£100 million welcome – but far too late!
The media made great play of the announcement of an “£100 million” golf resort for the North Coast.
I often wonder quite how such figures are arrived at, but a more relevant piece of research would be this: how much money has not been brought into the Northern Ireland economy at that location while the whole thing has been trapped in the planning system?
The fact that a decision was made in 2012 only highlighted that none had been made previously this century! Are we seriously to believe that, all of this time, new and vital information was being brought to light? Are we seriously to believe that, throughout this period, environmental circumstances were in constant flux?
Here in the Village we have had a good week, and yet still we await decisions on a new school (awaited since 2004), on various planning applications (including ones which may help create employment), and so on. Why all this constant delay?
Now that the North Coast decision has been made, perhaps we should be investing in R+D designed to limit environmental impact of such proposals while enabling them to proceed. That may even be exportable! However, I suspect if we wanted that idea thoroughly examined, we would be waiting decades…
DRD Minister a Junior Minister in his own Department
Whatever you made of the grand announcement by the Executive of £580m allocated to specific hospitals and roads, what struck me most was the way in which it was announced.
Most particularly, announcement of the upgrade of Belfast to two towns in East Antrim was made by the Finance Minister, even though roads fall within Regional Department. The Finance Minister, of course, just happens also to be the MP for East Antrim…
Ultimately, the Regional Development Minister – in my experience a thoroughly decent man and public representative – was left to play second fiddle in his own department. It was as if he were really the Junior Minister for Regional Development, not the head of Department.
To make the obvious point, if this is where “Unionist Unity” pre-Executive meetings are getting the UUP, they are clearly not a good thing – for they seem merely enable to the DUP to take credit for UUP decisions. The DUP, on the other hand, played a blinder as ever – good news for the Ulster Hospital, on the fringes of three key constituencies for them, was announced by the local man also (in this case the First Minister), whereas the Health Minister stayed away (given no allocation was forthcoming for any hospital in his patch, even though it is his Department).
It seems incredible that the UUP and SDLP should meekly continue to be pushed around like this – and I’m not sure it’s good for democracy that they are. If we are going to share power, we should share it.
A Shared Future is for life, not just for Christmas
Michael Bower makes the point more succinctly, but here is what I would have written!
I of course welcome Johnny Andrews’ theoretical commitment to a Shared Future, but I would welcome it rather more if he showed any political nous and real-world experience to make it happen in practice. Sitting around discussing the theory of it is all very well, but I have been doing it on the ground in one of our most marginalised communities for almost a decade, and the practice is rather different.
Firstly, Johnny and his colleagues are consistent in their public view that sectarian attacks would suddenly cease, peace walls would suddenly fall and reconciliation would magically happen if only we had a nice glossy government strategy to say so. It is this sort of detached thinking which sadly typifies too much of the community relations debate, and in fact harms the prospect of a real Shared Future in practice.
Secondly, his attack on the Alliance Party shows a complete lack of awareness of the real world of Northern Ireland politics. It is quite difficult to deliver on anti-sectarian policies when there are four larger parties dedicated to continuing to see everything through a sectarian prism. Despite this, from the first integrated school 30 years ago to a policy on integrated teacher training now, the Alliance Party has delivered in practice against the odds.
Thirdly, a “Shared Future” requires leadership within Northern Ireland on behalf of all the people in all their diversity. The notion that a party which defines “mainstream politics” as “English politics” and which is so devoid of local Leaders that it had to import a millionaire peer from the Home Counties to publicise its relaunch can provide that kind of leadership, across the divide and in marginalised communities here, is frankly laughable.
The lesson of the past few years, one accepted by increasing numbers of people, is that there is only one party capable of thinking and feeling for all the people of Northern Ireland and leading change towards a Shared Future in practice on the ground. That party is the Alliance Party, and if Johnny were genuinely serious about a Shared Future, he would sign up!
Time to move on from “Unionism”
Mike Nesbitt is clearly a highly capable man but his article in yesterday’s Belfast Telegraph, trying to suggest the UUP was about to rise “like a phoenix”, was simply meaningless, offering no solutions.
Yet it strikes me that the problem is not so much with the UUP alone, but with the very term “Unionism”. With the constitutional question settled as far as it possibly could be, the term is now inescapably tied to “representation of Protestants only” – a reason I and others have sought a more progressive, meaningful political route.
Not that I think an independent local Conservative party was ever likely to succeed, but it is a pity it has already given up on offering something genuinely different. The timing of its launch and the prominent inclusion of the word “Unionist” in its title demonstrates a determination to play yesterday’s political game. In any case, if the fundamental problem in the UUP is poor leadership, a party whose local leadership is non-existent (to the extent that it’s publicity is carried out by an English peer on a flying visit) is hardly the solution.
The challenge is to move on and leave the old labels behind.
UUP committed to “Unionist Unity”
Full text of letter sent to papers last week:
Dear Sir/Madam:
The recent ‘revelation’ that a senior UUP figure had been in ‘Unionist Unity’ talks with the DUP came as no surprise to some of us. Indeed, there should be no doubt about Mr McNarry’s version of events.
Let us look at the recent decision to divide up the Department of Employment and Learning despite its importance in the current economic situation and despite the fact its Minister, Stephen Farry, is recognised as one of the most able on the Executive. People who were perplexed by the UUP’s decision to back a DUP/Sinn Fein carve-up designed for party gain rather than public interest will now understand exactly what was going on!
For all their anti-DUP bluster, UUP members recently elected the architect of ‘Unionist Unity’ in Fermanagh/South Tyrone as their Leader; consistently re-elected a man who has always overtly supported ‘Unionist Unity’ as their Chairman; and backed Council candidates who have formed pacts with the DUP from Carrickfergus to Castlereagh.
Ultimately, people who are serious about a shared future and about a type of political representation which truly represents and delivers for the people of Northern Ireland have had to ask themselves how they can continue to be connected to such a party. The electorate will not be fooled either – one man’s ‘cooperation’ is clearly another man’s ‘effective merger’.
Most incredible of all, of course, is the notion that talks have included means of “voting cooperation against Nationalists and the Alliance Party”. At a Westminster election, that can only mean one thing. “United Unionists” seem to have forgotten already how that turned out last time…
Why should media not allow “more nuanced” message on attacks?
I am, I suppose in common with many people, often unhappy about watching back my own media performances. There’s always something you should have said that you didn’t say, and I daresay occasionally there are things you did say that you wouldn’t say given the chance of a re-run.
However, I was struck by one commenter’s remark – largely in my defence, in fact – that a UTV studio interview was not the place to make a comment more nuanced than outright condemnation of last week’s appalling attack. That may be right, in fact, but does it not then present a problem, that we are not able to do anything after an attack other than condemn it? That we are not able to dig down to determine what might lie behind such appalling crimes? That we are not able to ask ourselves what it is we have done to create a society in which people grow up capable of such appalling acts? It may be entirely accurate to assign “sectarian” and “racist” motives to such an attack, but is anyone seriously suggesting that merely assigning such motives will make the perpetrator think again about doing it in future?
I had in fact decided, as implied by the aforementioned commenter, not to mention during the interview that there had been several similar attacks on young men elsewhere in the Greater Belfast area over the previous fortnight or so. I furthermore did not mention that those previous attacks did not receive the same level of media coverage, even though in each case the outcome was in fact worse for the victim and for the families of the victim. Have we really reached the stage, as a society, that an attack on someone constitutes an acceptable level of violence provided it is on someone of the same religious denomination? Seriously?
Behind any attack of this nature, to quote another commenter, lie underlying problems including but not limited to: unemployment; breakdown of the family; breakdown of societal structures (e.g. church); lack of educational opportunities; lack of impetus to avail of the educational opportunities that do exist; poor housing; alcohol abuse, substance abuse. Let me be clear: these underlying problems create the type of person who goes and leaves someone else for dead, whether or not that “someone else” is of the same religion or not. So while it may suit some editors and commentators to focus on the “sectarian” nature of some attacks (and no one is disputing that), focusing only on that achieves precisely nothing in terms of stopping it happening again. You can have all the community relations strategies you like (and we should have many of them), but without addressing the aforementioned problems they will not reduce the frequency or level of violence we see in some marginalised communities (predominantly against young men), whatever “excuse” may be given for it and whatever “label” may be attached to it.
The choice is ours. We can make ourselves feel good by “outright condemnation” of every attack but leave the attacks to go on; or we can take a more nuanced approach and actually seek to do something about it. I’m in the latter camp.
Unionists may live to regret hostility to current UK Government
I found Lord Feldman’s letter to the UUP as baffling and bizarre as anyone else in NI politics. It was poorly timed and it seemed to represent a strand of “bossy Greater South East English Conservatism” that was certainly a part of UCUNF’s demise. Yet I suspect Unionists will come to regret being quite so hasty and hostile in their response.
This is a time when everyone in Northern Ireland would be well served by strong relationships to those in power elsewhere; I would have thought, for Unionists, with an impending referendum to consider, this would be even more the case.
The DUP has given, to be fair, a measured response to the prospect of a Scottish referendum within three years. However, the Ulster Unionists have again looked somewhat isolated. One of its peers has even gone so far as to suggest Scottish partition! If such nonsense has any relevance in Scotland, it’ll only be to put a few more votes on the “yes” pile!
No matter how baffling its approach, this is a time for dealing respectfully and rationally with the governing parties in London. We need to be building relationships so that we have the appropriate fiscal levers to give us the type of economy Scotland has, which despite financial disaster enables it at least to contemplate separation; we need to be considering what we can give in terms of our experience and not just what we “get” out of the Union; and we need to be involved in issues such as welfare reform, Europe and currency issues which are so fundamental to people’s way of life across the UK.
This is no time to be isolated!
SF again proves itself anything other than an all-island party
It was good that the City Council passed a motion inviting the Irish Government to be represented at future Somme commemorations, but headlines rightly noted Sinn Féin’s inability to endorse the move.
Sinn Féin makes much of its all-island credentials, and yet here it was, the only party unable to support Irish Government representation!
The real point is that Sinn Féin is not, in fact, an all-island party. In fact, by the very fact it talks of a group of people called “Irish Republicans” it gives this away; it is a party of a narrow segment of the population, and by definition exclusive.
The message it sends out, and not for the first time in recent months, is that its “Ireland of Equals” will be strictly limited in fact only to those who share the “Irish Republican” world view. The rest, apparently, don’t deserve equality – not even apparently when they are reflecting on a great sacrifice made by Irishmen of all backgrounds at the Somme.
This has a very direct impact on local community work. Attempts at imposing an “Irish Republican” world view, for example by ignoring the suffering heaped upon majority Catholic neighbourhoods by “Irish Republicans” themselves over the past 40 years, make meaningful cross-community dialogue exceedingly difficult.
Community Relations is not about imposing your world view on someone else, but rather about opening your eyes and ears to others, and perhaps even coming to accept the biases of your own background and your own culture. No one said it is easy, but it requires stronger courage and leadership than that shown by some in Sinn Féin in recent weeks.
Education Minister’s homework is late
We were told that Education Minister John O’Dowd would present his report on the proposed merger of three schools in this local area of South Belfast by the end of 2011.
To which I say – Happy New Year, Mr O’Dowd! But it is now 2012, and we have no report that I am aware of!
This will cause great uncertainty for the very pupils, parents and teachers he claims to be so concerned about. Having waited since 2004 – now close to a decade – we can afford no more delays.
There are occasional moments when you think politics can deliver, and for me this decision by the Justice Minister was one.
Domestic violence is an appalling scourge, vastly more widespread that society cares to admit, and this interim arrangement has, as David Ford points out, already helped over 100 people. It will also make hundreds of others feel safer – something which has a huge impact on quality of life.
I congratulate the Minister on the decision and the lobbyists who met him to secure it.
