Wednesday, July 30, 2008

The Friends of the Union Top 10

In what may or may not (depending on time and quality of material) become a regular occurence, I've collected and posted up my favourite ten articles by pro-Union bloggers and journalists over the last week.

So, in no particular order of quality or merit:

Friends of the Union Top 10

1. An interesting idea from the Half-Welshman
But it did occur to me that the Westminster government could make independence for Scotland automatically harder, should they wish to play silly bugg...people, by insisting that the status of Northern Ireland be included in negotiations as well.


2. Alex Kane rarely gets it wrong; he's happy with the Conservative/UUP developments...

3. ...as is, perhaps surprisingly, someone who I'd have previously described as being one of the Unionist Ultras, The Watchman:
But regardless of immediate paybacks, a coalition with the Tories would allow the UUP, under whatever title, to carve out a role for itself as a distinctively unionist party, in contrast to the latent Ulster nationalism of the DUP.


4. Charles Moore reckons its time to call the SNP's bluff and press hard for that referendum now.

5. Cicero, on the other hand, reckons it may well be indifference rather than outright antipathy which eventually kills off the UK.

6. Two happy posts in the row from Shane Greer and Mick Fealty in the Daily Telegraph's Brassneck blog. Maybe the latter is slightly exaggerating the likely effect of that merger, but hell, we could all do with a dose of unbridalled optimism at the minute...

7. ...in contast to Iain MacWhirter who in the wake of Glasgow-East, reckons we're all doomed, doomed (or at least heading for a federal state, which is basically saying the same thing)


8. Ignited provides an in-depth analysis (here, here and here) of how he sees the three main forces of Northern Irish Unionism developing in the short-term.

9. Iain Martin reckons the Scottish Tories are a pack of inept surrender monkeys.

10. Finally, Chekov's definition of UK Unionism.

With the Glasgow by-election and the UUP/Tory negotiations there is perhaps a Scottish and N.Irish bias there; hopefully you can remedy that in future by sending me your own English and Welsh favourites.
E-mail your choices, or simply put them down in the comments box.

4 comments:

Conquistador said...

So broadly speaking, are you for or against a UUP/Cons merger

O'Neill said...

I can understand the feelings of apprehension amongst both the rank and file of both parties, but I think it is the potential to be the best thing to have happened to N.Irish politics for a very long time.

Unionism, by the IRA giving up and by the SF, SDLP, the ROI's govt agreeing to the principle of consent, has won the *argument*. It now needs to move on and start building the same consensual, non-ethno/religious form of politics we see in most of the rest of the UK.

Anonymous said...

That's really useful, i'm not a blog fanatic (yet) and don't get the time to read many other blogs so its a good resource.

O'Neill said...

ignited
Anything decent you read, please forward it on!!