Later.. I’ve now made it to 20 points by adding a couple on managing the economy ( how could I have left them out?). These create a dialogue with Mick, although not quite along the same lines. Working with the available material and far away from Nirvana. To adapt Mario Cuomo, you rebel in poetry but govern in prose. 1. Might it just be that the fact of power sharing has helped create more flexible identities? 2. A near 20% fall in …
Jude Collins with what looks like good advice to me… If we all wanted to be friends, we might all consider joining the same political party… Or you might say, a little more extremism, less fanaticism? 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
The litany of ritual condemnation in yesterday’s Assembly debate could have been spoken any time during direct rule. There is no hint here of a responsible government trying to get on top of events. Just a wringing of hands in an Assembly, impotent, riddled with its own contradictions, waiting for the trouble to burn itself out. For another night the initiative is surrendered to the streets. No MLA of course shares any measure of responsiblity. Perhaps that’s unfair. Perhaps for the moment …
Brian’s noting of the advice from Richard Haass to the Israeli government reminded me that there are other places, and administrations, who have received similar ‘lessons’ from The Process™ here. Afghanistan, for example. Of course, it always helps to have well-placed friends [writing your speeches! – Ed]. And it’s worth noting that Richard Haass’ role here was not without criticism… His successor, Mitchel Reiss, has been more forthright in his recounting at times. ANYhoo… There’s also Iraq. Where the BBC now reports Almost every …
Richard Haass President Bush’s envoy to Northern Ireland and now head of a leading foreign affairs advisory board, has a piece in the Financial Times (£) headlined “Israel should learn from Northern Ireland.” The first lessons are not those touted by the former paramilitaries but those learned by the governments. As he has said before, Haass puts Israel in a roughly equivalent role to that of the British government in the peace process. Israel needs to put Hamas to the test. …
Things I thought I’d never hear in public… 1, Peter Robinson admitting that unionists were too slow on accepting power sharing; and Martin McGuinness admitting that he and his party dobbed Trimble in with those unfulfilled promises to decommission IRA weapons before the November 2003 Assembly election… Nice to hear it, finally, from the horses’ mouths… now the danger’s passed… Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and …
With the draconian approach of the elected representatives in Sinn Féin and the DUP abandoned, and long-forgotten, the extant Parades Commission have appointed a trio of intermediaries to have ‘conversations’ with unidentified others in the Ardoyne area of north Belfast. From the BBC report Lord Alderdice is involved in the initiative, along with the Holy Cross priest Father Gary Donegan and the former Presbyterian Moderator, the Reverend Norman Hamilton. He admits there is no guarantee of success. Dr Hamilton said: “The Parades …
H/T Mary FitzGerald on Twitter… This is a fairly impressive array of academic, political and government voices which looks at what lessons might be drawn from our much feted Peace Process, recorded in May last year… Most worthy of note are Jonathan Powell (keep hard power on so the insurgents cannot get comfortable, but offer a political process towards a solution); Bairbre de Brun who notes that peace relies on addressing the causes of the conflict, not just the absence …
‘I have signed my own death warrant’; so (allegedly) did Michael Collins spake after he had signed The Treaty in London in 1921. Collins’s support for the Anglo-Irish Treaty which both agreed to the partition of the country and required elected representatives in the new state to promise to be faithful to His Majesty King George V (the Queen’s grandfather) was to lead to civil war and Collins’s own untimely death on the 22 August 1922. Irish attitudes to the …
The Guardian’s Wintour and Watt blog warns the Irish Labour party of the risks of taking the Clegg coalition route. Yet it’s still hard to believe that the coalition dance in Dublin is much more than a ritual. Comparisons partly depend on your outlook. Pro- Labour opinion in Britain likes to think that the Lib Dems are doomed already and warn Irish Labour against a similar fate. Gilmore’s Labour will know all too well that no Fine Gael led ( …
Northern Ireland’s only regular press commentator on economics John Simpson is the latest to pour cold water on harmonising corporation tax with the Republic. ( though as usual John does it very gently). Any extra foreign direct investment (FDI) gained would fail to make up the consequent shortfall in block grant revenues of about £200m a year and we haven’t got the range of skills base to attract enough FDI anyway. One suggestion he makes is to opt for a lower but not matching …
Should the Assembly bid to Westminster to take on tax varying powers and lower corporation tax to the Republic’s level of 12.5%? Local experts appearing before the NI Select Committee were divided. It was pretty much the magic bullet for lobbyists from the Economic Reform Group, Eamonn Donaghy of KPMG and Victor Hewitt of the Economic Research Institute.( I was relieved to see them alive and talking; for judging purely from their websites, they died a while back- terrible PR that). Their …
Robin Wilson’s dismissal ( link repaired) of Tony Blair’s handling of the peace process is misconceived. It’s not clear what his precise objections are. For Robin the form of power sharing which was adopted only institutionalised sectarianism. Can we really heap all that on Blair’s head? In one vital respect the prophets of doom were wrong. The system did not collapse when the “extremes ” became the majority in each bloc. With all its faults, Model 2 looks more stable …
On BBC Radio 4 Owen Paterson began down the well trodden road of disingenuous double speak so beloved of Shaun Woodward, Peter Hain and numerous Conservative Secretaries of State of old and avoided completely denying contacts with the terrorists. This has yielded the predictable response of fury from Gregory Campbell and Jim Allister. About the only possible benefit of talking to dissidents and the reason suggested as McGuinness’s motivation for breaking the story in the first place was to discredit …
SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie says the NI assembly continues to be ‘dysfunctional.’ In a blistering attack on incomplete projects in the term just ended the South Down MP predicts the Executive’s performance will worsen under the weight of further cuts. These are the key areas of ‘failure’ highlighted by her: “The long and expensive process of local government has collapsed in chaos. Letters informing principals that their new building is long-fingered again are landing on mats in empty schools. Sinn …
This is a cross posting of Fair Deal’s contribution to Open Unionism’s ongoing debate on the future of unionism. He argues that all parties to the debate must resist the temptation to the shape of the solution in their own preferred image, but rather they must allow the debate be ‘thorough, intense and constructive’.
Sinn Féin’s response to criticism of their refusal to sit at Westminster in the face of proposed cuts post-election has been to call on all the other parties “to unite with us against the cuts”, and even to press for an increase in the block grant. At the same time the party’s manifesto, along with others, wants fiscal powers devolved and corporation tax reduced – whilst also refusing to agree to the introduction of water charges. Balance those books. The example Gerry Adams …
Derry has more than its fair share of unfinished business viz a viz the troubles. Earlier today Eamonn McCann gave the Annual Lecture at the St Patrick’s Festival, Coatbridge, Glasgow. The following is an extract in which he argues that political processes has obscured the outcome of the Saville Inquiry: Bloody Sunday was a key moment in the rise of the Provisional IRA. Thirty eight years later, The Saville Report is being published following the Provos’ disbandment. It would be …
The stated policy of all the unionist parties is to move from the current status of mandatory coalition under D’Hondt to one of voluntary coalition. There are perceived to be enormous advantages to having a more normalised system of government with proper power sharing within the confines of a cabinet with collective responsibility. Collective responsibility is almost impossible to ensure with the current system as there is no real disincentive for a party to disagree with its coalition partners as …
The trouble with these deals that we have not yet seen, nor has the likely putative Justice Minister is that we don’t know what they contain. But as raised here a few weeks ago, we still don’t know what might remotely trigger Robinson’s resignation. Lord Ken Magennis in last night’s Tele: Reports have suggested that the price extracted for their support for Hillsborough is a post-dated letter of resignation from the First Minister, to be cashed-in if the DUP decides …
