Peter Robinson: the folly of tactics over strategy; and space hoppers
The progress towards an agreement on policing and justice has taken more twists and turns than seemed believable when the current negotiations started. Currently it seems that the DUP are locked in discussion as to whether or not they can accept the current agreement.
It is unclear exactly what the final draft will be but unless it is collapsed at the last minute it seems that the devolution of policing and justice will occur within the next few months. Where now the talk of political lifetimes? Gregory Campbell may have tried heroically on Nolan this morning to keep up the talk of six months or six years but it sounded pretty unconvincing. However, now at the last possible moment it seems as if some in the DUP are willing to try for something better. The problem is that as their options have narrowed their aspirations have shrunk to an extent which is almost pitiful. It seems the arguments are around the timing of any concessions on parading and possibly a few other minor gains. Compare this with the suggestion that the DUP would not be bounced into P&J devolution. The once proud DUP, preparing humiliation after humiliation for Sinn Fein have been reduced to this.
With any DUP capitulation of course unionist confidence, something I suggested there was good reason for a few short weeks ago, is now severely dented. The DUP should not pretend that any agreement which devolves P&J in the near future will be anything other than a major humiliation for the them and a major dent to unionist confidence. In contrast republican confidence will soar and no doubt Mick’s suggestion of a return of the unity by 2016 nonsense will recur (I wonder where you got that line Mick).
Once the DUP told us that they would not be bounced into P&J devolution. The reason why the DUP are now acting like the space hopper I greatly enjoyed as a child is, of course complex. It is maybe worth a brief look as sooner or later someone will have to begin to put together the pieces of unionist confidence and rebuild.
Irisgate has of course been a problem: it shattered the DUP’s air of invulnerability and although Robinson himself may not have been massively damaged there is the suspicion that those scandals have not fully played themselves out. Irisgate also brought low the seemingly impervious Peter Robinson, a man who always looked in control of his own fate. Objectively he handled himself pretty well during the media storm and managed to garner significant sympathy. However, that seemingly clinical, ice cold, calculating politician was revealed as a mere mortal like the rest of us: the admittedly non charismatic but rock like mystique was smashed irrevocably.
However, Irisgate was only the final, most obvious straw, which brought the DUP low. The problems of the Swish family Robinson, the expenses scandal, the multi-jobbing and possibly most of all the family dynasties all contributed to bring down the DUP from their exalted position.
Two other factors are, I would submit, however, the most important in understanding the current DUP predicament and they are interrelated.
The first which is known to the political cognoscenti more than the general population is of course the change in the mechanism for electing the First Minister which was enacted after the St. Andrew’s Agreement. As most readers now know it was none other than Peter Robinson who acquiesced to the change which made the First Minister’s position within the gift of the largest party rather than the largest party of the largest designation (unionist or nationalist). No other decision in the whole of Peter Robinson’s long political career better demonstrates his tactical cunning or his strategic idiocy than this decision. At the time it was a master stroke: it seemed that Robinson had produced a formula to force unionists, in perpetuity, to support the major unionist party lest the First Ministership fall to Sinn Fein. Of all Robinson’s tactical manoeuvrings over the years to defeat the UUP, this was his most brilliant. Finally the DUP were insured against any realistic likelihood of a UUP comeback. It was a decision of tactical brilliance.
It also demonstrated in the starkest possible relief why Robinson’s understanding of unionism is incomplete and why he is the most strategically flawed of recent unionist leaders: even more so than Trimble.
So little had Robinson thought about the longer term strategy that he seems not to have conceived of a time when the DUP would not be likely to be able to command the majority of unionist votes. Such an idea seems not to have crossed his mind: or it did and was dismissed with the arrogant contempt of one who had come to believe his own propaganda. The DUP had negotiated the best possible deal: how could the unionist community think differently. How could any serious unionist apart from the die hard UUP types not see that the DUP had achieved all that unionism could want.
What Robinson had forgotten was that in the dark past the DUP had been the party of which did not really do tactical cunning, not for them the sharp suits, focus groups and media savvyness: it did simple old fashioned hard line unionism; a unionism which told it as it was. Although that constituency of hard line unionists had not always voted DUP (the UUP once held some of that vote) it was the bedrock of traditional unionism. The fundamentalist Protestants of North and East Antrim, the Orangemen of County Londonderry, the paranoid border Protestants of the dreary steeples. For these people the DUP had once represented the party which would not enter power sharing with those who had murdered their kith and kin, would not compromise on the basic tenet that the causers of the mayhem of the past thirty years should not have control of the levers of power. That constituency held that if the price of power was to hand similar power to the IRA’s political representatives then it was not worth the price.
Robinson’s blunder was to think that these people had either gone away or were so wedded to the DUP that they would never switch to anyone else. He seems to have thought that the magic of the DUP party name and Dr. Paisley would ensure that any deal cut by the DUP was the best possible: Carlsberg do not do political deals for unionism but if they did….
Robinson, however, had forgotten that independent streak in those Prods: once they had deserted the UUP to help Paisley found his new party; later others had defected to make the DUP the top unionist party. However, they were not completely enraptured to the DUP and its charismatic leader. That of course led on to Robinson’s next almost as fatal mistake.
When Dr. Paisley stepped down from the MEP post which he had held Robinson needed a suitable new candidate. He did not want a person whose profile would be raised too much: he did not want a potential rival to his place as the heir apparent. Hence, it was a clever wheeze (and it was assuredly Robinson’s own idea) to find a name from the DUP’s past: a man of considerable talent but to Robinson’s eyes one who would not be a threat. Does Peter remember which tie he wore when he went to see Jim Allister? does he remember the crunch of his shoes on Allister’s drive? does he remember his first words? presumably he had had a chance to rehearse them in the car.
Although Robinson did not know it at the time he had in those two decisions: the First Ministership’s election and the choice of European candidate; the beginnings of what would bring him to his current problems. Those two decisions encapsulate all that has made Peter Robinson such an effective politician and the exact reason why he is now trapped in a nightmare of his own creation. They demonstrate like a morality tale of old the difference between tactics and strategy; the difference between cunning and vision.
Even at bay, however, Robinson still has ideas: the prospect of an understanding with the UUP may be flawed by the old animosities but it does hold out some possibilities.
At the moment, however, the DUP seem to be thinking of the prospect of some sort of pact as a way of minimising the damage they are likely to suffer at the hands of the electorate. Indeed if it could by chance work out it might save a few DUP members from their P45s. However, again it is a tactic. If the DUP could forge an understanding with the UUP they might be able to do a deal and still hold enough seats after the nest Stormont elections to keep the first ministership. Again a clever tactic: again a lack of strategic vision.
When the DUP were in their pomp after the recommencement of devolution they could dismiss Sinn Fein’s threats regarding collapse of the agreement. If SF had done so the DUP reasoning was that they would come back to a practically identical set up with no major gains. That was the calculation before the European election when Robinson predicted Jim Allister gaining 20-30,000 votes. Now the idea of a tie up with the UUP seems to be to do the deal on P&J and then try to get a deal with the UUP to hold the line.
There is another possibility but that requires a strategic vision which Robinson has never held: one I advocated before Irisgate ever happened but the possibility of a UUP understanding might hold out.
Robinson could simply hold out and allow Sinn Fein to collapse the agreement. Then if he could arrange a tie up with the UUP he could go into the election. In such an election he could pose as the hard liner who both for practical and principled reasons would not bow the knee to Sinn Fein. In such a scenario it is quite possible that the united unionist party would command more seats than Sinn Fein and hence, the First Ministership. Such an assembly with Sinn Fein little further on and with a cohort of TUV MLAs might then be the spring board for further negotiations except this time with the whip hand back with the DUP and not Sinn Fein.
Such a possibility is almost certainly pie in the sky: Reg Empey lacks the courage and vision to take such an opportunity imperilling as it might the Conservative tie up even more than his recent vacillation has; the suspicion between the DUP and UUP probably runs too deep. A suspicion of course intensified by Robinson’s careful, methodical destruction of the UUP over the 1990s: again tactically brilliant, strategically lamentable. In addition Robinson probably lacks the strategic vision to even begin to go down such a route.
So now Robinson is faced by a party in partial revolt: unwilling to compromise now as many will be signing their political death warrants for a year hence; yet if they do not compromise now effectively accepting an earlier date for their own political execution. Never has Robinson’s tactical brilliance been needed more than now. Never has his strategic stupidity in bringing the DUP (and unionism) to this point been better demonstrated.
You ignored my final point. ‘Beating themuns’ isn’t a strategy. In your post and responses there is no vision of what you want to create other than a situation where a Unionist party, to use the vernacular that you are perhaps too coy to use, simply has its electoral boot on the neck of the fenians.
Where, pray, does that take you? I am sure it will give some of those those huddled around the Lodge table a warm inner glow but what does it add to our collective futures? Where does it take us?
And in what perverted universe do you think that:
1 The British and Irish Governments will put up with it
2 The majority of Catholics will put up with it
3 The vast majority of Unionists want it
Look at Allisters meeting at the Albertbridge Road last week. Most of the audience were well over 60. Time is passing you by while most of the rest of us Unionists want to put the past behind us and develop a shared future with those who share thsi small corner of the UK and Ireland.
I think MU has it about right, It’s very important to the British state that its citizens fully endorse its police service, and they’re not going to let selfish party political get in the way of that.
MI6′s vision for NI (before MI5 took over the handling of their agents within the Provos in 1974) was that there should be a confederated Ireland within NATO. This policy was supported by another player, the US. A Confederate Ireland existed for a brief period between 1641 and 1649, and that is essentially the embryonic model within the British Irish Agreement.
In contrast, MI5′s vision was directly related to its mandate to defend the constitutional integrity of the UK, and to promote British national, economic and strategic interests. Its purpose was very simple: to get those who rejected British rule to accept its legitimacy and to assist in its administration.
That was also the policy of the British government, particularly of Margaret Thatcher “The minority should be led to support or at least acquiesce in the constitutional framework of the state in which they live.” (Thatcher, 1993, p.384)
The problem for unionists is that they can’t be sure of which part of the British state is in control of the policy. There were conflicting agendas between the Security Services in the past (see how many of MI6′s touts were exposed and killed when MI5 took over), and between those security services and the government.
Their latent fear is that devolution of P&J is simply part of a hidden agenda of integrating it with P&J in Ireland thereby enabling unity through harmonisation rather than simply bringing it under the control of local politicians. In that regard they think it best that P&J stays with London.
Turgon:
“That does not mean that all unionists should fear Plan B”
I’ve got a better idea. Why don’t all unionists start campaigning for a united Ireland ? This way, you’d be lined up together with all the other parties in the Dail in permanently excluding SF from government, and nobody would call you bigots for it. Isn’t that the logical conclusion of your “anything is better than SF in government” thing ?
SF will never accept this in the current system and they have a veto. Hence, the need to collapse the agreement and have a new one. If SF can be induced to do this over P&J fair enough.
Boy oh boy, Turgon, I think you’ve struck gold! Yes, all we need to do is get SF and the SDLP around the talks table to write a new agreement, and they will drop their silly insistence on mandatory coalition, and rightfully kneel before their Unionist overlords. Couldn’t we all have saved a lot of time if we’d simply asked you first ?
‘republican confidence will soar’
Is the principal objective to stop republicans from having any fun irrespective of the fact that, like a broken clock, they might be right twice a day ? That’s stupid. In any case, all you need to do is point out that they jettisoned all their principles, were militarily defeated, and forced to participate in a settlement that enshrines what they used to call the “illegal unionist veto”.
Carson’s Cat:
Is TUV policy officially now that two wrongs make a right?
Yes, it is. I’ve been told apparently it’s not a problem for the TUV to have members who want Torrens Knight released, because after all, Naomi Long was once nice to Dawn Purvis. I’ve never got a straight answer to the question as to why someone who thinks that loyalists should be unconditionally released from jail would make the TUV, a party supposedly opposed to all such concessions, their party of choice.
The TUV membership form does ask the prospective member to sign a declaration that they support the aims/principles/etc of TUV … why would a party leader not want to enforce this declaration ? Questions, questions ..
Marcionite:
why had not a single DUP MLA defected to the TUV by now ? Why have defections been confined to grassroots and councillors?
I’d honestly like to believe that it’s their commitment to doing the right thing. In reality, it’s probably more because they feel at the moment that being in the DUP gives them a better chance of holding on to their seat (and income).
Turgon
If you want an example of what we really need to sort out, on my doormat today dropped a little form from the NI Human Rights Consortium with a postcard helpfully addressed for me to fill in writing to them demanding a new Bill of Rights for NI. So I looked them up. They are supported by over 140 NGOs in NI – Yep that’s right. Every interest group under the sun with the vast majority funded by the state in one way or another and all wanting more legislation to protect their little sectional interests – then if course then they will need more money to help enforce it.
This is what we really need to sort out. Layer after layer of bureaucracy and publicly funded jobs that drain the real economy
Good article. This reminds me of an article written by Matthew Parris in the Times called “Gordon Brown: the terrible vacuum”.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/matthew_parris/article3731645.ece
It comes to a very similar conclusion about Brown as a man who is good on tactics but has no idea where he is going
He is good with strategy too, but it’s just that Turgon is obfuscating the DUP’s best interests with the best interests of the Unionist people, and not recognising that the former will always have precedence over the latter. In short, political parties exist to serve the interests of the members of those political parties first and foremost, with all other considerations – such as the national or unionist interest – being secondary.
Turgon. [5] Excellent analysis of Robinson’s inability to lead. Forget Kilsally who hears and believes what wants to and disregards the rest, as Paul Simon said in ‘The Boxer’
As you pointed out, Robinson thought the change from biggest grouping to biggest party was a great wheeze, effectively he was blackmailling his own voters. why did he think that was politically astute? it has come back now to bite him and is potentially politically fatal for him.
Great political brain, my ankle.
Agreed, but I am not sure the motivation to get into power and hold onto it, no matter what, and with no outcome to speak of as a result of being in power, can be described as anything other than a survival strategy (or siege mentality). Have we not moved on from this?
“the vast majority [of NGOs] funded by the state in one way or another”:
Actually almost all are funded by Chuck Feeney’s Atlantic Philanthropies. He employs more people here than Bombardier.
Policy for the ‘voluntary’ sector is his prerogative.
Wait till he asks for payback!
Fitzjameshorse: tell me exactly how would Britishness be denied to unionists living in Omagh in a United Ireland? Have you never heard of the successful joyous Rossnowlagh Orange march? tell me, would your partaking of Morris dancing be curtailed by the Dail? What is British culture? Tell me your folk songs, your mythology. Loyalty to the crown is not a culture but a political expression. Utter hogwash.
Mick,
“I have my hot water bottle ready for the off, but before I go, I’d be interested in your more extended thoughts on what this ‘deal’ was precisely:”
Sorry couldnt stick the pace and it was late, so much excitement, just had to get some sleep to recharge in readiness for the next 2 weeks of cliffhangers and deadlines with the DUP taking advantage of the poor weather to get their revenge on the media by keeping them out in the cold night after night for the very unfair portrayal of them as fundametalist drumlin-billies.
But returing to your question.. I meant no more than the GFA is the SF/IRA bottom line and the transfer of Police and Justice is, to use everyones least favourite piece of Ulstereze political jargon “the last piece of the jigsaw”. They may be on their own from now on if the DUP have the good sense to cut a deal and will not be able to call on the British government further but instead have to rely on Unionists to tear each other apart.
They are unlikely to be disappointed.
It’s hardly the Shinners “bottom line” since their input in the pre-written and predetermined FTA negotiations was negligible. They’re just being good boys and girls and doing as they are told. All the more fun for their tribe if the endorsement of Her Majesty’s security services is presented as a victory for that tribe rather than a victory for said security services.
FTA = GFA
“how would Britishness be denied to unionists living in Omagh in a United Ireland? Have you never heard of the successful joyous Rossnowlagh Orange march?”
Marcionite, Britishness? there is nothing British about the OO Parade (and it is a parade not a march) in Rossnowlagh, its attended by my neighbours and ex-schoolfriends, and I can assure you they are as Irish as anyone else in Ballyshannon, Bundoran, Ballintra, Donegal Town etc.
Its their culture, their tradition but none of them (or indeed any OO members or Protestants in the 26 counties of Ireland) have ever been British, the British tag is relatively new and exists only among a section of the Protestant community in the 6 counties.
Alias,
You dont honestly think that SF/IRA turned up at the table and said “ok chaps lets have a frank and open discussion”?
The deal was done long before that, and every statement from the Prime minister, the Irish government, the SOS, the Tories and more latterly the PSNI chiefs have reflected the SF/IRA bottom line.
Turgon, just what did bring The British Gov, Irish Gov, Unionists, Nationalists, Loyalism, Republicanism to the negotiating table – Compromise. I as a Republican can never see a United Ireland coming out of the GFA or even leading to one in the far future. That was the compromise. The agenda being pushed now by Nationalism is about equality. One section of society cannot just be ignored as some Unionists would like to think. It sounds bizzare to Nationalists and Republicans when some sections of Unionism talk about “Terrorists in Government” ie Sinn Fein, but seems like they have amnesia when it comes to Unionist and Loyalist terrorism. The DUP having set up Ulster Resistance, most of whom are at the negotiating table today, who along with the UDA and UVF brought tons of weaponry into the country from South Africa, this is fact. The UUP had no problem standing shoulder to shoulder with both the UDA and the UVF during the GFA negotiations, even tossing about the possibility of a link up with the PUP, who are the political wing of the UVF. Now we also have the connection of the TUV with Torrens Knight the serial killer, what utter hypocrisy, another Unionist party with moral blinkers on, who’s mantra is, Traditional Unionist Values, what does that mean to Nationalists but more of the same of people like Basil Brooke, James Craig, Dawson Bates and a young Ian Paisley. young people do not fall for that fallacy, go into the nightclub scene on a Saturday night in Belfast and see for yourself, they do not care for that rhetoric. Im afraid Turgon, Unionism is going to go the same path as the Dodo bird with that mindset. If a United Ireland were to come about it would be because of people like you and your party.
Tiny [6] I thought i spotted wee jeffrey on the TV monitor at the stormont chamber [from one of the evening news, but it’s surely dawned on the DUP that he’s getting itchy feet again. If you remember Jim Figgerty of the fig rolls ads, you must have been a fan of the late 60s fantasy series ‘The Champions’, because on Wdenesday nights in ’68 the only time they showed that advert, from memory. Couldn’t stand that programme.
Interesting use of words from Turgon, and indeed, Jim Allister(On the Nolan show), describing Gregory Campbells’ resolution, as both heroic and manly.
It would not be surprising to see Gregory in TUV colours before the Westminster elections.
One of the better aspects of our divided society is that there is very little pressure to be anything other than what we want to be.
I recall my first job when new entrants about 10 in number were required to sign a little piece of paper confirming our loyalty to “the Queen, her heirs and successors”.
Roughly half the people in the room took this oath involving GOD, while the other half turned it over to “affirm”.
The alternative was to go home.
Of course removing the oath of allegiance… this was one of the first reforms that unionists rejected…I dont think any are seriously considering bringing it back.
We have moved from a dominant culture to shared cultures.
In most towns and villages people choose to live in a British or Irish environment. Untoyched by the other lot except at the water cooler at work.
Even the Peace Wall (God help us!!!) is not really about stopping bullets and petrol bombs its about fully expressing ourselves without having sight of the other lot.
Quite frankly…..its how we like it. We can and do live with it.
Much to the chagrin of the NIO, much to the chagrin of the Great and Good in Journalism and the other newest elite in the Blogosphere……..we LIKE THAT WAY OF LIFE.
Re-partition and re-patriation turns its back on our version of multi-culturalism ……it re-instates the EXCLUSIVE primacy of Britishness in Ballymena and of Irishness in Coalisland.
It is a council of despair.
And….more important not even a starter.
FitzamesHorse Feb 02, 2010 @ 03:39 PM
A few things to chew over in there ! Those behind The Celtic Revival in the last quarter of the 19th, century were to begin with in the main Anglo Irish. When the Poet W.B. Yeats was starting fame and fortune in the England, his father send him a long letter as to why he should return home and make his contribution from Ireland. While he gives many reasons for this he ended with a moral imperative……..” besides it is the right thing to do….”
That Irish Cultural revival caught the imagination and the english speaking world, W.B., Lady Gregory, Singe, Bishop Graves, grandfather of Robert…… the list is endless and it is these people created a cultural pride that all from Antrim to Wexford and Kerry to Derry could be part of. Without the work they did in giving people pride and confidence in their own arts, crafts and abilities.
Without the work of these fine Protestant Irish Patriots later Independence (limited as it was) would not have been possible. The selection of Douglas Hyde C of I. as our first President of the 26 county Republic reflected this respect, esteem and debt.
The Two Northern Communities need not live in cultural ghettos, protestants/ planter stock/ stroke whatever have a cultural heritage second to none in Europe. Another such cultural revival in this second decade of the twenty first century could do what the first one did for the Spirit Of The Nation in the last quarter of the 19th.
Our current President , her self and some of her immediate family innocent victims of the troubles who had every reason for bitterness instead reached out, among others to the very segment of Loyalist society that caused her family trauma.
We should not forget but we can forgive and build an inclusive and dare I say it, prosperous society on this Island. The Celtic Tiger proved that we had the imagination and genius to do it for the few, now let us do it for the many and all !
My admiration for an tUachtáran knows no limits.
It is however 2010 not 1910.
To some extent an Irish cultural revival….U2 (and that waste of space Bono), Liam Neeson, Sinead O’Connor, the revival of the language in the North, resurgent Gaelic games, the Irish sports successes since say 1990 can all point to a similar revival.
And yes many of those people were involved in 1916.indirectly or directly.
There however the comparison falls down. When Michael Flatley and the chorus line from “Riverdance” high step their way into the GPO in Belfast in 2016..I will be very impressed.
Not possibly the best examples U2 is a major international rock act that while started in Ireland, could be equally well be based in Tim Buck Too and still have the same global reach. In fact I think they are currently officially based in Holland for tax purposes.
Likewise, Riverdance; the setting is Irish but there is little uniquely Irish about the drum and other rhythms that underline the show, these are part of universal culture hence its international appeal also. Incidently full praise to both for what they have achieved, I am not knocking that.
What of say ‘ Hang All The Harpers’ ( hi Marie ) something like that play was uniquely Irish, could run in any community in this island and have resonance and be seen outside the country as distinctly Irish.
One of the unintended side effects of the border was that it also cut off northern protestants/loyalists from their own southern cultural roots. Look up the pre Act Of Union speeches made by some planter Irish Peers and Commons that favored Irish Independence, their language against the Crown was far more intemperate than Gaelic stock of that time or McGuiness would use to-day
The point that I was making is that Northern Protestants/Loyalists seeking cultural or other identity do not have to re-invent the wheel, it is already here if dormant. What a voyage discovery awaits and what energies it could release for both communities North, South, East and West.
The post famine clericalism / Catholicism foisted on this country has now failed and is discredited for all time. And rightly so, good bloody riddance to most of it, it had little to do with the wonderful heritage of inate spirituality in this island.
Reading these exchanges in slugger, it would seem that there are few certainties left to the Unionist peoples of whatever persuasions either, be it politics or religion. Who would have thought that a Prod first lady would have given us our first political sex scandal in Ireland of the 21st, cen. even if it was a bit of a damp squib at the end of the day ( well for the rest of us anyway, whatever of the participants) Yep there is hope for Ireland yet!
All the materials for a new identity identity and ethos exist in this island only to be recovered and reevaluated. In Munster in the All For Ireland Movement, pre the First World War, Known I.R.B. men and Loyalists worked side by side and had over ten M.P. elected.
Among their leaders was my distant cousin Captain D.D.Sheehan M.P. and incidently another was Cannon P. Sheehan the author, who totally opposed what what was coming out of Manooth.
If most Southerners lump all Protestants together without appreciation of the diversity of beliefs, then most Unionists looking South make the same mistake when looking at the supposed Roman Catholic monolith. There are quite a few surprises for all of us in the journey ahead.
Munsterview…..my previous post was not to be taken very seriously.
Point taken ! However there are serious issues involved worth taking a look at. Maybe if this process is bedded down then we can use the next six weeks before the next major crisis stalls everything again to make a start!
PaddyReilly
You need to learn to count, or get an atlas. County Antrim takes in parts of East Londonderry, Upper Bann, Lagan Valley, South Belfast & East Belfast, though I’m not absolutely sure about the last one – some people claim the Lagan is the county boundary. I’m pretty sure that the extra bits aren’t “balanced”. As for the five constituencies you mention:
1) Any Unionist loss in East Antrim will be balanced by a Nationalist loss in North Antrim.
2) I can’t see why you’d tally the number of MLAs – quotas vary & the vagaries of STV come into play. In that election Unionists polled 52.69% of the first preference vote, Nationalists 38.84% & others 8.47%.
Framer [25] Unionist politicians are in a bit of a bind on this, because it makes the ‘mainland’ that bit further cut off, but having P&J under their control means power, even though it’s diluted by being shared with SF and not like the period up til 1972.