Fit for nothing!

ON Thursday evening, as we prepared to down tools and set off for a nice refreshing cup of tea, we perchance took a glance at the BBC Northern Ireland ‘Politics’ web site - nearly choking with laughter.

The reason? Headline number one from Tuesday: “Views sought on fit for work tests”.

Headline number two from Wednesday: “People have say on Assembly shape.”

Well should the people ever have a say on whether the Assembly was fit for work there would a collective intake of breath from our MLAs and a sudden urge to do something, anything!

Of course the fit for work consultation is an examination of whether the Employment and Support Allowance scheme is actually protecting those who need support and encouraging those who can work get back into suitable employment.

The consultation on the Assembly is from Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, who wants to know whether we should have less MLAs, end double-jobbing (weren’t we meant to be doing that already?), extend the term of the Assembly and develop an opposition.

We suspect that there will be pretty much the same group of people interested in these consultations: people with too much time on their hands over the summer – MLAs.

While there remains question marks over the Employment and Allowance Scheme because of the amount of decisions overtaken on appeal, the last time the Social Development Minister asked the public what they thought he said there were not enough responses (you might think that this an attempt to keeping consulting until he gets the answer he wants, but we couldn’t possibly…).

On the other public consultations we immediately thought that this is a case of, you’ll excuse the cliché, turkeys voting for Christmas. What MLA in his right mind (okay few are, but leave that point to one side) would vote to put his seat at severe risk and what double jobber with expense accounts brimming will put aside the extra cash and ego-boosting benefits of being an MP and an MLA aside.

Of course some have done so, and some will say they intend to without compulsion, but we should really thank Mr Paterson for advancing this debate to yet further ends of political tedium.

Reform of the Assembly will require all sorts of jiggery pokery, which may, or may not be aided and abetted by boundary changes. And any further promised change will need primary legislation in Westminster: something not on the cards as the Tory and Lib Dems plunge headlong into their coalition electoral death pact.

The pity is that any review of the Assembly will attract little public interest outside the political classes and the rant-a-thon radio shows. There is a serious dearth of consideration of how the big decisions are made, what can be made and who should make them (in general, not party specific).

As another series of the vacuous and the vain Celebrity Big Brother kicks off with vapid deluded viewers glued to the antics of the few, as children are brought up to a diet of stupidity and 15-second cultural attention-span twittertainment, where will be the concerted effort to respond on the future of the Assembly before 23 October?
Pass on this link: http://www.nio.gov.uk/nio_consultation_on_measures_to_improve_the_operation_of_the_northern_ireland_assembly.pdf and encourage as many people as possible to respond.

We doubt that you will find many takers as they are too busy…

This consultation will end about two weeks before the Presidential Election in the Good Ol’ US of A – where despite any reservations about American politics, it at least has an energy around political debate that we can only look at with envy.

£22m for some of the ‘pop’ music thingy

WE do confess that our idea of pop music ended when that New Romantic phase in the 80s replaced the energy of punk – thus when the MTV Video Music Awards came to Belfast last year we noted that some lady who was Ga Ga arrived with a teen pre-pubescent young soul called Bieber.

Who would have thunk it then that Ms Ga Ga, young Mr Justin and Snooze Patrol could have generated £22m for Belfast. Turns out that the rocking in Belfast last November might just have been the resounding clatter of cash registers as hoteliers giggled with glee and speciality caterers arrived with all the blue MM’s removed from the platter. (This is a music related ‘rider’ joke associated with the demands of pop stars, or so we are assured by one of the more hip and trendy members of our staff!)

It is quite remarkable that the Belfast City Council can generate this type of figure and have it carried in the media with such delight – we reckon the true benefit from the MTV Video Music Awards may be much higher.

Cynical souls such as us are used to knocking incompetent spending and lack of decision-making associated with local politicians that we have had to take a step back and actually say ‘well done’ to this rare piece of good marketing. And at £840,000 it is cheap at the proverbial price. Added to that the Titanic centenary, the golf marketing and Game of Groans – sorry Thrones – it does seem that if nothing else Norn Iron is getting a wee bit more positive coverage with all the associated tourism benefits.

How much of that £22m will translate into ongoing success remains to be seen, but we do, sincerely hope that should another massive event such as the MTV Video Music Awards come to town two things will be put right: firstly the fawning local media will not go into hyperbole mode for global stars while ignoring local talent the rest of the year; and secondly that our antiquated licensing laws won’t tell the visiting celebs that the only parties we have here are political parties.

Politics has been cancelled

IT is now official, politics has been cancelled due to lack of interest. With Norn Iron Olympians standing higher in the medal table than those in many larger regions, collective euphoria and wall-to-wall coverage, there is no point in pretending that there is the slightest chance of intelligent political discourse. Then again in Norn Iron intelligent political discourse is an oxymoron.

The economy may be going to hell in an Olympic-sized handbasket, Syria may be disintegrating into ever more bloody civil war, and mankind has landed a rover on Mars but it all matters not a bit as long as we have boxers and rowers on the medal rostrum.

However, should rioting, and anti-riot policing ever become an Olympic sport we are in with a good shout of a medal, so long as it doesn't go to the (CC)TV camera footage to decide the winners and losers...

But when the medals are in the trophy cabinets and the civic receptions all concluded, will there be an Olympic legacy for Norn Iron.

With austerity still wrestling like a competitor struggling back into their tracksuit, and threats of cuts, cuts and more cuts, will there be any spare change left for community sports facilities, coaching and will our leisure centres, home to so many grass-roots Olympians, be saved from the local council axes?

There has already been a commitment from sports minister Caral Ní Chúliann that boxing will be given more support. However, the real legacy will be a generation inspired to get off their fat rear ends and actually do something rather than stare at vacuous rantings on computer screens (editor's note: we're going for a brisk walk as soon as we've finished this vacuous rant...).

We can only hope that our politicians and the civil servants who stalk their every move can also get off their bloated egos and over-sized rear ends and actually do something: the 100metre dash to the division hall, the 800m race to pass some legislation and the triathlon of imagination at solving whatever crisis there is this week.

Warning – Armed Minister

CRITICS be warned – Health Minister Edwin Poots has a gun and ain’t afraid to use it. Yes, the Minister for Health, Social Service and Public Safety took up arms to fire his shotgun in the air to warn off intruders.

Given the spate of rustling and theft of farm machinery, this was no doubt justified. However, had he aimed his weapon and achieved a hit with the buckshot then he could have called an ambulance and called the A&E department warning them to fast track the case.

But we believe that Minister Poots actions could set a new precedent for arming our Ministers. While this may make a certain tubby radio presenter a little bit nervous, it would also make meeting ministers interesting. “Yes, Minister for Social Development we do want more funding….Hold on! Is the safety catch off that shotgun!”

Perhaps more interestingly it would make sure that civil servants would be a little more respectful of their ministers. “Yes, Minister, now if you’ll lower that shotgun I’ll make sure the work is actually done this time.”

On a more serious note, it does highlight the issue that gun control is being reviewed in Northern Ireland, and given the events in Aurora, Colorado last week, we can be thankful that even a Minister has to make sure he has the appropriate approvals and controls on owning a weapon; otherwise who knows what may face farmers when rustlers appear.

So what did you do over the summer?

IT’S that perennial classroom question; please write 500 words on what you did over the summer. Normally MLAs would struggle with beyond “bit of constituency work, and a break in the sun”.

Not so our intrepid, nay our dynamic duo of Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness. The First Minister and Deputy First Minister have been busy wee beavers.

Shed off the burden of fellow Executive Ministers and the noose of nagging Assembly members, the Peter and Martin show cranked up the revs and put the boot to the floor.

In a single press release, the pair managed to cover 10 issues. Yep – where normally a press release issued by any arm of government struggles to exceed 10 paragraphs, this ode to decision-making rattled off decisions galore. Mind you, given that the last decision announced in the release was a review of the Executive Information Service this might just be a weird efficiency drive…

First up was the news that the Maze/Long Kesh former jail site was to be – well work was to finally start on the site. Well not actually any more work because they need to appoint a chair and a board to develop the development board’s work.

On the topic of the post-conflict something or another, there will now only be one Victims’ Commissioner. Where once there were four, now there are three and soon there will be one.

Anyone with a sense of irony may remember the toll taken by debates, court shenanigans and time wasted around the appointment of the four victims commissioners may pause to reflect that if the MLAs and Ministers concerned at the time had an ounce of wit then a lot of money could have been saved. But maybe all it took was a summer when we didn’t let the First Minister and deputy First Minister away with their bucket and spade.

Also flagged in the release was the appointment of a chair for the ILEX Board, which if you’re not from Derry/Londonderry then you will not understand what this is. And if you do, you get bonus points for your next political essay.

Still with us here – because there was a lot more to the succinct release, but we assure you that Ministers must be shuddering with horror at the agenda of the Norn Iron Executive’s first meeting after the summer holidays on September 3. Because Peter and Marty will be turning in one hell of an agenda based around what they’ve been up to.

One the agenda will be – based on this release – the Education and Skills Authority Bill. A bill designed to wind five education and library boards up, together with the Catholic Council for Maintained Education along with a host of other services. This stalled piece of the Review of Public Administration has, with no sense of saving any money been costing taxpayers millions, but may eventually save us all a total of £2.50 over coming millennia.

[Pausing for breath…] We also read with the delight that the Social Investment Funds are to finally to dive into action sometime soon, with some eejits volunteering to spend government money and then be accountable as to why they tried to spend it but government red tape wouldn’t allow them to spend the money.

There was also a non-announcement in the release around the Welfare Reform Bill. Social Development Minister, Nelson McCausland, has been at pains to say he’s trying to soften the blade of the Tory cuts axe in welfare reform after a series of rather public criticisms. But just in case anyone hadn’t listened to the many questions he has answered and the many public interviews on it.

Peter and Marty reassured us that the Executive is hard at work to “ameliorate the harsher elements of the Westminster Legislation”.  Now, as fans of Plain English we quickly clicked on “ameliorate” in our Word processor synonym function. It said that synonyms of “ameliorate” included “improve, restructure, revolutionise, reorganise, modernise, rearrange, upgrade…” We then checked our Collins English Dictionary, which said “ameliorate” could be defined as “to make, or become, better”.

Now take that sentence from the press release:  “ameliorate the harsher elements of the Westminster Legislation” and instead of “ameliorate” insert any of the words in the paragraph above. Are the Ministers suggesting we are to improve those harsher elements to make them harsher still? Are they going to make sure they are going to be better at being harsher? Will they be re-arranging the harsher elements into little bundles of harshness? Or is there a plan to modernise these harsh elements so as they have new little shiny suits of harshieness.

You may think that we are belabouring the point [Editor – you are belabouring it!], but, where normally the Executive is purposefully vague this seems to be picking a word at random in the hope it means what you think it means. When dealing with a benefits system affecting thousands of households one would have thought a wee bit of thought would have went into the language.

One would have also thought that Peter and Marty would have been rather pleased with themselves that while locked in a darkened room with only cold pizza and orange juice and lime juice (see what we did there…) they had cracked the thorny issue of the Cohesion, Sharing and Integration Strategy.

You remember that one about all being cuddly and nice to each other, not offending anyone which pissed off the Alliance Party? Yeah the CSI strategy (Cuddly, Sugary, Icky Strategy) has now managed to annoy Ulster Unionists. Now if CSI can also infuriate the SDLP, TUV, Green Party and David McNarry then it will be neither Cohesive, Sharing nor Integrated. Peter and Marty can shrug their shoulders and congratulate themselves as being more direct rule than direct rulers.

The final announcement in the list of announcements was re-structuring government with fewer ministers and less MLAs. That’s a row that has already started with speculation over DEL’s demise and one ripe for hissy fits and nervous MLAs. To be frank we can’t wait!

Schools out!

Schools out!
SCHOOLS may be closed for the summer hols, but the Education Minister has published plans by the education boards to close some schools permanently.

But, and we suggest you all do this, have a go at reading the boards’ area plans. Somewhere within these voluminous documents you will find details of closures and mergers. If you are very patient.

However, what we really, really cannot wait for is the return of the Assembly in September. Then we are likley to see a spectacular outbreak of NIMBYism as MLAs suddenly decide that the Executive’s budget be damned they want to be seen to support their own neighbourhood’s failing school...

The God (P)article
LET’S make sure they do this right. At Cern, Switzerland, we have discovery of the elusive Higgs Boson particle, helping to complete the standard model of particle physics. Sometimes it is called, erroneously, The God Particle. Here in Norn Iron we have THE GOD ARTICLE.

Yes, it has to be all in capital letters, and it is an article of faith that any given news story will seek firstly an angle to do with religious divide. Helpfully, a few dozen idiots on both sides provide a summer of occasional recreational rioting along traditional parade routes/sectarian flashpoints.

Then we have The ‘Health’ God Article where doctrines of faith, belief, theology and biblical quotations rain down on issues such as abortion and blood donation from gays. Here any debate is couched with secularists accusing the Minister of pursuing a religious angle (we’ve looked but there is scant reference to blood donation in the bible…) and of an (un)holy alliance of Roman Catholics and Calvinists against any change in the abortion laws.

In education, The God Article applies to our wonderfully diverse educational system that can have four different types of schooling systems running – supposedly – the same curriculum.  While there are moves to ‘shared education’, they have been developing very slowly and veer well away from integrated education.  The churches seem somewhat averse to having their young congregation members hear what the other side of The God Article believes.

And then we have the creationist side of The God Article. One must have supposed that after the furore caused by the National Trust’s judicial review of the proposed golf resort near the Giant’s Causeway that the DUP and some of its associated churches would be appeased the Trust’s reference to the creationist interpretation of how the basalt columns at the Causeway were formed.

What a miscalculation…

Social media exploded with multiple Tweets slamming the inclusion of the Creationist interpretation. Luminaries of the science world visited a Moses-like wrath using social media.  The man the religious love to hate, Richard Dawkins, is quoted in today (Friday’s) Belfast Telegraph alongside the media darling of physics, Professor Brian Cox. This may be one foe even the Caleb Foundation (who worked with the National Trust to have creationism mentioned in the new Causeway Centre) cannot hope to defeat.

Good looks, and multiple BBC TV series against stunning scenery and epic musical accompaniment. Prof Cox could be the tipping point to the final confirmed discovery of The God Article in Norn Iron, an elusive Article that requires the media to find a controversy whether there is one or not and a minister (religious or political) can be found to go on the radio.

70-up club
NEVER mind 7-up, we have amongst our MLAs the wonderful 70-up; not a carbonated soft drink, but a club of 40 MLAs who have expenses of more than £70,000 last year.

Of these 10 are in the exclusive £80,000+ club of expenses claims.

These expenses are for establishing and running offices in their constituencies, including staffing and travelling. Is this the price of democracy more than £1m in expenses plus salaries and the cost of running Stormont’s Big House on the Hill? With a minimum salary of £43,101 per MLA it brings into focus the value for money provided by the Northern Ireland Assembly. And this week the MLAs delivered big time on that value for money.

Five pieces of legislation were debated on Tuesday (3 July) and two pieces of legislation on Monday (2 July). Some of these concerned minor amendments to existing legislation.  But rather than take a cheap shot (as if we would!) at the Norn Iron Executive (cramming its work into the last days of term like a recalcitrant schoolchild), we should acknowledge that weeks and months of torturous negotiation and horse trading were doubtless required to get the legislation across the line and on to the floor of the Assembly. A remarkable feat when you consider five very different parties are involved in this painful process.

Here Comes the Summer!

YOU may not have noticed it with the torrential downpours and grey skies, but the summer's here and, to paraphrase those Derry punk scamps, The Undertones, it’s time for our MLAs to get out and find out what fun is about!

This is the last week when the Assembly sits, the last week when they plenary session gets to debate stuff they can't really change or do anything about, the last week when committee chairs can frown in indignation about some ministerial cock up or another.

There are but two plenary sessions and a clatter of committee meetings before the Assembly summer recess. Travel agents are circling like vultures ready to seize the wary MLA who has to yet make a booking to get the hell out of here before the recreational rioting season kicks in...

We may (or may not) paint an unfair picture of the fact that the MLAs are getting an eight-week break to run alongside the Easter, Christmas and other assorted leave days in their school-term-time only schedule. What passes for reality is that some MLAs will man their constituency offices ready to help their constituents and calculate the loss of mileage claims while not going to Stormont.

The business of government will also continue with a duty roster of Ministers and their spokespeople on hand to deny any knowledge of any problem to avoid an on-air spat with Stephen Nolan.

While we too will be offering this column a break over the summer, we will be monitoring the machinations in the monsoon-like conditions, keeping a weather eye on MLA pronouncements and making sure no consultation goes unconsulted on for our clients new and old.

The boss will keep driving us on like slaves constructing public affairs pyramids to achieve real change...

Glad that's all over!

WON'T it be nice to get down to some normal Norn Iron rowing and fighting for a while! Last week was extraordinary by any standards.

Floods, royals, golf and banking meltdowns - you get one in a few dozen years and then four come along at once...

Peter and Marty - our statesman-like dynamic duo of First Minister and deputy First Minister had the hands shaken off them by Her Maj and a squad of golfers, while Sammy Wilson opened the Department of Finance and Personnel's wallet for flood victims’ emergency relief and nobody could do anything about the Ulster Bank's lack of money for its customers.

But fear not! There was still some slagging to be done. Under fire were Danny Kennedy and his Department of Regional Development trying to excuse away the poor phone response to unseasonal downpours and backed up drains and sewers, and at the same time there was criticism of the golf. Yes, have you not heard? MLAs are demanding an investigation into the failure of golf training standards across Norn Iron. Apparently being one of the top golfing destinations in the world, having a trio of US Open and Open winners plus a clatter of other top flight stars from Norn Iron is not good enough. If an MLA cannot get their picture taken with a home town winner at the home town event then something's going wrong. We expect the First Minister and deputy First Minister to face questions in the house about this failure!

[Credit to Belfast Telegraph for picture]

Hush now baby don’t you cry…

JOURNALISTS were today seen openly weeping over their keyboards, news editors punched walls and headline writers were losing sleep – all because the Assembly is considering a secrecy law.

Yep, the Assembly is considering a proposal to make it a duty of MLAs to respect confidentiality, otherwise known as a ‘shut the hell up’ duty.

Prompted by the leaks over NI Water and other reports also ending up on desks of journalists, MLAs could be asked to sign – in blood hopefully – a confidentiality clause. This would mean that the days of journos carousing around newsrooms after seeing the latest leaked document will be over.

No more will MLAs struck by their conscience at seeing another cock-up, hand the dirty files of corruption and mismanagement over to be exposed in the cruel gaze of the general public.

Instead the executive departments will be able to sanitise the reports, redact the key points and protect ministers, party colleagues, civil servants, public servants and others from the spiteful spotlight of public disapproval.

There, is of course, an upside to all this. It might dry up the shock jockeys prompting the great unwashed to ring their radio shows with ignorant rants about them folks up on the hill.

Ministers will able to carry out their business in quiet discussion, while committee meetings will increasingly be in private. MLAs will able to do their deals and their horse trading in the safe knowledge that wrongdoing, mismanagement and poor administration can dealt with on the quiet, before stepping into the public and enjoining in the usual tribal slagging matches.

Eye On The Hill

Fracking golfers!

OH for frack sake there is a time and a place for over-reaction: it’s when your football team crashes out of the European championships because they’re awful or because the referee hadn’t gone to Specsavers.

For more than 40 years over-reaction has been the stock in trade of Norn Iron’s political classes, but we all thought they’d have left that behind. Think again suckers because over-reaction is back and it is kicking up a fine storm.

First we had the aul’ will ‘e or won’t ‘e palaver about whether or not deputy first minister Martin McGuinness would shake the hand of Her Maj (nobody seems to have asked Her Maj whether she wants to shake Marty’s hand) which caused collective Sinn Féin apoplexy and unionist reciprocal fury.

Next up we had fracking – to those who still think this is a swear word, it is a bastardised word for hydraulic fracturing; the means by which the “unconventional” gas industry a extract shale gas from the ground.

This week the Co-Op showed a film questioning whether fracking was a good thing or not. Cue for minister for enterprise, trade and investment Arlene Foster – normally a sure footed politician – to pen off a missive which was not complimentary at all about the Co-Op and the film called ‘Gasland’.

In terms of over-reaction questioning the ethics of an institution that is an ethically investor scores high on the over-reaction scale, perhaps higher than the richter scale than last year’s earth tremors near Blackpool, allegedly caused by fracking.

But the over-reaction scale went through the rant-ometer rating when the National Trust, that radical left-wing Trotsky-ite revolutionary garden club, had the temerity to launch a legal challenge about a golf resort on the north coast, less than one-mile away from the entrance to the Giant’s Causeway.

Finn MacCool must be threatening a comeback at the prospect of more golf courses on the north coast…well we think that was the basis of the National Trust’s legal challenge, but we may be mistaken.

That the National Trust challenged this development, which has been the subject of planning controversy for 12 years or so, provoked a stereotypical backlash.  These included dark murmurings about the fact that the Trust had gotten Government grants towards a new visitor centre and development of facilities at the Giant’s Causeway, mutterings about biting the hand that feeds and the need for golf to relieve the stress rich businessmen and well healed tourists during the worst recession in living memory. We beg to differ on that last point, we know a great granny whose living memory extends to the Great Depression of the 30s, the current recession hasn’t even been given capital letters yet.

We do wonder at this over-reaction by the DUP in particular to this lawful challenge by the National Trust to a decision made by an SDLP minister. Let’s face it, the Giant’s Causeway will be here long after Rory McIlroy retires from the Senior Golf Tour.