It’s bread and butter politics

FIRST Minister Peter Robinson claims that this will be the first set of Northern Ireland elections that deal with ‘everyday issues’.

On one level, our esteemed political commentators and pundits have been waxing lyrical about Peter’s implicit move to this stance as an indication of maturity from the DUP supremo, confident that the constitutional issue is resolved.

Amid pops at other parties, Mr Robinson – who once allegedly led men in berets up a hill – spoke about jobs, care for the elderly and generally issues that would accord him a position on the centre right if he was in any other country.

But Norn Iron is not any other country. Buckfast is regarded as a table wine in some parts, while less than a mile away only the finest Beaujolais will do; if riots were an Olympic sport we’d show Johnny Foreigner how to win a gold in throwing petrol bombs: yes Norn Iron is a wee bit different.

Only here would pictures of kids wearing balaclavas and toting AK47s appear in newspapers alongside wannabe fame babes and lifestyle columns. Only here would there be more Mercedes Benz and BMW’s per head of population than any other part of Europe, alongside soaring levels of child poverty.

So when Mr Robinson talks about everyday issues, he might care to remember that the vast, vast majority of the population has been getting on with everyday issues during the entire span of his political career.

The so-called bread and butter politics of health and social services, our segregated education system, community policing, creating jobs and manning the dole offices are the reality that never stops.

Like all the politicians standing for election, the DUP might care to speak to an electorate that has been less and less likely to make it way to the polling stations.

But then again seeing as there are three polls in one day perhaps we all just might turn out and vote on everyday issues. Now if only there was an everyday political party to vote for.

Questions, questions...

DEMOCRACY doesn’t come cheap. In fact it is damned expensive.

And we’re not talking about all that ballot box nonsense that rolls around every couple of years.

No we’re talking about the cost of answering questions MLAs pose of Executive ministers.

Minister for Health, Social Services and Public Safety Michael McGimpsey revealed – in answer to a written question - that written questions cost £300 to answer and oral answers cost £925 to answer.

It also emerged – in response to a written question - that 8,160 hours have been spent answering such questions. We were going to calculate all that out, but frankly our wee pocket calculator cannot cope with sums so big.

But it did come up with one answer we were initially confused with. At first we couldn’t understand the reading; we turned it this way and that, until we accidentally read it in the mirror. The answer it seems read like this: “This is the price of accountability”.

We wonder which ministers and which MLAs will be found accountable come May 5th.

He said that I said...

WELL sure we can be mates after the election, just joint mates. That sentence sort of paraphrases the offer by deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness to First Minister Peter Robinson that should Sinn Féin return the largest amount of MLAs they will offer to have the title joint First Minister in order that unionists don’t run away screaming at the prospect of having Marty as First Minister.

Leaving aside the fact that under some sort of agreement, some time ago in a past occupied by political anoraks and those with the time to give a stuff (apart from TUV leader Jim Allister, who always gives a stuff) the First and deputy First Ministers are coequals it is just a matter of titles.

Peter was canny in his reply – which translates as: “Even if it happens do you really think I’m going to contemplate answering that before the results are in?”

So, the real issue is whether the DUP will seize enough UUP votes, and Sinn Féin will seize enough SDLP votes to make it a close enough vote to at least be interesting.

As we write this we are now counting down to the real issue. With less than five weeks to go, is it long enough to get in the popcorn and sweeties, and create a nest in the home or office where you can watch the results flow in on the telly and power up the PC to pretend that you understand it all.

Because, rest assured you know just as much about it as the stuffed shirts who will be talking endlessly on the box – after all you are reading this right now and it isn’t even April yet!

All screwed either way

THERE are many regions around the world that have sectarianism, but few do it as well, with such fervour as here in Norn Iron. If it was an Olympic sport in 2012, we’d clean up.

It has been long known that there is an underclass of underachievers on both sides of the sectarian divide, peering across the peace wall in preparation for summer time riots.

Whether you bear the label of 'Prod' or 'Fenian' cast disparagingly along with other terms of abuse such as 'orange bastard', 'taig' or whatever, you can be sure that if you live in an interface area your life chances are worse than those in the ‘burbs.

The extent of Protestant underachievement was highlighted this week with a report into educational underachievement in Protestant working class areas.

Congratulations to East Belfast MLA Dawn Purvis and those around her for producing an analysis that brought into sharp focus what so many knew by anecdote for so long.

Here’s what we make of it. For a long time, unemployment rates in Catholic areas have been too high. In the interim unemployment rates in Protestant areas have been slowly creeping up. Now there is an aspiration deficit that affects those without an ambition beyond the dole queue or the becoming the next drug dealer.

Now that affect is being felt sharpest along interface and inner city areas, with those on the Protestant side showing a real malaise.

There have been a raft of Government pilot schemes, and the quotation of the week goes to Ms Purvis in calling for real action: “We’ve had more pilots than Ryanair!”

But only here in Norn Iron could the problem be so succinctly put in a sectarian way as when outgoing Education Minister Caitríona Ruane claimed that the problem was the fault of unionist politicians because they were retaining selection at aged 11.

Sure end that and the world would be a brighter place, with full employment for all!

Hey ho to elections we go!

SO here we are once more in the election playground, ready for the swings of the swingometer and the roundabouts of going round the constituency merry-go-round.

It barely seems like a year since we were last here, eagerly awaiting the fun and games that precede the casting of votes. In fact it hasn’t really been a year; for over six or seven months we have been a phoney war in preparation for the election campaign.

And what a campaign it will be - three votes on one day! Pundits have been sharpening tongues and gathering witty phrases, while radio phone-in presenters have been dusting down put-downs and promising to hold the politicians to account.

But, just hold on one minute. Before we all run away with ourselves, just what is at stake here?

There is the make-up of our local councils to start with. Yes, those august gentlemen and ladies who hope to attach the prefix of councillor to their name after May 5th, will barely be into post when they will be considering at what level they will be setting our rates, and generally agreeing which services to cut.

We then have the AV vote. Now, try not to doze off when someone mentions this, because it is important. Rest assured we’ll try to explain it later on in the campaign, but for now just understand that there is set to be fewer constituencies.

And so, we have the Assembly election. Those of you who have a wee bit of wit about yourselves may have noticed that over the last three weeks the Assembly has churned through a lot of legislation – in fact a veritable mountain of bills, orders and other assorted miscellany of government.

Which begs a question of the outgoing crop of members of the legislative assembly: what on earth have you been doing over the past year or so? It’s not as if you didn’t know this was all due to be done! You lot are worse than schoolchildren waiting until the day before an exam to do your revision!

But the real test will come on May 5th. No, it’s not whether the candidates will be elected on the strength of their achievements to date. Rather, it is which way the orange vote will fall, which way the green vote will fall, whether the middle ground vote will hold, but most of all, how many citizens will get off their rear ends and exercise their democratic right.

Welcome to Oirelaand El Pesidente

WELL the Shamrock has been well drowned and lo and behold El Presidente Obama is making the journey to the Republic of Oirishness.

Now will Barack take the next step and come north, where we used to associate the name Barack with the misspelled name of where security forces resided and paramilitaries used ‘barrack busters’?

And, should he nip across the border for tea and tiffins at Hillsborough Castle and a wee natter at the Assembly, then he would just be doing what the previous two incumbents of the Whitehouse have done.

But there is a slight problem - no crisis. If one tracks presidential visits over the past decade or so, they have mostly come at “crucial” points in Norn Iron politics. A timely visit from an actual, proper, statesman is seen as the order of the day to resolve the issue.

To ensure President Obama makes the wee jaunt north of the border, the challenge for our politicians is to get returned on 5th May and have an almighty row.
You’ll have to let the presidential aides know in advance, of course, but the actual row shouldn’t be a problem for our MLAs: most of them could start a row in an empty house.

In the meantime, genealogists in Ireland have discovered Barack has Oirish ancestors from Co. Offaly. This is the current ‘ancestral arms race’ going on between the Republic of Ireland and Norn Iron – to see whether north or south has had more presidents... So far Norn Iron is slightly in the lead but when the first Hispanic president is elected what are the odds that they’ll find his Mexican great, great Porta Rican grandfather met a man that sold him an Irish terrier...

Chill winds

IT emerged this week that almost half of Northern Ireland homes suffer from fuel poverty – that is a large proportion of their budget goes on heating their homes, with many unable to do so regularly.

Social Development Minister and self-proclaimed scourge of HM Treasury, Alex Attwood, has launched a £127m programme to replace old boilers and generally help out those facing the deep chill.

Now some have been less than enthused by the whole package but it raises a couple of issues.

First up, is this a minister that was really opposed to the budget. He got money for fuel poverty and abstained from the Budget vote. Surely the highly principled MLA had not been bought off?

Next issue is how did we get to this state of affairs? How did we end up with people living in a developed country that has so many people struggling with their fuel bills?

And finally, if Mr Attwood can get to meet the utility companies and oil suppliers so quickly, can he please pass on their phone numbers to see if we can cadge a discount too?

Oh fudge it, it’s the budget

WELL hurrah! Gosh darn it we have a budget for l’il ole Norn Iron!

After all the hullabaloo, backbiting and overall nastiness we have a NI Executive budget for the next four years.

Rest easy people because we now know just where the money will be spent…okay that’s a wee bit of a fib. We sort of know where it will be spent, and officials have been beavering away allocating the pounds, shillings and pence to various programmes.

But programmes are part of the picture. You see after all the fighting there is still a Programme for Government to be agreed post- May 5th. Take a deep sigh folks, because we have an election fight – already underway – and the rows over the Programme for Government.

We were watching the shenanigans over the budget row and a debate occasionally broke out.

It is hard not to feel a little depressed at the sheer predictability of the fights and shouting matches. Did anyone really expect mature, thoughtful consideration? Did anyone really expect our elected members to discuss in a calm, deliberate deployment of facts and figures?

So, what did we, the electorate learn from the debate that preceded the 67-31 vote budget approval?

Well, the biggest suspense was whether the UUP ministers would pack up their ministerial bags. Well, they didn’t. But by not voting they were in breach of the Stormont Assembly Ministerial code. Would Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness call on the Speaker to investigate? Would they be kicked out of office?

Of course not! If Michael McGimpsey or Danny Kennedy really expected the First Minister and deputy First Minister to give them more publicity through the process of investigation then it was a tactical error.

And, had they resigned it would have been seen as a futile gesture with barely three weeks until the dissolution of the Assembly.

On the other side of the row was it a tactical mistake to have such a public spat over health? Was the millions added to the health budget enough to stave off the very real picture of cuts to the frontline?

Ultimately the budget was a bun fight over cuts. As the Finance Minister Sammy Wilson was at pains to point out, cuts have to be made – end of story, no more debate.

Well apart from a couple of asides that are worth noting. Firstly, Social Development Minister Alex Attwood of the SDLP was not at the final vote – draw from that what you will but we cannot be bothered as boredom with the whole thing is now a wholesale malaise.

And, Sinn Féin are implementing cuts in Northern Ireland and fighting cuts in the Republic of Ireland – surely this is not an all-island approach.

Aperitif for the main course

CONGRATULATIONS to each and every TD who thinks they did well in the south of Ireland’s general election.

But, for political anoraks here the whole brouhaha was but an appertiser for the main course here in Norn Iron.

Heck, even the electorate in the south got it pretty easy – here voters will have to contest with two ballot papers and a referendum paper.

So that’s two, 1,2,3’s and a vote on 1,2,3’s that’s almost like our STV but is AV and is part way to PR.

If you’re a political anorak – or someone who pays attention when the news is on - all of that last paragraph will make sense.

For the other 98% of the population that translates as putting a ‘1’ on the ballot paper beside the one you want to be your assembly member and putting some other numbers by those who you don’t like but don’t hate as much as other people on the ballot paper. Some may call this tactical voting, but we didn’t come up the Lagan in a Bubble (for foreigners, or those from Bangor who got through passport control at Sydenham that means we in bountiful Belfast are not naive...).

Once you have decided who will be your MLA, you also get to choose who will be your councillor. Again you get to choose your favourite, then put numbers against those who aren’t quite favourite, those who are not too bad, and avoid those you don’t like at all. If this was any English shire or advanced state with real paved roads and running water such council elections would be fought on local issues, but this is Norn Iron...

As to the decision over whether we will get the proportional representation halfway house of the ‘Alternative Vote’ for Westminster, we will have to take a lie down in a darkened room before even thinking about that...

Well you can please some of the people...

THE old saying goes that you can please all of the people some of the time, but never all of the people all the time. And when it comes to Northern Ireland rest assured nobody is ever happy all of the time no matter how many times you try to please them.

And with so much at stake, you would have thought that the collective parties associated with this blighted and blessed patch of land would have brought together their wisdom, acumen and accumulated knowledge to bring home a budget to please at least some of the people, some of the time.

As they say in Belfast: “Aye right!” For those not fortunate enough to live in this most beautiful city, the phrase “Aye right!” represents more than a soupcon of sarcasm and a load of irony.

After the wrangling and bitterness surrounding the budget, it was finally agreed by the Executive yesterday (Thursday, 3 March) amid...wait for it...wrangling and bitterness.

Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson unveiled the budget plans with a degree of relish with plans for a special Assembly meeting today (Friday, 4 March). Now we are putting together this l’il old article ahead of the special Assembly meeting. And, it is without fear of contradiction that we can say there will be a certain amount of wrangling and bitterness.

This is also known as party politics, or electioneering.

Amazingly, for a man who proclaimed – and we paraphrase here – “we’re all doomed” a few short months ago, the Minister claims there now seems to be a wee bit of cash floating around the system.

Among those due for congratumalationwelldone accolades are the Land and Property Service, which apparently has gotten better at collecting our rates (local tax).

The result is that health and education are not quite as doomed as we thought. The Department of Employment and Learning is also getting some extra moolah. Pity the poor old Department of Social Development, which is losing £70m.

Of course, there are howls of disappointment and rants a plenty set for the coming months, but whether the Executive got it right, or whether the UUP and SDLP were right to vote against it at yesterday’s meeting of the Executive, we have a budget.

Now everyone gets to row about the detail and after the election fight about the Programme for Government.

Politics is such fun here. We can hardly contain ourselves!