What shape the NI Executive?

ACCORDING to two parties, the Norn Iron Executive (that is our powersharing cabinet) was a dysfunctional trading floor, where bullying and stitch-ups were the norm.

At least one other party wants to reform it, for what appears to be singular self interest.

But, realistically, what cabinet is not dysfunctional, made up of compromise and occasional ill-will? We only need to reflect on the Tory/Lib Dem cabinet to see it in action in Whitehall, and cast your mind back to Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher’s tenure at Downing Street, and the various biographies show that she had to compromise with the ‘Wets’ no matter what might have been said by the Iron Lady in public.

So, realistically, barring a total meltdown in the vote of the UUP and SDLP, it will be a cabinet where Sinn Féin and the DUP carve up the issues they agree on, fight on ideological issues, ignore junior parties and hand out money to the justice budget whenever David Ford creases his beard.

Given the recent attacks and murder of Constable Ronan Kerr, a dysfunctional, rowing Executive may be a price worth paying.

Media confused but battling on as usual

YOU cannot get moving across the mainstream media broadcast channels and the acres of newsprint without seeing a political analysis. You can at least switch off the party political broadcasts, but BBC, UTV and the main three daily papers are crowded by politicians and pundits.


But there is an element of confusion appearing in the coverage.

The more enlightened (or naive) journalist wants to talk about health, education, water charges or other ‘proper’ political topics. Talk shows on the radio are even devoting hour long specials on these.

In the meantime, McGinty’s goat is sure that as long as you pin the right rosette on him close to election he’ll get voted in.

Phoney campaign over

THE phoney war may be over, and the jabs and punches being thrown since the May election last year have been merely a prelude to a full-on conflict.

But we need to be clear. This is a truly sectarian vote. Before you find a high horse to mount while muttering about a new Northern Ireland and the return of normal politics, hold on a moment.

It is sectarian in terms of the unionists trying to take votes off each other, and the nationalists trying to take votes off each other.

Sinn Féin will not capture many disgruntled DUP or UUP voters. Any first preference votes they gain will be at the expense of the SDLP and vice versa. No UUP voters will switch to Sinn Féin, nor will any gravitate that way from the DUP.

So it is a sectarian slugging match waged on each side of the tribal fence, which leaves the Alliance Party caught in the middle as usual...

Like Rory, who will choke on the final run-in?

WHILE all hearts go out to unsuccessful Masters golfer Rory McIlroy, the question is which party will choke as May 5th comes closer.

Rory played wonderfully and already unfair commentators are concentrating on his final round, rather than the other three fantastic days. But while Rory will grow and learn from his mistakes throughout the summer tours, political parties have only one shot at the Assembly every four years; one misplaced drive at the opposition and voters are less forgiving than the Augusta course around Amen Corner.

Will the rifts that appeared in the UUP be papered over to preserve the vote? Will Caitriona Ruane’s poll rating as the least popular minister affect her electoral chances? Can Alliance capitalise on Naomi Long’s Westminster poll or slide back into perennial pretenders? Will the DUP smite once more the TUV’s challenge?

The hustings are unforgiving places for any politician, and the battle won’t be won or lost by who has the most posters on the lampposts. Instead we have a new phenomenon creeping into the election – the reactivated social media politician!

During the Westminster election politicians scrambled on to Twitter and Facebook, and then promptly forgot about it! Now, as an election looms that may affect their pay packets you cannot get moving on Twitter for tweets from parties and increasingly desperate candidates.

Goodness only know how any normal people are expected to organise parties, keep track of sporting fixtures when politicians are clogging up social sites, and punters are changing predictions daily on the same.

In the meantime, there is something particularly unforgiving about the social media. In previous elections what was said on telly or in the papers was quickly forgotten. But in the social media what is said is not forgotten. It is there forever. One wrong word, one misplaced phrase can come back to haunt; one post about the opposition can be cast back whenever your enemies choose.

We think we might just actually read some of those Tweets and Facebook updates – who knows what material we may find there!

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...