Parties – Page 45 – Slugger O'Toole

“the war against British rule must continue until freedom is achieved…”

Pete Baker on April 10, 2012, 4:21 pm

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Dissenting republicans gave their response yesterday to Sinn Féin’s various Easter messages – Declan Kearney’s “there is no other IRA“, Gerry Adams’ seven step ‘plan’, or Martin McGuinness’ “We are on the road to freedom” [and his responsibility “to defend and promote the integrity of our struggle” – Ed]. And it was delivered to a reported audience of “several hundred people” at Londonderry’s City Cemetery. It’s of a more traditional flavour… From the Derry Journal report “The IRA will continue to attack …

More soft politics over Easter – but what’s the beef?

Brian Walker on April 9, 2012, 1:44 pm

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The response to Gerry Adam’s “seven goals” in Slugger shows that the union/ unification theme can still assert its old pull. This will no doubt be reinforced over the holiday by Martin McGuinness’s appeal to republicans to engage in “practical ways of giving expression to the unionist sense of Britishness within a united Ireland” and his earlier speech to the PSA in Belfast. These Easter orations can be seen partly as a response, conscious or otherwise, to Peter Robinson’s call for …

“in order to ensure the safety of the community and the officers responding…”

Pete Baker on April 8, 2012, 11:14 pm

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The BBC reports that the PSNI have defended the delay of over an hour before officers arrived at the scene of a car bomb alert in Newry on Saturday night. Unlike the security alert on Friday in the Newry area, this one was eventually declared a hoax. From the BBC report A hijacked taxi, containing a suspect device, was abandoned close to houses on Martins Lane on Saturday night. Residents used their own cars to block the road and tried …

NI Justice Minister: “While this area will obviously require careful handling in Northern Ireland…”

Pete Baker on April 4, 2012, 4:34 pm

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Some Northern Ireland MPs have united in opposition to suggested proposals to extend the UK Government’s powers to monitor people’s phone, email and internet records. Some don’t appear to have an opinion… Although there does seem to be some dispute about the actual proposals themselves. Meanwhile, as the BBC report, the UK Government has actually consulted on other proposals to replace the public interest immunity [PII] system with an extended closed material procedures [CMP] in all civil cases, including inquests, involving evidence whose disclosure might harm the …

Hell hath no fury like a McNarry spurned?

Mick Fealty on April 4, 2012, 1:16 pm

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Hat tip to Paul Adams for this one… It seems that the new leader at the UUP’s assertion that David McNarry will not be let back into the Assembly group, is already bringing dark mutterings from the Saintfield based MLA… And he’s using the Martin Niemöller defence: “I leave it to others to judge Mike’s dramatic rise to the top and for colleagues to think about who may be next.” Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written …

After Peter Robinson, are we seeing the start of softer, more seductive politics?

Brian Walker on April 3, 2012, 7:33 pm

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From where he came from, Peter Robinson has made big strides. At the point Northern Ireland society has reached, he comes across as a cautious consolidator, making a distinct if so far unimaginative success of power sharing. In unionist terms, Peter is David Trimble’s heir in quieter times. After decades of often painful self discipline as Paisley’s respectful but never quite reverential deputy, he has even overcome hubris and family trauma to remain the inevitable DUP leader. With a carefully …

Mike Nesbitt: “A steely determination to get what he wants…”

Mick Fealty on April 3, 2012, 8:40 am

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Great piece from Alex Kane on Eamonn’s site looking at some of the realities of politics of Northern Ireland, against which he tries to measure the new leader of the UUP… First the winning team: The DUP and SF didn’t get to where they are with make-it-up-as-you-go-along ideas. They defined an end goal, put in place a strategy and an agenda and then set out yardsticks by which to measure success. Mike says he has no ‘quick fixes’ or ‘big …

“The intention is to appoint a single commissioner…”

Pete Baker on March 30, 2012, 12:43 pm

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Apparently the Northern Ireland Executive OFMDFM are advertising for a single Victims Commissioner to replace the four three current encumbents. According to the UTV report The decision to reduce the number of commissioners is understood to have been prompted by the accomplishments of the previously appointed three. Bertha McDougall, Patricia MacBride and Brendan McAllister – who leave the £65,000 posts in May – are believed to have accomplished so much in establishing initial contact with victims that their workload can …

Chief Constable on NI Media: “they are part of the confidence-building…”

Pete Baker on March 28, 2012, 7:53 pm

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The PSNI Chief Constable, Matt Baggott, has been speaking to the Leveson Inquiry about the Northern Ireland media. From the BBC report Mr Baggott said: “The local media in Northern Ireland have an absolute commitment to the future of the province. “They have a stake in it. And they are part of the confidence-building and they have an ownership of the issues.” Mr Baggott said the local media also understood the consequences of the way something was reported, and the consequences …

“But throughout, his government and party turned a blind eye…”

Pete Baker on March 23, 2012, 12:06 pm

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In the Irish Times the peerless Miriam Lord tackles Micheál Martin’s “swift and decisive” response to the Mahon Tribunal report. From the Irish Times article SPARE US your indignation, Micheál Martin. Button your disgust, Fianna Fáil. We don’t want to hear it. You had your chance and you chose to do nothing. So don’t pretend to be shocked now. Just do us that much. We won’t buy it. If the tribunal were to take another 15 years to deliver its …

McCallister promises to clear out the old guard…

Mick Fealty on March 23, 2012, 9:34 am

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Well, if nothing else, John McCallister knows how to grab a headline in a leadership contest… This time he is promising to axe the UUP’s long term chairman, David Campbell who was an integral and widely perceived to be a powerful part of David Trimble’s kitchen cabinet… “I think some people are actually very unfair about David Campbell. He has served the party for a long time and I think even our party rules would suggest that we would be …

Don’t underestimate McCallister’s capacity to disrupt some of the UUP’s best laid plans…

Mick Fealty on March 22, 2012, 1:47 pm

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Interesting blog piece from Alex Kane over at Eamon’s place… not least for his account for how Danny Kennedy’s (the bookie’s favourite) bid came to a sudden, and crunching end: It was obvious from the outset that Danny Kennedy and Mike Nesbitt were keen on a deal that would embrace thirteen of the fifteen MLAs, all of the peers and the bulk of the party officers. The logic, I presume, was that such a move would scare off the ‘liberals’ …

UUP’s very public contest for leadership…

Mick Fealty on March 21, 2012, 12:37 pm

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There are two striking differences between the UUP’s leadership campaign and that of the SDLP’s is its the current campaign’s brevity and the very public nature of this one versus the party only meetings of the minor nationalist party. Both main contenders have already racked up to public interviews, one each for the BBC’s Sunday Politics and then UTV on Monday Here’s John McCallister speaking to Paul Clarke: And Mike Nesbitt: It has already had an interesting effect, not least …

“The last thing the Northern Isles want is to be ruled by Glasgow trade unionists and Edinburgh lawyers…”

Pete Baker on March 19, 2012, 3:12 pm

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At the Guardian’s Scotland Blog, Severin Carrell notes the independently-minded Shetland and Orkney Lib Dem MSPs Tavish Scott and Liam McArthur’s attempt to play Alex Salmond at his own game – with a joint, “at best provocative and, in constitutional terms, at least playful”, submission to the UK government’s consultation on the independence referendum. Short BBC video report here. From the Guardian’s Scotland Blog Scott and McArthur have reinvigorated a long-standing notion that the former Viking earldoms of Shetland and Orkney have …

Without Opposition, “the UUP remains trapped, un-influential and jointly culpable…”

Mick Fealty on March 19, 2012, 11:30 am

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Alex Kane on the virtues of embracing opposition for the UUP: …it strikes me that the UUP is in the same position as Clegg: it cannot be true to itself and carve out its own identity (which makes it hard to attract new votes) and it shares the general unpopularity of the Executive (which means it may lose people who voted for it last time). Mike is right when he says that the UUP’s structures and organisation still need work …

“Enda sounded like Fr Ted trying to explain to a baffled Fr Dougal the difference between “small” and “far away”.”

Pete Baker on March 14, 2012, 1:55 pm

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In the Irish Times, the peerless Miriam Lord on the latest shenanigans in the Dáil Meanwhile, the saga of the Promiscuous Notes rumbles on. It was Gerry Adams’s turn this time to wave them provocatively at the Taoiseach. The Spanish have the right idea, said the Sinn Féin leader. They took the toro pos los cuernos in Europe this week and got themselves a reduction in their budget deficit targets. “Will the Taoiseach follow the lead of the Spanish government, …

“This has been custom and practice, I have just put it in writing.”

Pete Baker on March 13, 2012, 3:14 pm

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Apparently, 161 publicly-funded press officers are not sufficient to keep Northern Ireland’s troublesome press pack in check… The Belfast Telegraph has gotten hold of a “confidential memo” [not yet online] from the NI Minister of Culture, Sinn Féin’s Carál Ní Chuilín, to the various arms-length bodies (ALBs) within the department’s remit setting out “a proposed media communications protocol”. From the BBC report DCAL said the objective was to promote best practice in communication and to ensure that the media and the public were …

“I believe that schools are best placed to make decisions in light of what they believe is in the best interests of their pupils.”

Pete Baker on March 12, 2012, 3:58 pm

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So sayeth the Northern Ireland Education Minister, Sinn Féin’s John O’Dowd. He’s not, however, speaking about academic selection… Following a 12-week public consultation on GCSE reform, which ended on 30 December 2011, the NI Education Minister has decided to give no direction on whether schools should use unitised or linear GCSEs. [Let the market decide! – Ed] Indeed. From the ministerial press release Following a 12-week consultation the Minister has decided not to follow England where, following a decision by Secretary of State for …

“We cannot impose; this has to come from within Northern Ireland.”

Pete Baker on March 10, 2012, 7:05 pm

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Nothing in politics, nor in life, is “inevitable” [except death and taxes! – Ed] Indeed. That includes a “border poll” – despite the protestations of the former International Representative for West Belfast, then temporary Crown Steward, now Louth TD, and Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams. The Irish Times reports his latest outburst “A border poll is inevitable. Mr Patterson knows this. It is only a matter of timing,” said the Sinn Fein leader. “By definition that will come when the people of …

“One step forward. Two steps back. Very awkward.”

Pete Baker on March 5, 2012, 2:05 pm

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In the Irish Times, the peerless Miriam Lord with a useful corrective to more enthusiastic witnesses of the Fianna Fáil Ard Fheis at the weekend. From the Irish Times article. IT WAS all terribly awkward. An excruciating comedy of manners where the anxious principals were petrified they might say the wrong thing and upset the whole country, again, while simultaneously fretting about bumping into embarrassing old acquaintances who would make a show of them. The tense undercurrent made for an odd …