Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

In his Our Kingdom review of the book ‘Irish Protestant Identities’ Arthur Aughey quotes Tom Hennessey, writing about Ulster protestant identity and the frequent accusation that Ulster protestants (being mainly unionists) are confused as to their identity, “‘Understanding Protestant identity in Northern Ireland’, he concludes (p256), ‘seems less a case of Ulster Protestants being confused about their identity and more a case of confused academics’. Diversity lies in the fact that there are not ‘one, two, three, or no nations within the Ulster Protestant community, but clusters of regional and national identities’”. Of course the book’s subject matter is specifically Irish protestant identity, but Hennessey’s formulation is true of identity in general and in particular British identity. In the United Kingdom, citizens are able to give expression to a ‘cluster’ of regional and national identities. That is one of the strengths of unionism and Britishness, although nationalists claim th...

With its energy dispute with Ukraine yet to be resolved Russian gas giant Gazprom has reduced pressure in pipes transiting Russia's near neighbour. The Ukrainians owe $2 billion of unpaid bills, part of which they claim had been remitted through a Swiss intermediary last year. In addition Ukraine’s negotiators refuse to agree the country should pay even half the rate which western European nations are paying for Russian gas. Predictably the Telegraph has decided to harangue Vladimir Putin for invoking ‘commercial considerations to cover a nakedly political act’ (no matter that Putin is no longer even responsible for foreign policy). Has there been penned a more telling distillation of the Russophobic hypocrisy flourishing in both British and American media? It is expected, not only that Russia should express no interests whatsoever in its own immediate backyard, but that it should simultaneously grant preferential rates to its neighbours! Furthermore, this bizarre logic shou...

Peter Robinson has demonstrated how bare faced cynicism characterises his party’s attitude toward the Union, boasting that the government has ‘bent over backwards’ to help the DUP after it traded its votes on 42 day pre charge detention. Despite the bill’s subsequent defeat in the House of Lords, despite the fact that its necessity has been repeatedly discredited by top authorities in counter terrorism, despite the manner in which it attacked freedoms basic to the UK’s constitution, the Democratic Unionist leader also insists that his party ‘did the right thing’ and acted as a ‘responsible party’. Robinson might frame his comments carefully and contend that Labour has been rewarding his party for ‘responsibility’, but let’s call a spade a spade. The DUP blackmailed Gordon Brown and extracted a batch of concessions which it is understandably reluctant to disown. It showed blatant disinterest in a crucial issue effecting the whole United Kingdom which pertained to its very constitut...

“It is time unionists abandoned the ridiculous old defensive reflex that impels them to reject new ideas on principle.” With no apparent sense of irony this is how Susan McKay concludes a lightsome article about the NIHRC’s report. No matter that her own diatribe singularly ignores the substance of unionist argument and rather revisits the sneering brand of condescension toward unionism on which Ms. McKay has built her career. Her opening gambit forms a prolonged attack on Lady Trimble for her ’pompous’ use of the word ’outwith’. Why the use of a legal term, by a woman with a legal background, specifically employed in consideration of a legal document should cause McKay so much angst is not immediately clear. What is clear, is that the columnist is on surer ground formulating ad hominine attacks than considering whether the NIHRC actually did stick to its remit. For those of you who haven’t been paying attention, that is to examine whether there is scope to define rights, supplement...

Writing on the Guardian politics’ blog today, Toby Helm implies a degree of nervousness on the part of Tory academics who propound the communitarian vision of conservatism which provides such an attractive alternative to Labour’s statist ethos. His contention is that in differentiating Conservative policy on the financial crash from the massive programme of borrowing which Gordon Brown believes is necessary to restimulate the economy, a perception has arisen that David Cameron is reneging on the vision of social responsibility which has paved the way for a Conservative revival. Perhaps sensitive to such criticism, Cameron has reiterated his commitment to the principles which his new conservatism promises. His New Year message states, “…far from dropping our green agenda because of the recession, we will this year step up the pace because leadership on the environment will help create the jobs, wealth and opportunity Britain needs. Far from dropping our commitment to make British p...

As a reader of fiction I am immediately suspicious of clever narrative devices. When it became obvious that Aravind Adiga’s Booker Prize winning novel, ‘The White Tiger’ , comprised correspondence between a Bangalore businessman and the Chinese premier, my cynicism immediately heightened. It is testimony to Adiga’s deft touch that Balram Halwai, his narrator, unfolds a tale of ambition and murder which dispelled all doubt and held me enthralled to its conclusion. Halwai is an ambitious, able village boy who manages to bridge the gap between two symbiotic but diametrically different Indias. One is an emerging economic powerhouse, fuelled by American outsourcing and represented by gleaming cinemas and shopping malls. Its counterpoint is the rural ’darkness’, squalid, impoverished, filthy; teeming with the homeless and sick. In the gridlocked streets of Delhi these two countries merge and it is the cleavage between them that provides the motor for Adiga’s novel. The narrator escapes...

The rather monocultural shape which the SNP’s ‘Homecoming Scotland’ year seems to be assuming has been previously investigated by O’Neill (from whose article I have shamelessly pilfered the above image). From the outset it was clear that a rather kitsch reading of Scottish identity (which is after all particularly prescient for many nationalists) would predominate. In their defence one might posit that it is just such an interpretation which might chime most readily with ex pat tourists at whom the initiative was purportedly aimed. Shane Greer , however, alleges that the Scottish Executive has briefed its chosen ad agency to promote the event only in Scottish publications. This seems a rather strange strategy to adopt if the aim is attracting visitors from around the world. Greer deduces that from the outset the year of homecoming was aimed merely at stoking sentimental nationalism amongst Scots voters before the proposed independence poll in 2010. It might however have been sup...