Jay Burbank 
The news came in fast that the Liberal Democrats took a seat in Devon, safe to the Tories before and the result of a massive tactical swing to the Lib Dems. Also, the government in waiting party took a seat in the North of England which was being described as a ‘red brick’ in the rebuilding of the once staunchly labour ‘red wall.’ But as a resident of a devolved ‘nation’ I cannot help but raise an eyebrow as to …
My thought for this musing begins on that dark cavern of the internet called Twitter. Far from the sweet birdsong of a summer morning, as a platform Twitter is dominated by highly emotive short text “tweets” that are fuelled by an algorithm on the hunt continually for ‘trending’ topics. No, I am not interested in Elon Musk buying it for a dollar valuation one can scarcely comprehend in tangible terms. What made me think was a tweet from an author …
Controversy has generated around the inclusion of Tony Blair on the new year’s honours list. During his time in power he devised a strategy of “humanitarian intervention” beginning in the Balkans for strong moral reasons and ending with a military quagmire in Iraq. It is important to understand the legal context of why he did this and reflect upon the complicated picture of this period of western history. Since the end of the second world war in 1945, it has …
Anyone familiar with the Black Mountain and Cave Hill walking trails will know that the city of Belfast is cut off from urban sprawl to its immediate west and north west. This does not mean that the communities at either side of these hills are cut off from one another. To the contrary in fact, the greater Belfast commuter belt takes in the communities from these hills to Lough Neagh in an increasingly service driven economy where Belfast has become …
This week a poll was conducted on the proposal being internally mooted by the Tory government to raise national insurance contributions to adequately fund social care. Unsurprisingly the mood wasn’t warm when people were sampled on whether they’d like to pay tax, although its not the kind of “never, never” attitude to taxation that a populist would expect: National insurance will be increased in order to fund social care reforms, it has been reported. Net support for this, by age …
In a recent poll, integrated education was supported by 71% of respondents. It continues to be a popular policy issue; yet, parties have split hairs over the issue for decades. The reality is that because of a lack of will to create one state sector, there is a growing but separated integrated sector. In their own words I will quote MLAs from a debate in an assembly on 6th July 2021. Kellie Armstrong MLA tabled a private members bill to …
While on the treadmill a few weeks ago, I stumbled upon a podcast delivered by the ‘intelligence squared’ where they interviewed Mark Mardell who has written a new book on the history of “meritocracy.” Originally, like the term ‘suffragette,’ it was a term of derision but since the 1950s the term has grown a following among left and right. Merit is a strange thing, as Mardell points out it can within a single lifetime propel someone into the very opposite, …
As the media and others mull over the 68 page judgement handed down at the Belfast High court today I thought I would pull the key points from the summary for you all to digest and get an initial idea of the arguments presented to the court. The ruling on each is set out below: The applicants raised five grounds of challenge to the Protocol on Ireland/Northern Ireland (Democratic Consent Process) (EU) Regulations 2020 (“the 2020 Regulations”) but in effect …
Despite the best efforts of hard-line unionists to bring the narrative of Arlene Foster’s downfall at the hands of the much-maligned NI Protocol, the discussion is almost organically drifting towards values. The party of Paisley faces the perfect storm as working and middle-class supporters leave them poll after poll straight to the Alliance Party or to the Traditional Unionist Voice. The former departure lounge of the UUP has been exposed as the fractured loose coalition of two opposing world views …
Youth training? Magee expansion? NHS reform? York street interchange? Phase 3 railway upgrade? New railway? Greenways? High standard public housing? Welfare reform? Nope, buy off people with grants and demeaning programmes through gatekeepers… https://t.co/iBo97wIbi6 — Cllr Jay Burbank 🇪🇺 (@jay_burbank) April 19, 2021 When I was in P7 there was a great debate around our table, are the colour of curbs “red, white and blue” or “blue, white and red?” We hadn’t the foggiest notion of the subtext much less …
Security is never far behind trade, indeed the leading conceptual theory behind the European Union is that by creating an intricate network of trade in goods and services the cost of any conflict or even minor security issue would be too great – for even the largest of nations in the network. What then are we to make of “Global Britain” beginning to flex its muscles in the Asia-Pacific region (‘ASPAC’)? The UK has officially applied to join the ‘Trans-Pacific …
Increasingly online, even on our Slugger oasis, it seems as if a polarity in western culture is rearing its head into every shred of discourse. When it comes to ideas the human psychology has a tendency to make a conclusion (sometimes informed by bias) which becomes our ‘position’ on a given issue. Nowhere is this more obvious than in politics where movement between parties is so rare and so vilified that it resulted in every single MP losing their seat …
In every discussion, including now in England, about the union of ‘four nations’ there is an acceptance that to deal with political reality the constitution of the UK needs changed and perhaps some tweaks to fiscal transfer just to sweeten the deal. But what is always missing in these discussions is an assessment of something which has always been missing in the English then British system, accountability. It’s easy to see why the uncodified mass of medieval convention that the …
It’s been a debate rumbling on since the 1960s and has been subject to many slugger posts over the years. Including the lack of strategic thinking over the long-term viability for our health service. The post graduate entry medical school at Magee is set to take students in September this year (according to UU’s website at time of posting) but it has been blighted by delays and began as a project in the early noughties. 20 years in Derry (policy) …
Strand one was the name given to the collective socio-legal structures of devolution and inter-community governance in Northern Ireland as part of the Good Friday Agreement. Unlike the North-South Ministerial Council (strand two) or the British-Irish council (strand three) it is the part of the agreement most relevant to and most recognised by the NI population. At its heart strand one is beyond the structural concerns of the Assembly and Executive, it is about the principle of subsidiarity so that …
As education minister Peter Weir bumbled his way through a ministerial statement on Wednesday afternoon one would be forgiven for confusing the ad hoc COVID 19 response committee with a debate on academic selection. The long-running debate has reared its head again as AQE subscribing grammar schools finally took the decision to delay testing in the face of a 1.8 reproductive rate in the virus here. Whatever your view on academic selection, it smacked of rank arrogance for these 32 …
In the history of ideas, Nationalism has burst through as nearly universal in its application, understanding and complexity. The Northern Ireland political scene has long been described as two competing nationalisms, our polity birthed as it was in the cradle of nationalist fervour unleashed on the battlefields of the Great War and continuing into the 1920s with Ireland’s (eventual) split from the British Empire. What we colloquially call “unionism” is a form of British nationalism intent on protecting the interests …
Michael Martin has a long record in politics and is undoubtedly part of the Good Friday generation in his understanding of North-South relations. His shared Island Unit can only be the result of a thirst to implement the agreement in full without an obsession over the simplistic narrative of a border poll to fix all ills. His re-focus on local projects to lift up long forgotten border communities should be applauded by all (the detail of which has been sadly …
It is the intellectual debate which has defined our times; indeed, it has defined a greater part of my life on this planet. It isn’t the moral maze of non-platforming or any other culture war battleground we all have opinions on. No, it’s that old chestnut of ‘austerity.’ On this island, David McWilliams proudly proclaimed a RIP to austerity this week on his podcast. He is a part of the Irish austerity story, spotting early on the problems in the …
This week the Irish government unveiled their budget with an emphasis on housing and all of the social issues with flow from that most basic social need. What peeked my own interest was a commitment to providing €500 million to cross-border projects. The ‘Shared Island Initiative’ is a much publicised personal project of the Taoiseach Michael Martin. RTE are reporting that the new unit within his department will be overseeing this expenditure. In terms of the overall Irish budget this …
