Parties – Page 65 – Slugger O'Toole

Dealing with dissidents: we’re all in it together

Brian Walker on October 7, 2010, 12:21 pm

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“What Was the Message Behind the Real IRA Bomb?” asks Finola Meredith for the benefit of Time magazine’s readers worldwide. No clear answer comes from her sources. But is the question really so hard to answer? The aim surely, was first to provoke precisely this sort of speculation in the news agenda. The accompanying belittling comment obliges the dissidents with continuing challenge to feed off. Perhaps that can’t be helped. But three other approaches should be tried. First,the precedent of the …

“One of the mantras of the peace process is that ‘dissident’ republicans have no support…”

Pete Baker on October 6, 2010, 6:32 pm

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The BBC has some details of a University of Liverpool survey – The ESRC Northern Ireland 2010 Westminster Election Survey – which asked some questions about peoples attitudes towards still-violent republican paramilitaries. From the BBC report Professor Tonge said the research also highlighted the difference in perception of the scale of the threat between the two communities. “They were offered three options, major, minor or no threat. A majority of Protestants , 53 percent described the dissidents as a major threat,” he said. …

“It is irresponsible to make ill-informed comments about areas which are not your responsibility.”

Pete Baker on October 5, 2010, 9:26 pm

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As DC noted in the comments zone of Brian’s post on our special little pleaders, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson made an interesting pitch during the Conservative Conference fringe event on NI today. With a number of NI Executive ministers present, Owen Paterson argued that the “British taxpayer should not continue to subsidise segregation” in NI, and he highlighted segregated education here as a particular example of “a criminal waste of public money”. Speaking to UTV in Birmingham after the event NI …

NI Environment Minister’s “retreat from Moscow”

Pete Baker on October 5, 2010, 3:55 pm

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I mentioned that the public inquiry into the John Lewis development at Sprucefield has been delayed due to legal concerns about comments made by the NI Environment Minister, the DUP’s Edwin Poots. The BBC reports that Lord Justice Girvan has asked the Attorney General to consider contempt of court proceedings, despite a statement from the Minister being read out in court today. And, it would appear, not just in regard to the Minister. From the BBC report Lord Justice Girvan said [the Minister’s statement in court today] did not “sit …

“We will all play our part – however long it takes, whatever it takes in bringing that threat to an end”

Pete Baker on October 5, 2010, 12:08 pm

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As the Irish Times notes, at a seminar in Belfast yesterday the Irish Justice Minister, Dermot Ahern, commited his government to providing adequate resources to tackle the continuing republican paramilitary threat. And last night those republican paramilitaries are believed to have been responsible for a car bomb in the UK City of Culture for 2013. Interestingly, the owner of a hotel near the site of the explosion is quoted in this iol report Mr [Garvan] O’Doherty said there would be setbacks, but …

John Lewis inquiry delayed due to Minister’s comments

Pete Baker on October 4, 2010, 9:36 pm

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Official statements by the then Northern Ireland Environment Minister, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, have already been quashed by one member of the judiciary because they unlawfully changed planning policy to “give greater weight to [the] economic considerations” of any proposed development. Now the BBC reports that the Planning Appeals Commission has confirmed a further delay to the public inquiry into the John Lewis development at Sprucefield. The reason? Legal concerns about comments made in a recent interview by the current NI …

“this may suit political parties with a deeply rooted sense of conflicting priorities based on ethnic division”

Pete Baker on October 4, 2010, 11:14 am

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The BBC reports criticism of the DUP/Sinn Féin drafted Programme for Cohesion, Sharing and Integration, all ‘motherhood and apple pie’, by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust. The Trust’s report is available here [pdf file]. And from the Trust’s press release [pdf file] The study, carried out by the Institute for British Irish Studies at UCD, Dublin, identifies three key areas of concern. Celia McKeon of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust discusses: “Firstly, the research has indicated that the new policy framework …

Bright young things of Ucunf are now unpersons

Brian Walker on October 3, 2010, 8:49 pm

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Although I know little about them personally, I feel sorry for the former Ucunf couple Ian Parsley and Paula Bradshaw. Ian is more widely known than his political record as an Alliance and now an NI Conservative would suggest. Theirs seems to be the only successful bit of the partnership left. I noticed him as a minor star at last year’s Conservative party conference with Sir Reg. Paula as UU candidate in south Belfast was the victim of an Alliance surge …

Even Unionist leaders must lead

Brian Walker on October 2, 2010, 6:11 pm

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You can see the dilemma facing unionism especially the UUs, from recent articles by two of the most seasoned observers of unionism around. Looking back at the Ulster Unionist record as Tom Elliot takes over, Ed Curran dismisses fashionable media opinion (whatever that is) and believes the Fermanagh man may be the right leader for the “mainstream conservative church going Protestant rather than the secular liberal.” And so he may be. Ed points meaningfully to Jim Molyneaux’s long tenure from …

High Court rules NI Environment Minister’s official statements to Assembly unlawful

Pete Baker on October 1, 2010, 3:15 pm

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The BBC reports that the High Court has ruled that the then NI Environment Minister, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, unlawfully changed planning policy in two ministerial statements to the Assembly in May and June of last year. Mr Justice Treacy ordered the ministerial statements to be quashed. From the BBC report …lawyers for the Department of the Environment argued the statements merely offered clarification and guidance within an existing and well established policy framework and did not amount to a change …

UUP must accept decline is not temporary but a generational shift

Mick Fealty on October 1, 2010, 11:06 am

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Excellent analytical piece by the former UUP, now DUP member, Lee Reynolds (and late of this Parish) at the Critical Reaction blog on the roots of his old party’s underlying malaise. It cuts much more deeply and finely than any rash analysis of a single constituency. For instance, he highlights the essentially introverted nature of the beast: The UUP’s years of success had led to a complacency that blinded it to a steady decline in organisational capability. Its record of …

Brian Lenihan: “It is an urgent and immediate priority to reinforce international market confidence…”

Pete Baker on September 30, 2010, 4:57 pm

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With, as Robert Peston put it, the Irish economy “hideously and perilously balanced between recovery and Armageddon” the Irish Finance Minister, Brian Lenihan, has confirmed that the Anglo Irish Bank bailout will cost between €29.3 billion and €34.3 billion. Additionally AIB and Irish Nationwide will also require more money from the State. The development will push Ireland’s deficit to 32% for this year, according to the Minister for Finance. AIB will need a further €3bn on top of existing State funds being converted …

Gerry Adams, memory man

Brian Walker on September 28, 2010, 10:38 pm

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Danny Morrison dilates on failing memories and sportingly includes his old mucker. Can the sharp witted Danny have forgotten the elephant in the room? Don’t all shout at once.. “I have known Gerry for almost forty years and there is no way would I ever enter him for a ‘Memory Man’ competition Adams said: “It isn’t a sin, a crime or an offence to forget about something”, and he reminded unionists that they had done a lot of forgetting about …

Garda Commissioner agrees with MI5 assessment

Pete Baker on September 28, 2010, 5:09 pm

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As RTÉ reports Garda Commissioner Fachtna Murphy has said that he believes an attack by dissident republicans in Britain is a strong possibility. Commissioner Murphy said he agreed with the assessment of the British Home Secretary and the head of MI5 in the UK that the level of threat from dissident republicans was now moderate to substantial. He also said that while the intent has always been there, the capability within groups such as the Continuity IRA, the Real IRA …

“Bartender, politician or comic…?”

Pete Baker on September 28, 2010, 12:29 pm

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Harsh? Probably… Pete Baker

OFMDFM abandon Draft Public Assemblies Bill?

Pete Baker on September 27, 2010, 6:34 pm

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The BBC report follows the lead given by the Northern Ireland First Minister, the DUP’s Peter Robinson, in blaming the Orange Order’s rejection of the proposals for the withdrawal of the draft Bill on Public Assemblies, Parades and Protests. But abandoning that Bill conveniently avoids the First and deputy First Ministers having to fulfill their commitment to deliver in legislation the agreed outcomes of that working group – and their special advisers… The legislation they proposed was, after all, “built on ignorance of the law, plain stupidity, arrogance, …

NI Agriculture Minister: “I know that I am not alone in that concern among member states.”

Pete Baker on September 27, 2010, 3:54 pm

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The Northern Ireland Department of Agriculture may have sought £100 million to cover the eventual total disallowance by the EU Commission for the maladministration of EU funds but, as RTÉ reports, the Minister, Sinn Féin’s Michelle Gildernew, has told the Assembly that “the Department is taking the necessary steps today to take a case to the European Court of Justice” challenging that disallowance. From the Minister’s press release The Minister delivered her statement to set out her Department’s position in regard to …

Robert Peston: “the Irish economy is hideously and perilously balanced between recovery and Armageddon”

Pete Baker on September 27, 2010, 12:13 pm

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As John has noted, the Irish government is teetering on the brink of a lost confidence vote. And the Anglo-Irish Bank’s credit rating has just been significantly downgraded by credit agency Moody’s, just as the Irish Finance Minister prepares to reveal how much more that bank will cost the state tax-payers. But a change in government won’t change the fundamentals. And, everyone’s hero, Robert Peston spells out the scary reality All of which is to say that the banks and the Irish state …

Miliband the Younger

Pete Baker on September 25, 2010, 5:31 pm

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The new leader of the Labour Party is Ed Miliband, the younger of the two Miliband brothers in the race. It was close though… And the BBC’s Nick Robinson has noted that David Miliband won the MPs/MEPs vote, and the individual members vote, but lost overwhelming in the trade union [and affiliated organisations] members’ vote… [added link to breakdown of affiliated organisations voting] Each ‘section’ is worth a third of the total. The Guardian’s live-blog has the figures from the first round of voting 4.48pm: Here are …

Still too delphic, Peter

Brian Walker on September 25, 2010, 12:24 pm

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Perhaps someone closer to the scene can tell me what Peter Robinson is trying to say in his Union 2021 essay. To me it reads like a coy appeal to the dwindling numbers of Ulster Unionists to throw in their lot with the DUP and an attempt to cool down the extremes of DUP paranoia before the Assembly election. It seems like classic positioning from the centre, if only he could find where and what the centre is. On the …