Government – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

Revisiting Nuclear Power : Part 3 : Can it be weaponised ?

Brendan Heading on August 29, 2022, 12:24 pm

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Nuclear explosion mushroom cloud

Following on from my previous articles on how nuclear power works, and why we need to rethink the dangers posed by it, it’s time to talk about the other safety-related concerns that are often raised in the debate about the viability of nuclear power. Can a nuclear power station explode like a nuclear bomb ? What happens if a nuclear power station finds itself in the theatre of military conflict, as is currently happening in Ukraine ? To deal with …

The enduring question about politics from the start of the Troubles: why has the middle class been so ineffective?

Brian Walker on August 27, 2022, 12:01 pm

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I’m using my privilege as a poster here to try to sum up a couple of posts by Frank Schnittger and myself which are about struggling to find meaning in the chaotic and long draw out course of the Troubles. I’d better be careful as this could lead to endless exchanges but I’ll draw the line here. Eventually we all have more urgent topics to cope with like a rudderless government during an economic convulsion. I suppose I was …

Leave futile arguments about equivalence aside. We all need to come clean about why the Troubles lasted so unforgivably long.

Brian Walker on August 20, 2022, 9:50 pm

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clock, alarm clock, watch

Belatedly I want to pick up from Mick’s treatment of Fionnuala O’ Connor’s interesting question about origins, prompted by the inevitable controversy surrounding Michelle O’Neill. At the outset, I’m reconciled to the fact that my brief analysis, partly based like Fionnuala’s on contemporary observation, will be disputed. I want to be as fair as I can. There’s nothing more pointless than one sided polemic. Her question relates to the present and future. To make ‘reconciliation’ possible do republicans have to …

Revisiting Nuclear Power : Part 1 : how it works

Brendan Heading on July 24, 2022, 9:17 pm

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It can have escaped few of us that the effects of the war in Ukraine and the fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic, alongside the ongoing issue of climate change, have led to renewed interest in the possibilities offered by nuclear power and how it can help to solve the problems governments around the world are facing. This is leading to a re-evaluation of the case for nuclear, and, hopefully, objective consideration of its strengths and weaknesses. I believe that it …

On one thing MPs are agreed: the EU need to show greater flexibility. So is the Protocol Bill only “displacement activity?”

Brian Walker on June 28, 2022, 4:08 pm

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The mouse didn’t roar as the House of Commons sent the Protocol Bill on its way yesterday. “Only if enacted” said an uncharacteristically strident Jeffrey Donaldson, would the DUP go back to Stormont, advancing the curious argument that the Protocol Bill would “give back to the elected representatives in Northern Ireland the power to take the decisions that they have not been able to take.”(It would give them to Westminster not Stormont). Most MPs including the Conservatives who spoke, were …

Now we’ve got into an even bigger mess over human rights, courtesy of guess who?

Brian Walker on June 24, 2022, 12:59 pm

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If ever it needed reminding, the importance of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and its court in Strasbourg was underlined by the comments of the former Lord Chief Justice to MPs the other day. As it stands Sir Declan Morgan feared that Westminster’s latest attempt at a Legacy Bill would be struck down by the Court as in basic violation of human rights. But there is an even more fundamental dimension to this. ECHR rights are embedded in …

The UK government must do better than this wretched legacy bill. But an amnesty is still inevitable

Brian Walker on May 24, 2022, 6:46 pm

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Last week the Bishop of Derry dedicated a garden to the memory of a 15 year old Derry boy Manus Deery, shot dead by the British Army in the Bogside on the 50th anniversary of his death. As the Derry Now website reported: Manus had just started working after leaving St Joseph’s Secondary School and was eating a bag of chips and carrying a comic in his back pocket which he had bought with his first wage packet… At the …

The public will not put up with more months of private stalemate. Sinn Fein and Alliance must open up the Assembly to full debate

Brian Walker on May 9, 2022, 2:09 pm

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The glasses of full and half full Assembly results have been poured and are being eagerly being digested according to whether consumers are convinced they amount to a breakthrough for the nationalist cause or leave things much the same in a slightly different shape. Each according to taste. What matters more immediately now are the bums on seats in Stormont. To allow Executive ministers of the old mandate to continue, MLAs will have to manage to elect a Speaker. …

What is the point of Brandon Lewis?

Brian Walker on February 13, 2022, 3:31 pm

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On the Sunday Morning show on BBC 1, NI Secretary Brandon Lewis let slip that he’d “spent the week in the US”. He also enlightened us that he visited Northern Ireland “most weeks” but didn’t say for how long. His most recent contributions are in written statements urging the DUP to return to the First Minister post immediately and saying that No, he will not call an Assembly election early. These read as if they’re for the record rather to …

The UK government have a stronger hand in the Protocol dispute than their critics think

Brian Walker on October 15, 2021, 4:00 pm

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Lord Frost Well, where are we on the Protocol? As talks begin in Brussels which are expected to last for months , Lord Frost says there’s a long way to go. EU vice president Šefčovič insists the EU has reached its limit. Those are the public positions. Even the briefings are somewhat contradictory. The Times hopefully reports that the EU is open to a compromise deal that would limit the role of EU Court of Justice in Northern Ireland, with …

Belfast Rapid Transit (Glider) Phase 2 announced

Brendan Heading on August 1, 2021, 1:25 pm

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This week, Minister for Infrastructure Nichola Mallon launched the public consultation for Phase 2 of the Belfast Rapid Transit (Glider) system. I think this is a welcome development and will improve connectivity, access to and uptake of public transport in the city. I remember when Glider was first launched on the east/west route a few years ago. Before it got off the ground, it was fashionable to dump on it (a common pattern for public transport projects on this island). …

Legacy: Who are we moving on for?

Sarah Creighton on July 19, 2021, 9:29 am

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Northern Ireland, it seems, has a problem with moving on. Decades (centuries) of strife and conflict. The pain, the trauma, all of it passed down from generation to generation. In the year of our lord 2021, we’re still angry about it all. Still hurt, still frustrated and in pain. Step forward the Prime Minister and his Secretary of State, Brandon Lewis. They have seen the light and taken a bold, brave step to help us move forward. The government has …

This time, it’s the Troubles legacy. Northern Ireland opinion on a key issue, even when substantially in agreement, is being overruled by Johnson’s Conservatives

Brian Walker on July 14, 2021, 11:31 am

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The devil will be in the detail but as a example of news management in advance, the UK Government’s plans for a Troubles amnesty could hardly be worse for opinion in Northern Ireland Veterans who served in Northern Ireland are finally set to be freed from the threat of prosecution. In a victory for the Daily Mail, a planned statute of limitations will today be announced covering all incidents during the Troubles. The move by Northern Ireland Secretary Brandon Lewis is …

How the NI Protocol protects the Agreement

Brendan Heading on June 26, 2021, 8:04 pm

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To the chagrin of Unionist politicians, it’s often emphasised by the four governments (UK, Ireland, EU, and US) that the Northern Ireland Protocol exists to protect the peace process and the Good Friday Agreement. For reasons which are understandable when examined in isolation, Unionism feels let down by the promise of the Agreement. I can see where they are coming from. The Agreement is based on cross community consent; the Protocol does not recognise this. British citizens are asked to …

In the final report on unification referendums on the island of Ireland, the unionist case goes by default.

Brian Walker on June 6, 2021, 6:18 pm

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First a critical assessment of the Report on Referendums within the island of Ireland by an old colleague with definitive cross border credentials, Andy Pollak, A brilliantly reasoned but not balanced exploration of future Irish unity referendums…. If a majority opts for unification, then the transfer of sovereignty must occur, whether governing arrangements [for a new united Ireland] can be agreed consensually or not.” This is the report’s central contradiction (as it may be in the 1998 Agreement itself)… This …

UK Secretary of State Brandon Lewis champions liberal reform to save the Union and throws down the gauntlet to the DUP

Brian Walker on June 6, 2021, 11:32 am

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This just could be significant. In the Sunday Times, the emergence of a pro Union liberal reform strategy acceptable across the community from the British government. It appears to remove the last vestige of the UK government dancing to the DUP’s tune. At the most sensitive moment imaginable, just before Edwin Poots nominates a still unknown First Minister, Brandon Lewis presents a frontal challenge to the DUP. This has been simmering for some time but I never thought it would …

Well, well, well-#AE2022 and that Lucid Talk poll

Sarah Creighton on May 22, 2021, 11:06 am

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It’s early days, minds could change later, but the Belfast Telegraph’s latest poll will send shivers down the DUP’s spine. According to Lucid Talk, support for the DUP has dropped to 16%, the same as Alliance. Sinn Fein sits at 25%. Doug Beattie will take comfort from the figure for the UUP, up two points to 14%. A Sinn Fein First Minister has been a possibility since the 2017 Assembly election. Based on these figures, Sinn Fein will clinch the …

If Edwin Poots tried to crash the Assembly it would open the door to a border poll

Brian Walker on May 1, 2021, 2:42 pm

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Let’s assume Edwin Poots is a shoo-in for the DUP leadership. Comfortable in his minor elder statesman role at Westminster, Jeffrey Donaldson hasn’t the stomach for a contest. He might be willing to accept it on a plate but that’s not going to happen. With more than a hint of desperation, some of us have been foisting the Nixon goes to China model onto Poots, meaning that the hardliner in politics may be better placed to compromise than the liberal. …

Brexit and now Covid management shows Johnson’s government is blind to the threat of UK disintegration: a new insider report

Brian Walker on April 12, 2021, 6:39 pm

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Some years ago I found myself as one of a small team called to the Cabinet Office to be asked to do a study of the state of the devolution because Whitehall was too busy to do it themselves. The official in charge was Philip Rycroft who in retirement has now let fly with both barrels. Little in this report by the Bennett Institute for Public Policy at Cambridge is breaking news; but it updates an absence of pan -UK …

The latest real world effects of the protocol standoff

Brian Walker on March 18, 2021, 12:00 pm

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There’s a mixed picture of trade in and out of both parts of Ireland, some of them temporary and perverse The good news? Via Sky News A lot of freight, up by 4.3% in February, is now sent from British ports to Northern Ireland on ferries and then driven down into Ireland. More goods are now moving between Britain and Belfast because freight can now be sent from Britain to Ireland through Northern Ireland without complex customs procedures. Ferry data analysed …