flegs – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

#SpAdBill, the #GFA and the long shadow of the Boundary Commission

John Ó Néill on June 3, 2013, 9:46 am | Readers 72

I have been intending to post on the SpAdBill for a while but nothing has encapsulated the shrill histrionics of any public debate involving unionism since, well, the fading #flegs crisis or whatever the issue was just before that. And don’t get me wrong, there is no doubting the sincerity of Ann Travers or others who feel they have a grievance that needs to be addressed, regardless of who is responsible for their pain or loss. It is that last …

Matt Baggott on flag protests, Boston tapes, G8 summit, drones & social media

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on April 23, 2013, 9:00 am | Readers 104

It’s all looking a bit fraught. We need a recovery plan. The words of the Chief Constable Matt Baggott describing the fortunes of his football club rather than the PSNI’s response to the flags crisis. Though the words must echo what went through the PSNI senior officers’ minds when the flags crisis didn’t abate before Christmas. Monday’s post covered PSNI transformation, regulation and vocation. Remember that blogs aren’t newspapers, so not every post has to try to make a news …

Willie Frazer detained at his home this morning…

Mick Fealty on February 27, 2013, 1:12 pm | Readers 137

UTV reporting that Willie Frazer has been arrested… A 52-year-old man was detained at a house in the Tandragee Road area of Markethill, Co Armagh, just before 9am on Wednesday. He is currently in police custody being questioned on suspicion of public order offences linked to the Union flags protests. 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 …

“Simply because if you fill in a form you could get charged with an offence”

Mick Fealty on February 22, 2013, 12:45 pm | Readers 68

So, Mervyn Gibson rocked the boat on The View last night, when he noted the Orange may, after taking legal advice, choose not to notify the Parades Commission… Why? because one of the outcomes of the recent flag protest is a new ‘understanding’ that if you don’t notify the Parades Commission, there is nothing they can do. In other words, everything returns to the status quo ante; minus any form of prior notification being required by police or parades commission. …

Flags – Can we now have a sensible debate?

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on February 19, 2013, 8:30 am | Readers 66

Last night at Platform for Change‘s Flags – Can we now have a sensible conversation? event, 120 or more people crammed into a room in the Holiday Inn to hear from nine local political representatives and to pose their questions. The two hour event, chaired by Robin Wilson, started with each panellist being given the opportunity to outline their position on the flag debate. listen to ‘Part 1/5 Flags – can we now have a serious debate? @platform4change’ on Audioboo …

#Flegs: They haven’t gone away you know…

Mick Fealty on February 18, 2013, 1:28 pm | Readers 349

There was a lot of upset Crusaders and Cliftonville supporters on Twitter at the weekend. Apparently flag protesters from other parts of Belfast (let’s call them predominantly Blues and Glens supporters) turned up at the away turnstiles to prevent Cliftonville’s majority Catholic support ingress to the ground. Result: the season’s big game between the two top clubs in the local Premier league gets call off. It hasn’t gone unnoticed elsewhere that the target was Cliftonville (currently sitting on a nice …

Will unionism’s long 2012 be seen as the year when the wave broke?

John Ó Néill on February 1, 2013, 10:37 am | Readers 87

With the #flegs protests seemingly diminishing, it seems like a good time to wrap up where 2012 has brought unionism, although it can be pretty much summed up in one word – crisis. It was a year in which there were early signs of modest progress visible to DUP leader Peter Robinson in March and by November he felt confident to proclaim that the constitutional debate had been won. And remember, in 2012 we were told repeatedly how ‘Catholics’ were being taken within, and reciprocating, the embrace of unionist outreach. Looking past the rhetoric, …

#Flegs Protest: Blocking the highway is only one way you can be convicted…

Mick Fealty on January 31, 2013, 12:48 pm | Readers 83

For me this was the most straightforward and relevant contribution on last night’s Nolan. Peaceful protest is fine this audience member says, but who is informing the young people who are getting involved about what is and what is not legal. Obstructing the highway has been a focus (because it is probably the most disruptive), but that is not all you can get a criminal record for. Covering your face, acting in an intimidating manner towards others are also grounds …

Does Robinson’s move to the right on #flegs open a viable space on the Unionist ‘left’?

Mick Fealty on January 23, 2013, 11:53 am | Readers 97

How long ago was Peter Robinson’s speech of hope? I want us to use our powers of persuasion here at home, where it matters, to expound the benefits of belonging to the Union. That means challenging ourselves as well as challenging others and it means building a society where everyone feels equally valued. In promoting the benefits of the United Kingdom, unionists have a product that none of our political opponents can match. Saturday, 24 November 2012. A lot of …

Micheál Martin – opportunism and cynicism of the very worst kind

Eoin O Broin on January 20, 2013, 10:48 am | Readers 82

The award for opportunist of the week must surely go to Micheál Martin. His hastily written opinion piece in Wednesdays Irish News was a timely reminder of Fianna Fáil’s cynical approach to both the peace process and to politics. For weeks Belfast city centre has been brought to a standstill by illegal loyalist blockades. Night after night the same protestors have returned to their own neighborhoods and engaged in running battles with the PSNI causing real disruption to their own …

FFS, Give Us A HUG!!!

Mick Fealty on January 18, 2013, 10:56 am | Readers 86

Sometimes, someone, somewhere just gets it right… This picture comes to you courtesy of the small but growing Northern Ireland community on Google Plus… 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

Basil McCrea: we are increasingly looking at a policing response that does more than just contain the situation

Alan Meban (Alan in Belfast) on January 17, 2013, 9:03 pm | Readers 60

Lagan Valley MLA Basil McCrea was interviewed on his local community radio station Lisburn’s 98FM today. Presenters of the weekly On The Record politics show – David McCann and Kerri Dunn – quizzed the whip-less politician about his previous statements on flag, the state of his party and his political future. listen to ‘Lagan Valley MLA @BasilMcCrea speaking to @dmcbfs & @KerriDunn on @lisburns98 radio’ on Audioboo You can listen to the entire 23 minute interview – with permission from …

What do Catholic people living in non interface Belfast think of the flags crisis?

Mick Fealty on January 17, 2013, 4:15 pm | Readers 102

From Newsline last night… Gareth Gordon went ‘up west’ yesterday… and found there was not a great deal of sympathy, though not a great huge amount of passion either… 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

#Flegs: “That’s what we, in many instances, choose to see…”

Mick Fealty on January 17, 2013, 3:27 pm | Readers 51

Jason O’Mahony transposes the #flegs thing to the newly emerged, liberal and post Catholic state to the south: …just count how many union jacks you see on the way to work. Last week, I saw plenty of tricolours, EU, German, and American flags, and even one Chinese flag. But not one British flag, despite the fact that we have more British tourists and trade more with the UK than anyone else. We happily fly the flags of all our friends …

Micheál Martin: “If the Executive is not making progress on child poverty, or economic inactivity, or sectarianism”

Mick Fealty on January 16, 2013, 11:59 am | Readers 47

Okay, so one of the good things about a political crisis in Northern Ireland that it draws a multiplicity views on our general situation (riots will always divide opinion). Not all of that has been bad by any means. Allan Massie in the Scotsman is generally sanguine about Northern Ireland’s future, if not David Cameron’s. But it’s brought the leader of Fianna Fail back on the local news pages too. In an op ed in today’s Irish News Micheál Martin …

A Northern Ireland that cannot govern itself will always be brittle and unstable

Mick Fealty on January 15, 2013, 9:19 am | Readers 74

Okay, Nuala McKeever’s piece for the Belfast Telegraph put me in mind of the paper we pulled together and published ten years this May on, as it happens, the future of unionism: This is not about making unionism more yielding. A ‘long peace’ will not be an easy peace and unionists will often need to be tough in their projection of power. But ‘no’ should never be their final answer. Defensiveness is far too predictable a strategy. A genuinely disruptive …

Ongoing #Flegs disturbances point to a chronic rather than acute failure in NI Politics…

Mick Fealty on January 14, 2013, 10:16 pm | Readers 56

Richard Irvine writing in the Irish Times today makes a point worth considering… In fact the magnitude of the unionist victory is not only unchallenged by these Sinn Féin tactics, rather it is underscored. Unionists should be delighted that republicans have so little ambition that they can achieve only small and compromised symbolic victories like the flag-lowering. The real danger then to unionism’s triumph comes not from republicanism, not even dissident republicanism, but from themselves. In this crisis, with loyalist …

“In her hands golf balls which she said were thrown by her nationalist neighbours…”

Mick Fealty on January 14, 2013, 3:53 pm | Readers 92

Worth watching this piece from Gerry Adams at a Presser at the weekend. “It is not spontaneous, it is not organic, it is orchestrated it is planned. This was a deliberate policy of coming to these so-called interface areas and attacking people only on the basis that they are Catholic.” Except here’s the UTV news from last week, which reports another version of the truth and a group of loyalist protesters returning from the centre of Belfast: Indeed, Mr Adams …

Baggott tells press young people are being led “by the nose towards prison”

Mick Fealty on January 14, 2013, 1:33 pm | Readers 45

BBC report Matt Baggott words this morning… Mr Baggott defended a police operation on Saturday when a “breakaway crowd” of loyalist protesters marched past a nationalist area in east Belfast. “Residents should not have been put through that. I’m sorry they were put through that trauma,” he said. He warned those taking part in the riots “a knock on the door was coming”. Mr Baggott said that police estimated more than 4,000 people took part in street protests on Friday across …

[Corrected] over half of southerners think restriction of Union flag in Belfast was wrong…

Mick Fealty on January 10, 2013, 5:36 pm | Readers 88

Well, southerners may not have been impressed with the shenanigans of Loyalist protesters, but it is clear they’re not impressed with the move to take the ‘flag from the pole’ either. Here’s the latest Red C findings: Over half of those surveyed, 57pc, felt Belfast city council was wrong to restrict the flying of the Union flag at Belfast city hall. Update: From the official report, courtesy of JR below: Over half of those that expressed an opinion (57%) suggest …