Parties

Fermanagh Council: “at best prima facie discriminatory and certainly unedifying”

| Readers 11

A BBC report notes the publication, one month after the ruling was made, of a High Court judgement which orders that Fermanagh District Council must pay the Local Government Auditor’s bill of £38,178 for an investigation into the controversial appointment of Rodney Connor as Chief Executive of the Council in 2000.  From the BBC report In his ruling [Mr Justice Higgins] emphasised that the proceedings reflect in no way upon the ability or integrity of Mr Connor who “all parties acknowledged to be a …

Read more…

Baggott outlines police response to security threat

| Readers 2

A BBC report notes the NI Police Federation’s concerns about “insufficient resources” being available to PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott as an emergency meeting of the Policing Board discussed the increasing activities of still-violent republican groups.  UTV has the quotes from Matt Baggott, and others, following the meeting  “We’ll be doing vehicle checkpoints throughout the next couple of weeks and probably beyond that”, Mr Baggott said. “I know they are a huge inconvenience to the public but let’s be very clear the responsibility …

Read more…

Gerry McGeough confronts Gerry Adams

| Readers 168

The Irish News reports that Gerry McGeough took the opportunity to have a quiet word with his former comrade-in-arms associate, Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, when the latter was canvassing at the gates of St Patrick’s Church in Eglish, County Tyrone.  Gerry McGeough is currently being tried on charges of attempted murder, possession of two revolvers and being in the IRA between 1975 and 1981.  From the Irish News report It is understood that after the exchange, Mr Adams leaned against the church …

Read more…

Elections now mean power sharing within parties

| Readers 4

The one sure outcome of this election is the end of a system that produced the phenomenon of the Swish family Robinson. By that I mean not the personal dramas, (although there’s a connection of course), but the accumulation of personal influence and the development of politics as a small family business, all of it apparently within the rules but now about  to be greatly reduced.  Mr Robinson himself will be less affected than his colleagues.  He’s bidding to retain his …

Read more…

“The Provos are giving the police information non-stop”

| Readers 166

A Sunday Times report on efforts to counter the increasing activity of still-violent republican groups begins by noting the recent returning to prison of a man released on licence in 1992.  Pending a legal challenge, no doubt.  From the Sunday Times The Northern Ireland Office is examining intelligence information supplied by MI5 on dissident republicans who were released early under the Good Friday agreement to check if there is evidence to seek their immediate return to prison. Martin Corey, 60, who …

Read more…

NI leader’s debate: “This was politics on bromide”

| Readers 2

In the Sunday Times Liam Clarke provides the most accurate assessment of the Northern Ireland party leaders debate so far. Dougal did put a few awkward questions about abstentionism and expenses to Adams and Robinson, but these interventions made no more than a plop on the placid surface of the leisurely discussion. This was politics on bromide. In football parlance, Ritchie, Empey, Robinson and Adams all played a closed, defensive game. There were no long balls, no fouls, and no …

Read more…

DoE Cuts: “to help minimise or avoid the need for redundancies”

| Readers 3

Never mind any possible future cuts, the BBC reports that a fall in the “level of receipts from planning applications fell from £22.5m in the 2007/08 financial year, to £15.7m in the 2009/10 financial year” has prompted consideration of a reduction of 269 posts in the Planning Service.  Don’t worry though… “Our current estimate is that in total a further 80 posts, outside the Planning Service, are surplus and will be redeployed,” the DoE spokesperson added. In a statement a spokesperson …

Read more…

Third member of Tohill abduction gang sentenced

| Readers 14

The BBC reports that a third member of the Provisional IRA gang who attempted to abduct dissenting republican Bobby Tohill in 2004 – Harry Fitzsimmons, 42, originally from Spamount Street in north Belfast – has been sentenced to 8 years.  Although I think they’ve named the wrong man as being still “unlawfully at large”. From the BBC report  Belfast Crown Court was told the attack in February 2004 was meant as a message to Tohill not to oppose the then fledgling peace process. …

Read more…

Second car bomb attack on Newtownhamilton police station

| Readers 75

Two people have been treated in hospital after being injured in the second car bomb attack on the police station in Newtownhamilton, County Armagh, in as many weeks. And from the Guardian report  Last weekend the Guardian revealed concerns within the security community in Northern Ireland about “an intelligence gap” within the PSNI regarding the dissidents. Security sources said that there was a dearth of information within the police about the growth in dissident violence. Pete Baker

Brian Cowen: “let’s go on a journey and forget about the destination”

| Readers 37

As the Irish Times’ Deaglán de Bréadún reports, Taoiseach Brian Cowen, picking up from where Bertie Ahern left off, has been telling  the Journal of Cross-Border Studies in Ireland that the political journey is what is important, not the destination.  And he’s not wrong.  From the Irish Times article “The ultimate destination of any political project is a matter of time working itself out. Therefore the destination is not the thing to be talking about. That will be for other people …

Read more…

Judge refuses injunction over DUP election leaflet…

| Readers 26

I don’t intend second guessing Mr Justice Gillen’s reasons for refusing an injunction on Ian Paisley Junior’s leaflet (nor referring to the subject matter of Jim Allister’s complaint). The judge made it clear in the High Court yesterday that it was for others to decide whether the disputed section of the leaflet was defamatory, or not. But the tone of the judgement ran something like: didn’t you know there was an election on? “In my view electioneering statements should not …

Read more…

“confused, narrow minded, ill-judged”

| Readers 2

According to the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, refusing to participate in a “grubby little sectarian carve up” in order to ‘Save Michelle!’, and her empty seat, is not “good for nationalists or for the peace process” [added emphasis]. Who knew?! Now remember, Gerry, “don’t reduce it to two debates – to what’s happening within unionism or what’s happening within nationalism.” You do remember that, Gerry? But what are you going to do? Pete Baker

Did the DUP ask the nice lady if she would ACTUALLY vote for them?

| Readers 5

According to Bobballs, it appears not.… I suspect posters have more effect on voters than net activism… but there is a really needling message underneath this one: are you really sure your voters will turn out for you? 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

More fun at the SDLP’s expense…

| Readers 5

FIRST McGregor, now this from an SF supporter. There’s something quite fun in the way the internet is being used to subvert party messages that are so carefully selected and controlled. PEBs aren’t cheap to make either, and to see them ridiculed so effectively and cheaply must be really annoying; anyone who’s seen the spoof billboards across the water knows what I mean too. There’s some excellent subversion of a DUP poster that the Tories have done coming up later …

Read more…

“The device is understood to have consisted of a number of containers filled with flammable liquid”

| Readers 26

A day after the attack on the site of MI5’s regional headquarters in Holywood, County Down, a security alert in Newtownhamilton, County Armagh, which began when a Peugeot car was abandoned at the gates of the police station at 2am last night, has ended with the British army defusing a viable device. The Army has defused a bomb in a car abandoned outside the police station in Newtownhamilton in County Armagh. The device is understood to have consisted of a …

Read more…

“Losing seats was never part of the inevitability narrative…”

| Readers 7

At the Guardian’s CiF at the Polls self-declared Tory unionist, Christopher Montgomery, comments on the SDLP’s pass on participation in the ‘Save Michelle’ campaign. From the Guardian post Sinn Féin know they won’t get in the British general election anything like the kicking the Irish Republic’s electorate handed out to them in theirs. But their leadership is understandably anxious about the fact that yet another element in what passed for their partition-accepting, post-republican strategy is unfurling. Losing seats was never …

Read more…

“I believe that the Education Minister is guilty of a terminological inexactitude”

| Readers 23

During a Northern Ireland Assembly debate in March this year – on the NI Education Minister’s decision to withdraw funding from the preparatory departments of grammar schools – the DUP’s Jonathan Bell was ordered from the chamber after he refused to withdraw his comment that the Minister, Sinn Féin’s Caitriona Ruane, was “deliberately mislead[ing] the House” by associating the NI Finance Minister, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, with a report from the Assembly’s business consultancy service which had actually been commissioned …

Read more…

“The package aims to deliver £225m in total…”

| Readers 2

According to the BBC report, the Presbyterian Church general assembly is to meet to discuss the details of the OFMDFM-proposed “alternative solution” for the troubled Presbyterian Mutual Society – although not necessarily alternative to the administrator’s solution. Apparently that solution would include a £1million contribution from the church – and some £225million from the general tax-payer. But the details, according to the News Letter, reveal a focus on larger creditors, not smaller savers investors. From the News Letter report We …

Read more…

UUP pull their support for Alban Maguinness

| Readers 7

Yesterday demonstrated why Sinn Fein and the DUP retain the majority stake in Westminster over the moderate muddle middle… Yesterday Margaret Ritchie did what no party leader in Britain or the Republic would do before an election and revealed she would not take her party into opposition with the SDLP… Thus taking much of the fun danger promise out of voting SDLP… At the same time, Reg Empey pulled out of his previous minded view that his party would vote …

Read more…