10-20 years as temperatures, and sea-levels, rise. Parts of the Ards peninsula, along …

UK Media Must Up Its Game

Chris McKee on February 13, 2019, 9:52 am

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Here’s a question for future historians: will the UK media be blamed as much as its politicians, should Brexit really hit the skids in just a few weeks’ time? If not, it really should. Take one story as an example from the weekend: Jacob Rees-Mogg’s fanciful suggestion that a £13.8m shipping contract awarded by the UK Government as part of its emergency No Deal preparations may have collapsed from political pressure from notoriously anti-business Leo Varadkar. The premise? Arklow Shipping Limited, the …

By An Means Necessary – a review of RTE’s Michael Collins era drama ‘Resistance’

Dan McGinn on February 11, 2019, 8:17 am

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After ‘Rebellion’ comes ‘Resistance’. Irish TV dramatist Colin Teevan has returned with a five part showpiece follow-up to his 1916 RTE Easter Rising drama, ‘Rebellion’ which reached international audiences in the United States on the Sundance Channel and other parts of the globe through Netflix. For the Dubliner, ‘Resistance’ is another chance to prove he can craft a gripping, multi-layered period drama in a prime time slot after the rather underwhelming 2015 RTE mini series ‘Charlie’ about Charlie Haughey and …

Biscuits and gravy

Andrew Gallagher on February 6, 2019, 6:30 pm

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Plenty has been written already about Owen Polley’s article in the Newsletter last week. I have no wish to reopen the debate over his support for the Irish rugby team, which is entirely his business. But I must pull him up for making one the most basic schoolboy errors that Unionists normally accuse others of. He has conflated Englishness with Britishness. Or rather, he has conflated anti-Englishness with anti-Britishness. Brexit has of course dredged up a lot of feeling south …

Future Ireland / Breaking waves – Considering a New Ireland in 2019

Chris McKee on February 3, 2019, 10:00 am

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As the drama in Westminster continues, it’s fair to say that in 2019 and beyond, Northern Ireland’s often petty and tedious politics will be interesting, as an international spotlight passes over old scars and immense change looms once again. At times, it feels like we are back on a familiar shore, where the waves grow bigger and the very sand is moving below our feet. Brexit, now, is like a meteor landing in the distant sea. Suddenly, many of the …

Don’t Mention the War: Legacies of the Troubles and Their Impact on Brexit

Vicky Cosstick on February 1, 2019, 8:30 pm

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Is this the calm at the centre of the hurricane? The eerie, robotic, delusional calm of Brexiters as they respond with condescension to the exasperated questioning of journalists that of course there are digital and technological ways of monitoring the border, and of course the EU needs the UK more than vice versa, and it is bound to cave in “when they see the whites of our eyes”; the “calm bewilderment” of the EU as they survey the unfolding horror in …

Driving home for Christmas? Be thankful

John Lavery on December 22, 2018, 9:35 am

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As I walked through Belfast City Centre a couple of Fridays ago I passed, scattered among the late-night revellers, five maybe six rough sleepers. Some were out cold, some awake looking vacantly at the crowds and some taking the opportunity of the passing footfall to ask for spare change. Seeing rough sleepers in Belfast is nothing new, I recall them from my childhood too. But it remains something that is hard to see and fathom, at this time of year …

Leading Northern Irish voices join support of ‘Stansted 15’ protestors

Luke Butterly on December 12, 2018, 2:31 pm

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“It must be recalled that this is all taking place against the background of an inhumane immigration policy that is acknowledged to be openly hostile.” Leading Northern Irish politicians, human rights groups, academics, journalists and activists have expressed their “deep concern and disagreement” with Monday’s ruling against fifteen human rights activists who “acted to stop a brutal, secretive and barely legal deportation flight” at Stansted airport in March 2017. Known as the ‘Stansted 15’, they have been convicted of ‘endangering an aerodrome’ under the …

Should the IFA adopt its own national anthem?

Soapbox on December 2, 2018, 9:05 am

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Recently we had the disgraceful but in some ways predictable behaviour of some fans (but at least it was a minority) at the Northern Ireland versus Republic of Ireland match during the playing of the National Anthems. I was always taught that no matter how you feel about a country, or its government’s policies, you should always respect the national anthem. However, at the same time – why do the Irish Football Association still continue to use God Save the …

Northern Ireland’s business community has united as never before to make sure it is heard and the consequences of crashing out of the EU next March are understood.

Soapbox on November 29, 2018, 12:12 pm

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Stephen Kelly is the Chief Executive of Manufacturing NI, he writes for Slugger about why the Withdrawal Agreement from the European Union should be supported. A community has found it voice. Reluctant, yet determined, Northern Ireland’s business community has united as never before, to make sure is heard, and that the consequences of crashing out of the EU next March are understood. Some may have been frustrated that Northern Ireland’s businesses and their representatives have been too quiet, but we …

Why Brexit is going wrong and how it could be fixed (part 2)

Paul Evans on November 28, 2018, 10:01 am

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This is the second of two posts here looking at Brexit through a democratic, rather than a political lens. In the previous post, I argued that the ‘cliff edge’ exit that is inevitable when leaving the EU is not sustainable for the EU, and that the UK would be doing everyone a favour by challenging it. The word “crisis” is over-used in British politics, but we are undoubtedly in one now. We have a Prime Minister who is trying to …

Why Brexit is going wrong and how it could be fixed…

Paul Evans on November 27, 2018, 11:10 am

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This is the first of two posts here in which I’m going to look at Brexit through a democratic, rather than a political lens. I’d argue that Representative Democracy is humanity’s single most valuable invention. It has provided government that fosters a level of prosperity and a standard of justice that all of our ancestors could only dream of, and it has hosted history’s greatest period of innovation. Representative Democracy is a robust system. It has an internal logic – …

Future Ireland: Writing Competition

Claire Mitchell on September 16, 2018, 9:00 am

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This is an open call for submissions on our current featured topic – Future Ireland: Alternative Conversations about Unity and the Union You can read a little more about the aims of the project here, and the types of contributions that we’re seeking. Here are some examples. But we suspect that you might have some even better ideas. So we’re putting out an open call for articles on this topic. The best three articles will win a prize (tbc – …

Future Ireland: Alternative Conversations About Unity and the Union

Claire Mitchell on September 15, 2018, 9:00 am

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The future of Northern Ireland is deeply uncertain. Brexit, the rise of English nationalism, Scotland, Stormont deadlock and demographic change make Irish unity a realistic alternative. The polls vary greatly, but some have unity very much within sight, especially if there is a harsh Brexit and a disruptive border. People are talking about this at kitchen tables across the north. But whilst we are highly engaged about if we would like unity or the union, and many of us have …

The bizarre story of banknotes in the United Kingdom

Brendan Heading on June 13, 2018, 10:18 pm

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Over the past while we’ve been debating a number of things around “special status” for Northern Ireland. Coincident with this debate was the announcement from Ulster Bank of a plan to issue new, verticially-oriented banknotes. I found myself in rare agreement with North Antrim MP Ian Paisley, who suggested on twitter that we could look at a move to Bank of England notes. I noted again this morning that the topic on discussion on the Nolan Show, where the proprietor …

Social progress is an important part of ensuring the Union is a more attractive proposition…

Doug Beattie on May 30, 2018, 2:49 pm

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While I personally do not support abortion, I do support a woman’s right to have one if she chooses. I think it would be wrong for anyone to think that the referendum held in Ireland to repeal the 8th amendment will not have an effect in Northern Ireland. Of course, it will in the same way the decision to allow women from Northern Ireland to access abortions on the NHS England had an effect. I sometimes sense that some believe …

Meet the Box-Setts: the Demographic that Will Decide Britain’s Future

Gerry Lynch on May 4, 2018, 7:53 am

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David Box gives his partner Seema Sett the dorky, Mr Bean-ish look, with the back of his tongue poking out of his gob that he knows always makes her smile when she’s had a rough day. The kids are asleep and they’re in bed too, sprawled on top of the duvet. The tablet is streaming one of their favourite series: Babylon 5. Season 2, the episode where the Technomages first appear. Pure nostalgia for their student days. They’re both a …