OFMdFM – Page 2 – Slugger O'Toole

“future banknote designs, starting with the new polymer £5 note, will explicitly represent all four nations of the UK.”

Pete Baker on July 21, 2015, 5:13 pm

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As mentioned in this BBC report focused on the first Bank of England polymer banknote – a £5 note featuring Sir Winston Churchill which will be issued in 2016. Banknotes will feature images from all four nations of the UK starting with the new £5 note entering circulation in 2016. [Timing, eh? – Ed] Eh? From the Bank of England press release Chief Cashier, Victoria Cleland said: “The Bank is delighted with the number and breadth of the nominations we …

“…no evidence that any other person was involved, so I am sceptical of this political allegation”

Mick Fealty on July 10, 2015, 12:21 pm

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Jamie Delargy on UTV last night gave as sharp and precise a precis of where we are with the Nama story thus far. Two points worth highlighting: There is no evidence that that money was then destined for any other person. It was under the control of Ian Coulter, it may have been the case that Mr Coulter intended keeping that money, it may have been the case that he was going to pay other people, but we have no …

Sucking up Stormont’s deadlocked politics for £90k

Mick Fealty on May 14, 2015, 1:18 pm

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One of the great things about not being able to scrutinise the Stormont administration and having everyone in government is that there is little brake on stuff like this… The information released on Monday shows that last year Mr Robinson’s two main Spads – barrister Richard Bullick and former accountant Timothy Johnston – were being paid the absolute maximum for a Spad, £91,809 A third DUP Spad, former lawyer Emma Pengelly, is also being paid the top rate of £91,809. The …

“Now it seems that Sinn Fein is realising how badly exposed its negotiators left it to accusations of a sell-out.”

Pete Baker on March 10, 2015, 2:55 pm

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In today’s Irish News John Manley does everyone a favour by identifying Sinn Fein’s problem with the agreement they signed up to in December. The nub of the problem appears to lie in the figures contained in the Stormont Castle Agreement, an agreement within an agreement negotiated between the five parties days before the final accord was signed off on December 23. In annex A of this sub-agreement, the figures for the planned welfare safety net are outlined. It earmarks …

“The brinkmanship that seems inescapable on such occasions has become self-indulgent and self-important too”

Pete Baker on December 31, 2014, 3:57 pm

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The Guardian’s editorial on the Stormont House Agreement has some pertinent things to note about Northern Ireland’s latest deal. Although, if, as they claim, “the glass is half-full” it is also, by definition, half-empty. From the Guardian editorial The talks came very close, after 11 weeks of discussion, to falling apart, as earlier efforts under the chairmanship of Richard Haass had in fact done. It is good that the same did not happen this time. Yet there is precious little else …

There Is No Alternative! (to Casement Park development plan) – Redux

Pete Baker on December 15, 2014, 4:30 pm

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Belfast High Court has ruled that the decision to grant planning permission for the controversial £70million redevelopment of Casement Park in west Belfast was “fundamentally flawed”. However, Mr Justice Horner did not quash the decision, and will take further submissions from lawyers for the Department of the Environment, the GAA and the residents group who mounted the legal challenge before ruling on what the alternative actually is. From the Irish Times report The overall bill for the redevelopment in west Belfast has now risen …

Gerry Adams: “There is a clear need for more innovative and forward-looking politics…”

Pete Baker on November 23, 2014, 5:41 pm

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By which, the passive-aggressive Sinn Féin president actually means, the SDLP must join Sinn Féin in a sectarian electoral pact in “the next Westminster and Assembly elections”, and the year after that, and the year after that… because… themmuns! To paraphrase, if Sinn Féin can get away with treating all future Northern Ireland elections as a glorified pissing contest pseudo-referendum on ‘Irish Unity’, then we won’t be caught out distracted by actual politics in the north and we can focus all of our efforts and resources …

Northern Ireland Executive has been ignoring the financial crisis since 2007

Mick Fealty on October 29, 2014, 7:59 am

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In the BelTel, Liam Clarke has an excellent summation of just how Stormont’s Executive got itself into this mess: The origins of the crisis lie in 2007, the final year before the property crash, when the Executive parties agreed a number of eye-catching giveaways. Water rates were set aside, at a current cost of £180m a year; our leaders held regional rates down, giving us the lowest household taxes in the UK, and there were also free prescriptions for everyone …

Kicking the [financial] can down the road, again.

Pete Baker on October 9, 2014, 2:40 pm

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According to the BBC’s Mark Devenport, The Treasury has been asked to supply Stormont with a one-off loan of between £100m and £150m to ease its budgetary crisis, the BBC understands. According to the reports, the proposal was discussed with the UK Treasury by the NI First Minister, the DUP leader Peter Robinson, and the NI Finance Minister, the DUP’s Simon Hamilton. Whether that occurred before, or after, yesterday’s ‘special’ meeting of the NI Executive isn’t entirely clear. From the …

There Is No Alternative! (to Casement Park development plan)

Pete Baker on September 29, 2014, 11:13 pm

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A fairly desperate argument from lawyers for the Northern Ireland Planning Service in Belfast High Court today, during the judicial review of the planned £70million redevelopment of Casement Park in west Belfast. As the BBC reports The judge heard that DCAL have contributed £62.5m of the £77m cost of rebuilding the stadium as part of a project involving the development of Windsor Park football stadium and Ravenhill rugby ground. A Planning Service lawyer said that if the funds are not spent in time, …

Labour Party: “Making no progress on welfare has financial implications. It is not a cost-free choice…”

Pete Baker on September 25, 2014, 2:31 pm

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As Mick mentioned, the repeated attempts to blame the fallout from the Northern Ireland Executive’s deadlock on Welfare Reform on “the right wing Tory/DUP austerity agenda“, or “the British Tory Government“, or, more frequently, “a cabinet of Tory millionaires“, have been dealt a blow by clarification of the Labour Party’s position by the Shadow NI Secretary of State at the party’s conference. From the Irish Times report (23 Sept) The disagreement, said [Labour’s shadow Northern Ireland secretary Ivan Lewis], is “a denial” …

Lord Chief Justice Morgan: “Our system of government depends on mutual respect between the executive, the legislature and the judiciary…”

Pete Baker on September 5, 2014, 4:02 pm

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The BBC reports that, after waiting 8 months for a reply, Northern Ireland’s most senior judge, Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan, has made public a letter of complaint he sent to the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers about comments made by a NI Executive Minister in the Assembly. From the published text of the letter in the BBC report Dear Peter and Martin RULE OF LAW Regretfully, I am writing to you about comments made by a Minister …

“Run like a huckster’s shop” – Redux

Pete Baker on July 31, 2014, 2:35 pm

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[No change since June 2009, then? – Ed] Have there been any consequences…? A BBC report that the DUP and Sinn Féin have, belatedly, agreed the outcome of the semi-detached polit-bureau Northern Ireland Executive’s June budget monitoring round was met with understandable criticism from the other NI Executive parties. Justice Minister David Ford, who leads the Alliance Party, described the situation as “shambolic” while the Ulster Unionists and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) said they had been kept in the dark about …

Martina Anderson MEP: “and if the British government lifts its ban on Executive access to the EIB…”

Pete Baker on July 17, 2014, 7:49 pm

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No update yet from Sinn Féin on the meeting they chose to trail a couple of days ago between three of their MEPs, led by the Derry Northern Ireland representative, Martina Anderson, and “the Vice-Chairman of the European Investment Bank (EIB) Jonathan Taylor”. But let’s hope they were better briefed than the 15 July press release suggests, otherwise the only reaction is likely to be a rolling of eyes by Jonathan Taylor, Vice-President of the EIB, formerly Director General for Financial Services at …

OFMdFM “operating on a day-to-day basis, in the same way a chameleon changes its colour, reacting to its environment…”

Mick Fealty on June 27, 2014, 5:44 pm

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Dr Cathy Gormley-Heenan on the View last night, description of the two old Crumlin Road lags currently in possession of the Scottish Baronial splendor that is Stormont Castle (that’s OFMdFM to you and me): “They are very reactive to the temperature, the environment, the circumstances in which they are operating on a day-to-day basis, in the same way a chameleon changes its colour, reacting to its environment. If it is is unnerved or under pressure, it suddenly changes the way …

“Now meetings seem almost routine and we have dispensed with the fig leaf…”

Pete Baker on June 24, 2014, 6:57 pm

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Like boiling a frog… After the party’s opposition to her first truly historic official visit to Ireland, this week, on the third occasion of the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Fein’s forgetful Martin McGuinness, being presented to the UK Head of State, Queen Elizabeth II, the earlier pretence has finally been dropped. As Liam Clarke notes in the Belfast Telegraph In another sense, the Queen and Martin McGuinness may look back on how difficult that first meeting between them had been …

Martin McGuinness: “I mean I remember, I remember, I remember…”

Pete Baker on June 17, 2014, 4:06 pm

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Or not, as the case may be. Faced with evidence to the contrary, the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, has admitted that he was not, as he had claimed in an interview with RTÉ’s Marian Finucane, in Portlaoise prison when “Patrick Duffy was killed and his body secretly buried”. As the News Letter reports In a statement, [Martin McGuinness] said: “The facts are that I served a six-month sentence in Portlaoise jail in 1973 and another in …

HBO’s Michael Lombardo: “Belfast is not the most cosmopolitan of cities to spend half of the year.”

Pete Baker on June 12, 2014, 10:32 pm

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With so much of some Northern Ireland Executive ministers‘ time and effort [and other people’s money! – Ed] focused on exploiting the international success of HBO’s Game of Thrones to promote Northern Ireland overseas, it’s perhaps unfortunate, but refreshing, that HBO’s director of programming, Michael Lombardo, has given an honest answer to a straight question – as the BBC report here. From the New York Magazine’s Vulture blog The whole production seems so daunting that I didn’t know if an eighth book would …

Sinn Féin: “What happened was done with British cabinet approval…”

Pete Baker on May 13, 2014, 6:22 pm

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A few days ago on Eamonn Maillie’s blog, Brian Rowan gravely informed us that, rather than the wild paranoid ramblings of a party desperate to distract attention from their threat to “review” their support for policing if the Sinn Féin president, Gerry Adams, was charged as a result of the investigation into the abduction, murder and secret burial of Jean McConville in 1972, Sinn Féin’s latest outburst is evidence that “we’re not out of the political woods just yet.” The …

Matt Baggott: “Under the Patten architecture, to which all political parties have signed up…”

Pete Baker on May 6, 2014, 5:39 pm

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PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott has rejected Sinn Fein’s claims of “political policing” in the arrest and questioning of party president Gerry Adams. And in doing so he highlights an inconvenient truth for the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister. From the BBC report In a statement on Tuesday, Mr Baggott said the accusation of a “dark side” within the PSNI was one he refuted. “Under the Patten architecture, to which all political parties have signed up, there are numerous ways …