UK

Amnesty for security forces foreshadowed in the DUP deal

| Readers 1271

Just a footnote to yesterday’s post on the government’s floating of an amnesty for security forces. The Irish News follows up predictably enough with angry responses to what they rightly report as the adoption of the recommendation of the Commons Defence Committee report  just before the general election. The committee, which includes DUP MP Gavin Robinson, said that the pursuit of members of the crown forces was “wholly oppressive and a denial of natural justice”. “It can be ended only …

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What is the future of the NHS in the 21st century?

| Readers 776

In his 1942 Report, Sir William Beveridge, a Liberal patrician, identified five ‘giant evils’ — Want, Ignorance, Squalor, Disease and Idleness. The Welfare State was founded in the immediate post-war period to improve the social conditions in the UK. The country was then bankrupt from war exertions; despite warnings, mainly from Conservatives, that the Welfare State was unaffordable, the Labour government, trusting in Maynard Keynes’ assertion that ‘we can afford whatever we want’ went ahead. The National Health Service was born …

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Three things we know about Brexit..

| Readers 2464

Nicholas Whyte reports on three things we now know about Brexit: According to Barnier the British are talking about a Canada type model, no sector by sector deals and no passporting for the financial sector. The Irish border issue is serious and as yet has no solution (which is why the Taoiseach has been upping the stakes) The emergence of news of a £40 Billion figure emerging from the British side Nicholas suggests this means there’s going to be a …

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The government need to come clean urgently on their bungled proposal for a security forces amnesty

| Readers 1668

After Sinn Fein held their meeting with Theresa May this afternoon,  Gerry Adams diverted from the apparent failure to make progress on restoring Stormont with a genuine issue: a potential amnesty from prosecution for security force members who served in the Troubles is to be floated by the British government. The Irish News carries the fullest version of the story by the PA.  What’s being floated is a statute of limitations in a fundamental and unilateral amendment to the 2014  Stormont …

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Brexit and the border is widening the gap between London and Dublin and depressing further the chances of a return to Stormont

| Readers 2624

It has started to happen. Will it continue?  Can it be reversed? The politics of Brexit  is openly dividing the UK and Irish governments and further polarising the DUP and Sinn Fein,  making a return to the Executive less likely than ever.  Predictably Brexit is increasingly becoming domesticated as the new big theme  in a revived unionist v nationalist struggle. What’s just happened?  The sequence was best described in a cool- headed column in the Indo by Dan O’Brien, chief …

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“Even if we could clean up our own murky waters, and not be seen as a chasm of dysfunction and smuggling”

| Readers 742

So back in the real world, there’s Brexit. Newton Emerson’s piece from last week’s Irish Times is well worth reading into the Slugger record (whilst so much that gets written about Brexit these days is not): In Northern Ireland, some business and political figures have expressed the hope of becoming a post-Brexit bridge between the UK and the EU. An outline of this structure has been glimpsed in the proposal, currently being examined by EU officials, for Northern Ireland to become an …

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Gerry Adams and Robert Mugabe have something in common

| Readers 2560

How ironic that the eras of Mugabe and Adams are drawing to a close at roughly the same time. Both are men of blood. Both remained in office for unhealthily long periods of time, reflecting the essentially undemocratic nature of their political machines and their origins in armed insurgency. It now turns out that neither is departing immediately. Of course  there are significant differences. Adams will go with the adulation of his followers and  continuing influence. Mugabe led  the majority …

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A crunch on the border is not in Ireland’s interests

| Readers 3035

“What we want to take off the table, before we even talk about trade, is any idea that there would be a hard Border, a physical Border, or a Border resembling the past . . . Then we’d be happy to move on to phase two.” “The UK insists that the issue cannot be tackled until the EU agrees to move to discussion of phase-two issues. Speaking at Iveagh House on Friday, Boris Johnson echoed Mrs May’s approach. “In order to resolve …

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Quote of the week…

| Readers 1955

The DUP’s 10 MPs are increasingly driving the party – apart from Ian Paisley, whose increasingly entertaining media appearances suggest he has been locked in the boot. Newton Emerson in the Irish News 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

What rules the UK will take will determine degree of Single Market access. Is it that simple?

| Readers 1362

I’m struggling to find the flaw in Ian’s reasoning here (perhaps our pro Brexit regulars can help me?): …even if somehow Angela Merkel were scared that the German economy could be crippled by, er, not being able to export freely to a smaller country like the UK, she cannot intervene to offer the UK a special deal. No one can. Let us repeat: the EU is the Single Market and the Single Market is the EU. Let us also repeat: …

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The reception for the Loughinisland documentary No Stone Unturned shows that legacy issues will stay marginalised

| Readers 2813

The low key reception given to the documentary No Stone Unturned, the film documentary on the UVF  murders  of six  randomly selected Catholics in their local Loughinisland  pub in 1994 which is currently being  given a brief screening at the Queen’s Film Theatre, is the latest example of how presumed familiarity with the underlying problems of  Northern Ireland has produced if not quite contempt, at least widespread deadening  indifference. Warm congratulations nevertheless go to The Detail team especially their reporter …

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For Westminster, Northern Ireland still isn’t a priority.

| Readers 2003

Patrick Thompson is a postgraduate student at Queen’s University, specialising in Northern Irish and Labour politics Last week a strange piece appeared on the news agency Bloomberg’s website about the Irish dimension of Britain’s decision to leave the EU. It was titled ‘Irish Border Throws Unexpected Hurdle to Brexit’. The notion that there is an open question around what Brexit means for the UK’s only land border isn’t groundbreaking. But the idea that this is a surprise most definitely is. …

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Brexit is in a mess, but not irretrievably

| Readers 1638

Want to know where we really are on Brexit? In  three words, in a mess. Can we get out of it?   Possibly at the eleventh hour, 10 pm on Friday 19 March 2019, just like the Good Friday Agreement in fact. Nothing  is agreed until everything is agreed. As so often – like the Stormont standoff – the politics look more difficult than the rational solutions. The Irish and British prime ministers profess themselves in the dark about  each others’ …

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Are the DUP really going to push for a fundamentalist agricultural policy? (I doubt it.)

| Readers 2348

Brian Feeney raises a real issue facing farmers with regard to Brexit… …last week US commerce secretary Wilbur Ross was quite clear that if the UK wants a trade deal with the US after Brexit they will have to jettison EU food standards. Chlorine-washed chicken is the least of it. Some chickens are dosed with antihistamines to tenderise their meat. Others have been treated with ketamine, a hallucinogenic drug, yet others with steroids. And, as Brian hints, it’s not the only …

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Man who advocates driving off cliff advises friends not to be in the car…

| Readers 1821

The Guardian reports that arch-Eurosceptic MP John Redwood has been advising clients in his day job to pull their money out of the UK: In the piece for the Financial Times, the Conservative MP – who has a £180,000 second job as chief global strategist for Charles Stanley – said the European Central Bank was promoting faster growth when the UK was seeing a squeeze on credit. “Mario Draghi, ECB president, is now doing whatever it takes, not just to rescue …

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ITV has gone to pot…

| Readers 1822

Imagine a producer at Al Jazeera, the Qatari TV channel, pitching a program idea to his managers which goes something like this.   We select a group of overweight elderly Doha Residents, people with a certain celebrity in our beloved Kingdom – we want the audience to like them but they need to be men of the people – and we take them off to Britain where we take them on a road trip around; public houses, distilleries, micro-breweries and vineyards …

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Enniskillen 30 Years On: Geraldine Smyth on Forgiveness and Mercy in the Public Square

| Readers 2676

An article by Joe Humphreys in today’s Irish Times marking the 30th anniversary of the Enniskillen bomb bears the headline: ‘Thirty years after Enniskillen: Can forgiveness transcend terrorist atrocities?’ Humphreys highlights the well-known words of forgiveness offered in the bomb’s immediate aftermath by Gordon Wilson, whose daughter Marie died in the atrocity. He also recognizes the words of forgiveness offered this week by Stephen Ross, who was severely injured in the bomb. Humphreys challenges us by asking: were these men right to forgive? …

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Real work to restore the Executive has yet to begin. For the public to make an impact, proposals and pressure from the governments are essential

| Readers 1224

As a comparative outsider I’m struck by how most commentators are obsessed with speculating about political positioning and identity narratives. This has produced numbing negativism and  despair  rather than the energy needed to approach the daunting but practical problem of trying to restore the Executive.  Being case hardened and calloused, they endlessly refine their own explanations for obvious failure. They accept the parameters set by the DUP and SF too readily. To be fair, this is often the default caused by a …

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“broken promises are – sometimes – necessary for good government.”

| Readers 1532

In Saturday’s Irish Times, Fiach Kelly had some timely advice for Sinn Féin and the DUP – and their supporters. Those who seek to govern will always have to compromise, and those who do not – unless their policies are allowed absolute domination – will always decry whatever deals are made. The electorate is free to choose which type of politician it wants, but if it chooses the former, it should do so in the knowledge that compromises will be …

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Prescription Medicines in the Dock – Who is to blame for the increasing drug deaths in our society?

| Readers 451

Ireland bucks the UK trend in drug overdose deaths; here they are more likely to result from “prescription medicines” than “illegal drugs”. Coroners locally implicate; tramadol, oxycodone or fentanyl in overdose more frequently than in England, Scotland or Wales where deaths are mainly linked to; heroin or cocaine. One implication is that prescription medicines are more readily available and, extending this logic, doctors and pharmacists are in some way involved; if we did our jobs better drug deaths would be …

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