Turgonni

Author's details

Date registered: July 10, 2010

Latest posts

  1. A unionist pact to save education? — February 13, 2011
  2. Reflections on the Anglo Irish Agreement — December 8, 2010
  3. Thoughts on Robinson's Education speech — November 6, 2010
  4. Thoughts on Civic Unionism — October 8, 2010
  5. The Problems for GB Parties standing in NI – Labour and Lib Dems — June 21, 2010

Most commented posts

  1. Fermanagh and South Tyrone: why we lost — 29 comments
  2. Thoughts on Civic Unionism — 20 comments
  3. Defence in depth and time to attack — 13 comments
  4. Reflections on the Anglo Irish Agreement — 8 comments
  5. The Problems for GB Parties standing in NI – Labour and Lib Dems — 7 comments

Author's posts listings

Feb
13

A unionist pact to save education?

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by turgonni

turgonni examines the possibility of a Unionist pact where defence of the Education system, as opposed to defence of the constitutional link, provides common cause.

A couple of weeks ago Sam McBride had a very interesting piece in the News Letter about the possibility of removing Catriona Ruane as Education minister (link unavailable).

Sam’s main focus was the possibility that a unionist pact might be a mechanism by which she could be ousted. With a positive message: vote unionist not only for the union and the economy but to fix the education system it is just possible that a pact might yield results…

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1 comment

Dec
08

Reflections on the Anglo Irish Agreement

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by turgonni

Last month saw the twenty fifth anniversary of the Anglo Irish Agreement. Brain Walker had a far from unionist friendly analysis (unsurprisingly) of it over on Slugger. The same month in 1985 as the agreement was signed, the UUP and DUP mobilised one of the largest mass protests Belfast has ever seen against the Agreement; …

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8 comments

Nov
06

Thoughts on Robinson's Education speech

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by turgonni

By Turgon Many people have given their views on Peter Robinson’s now infamous speech on Integrated Education a few weeks ago. The reaction to the speech has been interesting if predictable. The speech itself, however, is one of the cleverest pieces of politics in the last number of years in Northern Ireland and marks the …

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6 comments

Oct
08

Thoughts on Civic Unionism

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by turgonni

By Turgon Civic unionism has been a concept much discussed recently: one of the major problems has been the definition of civic unionism. It can be seen as everyone who is not defined as a non civic unionist. Non civic unionists are often pejoratively labelled tribal, ethnic or otherwise “bad” unionists. Let me throw out …

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20 comments

Jun
21

The Problems for GB Parties standing in NI – Labour and Lib Dems

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by turgonni

The problems with the NI Tories standing or indeed with the CU alliance are possibly even greater for the Labour Party. Although Labour provided Northern Ireland with one of unionism’s favourite secretaries of state in Roy Mason, Labour’s official position for many years was a “united Ireland by consent” and under Kevin McNamara in the …

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7 comments

Jun
21

The Problems for GB Parties standing in NI – The Tories

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by turgonni

The major ideal at the heart of the CU project was that the alliance offered a way of offering people within Northern Ireland the opportunity to vote for a party capable of national government; a mainstream, mainland UK political party, in their case the Conservative Party. When some countered that the unionist party contained some …

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1 comment

Jun
03

Thoughts on Purvis's resignation and the PUP

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by turgonni

There has been much analysis of Dawn Purvis’s resignation from the PUP over on slugger. I will probably post this over there later but I thought it might be worth mentioning here. Purvis has been being lauded as a woman of integrity in multiple sections of the media with only Mark Devenport and a few …

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6 comments

Jun
01

It's not the economy: stupid

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by turgonni

Bill Clinton’s strategist James Carville famously coined the phrase “It’s the economy – stupid” for the 1992 US Presidential election. In the UK the issue of the economy has been seen as central to a party’s election chances for many years: making Labour trusted on the economy was one of Tony Blair’s greatest electoral achievements. …

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4 comments

May
08

Fermanagh and South Tyrone: why we lost

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by turgonni

I have mentioned my thoughts on the TUV and CUs over on slugger and will come to the DUP (and hopefully the others) in time. However, although I quoted Harold McCusker regarding the TUV (“I felt desolate because as I stood in the cold …..everything that I held dear turned to ashes in my mouth.”); …

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29 comments

Apr
21

Fermanagh South Tyrone: a time for unionists to unite

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by turgonni

Elections in Fermanagh and South Tyrone can be pretty grim affairs with the spectre of the sectarian head count never far away. There is a certain inevitability in this due to the relatively closely balanced sizes of the two communities and the fact that during the Troubles and indeed the Border Campaign, right back to …

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4 comments

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