Eye on The Hill

Anoraks on!

WE have today (Friday) donned our political anoraks and are have cast the electoral runes in a feeble-minded attempt to do what every other political pundit is doing – casting about the goat entrails to find out what exactly the Mid-Ulster by-election results mean.

The only thing we can say for certain is that Francie Molloy is the new Member of Parliament for Mid-Ulster, even if he will not sit his bottom on the plush benches of the House of Commons.

Sinn Féin saw their vote and share of the vote down from 15,363 at the General Election to 4,681, something the party was quick to blame on voter apathy and SDLP tactics around the abortion issue – and with the turn-out down, as one would expect in a by-election, one can over-analyse it - although Mr Molloy blamed the media for saying all along that it was a Sinn Féin’s seat, leading to voter complacency.

Patsy McGlone will take some satisfaction from an increase in the SDLP vote and Alliance – for whom Mid-Ulster has never been a happy hunting ground - increased their share of the vote by 23%....which represents about 90 extra votes.

However, all the attention has been on the Agreed Unionist candidate, Nigel Lutton, whose increased share of the vote will, on the surface, have pleased those who backed this tactic – even if the number of votes themselves equivalent to all three unionist parties last time out was down by almost 600.

Peter Robinson will be happy enough, given that this was a Westminster seat that a unionist candidate was never going to gain anytime soon. For the DUP it was a no-risk tactic.

However, for Mike Nesbitt it had all the hallmarks of a risk that has already cost him two MLAs.

If the Agreed Unionist candidate had not increased the share of the vote the UUP would have been castigated. But as Mr Lutton did not top the combined figure of DUP, UUP and TUV last time it could be interpreted as a pyrrhic victory. Will it really prevent DUP tacticians smelling blood, as we roll towards the European election? Will it mean more rumblings within the party group come Monday and the Assembly group meeting. And, what will it mean come next year’s council elections?

Mr Nesbitt can only hope that he can use the coming months to rally his dwindling troops – and he should take comfort in the fact that no-one expected King Leonidis to hold Thermopyle for so long…oh hold on! Leonidis died and Thermopyle was sacked by the Persians after the Spartans king’s famous last stand.

We oppose that!

THERE is nothing in the Good Friday Agreement to create a constitutional opposition at Stormot. Such has been the mantra of many for so long.

But Secretary of State Theressa Villiers this week said there’s no reason not to have an opposition.

Mind you, she said that the Assembly would have to cough up the cash, and she would not be proposing any changed legislation as there was “no broad consensus” for an opposition.

Giving evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Select Committee, Ms Villiers also said she saw no reason to outlaw double-jobbing.

Change could only be made if the Committee could demonstrate a “groundswell” for altering the status quo. With DUP and Sinn Féin pretty much representing any groundswell, what the Secretary of State seemed to be saying was that nothing was going to change any time soon.

Well that was a waste of our time typing this out – we should have just said Villiers says no! Wouldn’t that have been easier!

Breaking News

NEWS alert – archaeologists in Fermanagh have been allowed an extra week to complete excavations at a Crannog in the county.

Already priceless artefacts of ancient Ulster life have been uncovered.

One lead archaeologist told us that as the dig is peering into the past, as it was some 1,300 years ago, they are hopeful that they are close to unearthing the most recent unionist and nationalist policy papers.

“This remains the most recent evidence we have of the status quo being just in existence for so bloody long that if we dig any more we are liable to find mammoths divided into those with a green pelt and those with an orange pelt,” he revealed.

Way, way down south

SO Norn Iron threw away a golden opportunity to have a say way down south, and by that we don’t mean Cork.

No, in case you missed it, some legislative dunderhead managed to give the Assembly some control over the vast polar continent, Antarctica.

The Assembly rather tamely handed this legislative responsibility back to Westminster. How could they be so short sighted!

A world of new opportunities could have opened up for a divided society near the South Pole. Unionists could have opened up a new Orange Lodge amongst Emperor Penguins, seeing as some still think the British Empire is alive and kicking.

Nationalists could have shown how the Orcas are taking over the lesser species, just as Sinn Féin has over-taken its nationalist revival SDLP.

Meanwhile, the Alliance Party could adopt, as their mascot, the plucky Rockhopper Penguins, those little flightless bird that just keep trying and trying to gain a foothold.

Oh, there would have been scientific reasons for keeping control of part of Antarctica – controlled experiments to determine just how much you can freeze out an electorate before they all decide not to bother voting again…

Eye on the Hill

Begorrah! It’s a Washington brouhaha!

 WELL for a moment last week we thought UUP leader Mike Nesbitt was taking a principled stand. Nope, not because he was forging ahead with closer links with the DUP. Instead he was pledging not to drown the Shamrock in Washington DC and staying at home.

At a meeting of the Committee for the Office of First Minister and Deputy First Minister (try saying that after you’ve drowned the Shamrock!) Mr Nesbitt, in chairing the meeting, said that there was a plethora of places up for grabs on the annual junket to the US of A.

While we understand Mr Nesbitt’s objections (and the possible refusal of MLAs to go) we are concerned.

For a couple of days every year we can mark St Patrick’s Day by getting our MLAs out of Northern Ireland where they can do no more damage.

In fact what Mr Nesbitt regards as a waste of taxpayer’s money should be regarded as a welcome break for the taxpayer!

If all 108 of them were to agree to sod off to America for a week or so, on top of the dozens of week’s we give them off already we would have taxpayer’s reaching into their pockets to help fund the fares.

Then for another wee period the MLAs would not be bothering anyone except some Yanks who may give us investment if we take the MLAs back!

Tortuous logic? Sure, but hang with that idea – mark our words next year you’ll be wanting shot of them after another year of them troubling the airwaves…

  

It’s all Michael’s fault

SWANSEA City won their first ever cup trophy last weekend, guaranteeing them European football. And now manager Michael Laudrup seems intent upon the Welsh city gathering up everything else they can to increase the pool of local talent.

After all, what other reason could there be for the imminent decision to locate hundreds of driver and vehicle licensing jobs from Coleraine to Swansea?

Environment Minister Alex Attwood has made an impassioned plea to keep the jobs here in Northern Ireland, claiming that he has been given a pledge from Westminster to be consulted over any cuts.

Is this another attempt by Mr Attwood to take over the airwaves, after a week or so with headlines around golf courses and other sundry items?

It appears not, because we have had the DUP East Londonderry MP, Gregory Campbell, as well as Sinn Féin et al backing Mr Attwood in the drive to keep the jobs in Coleraine.

And whether there can really be savings made shifting the jobs to Wales remains open to debate, as several politicians pointed out that there is the opportunity to shift back office jobs to Coleraine to protect employment.

Which leads us to the conclusion that this really is a conspiracy by Swansea City to grab as many prizes as they can after their Capital One League Cup victory…

Into the void

IT has become something of a vogue these days to talk about opposition. What with Basil McCrea and John McAllister setting off to create their own wee club - sorry party – there are a burgeoning number of independents and sole operators crowding the benches at the back of the chamber.

And now, SDLP stalwart and former Agriculture Minister, Bríd Rodgers reckons her party should crowd in with this motley lot…

We hope she hasn’t told Alex Attwood that lest he fear losing another opportunity to get on the ministerial media merry-go-round.

And given the fact that there would also be consequences in terms of committee places and the loss of party infrastructure in terms of a special adviser and access to Executive papers, it would be a brave gamble.

At Westminster Her Majesty’s opposition is accorded certain benefits. Could similar ‘benefits’ be passed on to an opposition in Parliament Building, Stormont?

Just the four…or two

NEXT week there is a by-election in Mid-Ulster, which will give the pundits a chance to gauge the political temperature.

But while Eastleigh’s by-election on Thursday saw 14 candidates enter the fray, in Mid-Ulster there are only four vying for Martin McGuinness’ old seat.

And even then only two could make their way to the BBC to be interviewed…

One cited being busy canvassing (Agreed Unionist candidate, Nigel Lutton) and the other  (Sinn Féin candidate, Francie Molloy) he wasn’t playing either unless all four candidates were interviewed.

Which left the SDLP’s Patsy McGlone and Alliance’s Eric Bullick fervently hoping that a lot of voters from Mid-Ulster were tuning in.

It is, however, a by-election which political anoraks will be watching closely (okay we confess, we watch them all closely!).

Should the agreed unionist candidate win, it will be vindication for UUP leader Mike Nesbitt whose decision to back a unionist unity candidate resulted in two of his MLAs, John McCallister and Basil McCrea, quitting the party.  Should the agreed unionist candidate fail to gain more than 30% of the vote, Nesbitt will be deep trouble and the ‘John and Basil Party’ (we’re struggling to help them name their party!) will feel they were right to jump from the UUP ship.

If Francie Molloy should hold the seat, which is highly likely, and increase his party’s share of the nationalist vote in Mid Ulster, it could prompt much internal debate within the SDLP about tactics within the party, and murmurings about the leadership direction.

For Alliance the key will be to equal the share of the vote last time, after so much vitriol being poured their way from various quarters – although whether that translates outside of Belfast remains to be seen.

Juggling the money

EDUCATION Minister, John O’Dowd seems to have become very adept at juggling the money.

Just a few short weeks ago he was able to announce a windfall for new schools, and this week he is raiding the teacher redundancy fund to help cash strapped schools and youth service.

This financial roundabout is, of course, necessary as we have in Norn Iron a bloated school estate, thanks to the multiple types of schools – small rural hole in the hedge schools, Catholic maintained schools, (Protestant) controlled schools, grammar schools, integrated schools etc.

Of course we’re not supposed to call them Protestant or Catholic schools, we have euphemisms for them, but look at the statistics and one type has mainly Protestants and the other type  has mainly Catholics.

And when a rural school is threatened with closure as it has only 30 pupils in P1-P7 and one of them is the school cat, then MLA’s will rise up in indignation, in the same way they do when their expenses cheques are late.

Of course, having a single system, of schooling would solve all that, but don’t be holding your breath. After all he still has to get the Education Bill through the chamber and that’s only about integrating the education boards into one, rather than schooling.

Mr Hay, you have our sympathy

WE have had an office whip round and we’re going to send Assembly Speaker, William Hay a packet of throat lozenges.

The reason? Mr Hay presided over the doomed debate over whether to set up a committee about flegs, speakin’ pictures and badges (flags, language, emblems and symbols for non-Norn Irish speakers).

Rarely has a speaker had to ask for order so many times without telling them all to sit down and shut up. Rarely has a speaker had to remind members not to debate across the floor.

And as to a member speaking for a minute without an intervention – there was little chance of that.

Which really goes to show that on the opposing sides of the house there is still a refusal to emerge from the trenches of the past.

We all already knew that – but it is nice to have your theories confirmed by hard evidence.

Given that MLAs can happily work together on most issues, whether they agree or not, we have to ask why they get so roused about flegs and that type of ‘thing’?

Or we could just flood the chamber with tranquiliser gas everytime they threaten to have one of these debates….

Eye on the Hill

Siberia ‘meat’ locker shocker

DIANE Dodds, the DUP MEP has opened up a new front in the “I can’t believe it’s not beef” scandal.

With worries soaring over horse meat being labelled as beef, Mrs Dodds said she feared a “mammoth problem”. Now that stopped us in our tracks!

We knew Russian scientists had been experimenting in sourcing the DNA of the ancient woolly creature, but are their experiments at such a scale that they are breeding woolly mammoths for export to western Europe?

Or worse, have they been digging up ancient corpses from the Siberian Permafrost? Given the last evidence of a woolly mammoth is from around 10,000 years ago then that is surely meat well past its sell-by date.

But then we remembered that the ‘Young Earth’ creationists amongst the DUP believe the earth was created in October, 4000BC so it’s not that much past its sell-by date…

                                                                                    

Disintegration not integration

WITH Education Minister, John O’Dowd, plugging away on his ‘shared future’ vision of education, Ulster Unionist Party leader, Mike Nesbitt, must find those two words haunting him.

Is it a shared future with his DUP new best buddy Peter Robinson? Or is it a shared future without any MLAs?

Jumping ship this week are John McCallister and Basil McCrea.

The announcement that the DUP and UUP were agreed on fielding an Unionist unity candidate in next month’s Mid-Ulster by-election appears to be the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back.

But it is not that the departures were not anticipated.

And they call into question the whole Nesbitt project, with the rancour of these splits now lingering like a bad smell about the party.

To look at it from the other side, a unionist unity candidate was the only expedient option for Mr Nesbitt. Had he ran a UUP candidate, in all likelihood they would have been squeezed and the embarrassment of coming trailing behind the pack would have done as much to credibility as leader as any other option he is facing.

But perhaps what will really stung Mr Nesbitt in John McCallister’s resignation letter was the accusation of being Peter Robinson’s “junior partner”.

The resignations also lead to an intriguing situation, which see the three Independent Unionists (John and Basil with David McClarty) making up an increasingly large group with the TUV and UKIP. And perhaps that is why Basil is dropping less than subtle hints about a new party.

All of which further fragments the non-DUP unionist vote. Whether this can be sustained is, of course, another matter.

And under D’Hondt, at what point does the UUP lose a seat at the Executive table.

Sneaking under the radar

WHILE we have all become pre-occupied by the various disputes and inconveniences around party shenanigans and horse meat scandals there are developments happening in the Assembly that could have wide ramifications.

Not that we’re saying these developments are being deliberately ‘flown under the radar’…

Next Tuesday, the Assembly and Executive Review Committee is discussing, behind closed doors the following: “Review of D'Hondt, Community Designation and Provisions for Opposition”.

Big stuff as any change in D’Hondt will massively effect the position of various parties holding ministerial portfolios.

Also, with the fault lines ever clearer in the Ulster Unionist ranks, will the newly independents be able to form an opposition?

While a plenary debate on health inequalities may seem innocuous enough, the reference in the motion to “restructuring of Government departments” should raise a red flag, given that it is coming close to the point when any re-structuring needs to begin, if it is to be achieved before the next election…and the running of D’Hondt again.

And we say ‘Neigh!’
WHEN it comes right down to it there have been quite enough jokes about horsemeat, but the situation is now in the stable and soon to be put out to grass.

With the situation damaging the reputation of farming and processes throughout Europe, the only thing we confidently say is that we’re now worried about the tip we got a horse running at Chepstow in the 3.30 race – the horse’s name is Lasagne Lad.

Of course, one should have seen the unintended consequences of cheap burgers – horses, mechanically recovered meat etc, etc – it seems the vegetarians were right all along.

One very public political vegetarian is the vice chair of the Stormont heath committee, Jim Wells, who at least has no concerns over chomping down on Black Beauty’s pony cousin…

On the other hand that doesn’t mean that Mr Wells isn’t as much a predator as his much beloved raptors (that’s birds, not dinosaurs; birds like hawks and falcons).

What the horsemeat scandal did expose was the lack of joined up response from the Executive.

What was being said by deputy first minister Martin McGuinness and the agriculture committee and health representatives often seemed a little askew, and messages were blended like a horse’s hindquarters heading into the mincer.

While the message of ‘no risk to health’ has come across loud and clear, with the slight concern over some drugs horses might receive, perception is all.

Whether we like it or not, Norn Iron’s hard working farmer’s well-earned quality reputation has been tarnished.
With the beef sector a vital component in the agri-business chain, and with the European common agriculture policy negotiations ongoing, it was a time for the executive to support the agriculture minister Michelle O’Neill and form a common response.

While we learned this week from Assembly answers that the Executive has no role in the UK Government’s COBRA emergency cabinet meetings, there is no reason that Norn Iron’s Ministers cannot have a mirror structure to lay out a response, liaise with common interests across the regions of the UK and Ireland and address any misconceptions and produce a positive promotion of good quality Norn Irish, red-blooded beef.

Toastie time
WE like nothing better than a toasted sandwich. When the boss’s gaze is elsewhere we pile the fillings in, heat it up and munch away.

But who would have thunk that toast has so many protocols. We mean, do you butter the inside of the round, toast it a little bit and stuff the fillings in, or put the fillings in without browning the round a wee bit, or does it not really matter.

And, what about that whole protocol about when to raise the glass in a toast.

Should you even be present during toasts?

East Londonderry MP, self-styled scourge of Sinn Féin and radio hosts, Gregory Campbell was much vexed when Martin McGuinnes and a party colleague left the room at a London event when a glass was being raised in a toast to Her Majesty…

Whether anyone would have cared without Mr Campbell drawing it to our attention is another matter. But also, when does expediency towards constituents trump a ‘shared future’?
Frankly we don’t know – as long as the message to industry and the world is consistent.

And anyway Mr McGuinness may have been comparing scores in the Angry Birds mobile phone game – now doing that at the dinner table would have been rude!

Millions of reasons to stop
SO the ‘fleg’ protests over the Union Flag fluttering in the gentle breeze atop City Hall have cost the police £15m and dozens of injured officers.

And, while the number of disruptions have slumped to levels akin to a WI meeting there is still the potential for chaos on the fringes of the interfaces.

However, we are pleased to see that the Ulster People’s Forum is following the traditional route of unionism. Willie Fraser and Jamie Bryson fell out, began to go their separate ways and are now back together.

At this rate they’ll be mainstream quicker than you can light a petrol bomb (not that we’re suggesting you should!).

But it will cause much rumination amongst political observers, students and the commentariat.

Which, frankly have little to say but seem to spend a lot of air time saying it.

Meanwhile, a resolution seems no closer…

Eye on the Hill

Shop ‘til you drop – your planning application that is

WE like shopping (well to be more precise, our spouses and partners like it). If it means that our “better-halfs” are in some retail haven, while we watch the football, rugby  – in fact any sport – in peace it has to be a good thing. [Editor’s note: I take it you’re talking about the male members of the team?]

Apart from the agony, as the credit card bill drops through the letter box, we also recognise the benefit it does the economy.

That is why the prospect of a John Lewis store opening in Norn Iron had us quite over-excited. The better halfs would spend days, hours, even weeks travelling to it, browsing in it, leaving us to enjoy the Six Nations, the Barclay’s Premiership and All-Ireland Senior Football Championship in the company of our own legitimate purchases from the off-Sales and pizza delivery.

But no, all hope is gone! The commendable employment practices, the wide range of consumer goods, all gone now that John Lewis has reluctantly shrugged off the legal fees, dropped their planning application that has been running for almost nine years.

While Chambers of Commerce, some small traders, the shopping precincts of Lisburn and Belfast rejoice, one wonders about the impact of the John Lewis decision. What signal does it send to potential investors in this time of economic uncertainty?

Unity – it’s so disunited

ONE has to commend the façade maintained by some unionists, like the Ulster Unionist Party for instance. Unity with the United Kingdom may be the stated position, but disunity is the discord resonating in the media.

By the time you read this, the UUP Star Chamber may very well have delivered its verdict on Basil McCrea,

Should Mr McCrea be exonerated then three Belfast UUP councillors are threatening dark actions. Should Mr McCrea be disciplined then he may well consider his future within the Ulster Unionists.

It’s a lose, lose situation for party leader, Mike Nesbitt, who saw another veteran member and former deputy Chairman, Terry Wright, leave the fold over the closer links with the DUP.

However, one has to wonder who’s ‘fault’ it is that the party has gotten itself into this situation, and how that will disable its already limited influence in Parliament Buildings, Stormont.

Mr Nesbitt’s desire for consistency in his party’s message is admirable, but the ‘fleg’ situation seems to have left him wrong-footed with inconsistency, not only from the protagonists above, but across councils in Northern Ireland.

No matter where the blame is laid, it could be a long journey back to any form of stability and credibility, come the next Assembly election.

Dystopia looms, but business as usual at Stormont

WHILE the threat of a dystopian divided Norn Iron is much paraded by a media obsessed by five-minute riots and random rants from those on the edge of sanity, it is business as usual in Parliament Buildings.

During next week’s Assembly plenary sessions, two commendable pieces of private member’s business will be debated.

One examines the prospect of free school transport for pupils; the other is a well-intentioned call for better internet safety for children

The former is a laudable proposal, worthy of examination by the Education and Skills Authority, if and when it is established.

While we must applaud all attempts to protect children, we remind our readers of our parents’ struggles with video recorders and DVD players. We may think we can administer internet but the existence of alternative websites, anonymisers, and the dark net may drive activity out of the public eye. Instead, the use of the very public evidence bullies may leave should be a weapon that can be used to track them down, protect the bullied and counsel the bullies to help them desist.

As we say, commendable proposals.

But, on the theme of the tinterweb, the Assembly will also debate the current bête noire of social networking sites, no doubt targeting the abusive nature of some pages, calling on somebody, somewhere to do something.

Of course, anyone who uses public forums for a discourse of terror or to make threats should and must be prosecuted, but really Mr and Ms MLA do you think you can control the beast that is the collective social networking environment.

Only by closing Norn Iron’s Internet borders to Facebook, Flickr, Twitter et al will achieve that. Censorship is not an option in a state where we should encourage legal internet activity and avoid totalitarian gazes into the network.

Polls apart

WE want a border poll says Sinn Féin. We don’t want a border poll says the DUP, but then does a volte face and says we’ll hold a border poll to call Sinn Féin’s ‘bluff’.

Then the Secretary of State, Teresa Villers says she has no plans to hold a border poll.Following us so far? If you are can you please help us, because we’re not sure if we’re following any of these to and fro debates on the border poll at all!

And, to add confusion to the chaos that the ordinary fleg protestor may be feeling about any future border poll, we ask you all to consider asking our cousins in the south of Ireland if they want a say.
As one correspondent put it: “Bejayssus and begorrah do ye not tink we have enough feckin’ problems without you lot!” Okay, our correspondent was Mrs Brown after she conducted a poll of her ‘boys’, but leaving stupid cultural stereotypes aside the debate over a border poll is rather one-dimensional.

It is almost like the headlines for Prime Minister Cameron’s pledge to hold a referendum on the EU, saying it would be an in/out poll, which frankly made it sound like a big version of the hokey cokey…”You put your europhiles in, you put your sceptics out, in, out, in out and you shake it all about.”

Therefore we believe that the border issue should not be settled by a poll, but by a series of playground games, with younger voters contesting it on Xbox.

That way the participants are not likely to ever be troubled by the deep meaningful issues about consequences, constitution, currency or economics.I know I put that money somewhere…


I know I put that money somewhere…
MINISTER for Finance, Counting and Personality…sorry we meant Minister for Finance and Personnel, Sammy Wilson, this week found himself dispensing largesse, but he was not too happy about it. In fact he was rather miffed.

You see the Minister found that has pockets were bulging in December, unlike city centre traders. This was all because departments throughout the Executive had not spent as much as they said they would.

In a rational world this would be a cause for celebration – money has been saved, let’s all party because Sammy has been telling us to save money and we did it!

But this is not the rational world of government accounting. Nope – we enter a parallel world.

In twilight zone occupied by Whitehall Treasury mandarins and the bean counters at Stormont, when you are going to spend a billion you damn well spend a billion! Spend a penny less and the centre wants it back.

Now there may be many reasons why a department may or may not be able to spend their allocated budget. Perhaps a new development has been running behind schedule. Perhaps people have not been as sick as you had planned. Perhaps there is a judicial review on your road plans.
No matter the cause, you are handing back the unspent dosh in what is rather ominously called a ‘monitoring round’.

And then, like this week, Sammy finds himself with his cupeth overfloweth and needing to get rid of it quick before the men in the pinstripe suits from the Treasury come knocking.

So Sammy was able to hand the Department of Regional Development almost £18m for a new set of 42 buses and road maintenance, which translates in plain English, as a lot of roads being dug up in March.

And if you’re sick, fear not for £10m is going towards accident and emergency services.  But who was named and shamed by Sammy Wilson for not spending enough. Well it just so happened to be the Housing Executive and Social Security Agency, who are parts of the Department of Social Development…


We need Bob the Builder! Stat!
RIGHT Bob the Builder, John O’Dowd has a few wee jobs for you and you need to get to it right away.

Yes, magic mathematician, Education Minister O’Dowd has been once again proclaiming the pressures on his educational budget and announcing £220m worth of building projects for schools across Norn Iron, with an offer of £40m for schools that missed out on the current bonanza.

We should explain that day-to-day running of schools, teaching sums and speaking proper English and Gaeilge comes from a different budget than the budget for building – known as a capital budget.

Which is why the magic mathematicians around O’Dowd can put the contracts out for Bob the Builder and all his talking machinery friends to start talking to planning, environmental and other consultants  about building new schools? Whether there will be enough money to actually build or run the schools…well that’s another story.

Mr O’Dowd said it was “good news for the construction industry”. Hooray! Especially in a week when the number of benefit seekers has not seen any real reduction over the past 12 months and may indeed be creeping up.

The conundrum therefore is, despite the potential impact of welfare reform, there is likely to be a steady creep in the number of claimants leading to further financial spending squeeze on capital projects such as school building.

But hopefully Bob the Builder can get to work, once the Chancellor’s announced what Norn Iron’s going to get in the next spending period!


Salvation is at hand!
FORGET all our woes, the end is in sight!

Yes, there may be more than 500m barrels of oil in the sea floor near Rathlin Island, so we can expect Ballycastle to become a boom port and Portrush and Portstewart to become residential centres for oil barons.

US forces will parachute in to keep warring factions apart, and the Union Jack and Tricolour will be flown at interfaces by fur coated wearing women and Armani suited men.

The Assembly will vote to let Norn Iron to become the next state in the United States of America, and we will become members of OPEC and enjoy regular visits to the Arab gulf states on private jets, before nipping off to see our oil rich overlords in Texas.

The fact that the exploration company bears the same name ‘Polaris’, as a nuclear armed missile system is surely only a coincidence and nothing to do with any armed takeover of Norn Iron…well we hope it’s not, but recently there have been a lot of American accents to be heard around our tourist attractions on the north coast.  Again, surely only a coincidence…

Eye on the Hill

All aboard the Nolan boat!

HE is a man with broad shoulders and a man who makes a work ethic look like a lifetime of idleness (he works seven days a week on BBC Radio Ulster and Radio Five Live as well as his TV appearances), but this week it was a rocky road rather than a rocky biscuit in the Nolan studio

As the ‘fleg’ protests wended their merry way to destroying Belfast’s economy, the Nolan show teetered on the edge of farce as haranguing and harrying voices expounded ‘views’ on the flags.

Meanwhile the costs mounted up and traders were faced with a road works nightmare on top of the ‘fleg’ protests.

We wholeheartedly support the democratic right of anyone to stage a legal protest and express their opinion, but we have been wrestling with any ways that we can cut through this Gordian Knot.

And, we have come up with one solution. The real or imaginary discovery of oil underneath City Hall requiring its complete and urgent demolition and re-location to somewhere where nobody will be able to see whether it has a flag flying or not. Perhaps beside Parliament Buildings…

The woes of Mike

LIKE A tragedy actor in a Greek play, or a mournful character in a Shakespearian melodrama, Mike Nesbitt must feel like he is presiding over the collapse of a kingdom as intrigue boils around him.

Indeed whether he is King Lear or Gloucester from the same play, remains to be seen.

Not only is one of his most media savvy spokespeople, Basil McCrea, readying himself for a disciplinary hearing, but he felt the dagger of distrust thrust further into his leadership when former north Belfast MLA Fred Cobain jumped ship to the DUP.

Mr Cobain may have lost his UUP seat in north Belfast, but this defection means the UUP is effectively side-lined in a swathe of the city, leaving it with no profile in this divided constituency.

How much of this can be laid at the door of Nesbitt is a matter of proportionality. Is his leadership style to blame? Is the ambiguity over relationships with the DUP to blame? Or was the party in terminal decline before he took up the reins.

Mr Nesbitt may feel that the time is right to make his “shrink to grow” aim more solid while he still has some elected representatives to rally round the banner.

Lifetime use for recycled statements

Minister for the Environment, Alex Attwood has been able to pass through the Assembly the ‘Bag Tax” meaning that each carrier bag will cost you five pence when dispensed to you by your friendly supplier of beef and horse burgers.

Mr Attwood said this would clean up the hedgerows from unsightly mess and project the image of Norn Iron as “clean and green”. Of course the protestors will no doubt see the description of Norn Iron as ‘green’ an affront requiring more demonstrations.

And as to Norn Iron being clean…council and road service staff will be out in the early hours in case anyone notices the broken bricks, scorched tarmac and carpet of broken glass post-riots.

But we also hope Mr Attwood will place a levy on recycled statements from MLAs, MPs and councillors.

Eye on the Hill

New riot college announced

THE Police Service and Fire and Rescue Service are to have one big college, as planning permission to have it built on a massive site somewhere well away from Belfast has now been given.

We got to thinking (too much caffeine!) that this could solve all our problems.

No doubt there will be riot training for officers, with mock streets. After all, police and fire service personnel need to ensure that they are up-to-speed on how to deal with civil disorder.

And, just today a leading East Belfast cleric told the Belfast Telegraph that “kids” enjoy rioting.

So, why not a couple of times a year bring the “kids” to the new police college and they can throw bricks, bottles, fireworks and petrol bombs at police who can then charge them, arrest them, deploy water cannon etc.

Some officers and rioters might get hurt but outside the walls of the college we can all go along with our normal business, go to work, generate employment and revenue, and partake in democracy.

Now all we need to figure out is when the flag on the new college is to fly…

Breadth of the broad

ULSTER Unionist leader Mike Nesbitt came up with a rather unique turn of phrase when commenting after the Unionist Forum’s inaugural meeting at Parliament Buildings.

He said he welcomed: “The breadth of the representation of the broad unionist family”.

So, something that was really broad had breadth…a point emphasised by Peter Robinson as he claimed it to be the “most representative group in the unionist community to meet in half a century”.

Half a century ago: that would be 1963. That was the year that Viscount Brookeborough stepped down after 20 years in political office after failing to halt economic decline. His place was taken by Terence O’Neill, who met the then Toaiseach, Sean Lemass. Two years after taking office the first embers or turmoil stirred and the Troubles followed quickly after.

We wonder about that reference by the unionist leaders. The protests that followed the meetings with Lemass saw street agitation from the Rev Dr Ian Paisley, the predecessor of Mr Robinson. It’s a curious sort of parallel to make….

Cold house for the Housing Executive

BEFORE the awkwardness of a confrontation on the floor of the Assembly, Social Development Nelson McCausland has announced the axe is to fall on the Housing Executive with as much as haste as possible when he has figured out the detail…

Generally everyone agrees that there is a need for social housing. How is this is delivered is where Mr McCausland has identified a potential for change.

In a nutshell, policy is to be delivered by a strategic oversight public body and the Housing Executive’s landlord function will transfer out of the public sector.

This is supposed to be completed by 2015…

Young people get hammered again

AS children, the older folk among us used to enjoy nothing more than putting a shilling into a one armed bandit slot machine and pulling the big handle down to see if we won a half crown.

Later as young people we had the new slot machines aligned with space invaders games where we could throw the new-fangled decimal coins into to see if we won a pound.

Now those spoil sports at social development are stopping young people gambling on gaming machines! Bah, humbug indeed!

It’s part of a general reform of gambling laws, and while we fear that the coming generations will never get the thrill of losing tuppence on a gaming machine, it is generally a long overdue and welcome piece of tidying up, with issues such as making a ‘bet’ at a bookmaker a legally binding contract.

Eye on the Hill

Merry Protests and a happy redundancy notice

So here it is merry Xmas,
Everybody's burning cars,
Look to the future, and
Unemployment in our bars...
(Sung to the tune of Slade’s “Merry Xmas Everybody")

So in Christmas 2012 and while the Mayan prediction for the end of the world has yet to come to pass, the prospect of economic growth, once the 'flegship' policy of the Northern Ireland Executive, lies limp on the flagpole of unfettered protests.

And after seven hours of talks, our political leaders managed a few short paragraphs of the strictly bland variety. No doubt Messers Robinson and McGuinness worked marvels on their trips abroad but can one see foreign direct investors rushing to set up shop here as protests paralyse our ‘wee country’.

Tonight, more protests are planned with the intention of bringing much of the country to a standstill. For the thousands flying home for the festive season, there must be a temptation to hop right back on to the return flight.

For those of us who remember the worst of the dark days, we know that this is but an inconvenience, compared to the 70's, 80's and early 90's. But in a connected, social media world of 2012 it is a sure thing that the image of masked protestors has been seen in every far flung corner.

The leaders of the mainstream unionist parties may wring their hands but for more than a dozen days of protests they have not been able to put the genie back in the bottle.

At a time when polling showed significant support for the status quo, all that has been achieved has been confusion amongst our political leaders and despair from the business man and woman. At a time when bars, restaurants and shops should be counting profits during the economic downturn they are counting cancellations and over-stocked shelves.

Protesters have talked about an erosion of British identity as if it was a rock to worn down by the attrition of nationalist wind and rain.

The irony of course is that the educational under-achievement in many 'working class' areas of Northern Ireland, particularly Belfast, means that the very protestors, and their neighbours on the other side of the interface, are ill-equipped to ride out the maelstrom of economic maladies.

Maybe there is a silent wish from some of our leaders that the Mayan prophecy would have saved them a lot of hassle in 2013...

And a very happy holiday to you all

ALL of us at Chambré Public Affairs wish you a very Merry Christmas, festive good wishes and a happy New Year.

So long as the Mayans are wrong, we'll see you all in 2013, when we will once again be at your service for professional public affairs and communications support. And, remember, as the song says, ‘things can only get better’.

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