Parties – Page 30 – Slugger O'Toole

#NI21: Was John McCallister pushed before he jumped?

Mick Fealty on May 21, 2014, 1:35 pm

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So, a short addendum to my rhetorical question from this morning. On Talkback Martina Purdy has added a little more to the explanation of what’s been going. She suggests that the decision to undesignate (if it gets returned to the next Assembly) is a response to the new people it has drawn in from a highly diverse set of backgrounds. However, there may also be other factors involved. Post unionism for instance was always going to be more attractive to …

Compensation for inquest delays underlines the need for dealing with the past

Brian Walker on May 21, 2014, 12:13 pm

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Yesterday’s landmark compensation awards of £7500 each to the families of six men killed by the security forces means that the logjam of inquests is beginning to cost the state money – money the justice system says it hasn’t got and never will have, to pay for optimum legal accountability for the Troubles. As the Guardian reports: The high court in Belfast ruled on Tuesday that the damages were awarded due to the “frustration, distress and anxiety” suffered by the …

NI21 falling apart just as it approaches its first hurdle?

Mick Fealty on May 21, 2014, 6:45 am

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Sam McBride reports John McCallister’s comments in The Newsletter… “The way in which the [NI21] executive was handled points to a lot of the dysfunctionality in the party. There was no agenda sent out. This was organised this afternoon; I was literally told to come down from my constituency to Belfast to do it, with no idea what it was about.” He said that the meeting consisted of a “15 or 20-minute discussion with everyone keen to get back out …

“What has changed is that it is a clear message to the people of Northern Ireland that NI21 is a cross-community party…”

Pete Baker on May 20, 2014, 10:10 pm

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According to a BBC report, the NI21 party executive has announced a policy change on the eve of the party’s first foray into an actual election. From the BBC report NI21 has announced it will change its designation at the Northern Ireland Assembly from unionist to ‘other’. The party’s executive took the decision ahead of Thursday’s European and local government elections. NI21 was set up by MLAs Basil McCrea and John McCallister, after they quit the Ulster Unionist Party in …

“this month you will see a kind of victory for the Eurosceptics…”

Pete Baker on May 19, 2014, 4:58 pm

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Ahead of the EU-wide parliamentary elections, a much needed overview from BBC Europe editor Gavin Hewitt of the state of the European Project and its extant political trilemma. From Gavin Hewitt’s article Unless the polls are very wrong, sometime next weekend Europe will learn that at least a quarter of the seats in the next European Parliament will have gone to anti-establishment and Eurosceptic parties. The figure could even be closer to 30%. In many places the election has become …

From the Derry Journal archives…

Pete Baker on May 19, 2014, 3:38 pm

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A short piece of “nostalgia” from the Derry Journal archives, May 19, 1989. “The SDLP leadership has lost its way,” claimed Derry Sinn Fein councillor, Mitchel McLaughlin, commenting yesterday on SDLP Leader John Hume’s invitation to the Unionists to engage in talks without an agenda, but within the context of Northern Ireland. Colr. McLaughlin said the gap between between nationalist demands for peace, unity and independence and the willingness of John Hume, Austin Currie and Eddie McGrady to settle for …

DUP to fight for flag, animal welfare and working with others..?

Mick Fealty on May 16, 2014, 5:44 pm

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Not much to argue with in the Slugger ratings of the PEBs to date, but I thought this latest from the DUP was an interesting attempt to focus on the locals and to flag up [Really? – Ed] some potential directions on policy. Along with a decidedly soft launch for their ‘Belfast Manifesto’. I’d be interested in hearing what people think of it, not least given the pretty torrid time the party has had in the last few months… DUP's …

#EP14 and the current state of play with the southern game…

Mick Fealty on May 16, 2014, 5:36 pm

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So, the southern elections. What’s to say with less than a week to go? Well probably not much more than last week’s issue of The Phoenix: Mid term, there’s probably little in it for Labour. – Fianna Fail should pick up a seat in each of the four seater constituencies, but will struggle to get back into three seat Dublin. Their Dublin West candidate came second last time out, but it’s likely to get decided on the floating Labour vote …

DUP and Sinn Fein ready to exert ‘undue’ influence in London and Dublin?

Mick Fealty on May 15, 2014, 3:48 pm

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So Eamonn McCann thinks David Cameron is playing the Orange Card when it comes to the DUP: The fact that Cameron could arrange a hail-fellow-well-met get-together with the DUP in his garden on the evening when he knew that the Sinn Féin leader would be under interrogation suggests his anxiety to secure DUP support to stay on as prime minister overrides other considerations about the North. This doesn’t mean the timing of Adams’s arrest was designed to harm Sinn Féin at …

Sinn Féin: “What happened was done with British cabinet approval…”

Pete Baker on May 13, 2014, 6:22 pm

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A few days ago on Eamonn Maillie’s blog, Brian Rowan gravely informed us that, rather than the wild paranoid ramblings of a party desperate to distract attention from their threat to “review” their support for policing if the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, was charged as a result of the investigation into the abduction, murder and secret burial of Jean McConville in 1972, Sinn Féin’s latest outburst is evidence that “we’re not out of the political woods just yet.” The …

Call for an Amnesty referendum faces parties and governments with the big decisions

Brian Walker on May 12, 2014, 1:55 pm

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Sir Des Rea the first chair of the Policing Board and Robin Masefield the former head of the Prison Service are people of conscience and great experience. They are no ivory tower observers. Prompted it seems by the risks to stability threatened by the Adams interrogation, in very flat language they make public their fundamental proposal that cuts the Gordian knot of humbug and misplaced principle over the availability of justice . It is what much if not most of the professional establishment …

DPP: it could be “many many months” before a decision is made on whether or not Gerry Adams will be prosecuted…

Pete Baker on May 10, 2014, 7:06 pm

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As Newton Emerson notes in today’s Irish News – on some of the coverage of the arrest and questioning of Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, in relation to the abduction, murder, and secret burial of Jean McConville in 1972. Mystery surrounds BBC claims that the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) would not be bringing charges against Gerry Adams. The BBC began reporting this on early Monday evening, barely 24 hours after Adams had been released pending a file to the Public Prosecution …

DUP back in Downing St while Adams was in Antrim police station – shock

Brian Walker on May 8, 2014, 9:20 pm

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Nick Watt of the Guardian is that rare thing in the Westminster lobby, a Sinn Fein watcher. Here he enters DUP territory with a flyer about what the DUP might do if they hold the balance of power in the next Parliament, with the Tories the largest single party. A little party was held in the No 10 garden just after a meeting about putting pressure on Libya to compensate Troubles. This story looks like Nick’s follow up to the …

Government shambles revealed over details of OTR links to murder

Brian Walker on May 7, 2014, 7:11 pm

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After republican outrage over Gerry Adams’ interrogation, it’s high time to revive unionist fury over the OTR comfort letters with the revelation that 95 out of 228 beneficiaries were linked by the police to murder. From the tortuous accounts by the Chief Constable Matt Baggott and ACC Drew Harris before the NI Select Committee of MPs today, the DUP can hardly be blamed for failing to realise in full what was going on. Neither did the Chief Constable for most …

Matt Baggott: “Under the Patten architecture, to which all political parties have signed up…”

Pete Baker on May 6, 2014, 5:39 pm

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PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott has rejected Sinn Fein’s claims of “political policing” in the arrest and questioning of party president Gerry Adams. And in doing so he highlights an inconvenient truth for the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister. From the BBC report In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Baggott said the accusation of a “dark side” within the PSNI was one he refuted. “Under the Patten architecture, to which all political parties have signed up, there are numerous ways …

The peace process sceptics need addressing as the governments prepare to intervene

Brian Walker on May 6, 2014, 7:13 am

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People who had to catch their breath over Gerry Adams’ arrest are now be having second wind. The former Labour secretary of state Shaun Woodward has called for a referendum over the heads of the local parties on what sort of mechanism they want to deal with the legacy of the Troubles. This may be commended as an initiative for jolting what remains the sovereign government and its Dublin partner into exercising their responsibilities in a low intensity existential crisis. But …

After the Adams arrest there is a way through, you know

Brian Walker on May 5, 2014, 11:07 am

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The IRA is gone, it’s finished.” I want to make it clear that I support the PSNI.” My reading of Gerry Adams’ statement on his release with his anger only just held in check, is that he wants to limit the damage while capitalising on the circumstances. Snap reactions are notoriously unreliable. But the events of the last four days have allowed the rest of us to speculate on what might have happened if he had been charged. Most people’s thoughts I …

“Whatever you say, say nothing, when you talk about you know what…”*

Mick Fealty on May 3, 2014, 10:33 am

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Paul Duggan on the party whip being applied on the campus at UCC… Sinn Féin are bit touchy about Gerry Adams lately. This text, sent by a member of the Sinn Féin UCC branch, read: “Lads, off the back of the news about Gerry Adams, members of the Cumann are NOT to make any statement regarding the issue. Disciplinary action will be taken to anyone who does so.” Something there for other parties to learn from? *H/T to the boul Colum Sands …

Gerry Adams: A leader whose basket of unwashed laundry is given to bursting open in public…

Mick Fealty on May 2, 2014, 2:50 pm

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Okay, whilst we wait to hear whether the Sinn Fein leader is to be released, charged or held for another night and day of questioning, here’s three items worth highlighting on the political aspects of this: Malachi O’Doherty… Where Adams can suffer is in the Irish Republic. He shifted his political base there and took a seat in the Dublin parliament, the Dáil. For years his party has relentlessly increased its support, yet its northern and southern expressions are growing …

“Something, Something, Something, Dark Side…” – redux

Pete Baker on May 1, 2014, 7:02 pm

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More sound and fury from Sinn Féin over the continuing, agreed, questioning of party president Gerry Adams, TD, about the abduction, murder and secret burial of Jean McConville in 1972. This time the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, is recycling a 2011 phrase from his party chairman, Declan Kearney. And, apparently, he has super-sekrit sources… Mr McGuinness, Northern Ireland’s Deputy First Minister, told a press conference at Stormont that the arrest of his party leader and “friend” was politically …