Election ennui even before the election is called

WE have tried to diligently keep track of the comings and goings, and twists and turns of politics here in Northern Ireland and in the Republic of Ireland, but frankly even political anoraks must be getting a wee bit bored now.

There are some who are whipping themselves into a frenzy over the whole state of affairs.

And we are reluctant to make any comment on the debacle that passes for politics in the Republic of Ireland as by the time we finish writing this paragraph things will have changed again.

So, we are already wondering how many others are becoming just a teeny bit bored by the electioneering in the undeclared electoral war in Northern Ireland – even if polling hostilities haven’t been officially declared.

If, as we suspect, the Assembly is dissolved on March 25th for the poll, then full-scale conflagration shall erupt across our airwaves.

We, therefore, suggest that you keep a track of the media electioneering you come across on the airwaves before that date; for no other purpose than to amuse yourself and shout at the TV in indignation, then slope away to your ‘tinterweb connection and vent some invective.

We do not condone electioneering and rants on comment sites, but we do condone you going online with the results of any informal survey you have made of electioneering.

We might try it ourselves but frankly we’re getting bored by all the tripe being put about already: if it was not for the fact that Assembly might actually get some real work done, such as passing the Budget, before it packs it in for full-on airwave rants then we might struggle to stay awake.

Mind your tongue

WHILE doom and gloom pervades each and every economic corner of Northern Ireland, it is re-assuring that the Department of Regional Development has a weather eye on the language needs of Northern Ireland.

Conor Murphy has announced a consultation on whether we need bi-lingual road signage: with either Irish or Ulster-Scots translations.

Let’s rejoice in this forward-thinking policy!

For this is not just cunning lingual plans, this is an economic proposal. For if we get bi-lingual – or even tri-lingual – signs then we’ll need a lot of signs designed (work for graphic designers), lots of language checking (work for translators) and erection of the signs (work for DRD staff).

If only there was a few quid spare to pay for it all.

For goodness sake get healthy!

RIGHT everyone, never mind the New Year Resolutions to get fit, it is now imperative, urgent and damn near crucial to get fit, rid yourself of fat and cut out the booze and ciggies.

Health Minister Michael McGimpsey has painted a picture of a health service on its knees, with waiting lists growing, services being cut and so on and so on.

So if you have an elderly relative waiting for domiciliary care, or a place in a nursing home you need to take action to make sure you don’t need to be a drain on the budget…

And if you end up injured or ill, bring a good book – maybe several – as you wait for any help whatsoever.

In the meantime don’t get too stressed, your mental health is vital: so don’t listen to the waffle and point scoring of politicians - just stay well.

THE former Chief Examiner of ‘A’ level economics and current Minister for Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson was in a war of numbers this week, as opposed to the usual war of words.

It appears that someone got their numbers crossed and confused when comparing health budgets in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Tortuously eyes were cast over a briefing note to the Finance Committee highlighting the fact that Minister Wilson had got his figures wrong in statement before Christmas. According to the Assembly research department, the Scots reduced their health spend by .303% - not 3.03% as suggested by the Minister…oh we don’t really care anymore. No-one with something approximating a life will be bothered by the nuances of such comparison.

Crude politicking lies behind all comparisons and use of statistics.

What really needs to happen is some cool heads to look at what way we can organise the figures, shift the money about and get central government to loosen up a wee bit.

We have an idea for co-option to the Executive’s bean counter cadre. Eric Daniels.

Eric is the Lloyds Banking boss who presided over the rather unfortunate purchase of debt ridden HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland), which led to Government taking a share in the Lloyds Group (currently at 41%). He’s quitting in March with an alleged bonus of £2m coming his way.

But look at his record – he was in charge when the money train ground to a halt, he got the bank back in profit and got government to cough up.

So, while his services might be costly, we could always ask Eric to spend a couple of weeks playing with the books of NI plc and getting HM Treasury to loosen the purse strings.

Ultimately Eric could help privatise the entire region as the first FTSE listed region…

DIY SOS NI

GOOD evening and welcome to DIY SOS NI – the country where doing it ourselves has taken on a new meaning – and we don’t even have Nick Knowles and his happy band of helpers to lend a hand.

Yes, with the cutbacks we’re all going to have to pitch in and help save the world around us.

First order of the day - schools! You see those dratted mandarins at the Treasury have changed the rules and, if NI plc hasn’t spent the money, the Treasury want it back. So out goes about £87m of funding carried over to build new schools and replace dilapidated and unsafe classrooms.

In line with PM David Cameron’s ‘Big Society’, if we all chip in we can sort the whole mess out. If you have a school near you needing rebuilding you can do something about it! Donate a brick, chip in for the cement and if you don’t have any building or construction skills get along to your local further education college and enrol for a course.

And if you really, really believe that the north-west needs a new cancer unit, and the minister says he can build it but not resource it, then people step up to the mark. Get along to university and do a crash course in radiotherapy and radiography – then you can volunteer to get along. And we’re pretty sure that you can chip in for the cost of any equipment.

Really, come on, if we all put our shoulder to the wheel everything will be all right.

Errrr, except it won’t: the list of cuts is mind-boggling. Education, further education, higher education, health, social services, housing; wherever you look the departmental draft budgets make for bleak reading.

But if you really want to have your say, apart from spouting off on the radio, the Northern Ireland Executive has extended the consultation by one week from the 9th to the 16th February – so that’s okay then.

And look out over coming weeks for each and every member of the Executive and each and every MLA pleading poverty to their colleagues and doing the ‘sad face’ in front of the cameras.

ESA please!

IN a stunning New Year’s resolution Northern Ireland Executive ministers are to resolve to make actual real proper decisions this year.

Yes, they will come up with an answer to the post-primary school transfer quandary, they will agree the best way forward on water charging, they will solve the issue of mental health needs and they will finally complete the education element of the Review of Public Administration by establishing the Education and Skills Authority.

After reading that ESA has cost £10m without closing the education and library boards, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness told the Executive: “Let’s get our act together!”

With sober contemplation the ministers sat, late on New Year’s Eve, looking at the embers of their fires, contemplating 2010 and decided that their collective resolution was that they would not look after selfish political interests, nor personal promotion, but would act collectively for the common good.

Unfortunately, like all New Year’s Resolutions they are broken quickly and the bickering and back-biting so far in 2011 is but a mere warm-up for the election campaign.

HAPPY NEW YEAR READERS!

You are talking bulls***

IT is now official! The Northern Ireland Civil Service talks bulls***!

The Plain English Campaign has awarded the NICS its not so prestigious ‘Golden Bull Award’.

The award was given to NICS for this wonderful piece of prose:

“If the annual leave request that you are entering is less than a full day on the First Day or the Last Day, then please select Hours from the drop down list of values in the Part Days Unit of Measure field. Then select the amount of hours on the first day in the Fraction of Start Date or the last day in the Fraction of End Date field. If the absence is only for one day, use the Fraction of Start Date field to record the hours absent.”

This almost Homer-ian odyssey of word play is all about taking half-a-day’s leave.

In the past the private sector has been quick to criticise the amount of sick leave that civil servants take. We suggest that it may all be because of the stress caused by trying to take a half-a-day’s leave.

Water, water everywhere?

THEY say that Eskimos have multiple words to describe snow: equally we in Northern Ireland use many a words to describe rain.

Phrases include: It’s fair belting it down; ach it’s only a wee bit of drizzle; soakin’ ye out; cats and dogs coming down; and so on and so on.

Which, in other words, is to say that we have rarely had a problem with enough water falling from the sky to fill our kettles…?

So with the saga of the water now set to continue to the end of February, it would be an inopportune time to take a look at the debacle that left thousands of homes without water before the reviews are complete.

Never stopped us before nor anyone else in Norn Iron…

As we shiver, once again this weekend, the hand wringing and blame game goes on. Never has so much been owed by so few radio broadcasters to so many politicians.

Let’s face it, Christmas is a pretty slow time on newsdesks and call-in shows; as they struggle to fill schedules – so the water crisis came along as a blessing for sober-voiced presenters and shrieking call-in hosts.

And politicians – who otherwise would have been starved of the oxygen of hyped publicity – where quick to jump into the fray. To summarise – NI Water was the bête noire of choice.

Following that we had the joy of Sinn Féin saying its not our fault, DUP saying maybe it just was and the SDLP saying yer all to blame! UUP, Alliance and others struggled to force their way into the debate, but maybe we just weren’t listening that closely as our eyes glazed over as we queued for a measly container of life giving elixir...and then went from the bar to collect some water.

Now there is to be an investigation…sorry two investigations. One to look at NI Water and one to look into the ‘”broader governance issues” (i.e. the Department and Minister’s role in the fiasco), and in typical ‘Norn Iron’ political fashion it took the Executive late into the night to come up with that genius plan.

Bubbling below the reservoir of acrimony’s surface is, of course, the issue of water charges. We have a historically rubbish water infrastructure, and whose fault that is ranges variously depending on who you listen to.

Privatisation has been touted before, as one way to solve this – and much has been made about investment in England, without close examination of the issues (the perfect monopoly, the impact on a variety of households etc etc).

Others say that bringing it back into the Executive house would solve the issue – like reverting back to the hugely inefficient Water Service that NIW replaced is going to put things right!

With an election coming down the tracks fast , no politician is going to raise his or her head above the parapet to make any sort of decision.

So, we wait until February for the reviews’ conclusions to come down just before Purdah silences civil servants.

In the meantime we suggest that NI Water has a wee look at the best way to tell us lowly householders and business owners what lies ahead in the next cold snap. Oh, and we can probably look forward to a hosepipe ban in the summer!

DEAR Basil,

Thank you for your support despite losing to me, your glorious leader, at the recent election for Ulster Unionists Top Dog. However, recently I have been reflecting as to whether you would actually like the job as leader.

You see, of late people seem out to really, really annoy me. I mean there was that whole thing over GAA with Trevor. I’m a farmer for goodness sake and sport, well it’s nice, but GAA? I thought it was a cross between basketball, football and a fight. How was I to know people actually like that sort of thing. So Trevor left in a huff.

And then there’s Queen. No, not Her Majesty, the rock band! Your hip with the young dudes, so maybe you could talk Harry Hamilton into coming back; perhaps he’d even do a wee turn as Freddy Mercury to raise some funds.
And, then, as if that wasn’t enough, there
’s this whole selection rigmarole. After Harry left, we then had Paula not getting selected and leaving.

Just as I hoped the New Year would be ready to launch us into the election mode, David McClarty leaves in a huff. I was going to say bad loser, but that would be unkind (if he comes back as a deputy speaker in the Assembly this month, he may not let me talk in the chamber!).

So, in short – if you want the job, give me a call!

Yours

Tom

EDITOR’S NOTE: Of course, Mr Elliott has never drafted such a letter, but we have to wonder what he is thinking after the whole selection process for the Assembly elections…Or is it all part of a grand scheme to get back to some sort of romanticised past that will see absentee voters flock back to the UUP fold.

Anyone got a fiver?

NO seriously, it’s January, we’ve blown it all on Christmas and the Sales and a fiver would go a long way. And for every one of us feeling the same way, isn’t it nice that the Northern Ireland government departments have got all their budgets and spending plans sorted out.

As every householder knows planning your budget is so vital – the tiniest detail needs to be thought through, lest the state-funded banks come-a-calling.

With less than 11 weeks before the end of the financial year there may be a sort of budget, but details are pretty thin on the ground for each department.

Minister for Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson gave a commitment that said detail would be available before Christmas, so we, like many others looked forward to scanning such detail as we edged tentatively into 2011.

But alas, most of the NI Executive department savings and spending plans – save those for Mr Wilson’s own department, DCAL and Justice - have yet to see the light of day; making it pretty difficult for us to comment on a budget that has loads of headlines, but little specifics.

However, suffused with the rapidly ebbing Christmas spirit we’re going to be charitable. After all Mr Wilson may have been hopelessly optimistic expecting civil servants to get some work done coming up to Christmas, what with seasonal parties and all the shopping they needed to get done. Then there was the weather, and the two week down tools that afflicts the office bound public sector. And, well the first week of January is always difficult to get really motivated to do anything let alone spreadsheets.

Therefore, barring snow, floods, tornadoes, hurricanes and other weather related excuses we hope that all the departments this week will present, with a flourish, their savings and spending plans for the next four years. Dear reader, do not be holding your breath!