Hypocrisy knows no bounds for the SDLP’s Alasdair McDonnell. Writing in a letter to the Prime Minister he howls that attempts to unseat him are both sectarian and destabilising to the peace process.
It’s a pity then, that in spite of his long career in politics, his memory runs short. In 1981 at the height of the hunger strikes the SDLP withdrew in Fermanagh and South Tyrone, leaving a clear run for Bobby Sands. Standing on a platform that he and his friends such as Bik McFarlane, who bombed the Bayardo Bar and opened fire on those escaping the wreckage, weren’t criminals the SDLP failed to mount a challenge against this attempt to legitimise the sectarian killers of the IRA. The SDLP once again stood down to give Owen Carron a clear run in spite of a spate of sectarian killings conducted by Bobby's pals.
Ironically McDonnell claims to seek an alliance with the party he has branded bigots to work against the SF/DUP axis in the Assembly. It’s a shame McDonnell wasn’t interested in reaching across the divide when Sinn Fein and the IRA were defaulting on decommissioning. If the SDLP had the courage to insist Sinn Fein live up to its commitments under the Belfast Agreement rather than backing their tribal partners we may now have effective cross-community government up at Stormont.
McDonnell would have been better employed earning the support of his constituents to remain at Westminster. The double, and until recently treble, jobbing MP’s abysmal attendance record would have seen him dismissed from any employment in the private sector. Not that you would realise this looking at his expenses, running up bills of £23,000 for housing and nearly £10,000 in travel costs. While obviously work shy he certainly seems to enjoy the amenities London has to offer.
One wonders what the dire consequences Alasdair warns of if he is deprived of the high life at the expense of the public purse. Is he seriously proposing that the ranks of dissident republicans shall be swelled by disillusioned stoops, disgusted the SDLP’s abstentionist MP has been ousted? Perhaps ‘big Al’ thinks we should dispense with elections altogether!
The Conservatives and Unionists should push on to give South Belfast some real representation. If the DUP stand aside so an end can be put to Al's party then they will have done the taxpayer, and south Belfast, a small service.
Welcome
26 January 2010
17 January 2010
A guest blog piece by Alexander Redpath, Chairman of Lagan Valley Young Unionists and Speaker of Queen's Students' Representative Council.
Dear Sir,
The Human Rights consortium is doing its best to drum up support for the Bill of Rights. However I must urge the people of Northern Ireland to take part in the consultation on the Bill of Rights and express the opinion that the Human Rights Commission’s report would be disastrous for the future of Northern Ireland and that the Secretary of State’s limited proposals are sufficient.
I conform completely to the views laid down by Daphne Trimble in her dissenting report to the bill of rights. My fundamental objections to the commission’s report are that it goes far beyond its remit, is fundamentally undemocratic and represents a wasted opportunity for Northern Ireland.
The Human Rights Commission’s remit was to,
“Advise on the scope for defining…. rights supplementary to those in the European Convention on Human Rights to reflect the principles of mutual respect for the identity and ethos of both communities and parity of esteem.”
In this sense the commission’s report is a failure. The report goes far beyond the European Convention and at many points’ attempts to redefine and change it. It also goes far beyond matters reflecting the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland.
The bill is fundamentally undemocratic. The Bill subverts the power of the Assembly under the Good Friday agreement to reform the election system. Most worryingly of all the bill goes into detail on socio-economic “rights”. These include rights on health, standard of living, accommodation, work, the environment and social security. Their inclusion in the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland is to give the judiciary a role in government which is properly a role for elected representatives, namely, over the allocation of resources. I do not want Judges to set the level of the minimum wage; or to allocate social housing or to set the level of social security. If the report is implemented all this and more could happen.
My final objection to the report is that the commission, in an orgy of self-indulgence, have squandered their chance to create a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. This report is madness and would make business and government much more difficult. That is why the Secretary of State’s consultation ignores the vast majority of the report and focuses on only two of the commission’s suggestions.
The failure of the Commission to draft a workable report represents ten years and millions of pounds of waste. Monica McWilliams is an intelligent lady who unfortunately acted without common sense, as no government in Western Europe would have accepted her proposals.
It is my view that the eight commissioners responsible for this report should resign their posts. I would also like to commend the bravery and conviction of the dissenting Commissioners Daphne Trimble and Jonathan Bell who at great risk to their own positions had the wisdom to dissent against the lunacy of this report.
Dear Sir,
The Human Rights consortium is doing its best to drum up support for the Bill of Rights. However I must urge the people of Northern Ireland to take part in the consultation on the Bill of Rights and express the opinion that the Human Rights Commission’s report would be disastrous for the future of Northern Ireland and that the Secretary of State’s limited proposals are sufficient.
I conform completely to the views laid down by Daphne Trimble in her dissenting report to the bill of rights. My fundamental objections to the commission’s report are that it goes far beyond its remit, is fundamentally undemocratic and represents a wasted opportunity for Northern Ireland.
The Human Rights Commission’s remit was to,
“Advise on the scope for defining…. rights supplementary to those in the European Convention on Human Rights to reflect the principles of mutual respect for the identity and ethos of both communities and parity of esteem.”
In this sense the commission’s report is a failure. The report goes far beyond the European Convention and at many points’ attempts to redefine and change it. It also goes far beyond matters reflecting the particular circumstances of Northern Ireland.
The bill is fundamentally undemocratic. The Bill subverts the power of the Assembly under the Good Friday agreement to reform the election system. Most worryingly of all the bill goes into detail on socio-economic “rights”. These include rights on health, standard of living, accommodation, work, the environment and social security. Their inclusion in the Bill of Rights for Northern Ireland is to give the judiciary a role in government which is properly a role for elected representatives, namely, over the allocation of resources. I do not want Judges to set the level of the minimum wage; or to allocate social housing or to set the level of social security. If the report is implemented all this and more could happen.
My final objection to the report is that the commission, in an orgy of self-indulgence, have squandered their chance to create a bill of rights for Northern Ireland. This report is madness and would make business and government much more difficult. That is why the Secretary of State’s consultation ignores the vast majority of the report and focuses on only two of the commission’s suggestions.
The failure of the Commission to draft a workable report represents ten years and millions of pounds of waste. Monica McWilliams is an intelligent lady who unfortunately acted without common sense, as no government in Western Europe would have accepted her proposals.
It is my view that the eight commissioners responsible for this report should resign their posts. I would also like to commend the bravery and conviction of the dissenting Commissioners Daphne Trimble and Jonathan Bell who at great risk to their own positions had the wisdom to dissent against the lunacy of this report.
11 January 2010
Strung up on her own petard, the world has come crashing down round Ulster’s scourge of the gays, Iris Robinson. With every passing day fresh revelations paint an increasingly sordid image of her sexual liaisons. Abusing the trust placed in her by Kirk McCambley’s father, she embarked on an affair with his son, forty year her junior.
These days an affair alone is not enough to finish a career, even in our supposedly frigid puritanical climate of Northern Ireland. However Mrs Robinson has raised herself up on the pedestal as the guardian of morality, judging gays to be the vilest of the vile. Yet now she stands before us a serial adulteress, stripped of the excuse that it was a brief moment of emotional weakness, whose string of affairs included Kirk’s father, Billy McCambley. Iris must be down on her knees, thankful other legislators in the land do not see it as their duty to uphold God’s law.
Snatching Kirk from the funeral she wooed him with promises that his future would be bright if only he stayed under her wing. Securing two loans of £25,000 each to aid the young entrepreneur things turned nasty when she demanded a cut of £5000, motivated by what can only be presumed as greed from a woman enjoying three lucrative salaries from the public purse. Mrs Robinson’s shoddy treatment of Kirk continued after she terminated the affair, demanding the immediate repayment of the £45,000, money he could ill afford. Iris’s behaviour in this respect raises more questions about whether she was fit to hold public office than her failure to declare these loans.
So where does this leave Peter? He appeared before us, a broken man to bare his heart. The media storm around him has been furious, yet on the face of it he appears to have acted in as proper a manner he could, considering the circumstances. While not declaring knowledge of the loans, he insisted they were immediately repaid and put an end to Iris’s ambitions to appear the philanthropist with another’s money. Would we have respected him more if he had no sense of loyalty to his wife, or do we expect him to have volunteered for the public humiliation the details of Iris’s affairs have caused?
His conduct in this regard however has no bearing on the political calculations for the DUP. With Allister’s tanks ripping up the lawn in North Antrim and UCUNF snapping at their heels can the party afford to keep Robinson as leader? A successor would need to be elected to the post of First Minister, requiring support from Sinn Fein, which will hardly be forthcoming lest a date for devolving policing and justice is agreed. This would leave the party vulnerable to the TUV in the run up to the general election. In the absence of an agreement to replace the First Minister a fresh poll for the Assembly would conducted, held under the less favourable auspices of STV enabling the TUV to carve deep into the DUP’s Assembly caucus.
So Robinson will survive, for now. He makes a useful scapegoat for the Westminster results and may serve some purpose in negotiating the tricky obstacle of policing and justice. Once Peter leads the DUP over this Rubicon his successor shall wash his hands, as if Pontus Pilate, of the whole sorry story.
These days an affair alone is not enough to finish a career, even in our supposedly frigid puritanical climate of Northern Ireland. However Mrs Robinson has raised herself up on the pedestal as the guardian of morality, judging gays to be the vilest of the vile. Yet now she stands before us a serial adulteress, stripped of the excuse that it was a brief moment of emotional weakness, whose string of affairs included Kirk’s father, Billy McCambley. Iris must be down on her knees, thankful other legislators in the land do not see it as their duty to uphold God’s law.
Snatching Kirk from the funeral she wooed him with promises that his future would be bright if only he stayed under her wing. Securing two loans of £25,000 each to aid the young entrepreneur things turned nasty when she demanded a cut of £5000, motivated by what can only be presumed as greed from a woman enjoying three lucrative salaries from the public purse. Mrs Robinson’s shoddy treatment of Kirk continued after she terminated the affair, demanding the immediate repayment of the £45,000, money he could ill afford. Iris’s behaviour in this respect raises more questions about whether she was fit to hold public office than her failure to declare these loans.
So where does this leave Peter? He appeared before us, a broken man to bare his heart. The media storm around him has been furious, yet on the face of it he appears to have acted in as proper a manner he could, considering the circumstances. While not declaring knowledge of the loans, he insisted they were immediately repaid and put an end to Iris’s ambitions to appear the philanthropist with another’s money. Would we have respected him more if he had no sense of loyalty to his wife, or do we expect him to have volunteered for the public humiliation the details of Iris’s affairs have caused?
His conduct in this regard however has no bearing on the political calculations for the DUP. With Allister’s tanks ripping up the lawn in North Antrim and UCUNF snapping at their heels can the party afford to keep Robinson as leader? A successor would need to be elected to the post of First Minister, requiring support from Sinn Fein, which will hardly be forthcoming lest a date for devolving policing and justice is agreed. This would leave the party vulnerable to the TUV in the run up to the general election. In the absence of an agreement to replace the First Minister a fresh poll for the Assembly would conducted, held under the less favourable auspices of STV enabling the TUV to carve deep into the DUP’s Assembly caucus.
So Robinson will survive, for now. He makes a useful scapegoat for the Westminster results and may serve some purpose in negotiating the tricky obstacle of policing and justice. Once Peter leads the DUP over this Rubicon his successor shall wash his hands, as if Pontus Pilate, of the whole sorry story.
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