The Deputy First Minister, Martin McGuinness announced the new names of the Sinn Fein Ministerial team in the Executive. They are; Chris Hazzard, MLA for South Down Megan Fearon, MLA for Newry & Armagh Michelle O’Neill, MLA for Mid Ulster Mairtin O’Muilleoir, MLA for South Belfast Not sure of what portfolio’s they will be assigned, more…
First Minister Arlene Foster delivered the fourth Harri Holkeri Lecture yesterday evening on ‘Women, Leadership and Peacebuilding’ at the Institute for the Study of Conflict Transformation and Social Justice’s Spring Festival at Queen’s. Holkeri was a Prime Minister of Finland and took part in the Good Friday Agreement negotiations. The lecture was co-sponsored by the more…
Cllr Alexander Stafford is an Ealing councillor, representing the Ealing Broadway ward, and former advisor to the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It is said a week is a long time in politics, and this has definitely been true in Northern Ireland. Just over a week ago the UUP made the decision to reject more…
This morning’s #SluggerReport featured this great essay from Ferdinand Mount in the London Review of Books (h/t Ciaran!). Here’s some of the highlights in the argument… Splendid isolation’. ‘Very well, alone’. ‘Fog in Channel – Continent Cut Off’. That is the name of the game, the only game that appeases the dreams and resentments of more…
Rory McIlroy may have triumphed at the weekend but can Marlene win the Justice Minister Challenge?
While we wait on developments, our thoughts might profitably turn to a the immediate future in which the key signifier is nearly 50:50 but the electorate is becoming somewhat more diverse than that and looking for “delivery.” What sort of cross community politics may be emerging? Which will be the more important: a better DUP/SF more…
Interesting sidebar to the issue of an ‘official opposition’. The proposed scheme is set out in Appendix F4 on page 55 of the “A Fresh Start: The Stormont Agreement and Implementation Plan” document (although it still requires some administrative mechanism to formalise it). The first section clearly states that: (i) “Those parties which would be entitled more…
We can’t say that we weren’t warned. In his 1928 book Propaganda, the pioneering Austrian-American publicist Edward Bernays unblushingly wrote: The conscious and intelligent manipulation of the organized habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society. Those who manipulate this unseen mechanism of society constitute an invisible government, which is more…
“[I]t is clearer than ever that the Leave campaigners are losing the economic argument … Their preoccupation with immigration … can sometimes seem more like an obsession, and one that is not entirely free of a prejudice that most British people have long ago rejected.” These are excerpts from today’s editorial lead in the Mail more…
A significant part of the reason for the declining nationalist turnout is the growing sense that, through their political class, nationalists have failed to deliver a return at Stormont – and in the post-peace process era in general- which would match the expectations of the broad nationalist community. If unionism has suffered from a leadership more…
Their love of country, millions all mis-spent, How reconcile? by reconciling rent! – George Gordon Byron Reconciliation is a word bandied around as though everyone had the same shared understanding of what it means. Those who do use it in freely in terms of Northern Ireland’s shared history seem oddly reluctant to define it clearly more…
For the first time since 1972, Stormont has a formal Opposition. Author and journalist, Dr John Coulter, outlines how this will work practically and not deteriorate into a primary school playground shouting match. The Stormont Opposition will only work if it is established as a working Shadow Cabinet with Nesbitt become Shadow First Minister, not more…
It has a satisfying and even harmonious ring, and the people have really taken to it. The portmanteau and new byword for the Executive Office – ‘Marlene’. While Jim Allister bequeathed it to a popular audience on BBC The View on May 19, it’s recognised that Paul Gallagher first coined the sobriquet back in January 2016. The more…
Waiting for the FA Cup Final the Newsletter has made a simple inquiry to the renamed OFMDFM. Presumably they passed the information onto the office holders who will respond accordingly. My job share suggestion won’t fly apparently. Brendan Heading is not the only one interested…But how about SF and DUP one after the other, like Israel’s more…
Episode four of ITV’s ‘The Secret’ saw Colin Howell and Hazel Stewart (formerly Buchanan) tossed about in a sea of emotions. In the previous three weeks, we had seen the plot to murder their respective spouses hatched, the murders gruesomely recreated and the gradual drifting apart of the lovers as they seemed to get away more…
Listening to Radio Ulster’s Inside Politics, little Alliance seems to have the joint leaders on a hook. It appears that the main sticking point for David Ford was Foster and McGuinness’s refusal to accept reform of the blocking mechanism of the petition of concern. Ford has been campaigning for reform for a long time, most more…
So here’s interesting one. It seems that Sinn Fein’s campaign against selling alcohol in the national parliament has been passed on to the new generation of TDs. Louise O’Reilly yesterday questioned the necessity of having two bars in the Houses of the Oireachtas: “I find it incredible that my new workplace has not one but two more…
Am I right in thinking that the small avalanche started by Mike Nesbitt has taken the DUP and Sinn Fein entirely by surprise? Not to mention the distinguished local commentariat who failed to clock that the smaller parties were as serious as this about the opposition option? So what do we know? First, very more…
EASTWOOD WALKS: “We wanted to put together a Programme for Government with actions, implementations and things that we could all be held accountable for. The DUP and Sinn Fein did not want to do that, so we were not prepared to sign up.”
As I write, the Alliance Party’s council, the representative body which appoints and holds to account the party Executive (among other functions), is meeting to discuss the party’s decision not to field a candidate for the role of the Minister of Justice. I have to confess that, having written by my earlier article on this matter more…
