Moneybags Executive

EXCUSE us, but is there not a recession on? Is the world not teetering on the edge of economic meltdown? Is a run on European banks imminent should the economy all go south (that is ‘bad’, not down the road to Dundalk).

Did not our finance minister Sammy Wilson spend most of 2011 making doom-laden speeches? The end of times seemed a real possibility as the budget debates trundled on towards their inevitable interminable conclusion among the lesser-spotted MLAs.

But this week £580m popped out of the Norn Iron executive’s pockets to sprinkle cash for roads and hospitals. Huzzah, we cried, lit a cigar and reached for the champagne! Surely good times are here again!

Millions for roads! Millions for hospitals! Hooray! The good times roll on - but at what price? As the embers of our cigar are tapped into the ashtray and the fizz fades from our bubbly we got to thinking - must have been the champers that caused that - how come Mr Wilson and his executive chums can come up with these millions at the drop of the proverbial hat?

Maybe there is some sort of wishing well over which a chosen executive minister waves a magic money wand and out pops millions. Teachers need a generous redundancy package - wave the wand. Schools feeling the pinch, here comes the wand. Radiography for Altnagelvin? With a swoosh and a sway, abracadabra, wave the wand and here comes the money.

Does Mr Wilson have a wee shed at the back of Parliament Buildings were he stashes all this largesse, ready to dispense it like a latter-day philanthropic moneybags?
Unfortunately we fear not. A vertiginous feeling pervades our post celebratory blues.

Unless the UK coalition government’s welfare reform proposals are stopped in their tracks, which not very likely, the benefits cap and housing benefit qualifier will chew and gouge at the available cash as the norn iron executive struggles to plug the gap. This week’s slight drop in unemployment also saw an increase in claimants. When employment is low, crime is higher and the bill for health burgeons.

While the money was being announced, jobs were being shed at a call centre, and it was announced that the executive had missed out on essential targets, especially in the field of public health.

Public health is not glamorous, nor does it have the roar of heavy machinery that comes with road building. But it saves in the long term. Cancer screening can not only save lives, but can keep someone earning wages and paying taxes. Or what about the unpaid carer, which is often the euphemism for a grandparent providing childcare, or an elderly spouse looking after their disabled partner.

Unfortunately none of these things bring the government a-approved headlines: “we’re doing stuff, so pay attention you peasants!”

We have solutions - albeit fanciful ones.

Option one: employ a Greek financier and blow the lot. That way we’re guaranteed year long rioting and not just the sectarian summerfest of stone throwing. This will justify the clamour to Whitehall for more money for policing, and the police officers getting all that overtime have got to spend their money somewhere.

Option two is the more drastic: employ a really good squad of forensic accountants and a battalion of white shirted, bespectacled, calculator toting cash counters to see where the money is coming from; and secondly carve a swathe through the upper echelons of departments, recommending that the top tiers of administration are reduced while protecting those who actually do the work.

Will either of these options be deployed to solve the tsunami of trouble coming our way? Well, we can but dream. In the meantime it will be supermarket own brand cheapo Cava instead of champagne!

A man of wealth and taste

WHO would have thunk it - Financier for the Norn Iron executive Sammy Wilson is a man of wealth and taste, a patron of the arts no less.

Last week social development minister Nelson McCausland came over all Dick Dastardly and announced that all those artistes and artists congregating around the Cathedral ‘Arts’ Quarter would no longer be able to dance to the tune of public money tinkling into their grant pots.

This week, Mr McCausland announced that finance minister Sammy Wilson had come up with £200,000 and he would add another £50,000 to keep the whingers as silent as a mimer in a quiet contest.

Throughout the week, Mr McCausland has been arguing the case for cutting arts funding; but he was clear that his sudden about turn had nothing to do with negative publicity, phone-in criticism or newspaper stories. There is a Belfast saying that summarises most people’s response, with more than a touch of irony; it goes like this: “Aye! Dead on Nelson!”

Cynical? Us? Never!

Crayon funding under threat

A COLOURING in crisis of vast magnitude is striking at the heart of Norn Iron arts sector.

A vast shortfall in crayon stocks, poster paint and little plastic smocks to keep clothes clean will not be met from the public purse.

In a shock move the Minister for Social Development, Nelson McCausland said that several leading crayon manufacturers had upped their prices and are working on Sundays.

As a result the Department is on the horns of a dilemma: if they stop funding crayon colouring in and other arts projects, the result will be less arty farty types clogging up the capitalist advance towards a retail driven society, but will also mean more lovies clogging up the dole queues.

Yes, it looks like the Laganside events grant will close next month, throwing the likes of the Festival of Fools (Editor’s Note this is not the weekly Festival of Fools at Stormont – the arts festival of fools is intentionally funny) and the Cathedral Quarter Arts Festival.

There is no doubt, despite our earlier jibes, that the arts community brings valuable life to parts of the city and the region. But in a time of austerity they are both an easy target, and in the cold hard glare of bean counters, a reasonable one.

That is not to say that there should be a complete ending of arts funding. Tourists like it when we have a party in Norn Iron – as do the restaurant and bar owners.

Therefore, Mr McCausland should grab his own personal crayon collection and hurriedly scribble, in his best joined up writing, a note to his friends in the Executive asking them to share out some good will and poster paints to make sure that when they go for their food and drinkie poos in Belfast’s Cathedral Quarter, there’s a wee bit of life about the place.

A good week’s work...

THERE are times when we wonder what worth is the work of the denizens of Satan’s seventh sulphurous circle of hell, also known as the Assembly’s Chamber. For a change the stench of futility was over-powered by the sweet whiff of virtue.

“What!” we hear you cry, surely some mistake, if the cynics spotted something good!
Well, much as we do enjoy working with the malaise of misguided political shenanigans, we also have to doff our cap when there is a result worthy of praise.

This week’s Norn Iron Assembly plenary sessions saw a debate take place on the horror of people trafficking. Let’s lay our cards on the proverbial table here: those who traffic in their fellow human beings - often involving prostitution - are the lowest form of life to walk on legs; all the punishments of our penal system are not enough for them.

Any steps our MLAs as legislators may take to clamp down on human trafficking and those who avail of the services of these modern day slaves must be welcomed.

Thus when it emerged that an Assembly debate on human trafficking had prompted the Minister of Justice to bring forth legislation to combat this bestial trade, it was all we could do not to break into spontaneous applause.

Speakers from all parties spoke passionately on the Sinn Féin motion, and for once there was cross-party consensus that brought a real result.

Also this week, there were pointless debates on Lurgan’s Millennium Way and car insurance that won’t do a thing, there was some waffle about the educational maintenance allowance that won’t solve the problem of youth unemployment and some other platitudes voiced during various ministerial question times.

The Assembly has proven through this high profile action that ministers can make real change for people. While it is doing other good work, it is so disappointing to have these efforts over-shadowed in the public mind by pointless debates.

Let it be a lesson to legislators that work to change people’s lives can be started, and hopefully completed, lest the electorate boycott the ballot box in their droves, come the next election.

Quackers counting

RIGHT we apologise for the pun about being quackers, but it was South Antrim MLA Mitchell McLaughlin’s fault.

“If it walks like an overspend, quacks like an overspend, then as far as the public is concerned it is an overspend,” said Mr McLaughlin about a government ‘overspend’ on an accounting software procurement designed to improve accounting...

The software package concerned, called Account NI, is designed to make procurement in the civil service more efficient. Seriously, you really couldn’t make this up.

Of course, the civil service had a perfectly rational explanation why something budgeted at almost £1m ended up costing ten times that figure. For those like us with limited mathematical skills, we’ll save you reaching for the calculator - it works out as almost £10m.

Now while this is a shocker in terms of how such a figure grew to such wallet choking amounts, it does give legs to the issue of the deep, entrenched relationship between the public sector and the private sector.

As good, balanced people, we can regularly argue for both public sector cuts and protection of the public sector, sometimes at the same time. However, pushing the political soundbite generators known as MLAs to one side for a minute, the reality is that for some companies the deep pockets of the civil service can be picked to see what pounds lie within - consultancies specialising in telling the civil and public sector exactly what they want to hear are two a penny here.

In the public’s perception this must lead to some confusion.

There now follows a gratuitous selection of puns: This whole thing is quackers; we need to identify who ducked this issue; and we cry fowl on the whole thing!

And that’s before the news that the Public Prosecution Service, the Departments of Justice and Finance are expected to have to cough up around £2m to settle a lawsuit taken by…over 50 lawyers.

Is it any wonder that various species of duck come to Norn Iron as part of their annual migration: with so many people quackers they feel right at home.

Peace sells…but who’s buying?

SO Europe has said that they’ll cough up the cash for the new peace and conflict resolution centre at the site of the former Maze prison.

Complete with a centre to explore past divisions, workshop with international groups, tour trips to an ‘H’ block and visits to the former prison’s hospital and chapel it sounds wonderful.

The bill is not so wonderful. Europe is contributing £18m. The total cost of the re-developing the entire Maze site, including the Peace Centre thingy is £350m, a serious wad of cash in these straitened times.

But, really it’s not the cost that is really irksome. It’s the length of time it takes for the executive to get round to getting the blooming thing done. By our calculation most prisoners spent less time in the Maze than it has taken to actually develop the new place!

Belfast is spending £233m developing parts of the city and seems on schedule to spend it in three years. C’mon Maze development team! Get yer act together. If you’re going to spend our money do it quickly so we can have a nice wee row about your spending our money.

Tory Transfer Talks

AS if Tom Elliott didn’t have his sorrows to seek, the Tories in Northern Ireland are on the march again with the official formation of a new political party going by the name “The Conservative and Unionist Party of Northern Ireland”.

Given previous elections results, this is less an ominous threat and more a damp sponge casually tossed at the battlers within the UUP.

However, with at least one prominent candidate publicly jumping ship to the Bangor based Conservatives, will other UU’s be tempted to throw in their lot with the blue brigade, thus leaving the ranks of the increasingly blue-rinse backers of the Ulster Unionists.

After the re-buff from Tom Elliott to the Tory advances for a union with unionists, the new party will initially have an observer seat on the Conservative party’s national board and its own party leader. Will this be enough to attract UU members or like-minded independents? And how will the ‘unionist’ in its new title (not to mention the union flag logo displayed prominently on the party’s website) go down with that constituency that supports the values of a centre right party but is fiercely proud of its Irishness?

We have our doubts that the new party will be an instant success, but having its HQ in Bangor is an astute move. While Lady Sylvia Hermon attracted a sizeable vote for her personal constituency work and independent minded nature, there is a rump amongst the cognoscenti in Cultra, Helen’s Bay and Bangor West who might be persuaded at council, and eventually Assembly level to take a gamble.

Oh the horror of it all! We, and the average voter are confused enough with the Single Transferable Vote and sorting out the green and orange vote before trying to think through who is right wing, who is left wing, who is centre right and who is centre left. And then putting them in order on the ballot paper…spare the poor voters like us who struggle counting beyond five without taking one glove off.

Seconds out, round one!

AT the sound of the bell the two heavyweight political pounders stalked forward, circling each other as the assembled ladies and gentlemen of the press lean forward for the first of the 15-round contest.

Title holder and Ulster Unionist party leader Tom Elliott is up against the battling Strangford MLA David McNarry. The slugfest has seen McNarry and Elliott trade blows. Elliott dumped David on the carpet with a quick jab to the jaw, resulting in McNarry leaving his post as deputy chair of the Education Committee.

With Assembly newbie Mike Nesbitt settling in to the cosy chair still warm from McNarry’s departing behind, McNarry lost no time in landing a flurry of media blows from left hooks about phone calls through to upper cuts about being the Ulster Unionist liaison officer in 'secret' talks with the DUP.

And this is just the first round…

Where will it all end as the Ulster Unionist party seems intent to journey further down the spiral towards electoral obscurity. When DUP leader Peter Robinson recently attended a GAA match, he must have had a smug wee grin on his face as he walked away from the grounds, thinking to himself that gaelic football wasn’t as rough as the UU's contests.

What must the more moderate Ulster Unionists think, with the party hierarchy seemingly approving of links with the DUP? And, what of those who worked to firm up the “broad church” concept of the UUP in the wake of the election slump of 2011 think?

There seems to be a horrible inevitability to it all now. The broad church has many leaks in its roof and the walls are crumbling as the party slugs out its battles in public.

As to the way forward...with 14 rounds still to go party loyalists must be hoping that the remainder of this contest can be held behind closed doors.

Perma-tan Pete and the judges...

THE secretary of state who had the best tan throughout his tenure, Peter Hain, has upset our esteemed local judiciary.

In his newly published memoirs, he said some rather disparaging things about the judge involved in the case concerned with the appointment of the first victim’s commissioner. We haven’t sought the advice of lawyers, but we reckon best not to repeat Mr Hain’s comments. The lord chief justice Sir Declan Morgan seems annoyed enough as it is!

Rather we contrast the reaction of politicians to Mr Hain’s remarks; all rather muted, but then again he didn’t plunge the knife in too deep. And, there are worse things said on Wikileaks.

The contrast is the lord chief justice getting all upset about Mr Hain describing one of his colleagues as “off his rocker”...without taking the advice of expensive lawyers we’ll stop that train of satire before it hits legal buffers.

All we’d like to say on this matter is that given our legal aid costs an arm and a leg and the latest report from the Criminal Justice Inspectorate says that our justice system is slow to the point of a crawl; taking twice as long for cases in Norn Iron compared to other parts of the UK with youth courts take even longer.

So, instead of challenging remarks from perma-tan Pete Hain perhaps our judges could kick some butt to help speed up the judicial process here. Otherwise the real and present threat is that justice minister David Ford, the man Mr Hain described as the ‘”least flexible” of the political leaders, will come down and have a word. And really Sir Declan, we wouldn’t wish that on anyone. (Our lawyers have now stepped in, refused to correct the grammar and told us, uninvited, that we must, heretofore and forthwith “please shut up!”).

Let’s all be friends!

AS far as one party systems go, the idea of one, single unionist party is an old one: dating back to the early years of the creation of this ‘wee country’ of Norn Iron. But back in the day it must have seemed a remote possibility to have the UUP making cow eyes at the upstart DUP.

Whatever the rights, wrongs or maybes the DUP are now in the proverbial box seat and able to sit back and await the amorous advances of what appears to be a trickle of UUP MLA suitors.

And there is no doubting that David McNarry is weighing up the options of moving his stock into the DUP.

Added in to the mix is the reported easy relationship between the UUP regional development minister Danny Kennedy and his DUP colleagues on the Executive.

Of course the leadership of the UUP must be getting rightly miffed over the whole thing. It detracts from trying to rebuild the crumbling edifice that remains after the last election, and there appears to be all sorts of splits and factions: one lot looking at the Alliance Party, another lot looking at the DUP, while a rump appears to be just that, a rump.

Peter Robinson’s position of Mr Reasonable on some issues will of course help sow further seeds among those within the UUP who are unhappy with their party leadership’s tone.

However, we have one tiny, wee word of caution - actually two.

First: have a look at the electoral figures from last time out and think whether you are in with a chance of selection on the list and how many of the oft-talked about quotas are up for grabs. Would the sitting DUP MLAs and potential candidates gift you a slot on the ballot paper.

But most importantly, UUP MLAs must consider this: whether it is worse to sit in a UUP old folk’s meeting (a.k.a constituency branch meeting) or the wide-eyed stares at a DUP Constituency meeting?