Grit your teeth

THERE is a seemingly stupid level of bureaucratic insanity that abounds in Norn Iron; at times it reaches levels of Kafkaesque surrealism.

Now that temperatures have reached heady heights of single figures in what can be described as a thaw the issue of gritting footpaths will fade from radio talkshows for now.

But let’s recap. The snow and ice left a wake of icy roads and footpaths. The Roads Service gritted as much as possible in damned cold weather. They said simply they could not afford to grit the footpaths. Some councils decided they could, others said they couldn’t.

For several days footpaths across Norn Iron were dangerous to those venturing out.
There was much disagreement over who would be liable over claims and a lot of confusing comments from local council spokespeople and Department of Regional Development.

As they were waffling on the airwaves and penning comment pieces in newspapers a simple fact existed – most footpaths were still treacherous to pedestrians, with no doubt the resultant increase in trips to A&E with fractures.

Over 12 days many footpaths were left ungritted. We restate that because there is obviously some form of sheer lunacy that renders grown ups incapable of picking up the phone, arranging a quick meeting.

And the agenda of that meeting should be very simple and clear – let’s agree a way to get the gritting done.

These grown ups prefer to look for an imagined claim for injuries that may or may not happen as a way of avoiding making a collective decision.

The only joined up government is the joint repairs of a pensioner waiting in a hospital ward for an operation after toppling on an icy pavement.

A sporting chance

HEAD of Sports NI Eamonn McCartan made a comment or two about why no 2012 Olympic teams have as yet booked their training camp in Norn Iron – citing the poor image of shootings and bombings.

This provoked more than a little ire from Ministers, who rushed to defend Norn Iron from such comments.

But we wanted to contribute to the push to get teams booking their flights to Belfast ahead of London 2012.

First off Afghanistan – the Royal Irish Regiment currently on duty could encourage the Afghan national shooting team to lay off attacks and come practice on our streets instead.

Next – we undertook extensive research (two minutes on Wikipedia) to check on the country with the highest murder rates. El Salvador claimed that dubious prize, so we could suggest their team comes to Norn Iron for some relative tranquility.

Then there is, of course, Russia. After them sparing us the gloating of English sports journalists for the next eight years by taking the World Cup away, we should offer them free facilities as well as plentiful supplies Buckfast and Poteen in exchange for some of their fine vodka. After all last week saw the first ever shipment of potatoes from here to Russia, and as they say one good turn deserves another...

I want to break free

HARRY ‘Mercury’ Hamilton has said goodbye to the Ulster Unionist party. Despite being the party’s Westminster candidate and grabbing 10,000+ votes the Upper Bann association chose not to offer him the Assembly poll ticket.

The renowned Freddie Mercury tribute singer this week announced he had resigned from the party, no doubt singing to himself:
“I want to break free
I want to break free
I want to break free from your lies
You’re so self-satisfied I don't need you
I’ve got to break free
God knows, God knows I want to break free...”

In response Party Leader Tom Elliott was heard to murmur: “Easy come, easy go...” and rhyming off Bohemian Rhapsody lyrics.

In Mr Hamilton’s public announcement of his resignation he said that would not reject a call from the Alliance Party, but as “Hanging on the Telephone” is a Blondie song he didn’t know the lyrics...

Sinn Féin’s poll rises

NOT only have Sinn Féin got another TD, but it appears that their poll ratings in the south of Ireland are rising.

We have thought long and hard over this – well three minutes, but we were waiting on the tea lady to deliver some char. And we’ve got it all figured out. And it goes like this.

Sometime ago a secret deal was struck. A cabal of senior politicos in Dublin agreed that they’d transfer Caitriona Ruane ‘up north’. In return we would transfer Gerry Adams to Louth. They accepted the difficulties attached to having the Sinn Féin leader in their patch, but it was a small price to pay for watching all the giggles and fun as Minister Ruane teased those ghastly grammar schools.

All we ask you to note is that with the onslaught on grammar school education, Ulster rugby has been eclipsed by its southern counterparts. Surely no coincidence!

Why we need wikileaks in Northern Ireland...

THERE is a culture in Northern Ireland that is both oppressively secretive and obsessively built on gossip.

Spend five minutes at any given political party’s annual conference and it all begins to resemble a Monty Python ‘nudge, nudge, wink, wink’ sketch...

Not that we are implying that there is a tendency for badly dressed men to wander around conferences seeking sexual favours from glamorous wives of stout Ulsterfolk (and if you’ve ever been to any of the party conferences you’ll see that glamorous wives and stout Ulsterfolk are very much in the minority!)

Instead we are merely pointing out that politics – especially in Northern Ireland – is a trade shrouded in the hints and half-truths that can disembowel (figuratively of course) political opponents, and even those within one’s own party.

What we need is a wide-ranging exposé of the secret communiqués between political allies and foes alike. Except that is that too few of them actually have anything genuinely interesting to say.

Seriously when was the last time when a politician in Norn Iron said something truly new and exciting (okay, we won’t mention the Robinsons if you won’t!).

Look or listen to any given debate, news appearance, radio call show, phone-in debate and you will not be able to say with your hand on your heart that you could not predict the robotic diatribe that is about to come out of their mouths.

Therefore, for those that are genuinely interesting – of which given the laws of probability there must be two or three – we need a wikileaks exposé of what their inner most secrets are. Heck, we’d even settle for a few of the MLAs slagging each off in colourful language!

Relax – it’s only tax after all

THERE’S been much talk about taxes this week that is just about to pass into last week. Much talk has been over the tax implications of the bail-out of the Republic of Ireland and the tax and cut budget.

Equally, Norn Iron has had tax on its political mind. First Minister Peter Robinson has said that he eagerly awaits the HM Treasury paper on rebalancing the local economy as he urged a reduction in corporation tax “up here”.

Before the mirth, here are the facts, as we selectively choose them much in the way that a management consultant may, or may not select such facts to suit their client’s needs.

First off, the rate of corporation tax in the UK (which, despite protestations from some, Norn Iron is currently part of) is set at 28%. Second, the rate of corporation tax in the Republic of Ireland is 12.5%. Thirdly, large companies, and even small ones employ accountants. Figure the relationship out for yourself.

The next fact is that Foreign Direct Investment – that Golden Goose Government so eagerly prostrates itself before – is dependent on more than the tax regime. After all it is also down to what Invest Norn Iron can con, sorry can do, to convince investors to make their way to our fair shores, laden with promises of jobs and hands out for handouts.

So why all the fuss about Corporation Tax? Said allegedly high UK rate has not as yet deterred the financial world building modern towers of Babel in London. If you were to believe bankers, it is only the threat of curbing bonuses that may threaten London’s pre-eminence in financial shenanigans.

We think there is a wee sneaky voice in most politicians advocating lower corporation tax in Norn Iron that occasionally whispers in the darkened night, when conscience creeps towards realisation that the wee voice is uttering just two words: “gesture politics”.

Why oh why did we choose this career path!

THERE comes a time in one’s life when one looks back over the successes and failures of one’s career and wonders whether it has all been worth it.

No, we’re not talking about donning a hair shirt, seeking spiritual enlightenment or devoting vast amounts of time to green gardening. We’re talking about why oh why we didn’t pursue a career in the law profession!

After all most solicitors with a few years under the expanding belts are worth a few proverbial quid. But then there is a cash earner on an entirely different level - the barrister!

Maybe, just maybe, we could have thrust aside scruples, pretended to read more than necessary, and become a barrister. Think of the benefits. The government pays you money, and loads of it.

No, we’re not talking about public sector money, we’re talking about cold hard cash for ‘LEGAL AID’! Sorry, but that required capital letters. After it emerged that in the past two years one barrister coined in £2m plus, four earned £1.5m plus, six earned £1m plus and 22 earned £500k plus from working on LEGAL AID cases. And they get to wear black capes and natty wigs too! Even Batman didn’t get the cool wig!

To recap – a group of people get paid a lot of money by taxpayers. And get to wear wigs, and get to earn money ‘freelancing’ in legal waffling (sometimes called giving an opinion...hey we’ve got opinions too!).

Of course, they’ve done nothing “wrong” or illegal in getting paid these huge, wheelbarrow sized wads of money. After all, it is the Legal Services Commission that sets the money that said barristers get for LEGAL AID cases. Oh, hold on a moment, it is the Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission. Which is different to the Legal Services Commission in England and Wales...

The Legal Services Commission seems, on the face of it, to pay barristers, QCs and other assorted wig wearing types a wee bit less than its Norn Iron counterpart. We could be wrong, of course, but goddammit this ain’t no court of law! Plus, after googling to try and discover who was a lawyer on the board of the Northern Ireland Legal Services Commission board and who wasn’t, and been denied access when we clicked on the ‘Members’ tag because we weren’t members, we gave up presenting any opinion before the court of public opinion...

But on a serious note, who let matters get to such a state where barristers coined in £60m in two years on legal aid cases? Surely it was the Government. Yes, and it wasn’t the Assembly. They only got to have a say in it recently and Mr Ford as Minister For Justice is putting a cap on all that and much more...or so he says.
So, has the heyday of bewigged barristers (when were they making hay while the country went to hell in a hand basket) now passed? Somehow we doubt it. After all for all the learned gentlemen and gentleladies of the law there only remains one phrase that needs to be translated into Latin: “There’s no justice, there’s just us!”.

On that note we are away to convince all children we know to become highly paid doctors or better still barristers...after all barristers get to wear wigs!

That’s a bit rich...

WE have been missing Caitriona Ruane! With all the talk of the economy and the doomed nature of Norn Iron plc there has hardly been a chance to mention the Minister for Education, and that seems a little unfair.

To redress the balance here’s a wee snippet. Your department pays for a new school wing. You are invited to open said school wing. Then you tell them they’ve got to mend their damned post-primary selection ways.

What? C’mon that seems a bit rich. We know that as Minister for “Every School a Good School” Education you could at least lay off what is patently a good school (St Dominic’s Girls Grammar, Belfast).

Ahh Caitriona we’ve missed your pithy rejoinders to all who challenge your world view. Although we do wonder whether we will see the school whose new wing you opened fall at your devastating logic and become all ability? Err, no, they had hundreds sit the entrance test to grab a place at this good school.

In through the out door

THE BBC has recently written an extensive article on the use of the word ‘progressive’ in the world of politics, citing old world progressive rockers ‘Yes’ as a means of introducing the article.

We have been wondering whether the ultimate blues, folk, rock, metal progressive act Led Zeppelin have had their album ‘In Through The Out Door’ playing in the Parsley household.

Ian Parsley announced last week that he has parted ways with Conservative Party in Northern Ireland. That comes about 18 months after he parted ways with the Alliance Party. That’s the Alliance Party that his partner Paula Bradshaw joined after quitting the Ulster Unionist Party, which was in a working arrangement with the Conservatives in the UCUNF project.

Mr Parsley eloquently outlined his position as had his partner in previous weeks.
Surely it is progressive that our politicians have such a progressive attitude to party membership that they can up political sticks on a regular basis.

Oh Owen, we love it when you talk tough!

SECRETARY of State, Owen Paterson has been talking tough. As the Peter and Martin air miles clock up again flying to London with begging bowl held out to HM Treasury, Owen has been saying where said begging bowl can be thrust!

Speaking on Thursday, he said a settlement was a settlement not the opening gambit in a negotiation.

Keen to point out that Norn Iron had already gotten a good deal and that Scotland and Wales had already set their Budgets, Mr Paterson called for an urgent agreement so as work can get underway on the NI Budget.

Mr Paterson may have visited this part of the UK/part of the island of Ireland/etc many, many times but he seems to have missed that old Belfast witticism that could be applied to any member of the NI Executive: “Sure, yer man would start a row in an empty house!” And against such a backdrop there ain’t much hope of agreement within the same party let alone across the varied political affiliations in the Executive. Much easier to extend the begging paw...

Next week: the First Minister and deputy First Minister guest write for the Big Issue, and flog copies across London.