Parties

Are the Irish people prepared to hold government to account?

| Readers 3

I’m not sure citing cases of media proprietors backing the losers and then commending them as an exemplar was the most inspiring start to Elaine Byrne’s Op Ed today, but in the end, she asks for greater transparency from a political class which is (past as well as present) still reluctant to ante up its dues.  In the same paper, Fintan O’Toole notes that the Irish appetite for policing the probity of its politicians has been short lived in the …

Read more…

O’Loan loses the SDLP’s party whip….

| Readers 26

Just in from the SDLP: Following a meeting with party leader Margaret Ritchie this morning the party whip has been removed from Declan O’Loan MLA until a future date, to be determined by the party leader. 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

Debate within Unionism: Thorough, Intense and Constructive

| Readers 10

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’.

SDLP: O’Loan breaks ranks and then is pulled sharply back in…

| Readers 11

Well, that didn’t last long. Within hours of suggesting the unthinkable, North Antrim MLA has pulled out of his bold statement earlier in which he noted: I believe that a major realignment of northern nationalism is now called for and I think that this means the formation of a new single nationalist party. The values of the SDLP and its ability to command respect and at least second preference votes across the whole community are not something that should be …

Read more…

NIO Minister of State to NI Environment Minister: Decision Time On Local Government Reform

| Readers 9

The new team at the Northern Ireland Office [NIO] have made their first foray into local politics here.   A statement from the new NIO Minister of State, Hugo Swire MP, reveals that he has sent a letter to the NI Environment Minister, Edwin Poots, telling Mr Poots that “it was still possible to hold the elections to 11 new Councils in May 2011 but a decision to bring the Order [ to give effect to the new local government boundaries] before the Assembly needed …

Read more…

Are John Gormley and the Greens already paving their exit?

| Readers 8

If the new 55% rule caused a bit of friction in Britain, there is another not entirely unrelated debate taking place in the Republic just now. The UK coalition ought to take a glance over there at how the Irish coalition government is likely to end. There are a growing bundle of by elections the Fianna Fail end of the government seems extraordinarily reluctant to call. As Noel Whelan accounts in his op ed column on Saturday, this is for …

Read more…

Sinn Féin: “a criminal gang whom we consider has connections to MI5”

| Readers 102

Via Newshound.  Here’s an interesting little story to consider from the News Letter A SINN Fein property has been razed to the ground in an apparent arson attack in south Armagh. The portable building in the Ford Cross area, close to Silverbridge, was used by the Burns Moley cumann as both a meeting place and for storage. It said a number of historical artefacts were also destroyed in the blaze. Councillor Colman Burns condemned the incident, which took place in the …

Read more…

Euro crisis: “there is no unity at present in the euro zone about what needs to be done”

| Readers 3

A couple of reports in the Irish Times to emphasise a point made recently by Tim Garton Ash.  First up a quote from the German Chancellor, Angela Merkel. “We are at the start of this work and there is no unity at present in the euro zone about what needs to be done,” she said. “We have to stabilise things first, exchange views and at a later point say what needs to be done and how, and where we have …

Read more…

“the start of a period of classic left-right debates”?

| Readers 2

BBC NI political editor Mark Devenport with a slightly different take on the message delivered to the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers by the new Prime Minister than Brian noted. By telling our ministers they can take the pain now or take it in the next financial year, the Prime Minister has posed the Stormont Executive with a difficult choice. Their track record on water charges and freezing rates would appear to indicate the Executive will choose procrastination (or …

Read more…

Civil servant failed 2004 security vetting due to intelligence report on brother

| Readers 175

BBC Northern Ireland home affairs correspondent, Vincent Kearney, reports on the case of Kevin Kennedy, who is suing the PSNI after he was forced to resign from a job with the Northern Ireland Policing Board in 2004 after failing a security vetting. Last month, Mr Kennedy failed in a legal attempt to gain access to the intelligence information on which the police based their assessment. During a hearing at the High Court in Belfast, it was revealed that the Board was told during …

Read more…

Hanlon jailed for three years and three months for IRA membership

| Readers 216

To add to the convictions resulting from Operation Phoenix noted previously – “Northern Bank robbery – redux”.  Former Sinn Féin councillor, and unsuccessful candidate in the 2002 general election, Tom Hanlon has been sentenced to 3 years and 3 months for IRA membership at the non-jury Special Criminal Court in Dublin. Convicting Hanlon, Mr Justice Paul Butler, presiding, said that the court was satisfied that Hanlon was “intimately involved in highly suspicious financial transactions involving monies which have been proved to have included …

Read more…

Police to get more discretion on charging suspects (in England and Wales)

| Readers 6

At The Guardian‘s Law blog Afua Hirsch assesses the Home Secretary Theresa May’s announcement that police officers in England and Wales are to get more power to decide whether crime suspects should be charged for minor offences The Conservatives believe that the current system is inefficient. The police have to prepare a “pre-trial file” for prosecutors anyway, but then hand over the actual decision whether to charge, which the Conservatives regard as a waste of time and man-hours. Involving prosecutors also leads to …

Read more…

Republicans and Unionists both need to look at their directions of travel

| Readers 6

Guest blogger Mr Crumlin argues it is high time both Republicanism and Unionism stop coasting in the same gear they were in during the conflict. And he asks: “Does unionism genuinely want to work with their fellow countrymen in the north? If so, then it is up to republicanism once again to show leadership and to travel the extra mile for the national good.”

Has the SDLP kissed and made up?

| Readers 12

Conall McDevitt is reporting on his facebook: “I have just been given responsibility for developing SDLP policy on a shared, safe society. Do get in touch if you would like to contribute.” Having been granted dominion over one of his leaders core theme’s does this mean earlier reports of her preference for him as the influential Enterprise Committee Chair will not come to pass? Has Alban Maginness been granted a stay of execution or is anyone else lined up? I expect we’ll …

Read more…

Conservatives considering their options in Northern Ireland?

| Readers 2

Interesting news from Jeff Peel on status of the Conservative party staffers in Northern Ireland. Slugger cannot confirm whether it is true or not, but we understand the Conservatives did indeed expend a great deal of time, money and energy on trying to help get Ulster Unionist (as well as their own) candidates elected in the latest general election. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the …

Read more…

After the election: Has unionism the courage to debate a united vision?

| Readers 9

Another great piece from Open Unionism, this time from David Vance, fresh from the streets of East Belfast who argues the time has come and gone for a single unionist party. He observes: Seduced by the Stormont Assembly they are relatively disinterested in traditional unionist values and even recoil from that which is branded Conservative. A Sovietised economy and memories of historical betrayals make even brand Cameron seem toxic. UCUNF was perhaps a noble aspiration but it foundered because it …

Read more…

Euro crisis: “decision to create a single currency in Europe was an eminently political decision.”

| Readers 13

At the Cedar Lounge, WorldbyStorm has a lengthy post detailing his increasing scepticism as a pro-EU[ropean] over the EU Commission’s proposals to “co-ordinate fiscal policy in advance”. But more importantly to me, however pro-EU I am, as noted above I have to admit that I am becoming more and more dubious about the very notion of an EU polity that transcends national divisions. It seems to me that the distinctions between nations within the EU is so great as to …

Read more…

Jim Fitzpatrick: “let’s call it local madness for ease”

| Readers 3

In his weekly Politics Show dispatch, Jim Fitzpatrick picks up on the new Foreign Secretary William Hague’s comparison between the workings of the voluntary coalition at Westminster and the mandatory one at Stormont. Asked on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme if the arrangement at Downing Street would work something like the one in Stormont Castle with mutual vetoes, he was very keen to stress the differences. “I don’t think in practice that is how… this is rational people who will work …

Read more…