Slugger O'Toole

NI Assembly has the opportunity to the fix the injustice of dodgy algorithms (and more besides)

Mick Fealty on August 17, 2020, 9:41 am49 Comments | Readers 327

I’ve been grabbing staycation time where I could. Meantime aside from the death of John Hume, that damned algorithm that was supposed to moderate A level results blew up in everyone’s faces. Everyone who chose to use it: the UK government in England, and every devolved institution in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland. Even the Republic has it coming over Leaving Cert results. The core problem seems to have been pretty simple, all these administrations have chosen to use generalised …

‘I’m talking about a culture change in government in Northern Ireland: I mean the civil service and politicians’

Paul Gosling on August 17, 2020, 9:00 am17 Comments | Readers 551

Evidence-based policy-making is largely absent from government in Northern Ireland, but the new Pivotal think-tank has been established to correct that, says its director Ann Watt. She was speaking in the last of the second series of Holywell Trust Forward Together podcasts. The aim of Pivotal “is to help improve public policy in Northern Ireland,” says Ann. “It’s got a strong emphasis on research and evidence and on using evidence better in public policy.” The very first Pivotal report, published in November last year, …

The TUV vision for the NI Centenary…

Brian O'Neill on August 17, 2020, 8:17 am194 Comments | Readers 1616

As linked to in Sarah’s post, I thought Jim Allister’s proposals to mark the anniversary deserved a wider audience. From the document: Since the centenary marks not just the creation of Northern Ireland but the U.K. as presently constituted, this must be a national celebration; A visit by Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II and royal address to the Northern Ireland Assembly and large scale Garden Party; The flying of the national flag on all public buildings on each key date; …

We need to stop producing any new books, films and TV shows until we all have had a chance to catch up…

Brian O'Neill on August 16, 2020, 10:34 am29 Comments | Readers 838

One of the stresses of modern life is the tsunami of content out there. Aside from the bottomless pit of social media and online news there has never been such a volume of everything. On my TV I have the BBC iPlayer, Amazon Prime, Netflix, Disney+, Apple TV, Britbox and NowTV. The issue is I only watch about 1 hour of TV a day so it is impossible to even touch the surface of all the new shows out there. …

No one is safe until we’re all safe…

Lynda Tavakoli on August 16, 2020, 9:32 am57 Comments | Readers 876

When a friend asked me to write a piece about Covid-19, I was reluctant. Apart from a short poem I’d written very early on in the pandemic, I found it difficult to pen additional thoughts in prose, for how could I add to what had already been said? But all of us have a Covid-19 story and perhaps it’s edifying to take time to look back and appraise our experiences thus far. So here is part of my story – …

Northern Ireland Centenary: This country

Sarah Creighton on August 15, 2020, 10:59 am877 Comments | Readers 7846

This is about the centenary of Northern Ireland. But first, a slight detour. In Lucy Caldwell’s, ‘Multitudes,’ one of her characters describes the heartache of watching her teenage school friend move from Northern Ireland to England. “They’ve had enough is what Susan’s mum says. She just can’t take it anymore. ‘This country,’ she says to my mum. ‘This country,’ my mum says back to her, and neither of them says anything else.” The scene has always stuck with me because …

#InConversation podcast with Greg Keefe from Queen’s about rebuilding our cities and societies after Covid-19…

Brian O'Neill on August 15, 2020, 7:47 am2 Comments | Readers 242

Greg is one of my favourite guests. He is a very imaginative thinker who really makes you see the world in a new light. He has a very down to earth casual manner that explains complex topics is an accessible way. You will be guaranteed to learn something interesting from our chat. Greg is Head of the School of Natural and Built Environment. He is an academic and urban designer with 25 years of experience. In this podcast we chat …

The tricky decision of whether or not to take Statins…

Terry Maguire on August 15, 2020, 7:30 am17 Comments | Readers 15494

I came to statin treatment in a bizarre way. I went to my bank to arrange a loan and having agreed to the amount the bank asked for additional life cover. The life assurance company, in view of my advancing years (I was 48), required a medical and everything came back tip-top except my cholesterol level that weighed in at a handsome yet shocking 9.2 (average is 5.2). I was put on a statin and a decision on the life …

The controversy over the use of nuclear weapons has never gone away…

Samuel Thompson on August 14, 2020, 11:38 am123 Comments | Readers 1379

Although the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki brought the Second World to an abrupt end, the controversy over the use of nuclear weapons has never gone away. We are far less credible of the justification of military necessity and a desire to save lives than people in 1945 were, and while we know more about what happened than contemporaries did, the context in which the events occurred is less familiar. It is difficult to overstate that the fighting in …

It is time to end the idiotic cap on the number of local students Northern Ireland’s universities can admit…

Brian O'Neill on August 13, 2020, 8:26 am177 Comments | Readers 4214

Many of us have a low opinion of Stormont at the best of times but along comes a story that highlights the utter head-bangingly stupid nature of some of their more crazy decisions. Writing in today’s Irish Times Newton Emerson highlights the issue of the cap on local students. From the article: This year’s undergraduate entry requirements show Northern Ireland’s universities operating a two-tier system: students from the North need significantly higher grades than applicants from Britain. For example, Northern …

Pounds, shillings and pence: Stormont’s Fiscal Council…

Jay Burbank on August 12, 2020, 8:10 am58 Comments | Readers 1456

I have before written about the idea of a fiscal council for Northern Ireland which was first mooted in the Stormont House Agreement. When the new decade new approach agreement was published there contained a solid commitment to the establishment of this crucial mechanism. The post war Labour government who established the NHS were committed to ending the regional disparities in relief which had become stark in the nineteenth century. Across Britain and Ireland there was an old system of …

Happy Birthday Emmanuel Goldstein

Dan Payne on August 12, 2020, 8:00 am35 Comments | Readers 884

Scapegoating is always so helpful in politics, is it not? It’s so cost-effective, and saves so much trouble. Rather than admit to your audience that there are no easy solutions to the problems facing your people, and that things are a lot more complicated than was previously thought, all you need to do is affect some fake moral outrage and point the finger at [insert identifiable target here]. The practice has been used as long as politics has existed, of …

‘It is absolutely crazy to think that constitutional change in Ireland would happen overnight’

Paul Gosling on August 10, 2020, 9:02 am706 Comments | Readers 7696

Consideration of Irish unity needs careful preparation, argues Seamus McGuinness, research professor at the Republic’s Economic and Social Research Institute. He suggests looking to the example of Hong Kong, where the handover of control was undertaken over a 13 year period. Seamus was talking in the latest Holywell Trust Forward Together podcast. The difference in economic performance, North and South, sits “at the centre of debate around constitutional change,” believes Seamus. “I come at it from the perspective of someone who worked …

Beyond Hume: The challenge to the ‘stick a flag on it’ politics, is to build better and longer for all the people of Northern Ireland

Mick Fealty on August 10, 2020, 8:54 am341 Comments | Readers 3052

Last week the Ireland cricket team, wearing black armbands for the old Derry warrior for peace, took on the ODI world champions and repeated the miracle of Bangalore, beat them with the same single last ball to spare and the same man, Kevin O’Brien, to dispatch them at the end. Hume, as with much else in his long life, was no armchair cricket fan but someone who played several seasons for both City of Derry and Waterside Cricket Clubs. He …

Today is the 15th anniversary of the murder of Thomas Devlin…

Terry Maguire on August 10, 2020, 8:00 am29 Comments | Readers 6112

The bedroom light was flicked on abruptly bringing me up from a deep safe sleep. Confused, I struggled to understand what my sixteen-year-old son was saying; there had been a fight; his friends were hurt; the police were downstairs; they wanted to speak with me. I sharply admonish him for going out again; when I went to bed at 10.00 p.m., he and his friends were playing video games in the back bedroom. It was August 10th 2005. A policewoman …

Feile Panel; Let’s Talk Politics

David McCann on August 9, 2020, 5:52 pm2 Comments | Readers 439

Along with Amanda Ferguson, Tim Cairns and Allison Morris, we discussed the political issues of the day.

The mixed messages of The Eat Out To Help Out Scheme…

Lisa Wells on August 9, 2020, 9:14 am140 Comments | Readers 1903

Obesity is hitting the headlines again and we’re all being encouraged to be a bit more fit and a lot less fat. Which reminds me of my favourite food stories. A couple of years ago I was out for lunch with my children in a bustling local café. Above the background noise, we couldn’t help but overhear a customer at the next table loudly proclaiming her request to have all fat removed from the bacon in her toastie that she …

The enduring tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki…

Samuel Thompson on August 9, 2020, 7:30 am95 Comments | Readers 1261

As the 75th anniversary of VJ Day and the end of the Second World War approaches, the world inevitably turns its attention to the enduring tragedy of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. It is often forgotten that World War II was a nuclear war, albeit a one-sided one, and the controversy over the use of nuclear weapons has never gone away. This piece is a slightly modified excerpt from The Lesser Evil, my book on the Second World War. It explains how …

#InConversation Podcast with Michael McCoy. From the Ormeau Road to Tokyo and other tales…

Brian O'Neill on August 8, 2020, 2:54 pm5 Comments | Readers 556

Michael is a regular in the comments, I thought to myself a chat with a Belfast guy who now lives in Japan would make a great podcast. Originally from the Ormeau Road in Belfast, Michael McCoy has lived in Japan for the past 30 years where he works as an executive coach. In this conversation, we discuss growing up in Belfast in the 1970s as well as getting his take on Brexit and what we need to do to stimulate …

A passion for social justice: Tribute to Anne MOORE

Allan LEONARD (Mr Ulster) on August 8, 2020, 1:28 pm6 Comments | Readers 1127

Anne Moore will be remembered for her passion for social justice. I met Anne during my employment as a policy officer for the Alliance Party as I sought out the views of a valued stakeholder, NICVA, where she served as public affairs officer. Anne and I had plenty of enjoyable conversations and discussions on official as well as unofficial business matters—we would frequently diverge to global and philosophical perspectives. I regret that we didn’t continue such conversations as our careers …