Sainsbury's buys out the Northern Ireland Assembly

According to today’s Belfast Telegraph, the Chief Executive of Sainsbury’s, Justin King, is pictured with two new employees of the supermarket giant.

They are Mid Ulster MLA Billy Armstrong and South Belfast MLA Conall McDevitt. Another case of ‘double jobbing’?

See below picture to provide you with the hilarity of it all.

Source: Page 36 of the Belfast Telegraph's Business Telegraph, Monday 22 March 2010

Suitable replacement

WHEN it comes to finding a suitable replacement for Iris Robinson, it seems that one of the key criteria is the ability to get turfed out of Assembly debates.

Step forward one Jonathan Bell. Barely 12 weeks into being an MLA, he gets kicked out of a debate on preparatory school funding, after accusing Education Minister, Caitriona Ruane of ‘misleading’ the chamber.

Nice work Mr Bell, nice to see you’re keeping Iris’s record of ejections running. What next?

In the future we’ll all be nice

Wouldn't it be great if it was like this all the time?

NO matter the rows at Stormont, the rest of the population will, very soon, be nice to each other.


You see the First Minister and the deputy (joint?) First Minister have agreed on a cohesion, sharing and integration programme that will help us all shake hands across sectarian divides.


Among the planned initiatives are a welcome back from Orangefest (a.k.a. triumphalist march in July) at the Ardoyne Shops with massed ranks of bodhran players and a squad of slipper fitters for the tired feet of flute band drummers.


Also in the pipeline is an Easter Sunday address to Republicans (a.k.a. ex-terrorists/freedom fighters) by Presbyterian preachers delivering a sermon on the sanctity of rebellion and the theological basis for the Ancient Order of Hibernians.


Linfield will adopt a 50/50 player recruitment policy and The Sash will be sung at all Irish rugby international matches.


Meanwhile back in the real world…

Play nice!

OH dear! Maybe it’s about time planning was devolved down to local councils. After this week’s stormy Environment Committee meeting at Stormont, local councils seem havens of calm introspection.


And it was all over a planning application for some homes in a greenbelt area (where have we heard that on before?) that seemed not to meet some esoteric criteria but got the nod anyway.


Cue - indignation, hurled insults and general bad schoolboy behaviour. Whatever the record for interruptions is, committee members seemed to have eyed this as a possibility, so much so that three dots and ‘interruption’ will account for about 50% of the Hansard record, and that’s not counting the debate over waste!

Peelers, politicians and the Treasury

IT is with a complete sense of boredom that we report on another week without agreement on the devolution of policing and justice.

With thousands of air miles clocked up, the not-so dynamic duo of First Minister Robinson and deputy First Minister McGuinness continued their shuttling back and forth between Stormont and Downing Street.

It has now become impossible to count the times that devolution of the said powers has been close…Queen’s University, Belfast are opening a Masters Degree in Maths based around the probability theory on just how many times two people can talk about the same bloody thing. This will complement their advanced probability on the Executive ever agreeing on education…

Meanwhile Robinson and McGuinness were taking the deal to their parties. The former was consulting with ‘Executive colleagues’, demanding clarification and the wonderfully titled ‘Tory-proofing’. The latter’s party colleagues have all said no problem to the cash deal and plan.

While most of the population are thoroughly bored with this, it must be a matter of vexation for the First Minister. If he holds out a wee while longer, he can present himself as a tough negotiator…albeit one who takes a very long time to negotiate!

He wants to be able to fend off TUV attacks on the devolution of policing and justice…the old unionist ‘we’re harder than you are’ argument.

But therein lies the rub. Should Sinn Féin feel that they are being given the runaround, the temptation for them will be to collapse the Assembly and hold an election coinciding with the Westminster poll.

With the unionist vote split (at least) three ways in most constituencies, McGuinness must fancy his chances of gaining the First Minister monicker and ditching the deputy tag.

Meanwhile boredom strikes even the political hacks…

Expensive MLAs

SINCE the summer it has been a consistent theme – elected members expenses. Headlines shout scandal; radio phone-in shows have callers incandescent with fury…but please remember that it was all within the rules.

Yes, the refrain that is almost consistent, from MPs through to MLAs is that the expenses they claim were approved by the ‘office’ and that they did not break any rules.

Of course, the bankers who reaped the massive bonuses weren’t breaking the rules. The super rich who use sophisticated tax avoidance schemes aren’t breaking any rules.

But, just because you can claim something doesn’t mean you should.

MLAs are, of course, elected to represent their constituents. They hear their constituents woes on an ongoing basis - mounting debt, struggling to claim benefits entitlements, not getting the public services they deserve...

And, they complete their expenses forms all within the rules.

Thankfully this is a cross-community effort. All shades of political hue are grabbing their expenses claims to the max.

In fact, one might surmise that this has the hallmark of a wonderful scheme by the Equality Commission…

Except for the fact family members don’t have to face the rigorous interviews the rest of the civil and public service must tackle, nor fill in the ‘what community…’ declaration.

Mallon calls for reform of the Assembly

Seamus Mallon, the first Deputy First Minister of the current institutions, has called for the removal of the system whereby MLAs must designate as ‘unionist’ or ‘nationalist’ (or ‘other’ or ‘centre’). The system, meant to be a safeguard, discriminates against those who do not want to identify in such ‘tribal’ terms. Finding a replacement will not be easy however.