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 …
The flag riots have shown sectarianism to be as potent as ever while the census may have shown that the old easy equivalence between Protestant/ unionist and Catholic/nationalist has gone. What are we to make of the contradiction? Can we have it both ways: to be dismayed by the upsurge of sectarian violence yet encouraged by the decline in bottom line sectarian identities? Has the trouble been “the spasm of a dying cause”, as Bill Neely put it from comfortable …
So the news from the Belfast High Court is that a jury has found Sinn Fein guilty of defaming of Declan Gormley, one of four non executive directors of Northern Ireland Water sacked by Sinn Fein’s former DRD minster and Westminster MP, Conor Murphy. The trial took an extraordinary 10 days in court. Ten days in which Mr Gormley, the plaintiff spent an equally extraordinary five days in the witness stand being questioned by Sinn Fein’s counsel. The party’s defence …
Continuing demands for a “full independent international inquiry” into the murder of Pat Finucane are unlikely to be stilled to allow police and prosecuting authorities to consider what to. From their reactions yesterday we can be certain that unionist politicians will characterise the prominence given to the case as “one sided justice” and will heighten their demands for more aggressive action over IRA murders. Political division over the Finucane case has surfaced as we knew it would, further complicating any …
As an Irish News report noted today, the Northern Ireland Audit Office has released a report examining “the delivery of £1,600 million in reported efficiency savings by Northern Ireland government departments between 2008 and 2011.” I don’t have time to delve into the detail in the report [pdf file 1.2mb], but here are the main findings noted in the associated press release. The measurement of departmental efficiencies It is important that all planned efficiency savings are capable of being measured. …
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 …
Like FitzJamesHorse, I get a sense that something important may have happened this week, though like him I also think it is way to early to conclude too concretely what they might be. But here are some short near ground thoughts to extend yesterday’s briefing for Hillary. I think it demonstrates that government parties under our rigid and inclusive system put themselves (and the rest of society) in a very dangerous position when they indulge in activism, particularly when it …
No doubt the flag furore is being debated all day on Radio Ulster which thankfully I haven’t heard, But I was impressed by a calming interview with Gregory Campbell on the Today programme at 7.43 a.m.(Sadly the BBC archive service has declined. We used to be able to access all items separately on the Today running order but this is no longer possible, so you’ll have to move the cursor along on the whole programme recording to find it). However …
I know we’ve taken this subject apart before but blame Peter not me for returning to it. His speech to a home crowd welcoming a softening of political attitudes illustrates perfectly what’s defective in his approach. He is guilty of reducing what could be a tentative change in political attitudes requiring respect and real understanding of difference to the tired old zero sum game between unionism and nationalism. This risks hardening attitudes up all over again. And by failing at least …
So, why not. Let’s have another go at the Catholic Unionist trope that’s been doing the rounds. Gareth Gordon looks at the idea of Unionist Catholics, or unicorns as Alex Kane once put it. Of all the respondents in this piece, Steven McCaffrey of The Detail is the one that has it down pat. Robinson’s tactic is about switching nationalist voters off from voting for a united Ireland. Although according to one senior political source in the party that Slugger …
More clearly than before as Mick observes, it is Peter Robinson’s medium term strategy and perhaps his personal legacy to enlist the support of enough Catholics to preserve the Union. But despite the superficial confidence in Peter’s leader’s speech it is loaded with insecurity. He has been forced to recognise the likelihood of an eventual Catholic majority and with it a possible loss of unionist control. While candour in politics is always a good thing, it is unfortunate that he has chosen …
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 …
And here’s a first, a Fine Gaeler, indeed a southern Minister of any description, is to address the DUP party conference for the first time ever… The rational is intesting, a commonality of interests in Europe around CAP: Diane Dodds MEP said it was important to engage with “all actors within the Common Agricultural Policy reform process . . . Simon Coveney has over the last number of months prepared himself for the task ahead. He has visited other parts …
The BBC reports from Belfast High Court as, former non-executive director in NI Water, Declan Gormley’s libel proceedings against Sinn Féin, the party’s Newry and Armagh MLA Cathal Boylan, and former assembly member Willie Clarke, heads to its court date – 26 November. Apparently, no political party members nor NI Water employees, members and staff on the Stormont Public Accounts Committee are to be allowed to sit on the jury. And, also from the BBC report At a review hearing on …
So, the DUP even up the councillor score on Belfast City Council and now there’s a leaflet specifically attacking the Alliance party. Anyone feel a heave coming on? Here’s an interesting detail: The UUP has also confirmed its councillors were involved in distributing the leaflets and said flag policy was an emotive issue for unionists. The leaflets are printed in the Alliance party’s distinctive yellow colours and include the telephone numbers for its headquarters and east Belfast office. Over the …
And in other council news, Frank McCoubrey – formerly of the UDA aligned UDP – comes into the DUP on Belfast City Council. The UDP disbanded some years ago of course, when someone forgot to re-register the party with the Electoral Commission. His defection, as Squinter calls it is from the UUP whip, which he rather surreptitiously took up at some point before 2009. It’s an interesting ‘acquisition’ for the DUP, which has struggled in the past to garner enough …
It’s a well worn pattern that when a Sinn Fein councillor resigns the party whip, no one on either side of whatever has divided them will speak candidly on the matter. Mickey Coogan from Ballynahinch has sat on Down District Council for Sinn Fein since May 2005. And there’s little evidence that the matter relates in anyway to larger strategies. There seems to have been some tension, so the Irish News reports, between himself and another person in the constituency …
It’s difficult to argue with Jeffrey Dudgeon’s comments on the Office of the Northern Ireland First and Deputy First Minister last minute compliance with an FoI request – 320 days after the application was made, and one day before a judicial review hearing into the delay was due to begin. From the BBC report Jeffrey Dudgeon had brought legal action over the delay. A judicial review hearing was due on 8 November but the outstanding material was sent to him on 7 …
Whilst the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, has been urging co-operation with the police investigation of the murder of David Black, his party colleague Gerry Kelly has complained of “politically motivated” charges against Padraic Wilson – relating to the aftermath of the 2005 murder of Robert McCartney. From the UTV report Sinn Féin MLAs Gerry Kelly and Sue Ramsey were among party members in the public gallery during the court case. Mr Kelly has demanded the immediate …
In the Sunday Times,(£) Newton Emerson, apparently unabashed at being dropped by the BBC, strikes a counterintuitive note by offering a few words of support to the powersharing Executive at the expense of that other coalition in Dublin. Ignoring the recent Kearney-Robinson dingdong, he bounces his critique off Micheal Martin’s Bodenstown speech deploring the southern coalition’s failure to pay enough attention to the North, and turns it on its head. Stormont is appallingly slow at making decisions, not just on the …
