I have never made a secret of the fact that I am no expert on politics outside of Ireland. I watch elections in other countries in a disinterested fashion. The systems are strange and I find it gives you an insight into just how bizarre politics can look when you are not involved. The UK election is probably the most interesting one in my lifetime. Up until now all I have ever seen is a strange and undemocratic voting system …
After Dresden, a new play based on the wartime diaries of Rev Ray Davey, founder of the Corrymeela Community, concluded on Saturday after a short run at the Belvoir Playhouse. Written by Philip Orr, the play sold out or nearly sold out each day on its Thursday-Saturday run and has been reviewed favourably by Alan in Belfast. The play is set in 2004, at the 40th anniversary celebrations for the ‘Community of the Rock,’ the name given for Corrymeela in …
Sinn Fein continues their schizophrenic approach to the EU: Michelle O`Neill has stated that The European Fisheries Fund has made a significant contribution to our commercial fishing and coastal communities… She failed to mention that the UK has almost 70 per cent of Europe’s fishing grounds but only 13 per cent percent of its fishing quota. The Common Fisheries Policy opened up the UK’s fish to all EU member states. Now we must import fish species such as cod, haddock and …
The German Bertelsmann Foundation with the assistance of the IFO Institute have produced a report attempting to analyse the effects of a UK exit from the European Union. The report makes sobering reading for all, but particularly people in Ireland and Northern Ireland. The report makes a serious effort to put figures on what has to date been a very esoteric discussion. It looks at two assumptions, a “soft”exit and a “hard” exit, examining the likely GDP loss and the …
The Finnish election results available here are the final nail in the Greek coffin and are a lesson for the so-called anti-austerity parties throughout Europe. The core of the next Government will likely come from the rural and small town Centre Party and the less pleasant Finns’ Party, formerly True Finns. The Prime Minister elect Juha Sipilä, a devout Lutheran, of the type more at home in the Gospel Halls of Ballymena, decisively defeated the outgoing Prime Minister and his …
listen to ‘#SluggerReport Daily: “Manifestos, costed but meaningless?”’ on audioBoom Ah I think I have finally got my workflow right. So here’s an audio copy of this morning’s #SluggerReport Daily (213 LIVE viewers). You can pick up most of them on Audioboom here. The local anchor for today’s report is the apparently bonkers proposal from the DUP manifesto to build a tunnel from Northern Ireland to Scotland, more broadly though it is this excellent piece from academic, former Labour spad …
This from Belfast emigre Robert McLiam Wilson, via Henry McDonald: “I am feeling a touch of shame today. Cancelling such an event in the face of putative menace in a city that endured a 30-year torture of self-immolation seems worse than pusillanimous. Belfast? Seriously? This is not the city I remember. This cancellation says, with trumpeting clarity, that there is no debate because there can be no debate. There is a big boat that can’t be rocked.” He added: “Charlie …
As with the Red Queen so too, it would seem, with Sinn Féin – who published their 2015 Westminster Election Manifesto today. The BBC report notes Deputy leader Martin McGuinness said that he does not believe any of the main parties in Northern Ireland will play a role in the formation of the next government and that any claims to the contrary were “misleading”. Well, Sinn Féin will not play any role. But other Northern Ireland parties might, depending on …
“We’re not Ireland, we will resist” (Greek austerity protest chant) Has Ireland lost its protest mojo? Flatmates Treasa O’Brien and Mary Jane O’Leary bailed out of Ireland to study in London and Barcelona. Partly motivated by the Greek chant and surprised by the contrast behind high profile citizen action in countries like Spain and the lack of news reaching them from Ireland, the friends came back to their homeland and toured around in a white Transit van to make a …
So yesterday it was Labour making promises they don’t know they can keep, and today it is the Conservatives taking stale old policies from the 1980s out of the oven and serving them as fresh, leaving the country with a poor politics of small differences. So, on old narratives recycled as new, here’s Outside Left on the illusory comfort of austerity politics: When it comes to fiscal responsibility your paper balance sheet doesn’t really matter, it’s your real future liability and …
Whilst everyone else is focused on the tribulations of Greece, I would heartily recommend that if you don’t read anything else today, read this Reykjavik Letter (€) from Peter Geoghegan in today’s Irish Times: visions of Iceland as a Nordic Nirvana – burnt bondholders, jailed bankers, a crowd-sourced constitution – often clash with reality here. The Icelandic economy has recovered since the kreppa, the 2008 banking meltdown. But the cost of living remains painfully high, even if the country is far more …
There was a time when Europe had a popular political champion in Northern Ireland. John Hume made a successful pitch for one of Northern Ireland’s three European seats in the first directly elected European Parliament, based as much on his personal commitment to developing NI PLC as to any sectarian pitch to nationalist voters. Since then and the onset of our local political institutions, the economic role of the EU in the wellbeing of Northern Ireland has got little play from …
Aha, whilst we’re talking no longer talking about the Irish Syriza, here’s an idea we might use to fill the fiscal hole at Stormont which has suddenly opened up on Monday morning… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
So what have Gerry Adams and the megalomaniacal (and, let it be said, commercially successful) demagogically simplifying former editor of The Sun Kelvin McKenzie got in common? They are/were both aficionados of the Reverse Ferret. Wikipedia describes it thusly: …used predominantly within the British media to describe a sudden reversal in an organisation’s editorial line on a certain issue. Generally, this will involve no acknowledgement of the previous position. In today’s Irish News, Tom Kelly filed a column on a parallel reverse …
The ceasefire in Ukraine seems to be sort of holding. No one, however, seems terribly optimistic that peace is going to come. Certainly there is no sign of the displaced refugees returning home. The conflict has repeatedly been portrayed as a binary good vs. bad situation analogous to the most simplistic of cowboy films by the West with the only dissent tending to be from the usual suspects (such as John Pilger here – that said good to see the …
The Guardian and Observer’s Berlin correspondent, Kate Connolly, reports on the campaign for justice by the family of Heidi Hazell, the 26-year-old German wife of a British army sergeant, murdered by the Provisional IRA outside her married quarters in Unna-Massen, a Dortmund suburb, on 7 September 1989. From the Guardian report The following day the IRA claimed responsibility for what was its first and only murder in West Germany of a British soldier’s wife. In a statement the organisation said she had …
So, having finally balanced its own budget in 2014, Schaeuble finally seems ready to start re-investing in Germany’s ‘crumbling’ infrastructure: German federal government said on Tuesday that it would spend an additional 5 billion euros (about 5.59 billion U.S. dollars) in the next three years to help local communities improve infrastructure and boost investment. The additional spending on top of a 10-billion-euro investment plan announced by German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble last year would not affect Germany’s strict fiscal principle, …
As Mick has noted, at the weekend the under-pressure new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras took undiplomatic aim at the governments of Spain and Portugal [But not Ireland! – Ed] in an attempt to explain the outcome of European negotiations to his Syriza party coalition. The European Commission has been quick to step in to act as a “mediator” after receiving complaints from the Spanish and Portuguese authorities, but not before those governments had responded in kind. Spanish Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy hit back …
What now for “the Syriza experiment“? The Irish Times reports that the Eurogroup of finance ministers have deemed the Greek government’s list of proposed reforms to be “sufficiently comprehensive” for a four-month extension of the Greek bailout programme which was due to expire on Saturday. In an official statement released after today’s conference call between euro zone finance ministers, the euro group said that the proposal was “sufficiently comprehensive” to be a valid starting point for a successful conclusion of …
After Dresden, a new play written by Philip Orr, explores the tragedy of the Second World War and how that in part inspired the foundation of the Corrymeela Community. It will be performed by the Belvoir Players, 30 April-2 May at 8 pm (2.00 p.m. matinee on Sat 2nd), at their Studio Theatre, 94 Belvoir Drive. Tickets are £9 (£7 concession) and can be purchased online at www.belvoirplayers.org or by ringing 028 9049 1210. Reduced rates are available for parties …
