after Brassai

Few politicians are capable of this. The Dup’s Jim Wells makes sense most of the time. He can stand up and put a sensible point across fluently and not infrequently a point which is at variance with party policy.

Martin Mc Guinness has come through as a big surprise probably more so to the protestant community and outside the island of Ireland.

He has spoken meangingfully with clarity and forthrightness on many matters in recent years.

This brings me to David Cameron.
David Miliband fired a cheap shot at the PM saying he must not sound like ‘a loud mouth.’

This is rich from Mr Miliband who has yet to say anything memorable or quotable.

Cameron is rapidly shaking off the sobriquet of PR salesman.

He is showing himself to be much more substantial. On Bloody Sunday he silenced the shallowness and idiocy of many unionist voices on what Saville adjudicated to be the killing of innocent people by members of the parachute regiment.

He told it as he read it in India in speaking of the behaviour of the Pakistan government.

The jury is out on his ‘big society’ project.

I would enter one caveat however as far as David Cameron goes.

He is starting to sound a little like Mrs Thatcher. He must guard against inheriting her hectoring tone.

Watching how his political philosophy is given shape in the coming months will be fascinating. He has made an impressive start in an extraordinary era. Will Afghanistan be his achilles heel? He shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that Tony Blair’s career was potentially irretrievably damaged because of Iraq. Eamonn Mallie

Meanwhile the Irish News reported today that

More than 40 members of dissident republican group Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH) are believed to have been involved in attacks in the troubled St James’s area of west belfast.

Cars were vandalised and two men assaulted when local people say masked and armed men “took over the area” for up to an hour on Tuesday night.

Sources also say several members of a teenage gang accused of antisocial behaviour have fled after being warned their lives are under threat by the group.  People in the area say that at least two of the men claiming to be from ONH were armed with handguns.

One woman, who did not wish to be named said she confronted the men.  She said that when she asked what they were doing bring[ing] guns into St James’s she was told: “We’re here to give you your area back.”

The Irish News report adds

A police spokesman said officers had received no reports about the incidents on Tuesday night.  Jim Auld from the group Community Restorative Justice said it was aware of the attacks by ONH.  He confirmed that it had been approached by one youth who had been told to leave the area by dissident republicans.

Jim Auld doesn’t say whether “different well-known people in the community” visited the youth - to “be seen going in and out of the house. Just showing community support.”

All of which reminded me of this recent post by Splintered Sunrise

For the moment we’ll take a short break from matters ecclesiastical in favour of more local subject matter, for the Andersonstown News has been hilarious lately. This specifically has to do with a little fraying at the edges of Gerry’s kingdom. Don’t get me wrong, the para-state of republican Belfast retains its one-party system by popular demand, but the Provos have been experiencing a few headaches recently, and smaller forces have begun to get a bit more assertive.

Read the whole thing.

According to the BBC:

a board will be appointed to oversee the facility. It will comprise of ex military personnel, former prison officers, and police officers along with victims, politicians and former republican and loyalist prisoners.
The facility will be housed in the former prison hospital where the IRA hunger strikers died and in one H block, H6.
If approved by the Assembly, a development corporation for the site could be operational within six months.
The corporation will oversee the opening and redevelopment of the site including the construction of the Peace Building and Conflict Resolution facility.

The news was welcomed by Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson.

Robinson said

“The constitution of a development corporation for this strategically important Maze/Long Kesh site will enable us to realise the full economic potential of the site.
“The site represents a unique opportunity to help revive our economic output in these difficult times.”

McGuinness stated

“The Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister will shortly submit an EU funding application for a Peace Building and Conflict Resolution Facility on the site.
“It is anticipated that the centre will be a world-class facility of international importance designed to strengthen our peace-building expertise and to share our experiences with others throughout the world.”

Thus far the only partially dissenting voice has been Sir Reg Empey who said:

“I have been calling for the creation of a Maze Development Corporation for the past 2 years. It is a tried and tested model of delivering development and regeneration. It is a pity that it has taken the First and deputy First Ministers so long to reach this point – 3 1/2 years have been wasted before this point has been reached. That said, I welcome the fact that the First and deputy First Ministers have now eventually come to a decision.
“The issue of the Conflict Resolution Facility is, however, somewhat different. I would be worried that the work of the Development Corporation will be overshadowed by the sensitivities surrounding locating the Facility in a former prison which symbolises much of the pain and division Northern Ireland experienced during the Troubles. The prison is regarded very differently by different political traditions – it would be a shame for the Facility itself to become a symbol of division.
“Considering that recent months have demonstrated how deeply divided Northern Ireland is over the past, I would have preferred the issue of the Conflict Resolution Facility to have been parked for the time being.
“Progress on the Development Corporation is welcome – but long overdue. It is now up to First and deputy First Ministers to ensure that the dithering and delays of the past 3 1/2 years are not repeated”.

Confirmation of the discovery of the bones of a male in County Monaghan came this afternoon.

The independent commission for the location of victims said this evening that it has notified the Armstrong family, the Garda, and the state pathologist in the Republic of Ireland.

Mr. Armstrong disappeared after leaving home for mass.

He hasn’t been seen since. Mystery surrounded his disappearance.

No one has accepted responsibility for his fate.

Gerard Evans another Crossmaglen also disappeared two years earlier. Eamonn Mallie

The 32 County Sovereignty Movement, which has a faction operating in the county, is using the website to attract teenagers.

The group is regarded as the Real IRA’s political wing, although members would deny this.

PSNI Chief Inspector Alywin Barton said his officers were “very much aware” of the group’s “continued efforts” to attract young people.

“It is deeply worrying that they are continuing to draw in new members and it would be extremely naive to think otherwise,” he said.

Ulster Unionist MLA Tom Elliott says he is “deeply concerned” by the group’s recruitment tactics in the county.

“I have concerns that there may be a number of different dissident elements at work that may be co-operating with each other, and indeed, with the mainstream republican movement. I have huge concerns that the key element of this activity is in Fermanagh.”

In both Scotland and Northern Ireland, the debate about ring fencing health spending (which accounts for about a third of Holyrood’s and around a half of Stormont’s budget) and education has been going on for some time. But the magnitude of the cuts facing both administrations in next year’s Barnett allowances is such that both areas are unlikely to remain protected much longer.

Scotland and NI share an over-reliance on the public sector, but the notion that a reduction in government spending will lead to a growth in the private sector looks fanciful. Research by the TUC suggests that as much as a third of private sector revenue is generated from government capital spending projects (think roads, hospitals, schools, etc). Exactly the kind of projects that will be axed as the pinch of budget restrictions begins to be felt.

The Scottish review also calls for a two-year pay freeze, before warning that, ‘In the first 10 years of the Scottish Parliament, there has been an annually growing budget. However, the future will require a very different mindset. Figures from the Scottish Government show that we are entering a long period, perhaps as many as 15 years, before the budget will return in real terms to 2009-10 levels.’

But is a pay freeze really the panacea? Less public sector wages means less disposable income in the economy, means difficult times ahead for retailers and others in the private sector. The Conservatives might be ideologically wed to cuts, but in the devolved regions in particular – where business start-up rates are much lower than in south of England and success harder to come by – it seems highly unlikely that a growth in the private sector will compensate for public sector cuts.

‘Recruitment freeze’ is another phrase on many lips. Again this is no sliver bullet; pulling the ladder up before new graduates and school leavers get a chance to enter the workforce, and almost certainly consigning tens (if not hundreds) of thousands to the dole queue (and increased welfare payments).

There is a very real danger that if politicians in Edinburgh and Belfast are unable to rise to challenge of making cuts with sense and foresight then the UK’s devolved regions could be looking at a ‘lost generation’ (with all the social problems that come with it).

It’s also time to stop thinking that these spending reductions – which will almost certainly increase further in coming years – are just about trimming back a bloated public sector. The cuts will further deflate the very UK economies that are finding it most difficult to come out of recession.

On both sides of the Irish Sea, devolved government is about to get a whole lot more difficult.

The Paisley article is presumably referring to the 2009 European Election result, when Sinn Fein topped the poll. That was not due to a surge in support for SF, but a fracturing of the unionist vote caused by the – apparently short-lived – rise of Jim Allister’s TUV.

But the TUV had polled strongly well before the European contest. The DUP lost a significant portion of its support to it in the Dromore council by-election in February 2008, leading to the UUP claiming the seat unexpectedly. And who was DUP leader at the time of this council by-election? None other than Ian Paisley. It was on his “watch”.

And what of the TUV now? Or of the UUP, who most likely face a contest between Tom Elliott and Basil McCrea? Where is the free ground in Unionism? And how do they get there?

Today’s piece in the News Letter is from Dawn Purvis calling for a pro Uniont project from the progressive left…

Mr McGuinness was speaking at the official opening of the first high-speed road link between Belfast and Dublin.

He said: “I think Peter Robinson and I will have more good news to announce in regard to the development of the Maze/Long Kesh site.

“We have actually reached agreement and we will publicly announce how we intend to take that forward over the next very short while.”

As both the BBC and UTV Press Association note

Mr McGuinness declined to detail what was in the pipeline.

Would that be because the Northern Ireland Executive has yet to be asked for its approval informed?  The NI Assembly has certainly not yet heard a statement…

Adds: Just had one reader contact us to point out that this could be interpreted as a measure of the distance Sinn Fein has travelled from nominal party of the left to mainstream centre right…

This case illustrates why it is important for good journalists to remain sceptical (but not cynical) about what politicians tell them.

By contrast, the BBC are doing trailers for Nick Robinson piece on Radio Four tonight, which highlights a conversation Cameron had with his wife the night before the Conservative leader did with the Lib Dems, in which her husband tells her he doesn’t think the deal can be done. Pillow talk elevated to the status of political significance.

Critical independence in journalism actually helps politicians spot failings early, and do better. Even if, as I suspect I would in their position, politicians hate it when it happens to them. But just replicating talking points empties the public space of meaningful discourse, even on the hyperlocal level. And reduces the provenance of politics with the voters.

Take the Newcastle Rocks site for instance, who a few weeks ago noted that the local DPP site had not updated the minutes of their meeting for four years… Now, whilst it is true that the DPP’s are in some kind of limbo awaiting possible amalgamation, a few weeks later, after a four year break, the minutes are finally back in place…

This is one of the points I’ll want to raise when I give the keynote speech at the Parnell Summer School on Sunday 8th August…

Yet as the Belfast Telegraph noted yesterday, there is a 27% vacancy rate in that sector already. In fact there are some 50,000 vacant places the primary sector overall, with the Integrated sector being one of the few that has substantial turn away figure of 650 pupils.

Now the approval is conditional on getting the admission rates, so the Minister has made it clear that the schools will not be funded if they haven’t got the admissions to justify it. But 50 k unfilled places suggests that if Ms Ruane wants to continue open some schools, she is going to have to close others.

And if that were to be the case, the resources she would then free up ought to move to where there is demonstrable demand.  But, if those who have played Alan’s Fantasy d’Hondt are right, then the Department should stay with her after the next election, so there is little possibility of a rival slicing back the Irish medium sector after the next Assembly election.

This looks like an attempt to get a few last goodies through the door before the CSR in October closes the door on substantial future investment by putting 15%-16% squeeze on overall budgets. Her political gamble here is that in continuing to roll the sector out, she forsakez the consolidation of what capacity that’s already there.

Jeremy Hunt the Secretary of State for Culture,Olympics, Media and Sport(and one of the 10 millionaires in the cabinet)  used his blog to tell us that after submitting his treasury spending review, which will come into full effect in April 2012, he sought “consolation from the pain” by choosing the artwork for his office

Poor ole Jeremy.

He certainly has a lot of support in Fermanagh and is a hard worker, like the rest of our elected representatives here.

Mr Elliott’s own colleagues believe their man will “walk it”.

Even veteran politician Ken Maginnis has lent his support to his leadership bid.

In an interview with Fermanagh’s Impartial Reporter, Lord Maginnis described Mr Elliott as “head and shoulders” above everybody else in the Ulster Unionist Party.

He said: “I would look at the potential for leaders in our party. Tom is at the right age, he has the energy to guard Northern Ireland’s interests. He spent his life building up his own business and now with those years of experience he is prepared to take a huge risk on the people of Northern Ireland and the unionist community.”

While Mike Nesbitt commented: “It’s not like when Reg said he’d stand down, Tom turned round and said ‘Ah great, this is my turn’. I wouldn’t be particularly enthusiastic if he had done but there’s no me, me, me about him. Tom happens to the best man for the job rather than somebody who has been waiting for his turn to come around.”

Should he be successful, Tom Elliott says he wants to be the leader of a “leadership team” and cites discipline as an important issue that needs addressed in the UUP.

But as the BBC’s Martina Purdy pointed out last week, Mr Elliott’s comments in The Impartial Reporter frustrated his party colleague Basil McCrea, who took a swipe at him via his Facebook page.

Mr McCrea is of course, expected to enter the UUP leadership race himself very soon.

It’s understood all 2,150 members of the UUP have the right to vote for the new leader. With many of those members based in Fermanagh, we could see a large amount of that battle taking place in the county.

And for someone who hasn’t declared yet, Mr McCrea has certainly been spending a lot of time in Fermanagh lately — but that’s just a coincidence. Right?

Whatever happens next, the fight for the top job will be a fasinating one.

Sinn Fein’s Martina Anderson is not impressed by some of the carping she has heard from community relations types about the latest Stormont CSI strategy. She wonders “how much of that is genuine or how much of it is about protecting their own positions and funding. There are a raft of good relations quangos out there which, quite frankly, are unelected, unnecessary and ineffective. Sectarianism and intolerance are still rife in our society so I have to ask just what exactly have these organisations delivered?”

Ms Anderson goes on to warn the quangos their days might be numbered, pointing out that “in the 2008-09 financial year, a staggering £9.7 billion was spent on unelected quangos in the North. That’s around 75% of the total budget being spent on largely unaccountable organisations and clearly that cannot and should not be sustained. Sinn Féin is committed to reducing this kind of waste and to cutting the number of quangos. In the context of an agreed Executive CSI strategy, many of these good relations quangos could be redundant and should be abolished.”

Do read the whole thing.

Because, if it wasn’t disingenuous, it looks like it’s not just “the Brits [who] are too thick to tell the difference between sound social science and yet another dodgy dossier.”

And Mark’s done some further digging around those ‘staggering’ figures

Sinn Fein don’t spell out which quangos they want to chop but if you are looking at the shared future business you would have to think the NI Community Relations Council would be high on the list. So I decided to check out their budget. According to the CRC’s statement of accounts for 2008/9 they had a turnover of just over £8 million, spending £20,000 more than they received. I’m told two thirds of this money was devoted to Victims and Survivors, leaving £3.25 million for community relations.

£3.25 million. That’s about £2 per head of the population here, and compares with an estimated £2 million spent on combatting one night of rioting earlier this month. True, the Community Relations Council did have a role in distributing a further £14 million. However this wasn’t Executive cash, but funding from outside sources like Europe and the IFI.

Whichever way you look at it the CRC budget is a long way short from that rather inflated £9 billion plus figure for quangos, which includes our quasi-autonomous non-governmental hospitals.

And how was your 20th Century, Martina?

Members of the Youth Parliament (MYPs) are elected in every constituency and region of the UK.  In some areas elections are highly contested with over 600,000 young people voting in this year’s elections.

The sitting this year was my first.  Over 350 MYPs attended the sitting in Jordanstown, including 14 from Northern Ireland.  The Speaker of the House of Commons, John Bercow, also attended and spoke to the gathering.  I was lucky enough to be one of six chosen to have lunch with him.

The Parliament was due to hold  a headline  debate on Votes at 16. We had been campaigning on this for sometime, but the formal support of MYPs was needed.  It was during this debate that the drama began.  A girl was invited up to talk about services in her area.

It was soon clear that she had a particular axe to grind.  She began to talk about the “savage cuts” expected in the Youth Sector where she came from.  Shortly into her speech one of her friends came to the podium, uninvited, and began to stir the meeting into debating this issue instead.

The debate was being run by senior MYPs and they were more than slightly surprised by this turn of events.  They told the meeting that this new issue could not be debated at this time.  This was not popular with the Parliament, especially those from one specific region.  The supporters of the new cause became more impassioned with each second.

After about ten minutes of chaos the hall became significantly emptier.  About 30-40 of those who supported the “Peasants’ Revolt” walked out of the meeting!  This fracas was a great example of how passionate young people could be about issues affecting them.

Once the debate on Votes at 16 got going, MYPs said that effective Political Education was essential before the enfranchisement of this age group.  Others argued we could not afford it, with the current budget deficit.  Votes were cast on the issue.  Over 300 MYPs voted on the motion.  It was rejected by more than a 2/3rd majority.  The Parliament better start rewriting its policies.

The “Peasants Revolt” group then returned to the chamber to read their prepared statement.  We were told that it would be debated later, during our free time for those who were interested.  That debate would turn out to be just as interesting the first.

This voluntary debate was well attended and some very strong opinions were expressed.  The group who had walked out were very rowdy when someone spoke against them.  Some of them within were unhappy with the wording of the statement under debate.

They claimed it had been amended by the group, but that one of the leaders had simply ignored their comments.  Whether this was true or not was never revealed to the rest of us, though some kept trying to get hold of the a microphone but never succeeded.

Then at a point this smaller group walked out! Ironic to see them walk out of a meeting discussing a prior walk-out. Youth Politics in action!

In October 2009 the Youth Parliament was the first ever non-parliamentary group to sit and debate in the House of Commons.  This privilege has now been extended to us for the entire life of this Parliament and we’ll be back –  this October.

Critics might say young people have no vote, and don’t need to be listened to. But remember we pay tax in the form of VAT, and in some cases income tax.  Therefore we’re entitled to a voice.

Would you like to get involved?   The UKYP has a good website and the Northern Irish group of MYPs are coordinated by the Northern Ireland Youth Forum.

Alex Huston MYP (Belfast East)

“I’d like to help you son, but you’re too young to vote” Eddie Cochran – Summertime Blues

Here are the main paragraphs

4. The Department sets out policy guidance and recommendations, and asks that the local NHS implements that policy in the way that is most appropriate for their local communities. Primary Care Trusts are responsible for commissioning high quality services, within allocated resources, to meet local patient needs.

5. Given the geographical, socioeconomic and cultural diversity in England, that involves a whole range of considerations including, but not limited to, efficacy. Given the pressure on the NHS in the current economic climate, we are currently looking, as part of the Quality, Innovation, Productivity and Prevention agenda, at what more we could do in terms of providing information that would help support commissioning decisions.

6. The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA), an executive agency of the Department of Health, is responsible for the regulation of medicines (including homeopathic products) and medical devices. The medicines regulatory framework is largely set at a European level. European Union legislation includes specific provisions and definitions concerning the regulation of homeopathic products. The UK, like any other EU Member State, must comply with requirements set out in European Directives.

7. Most importantly perhaps, the relationship between a clinician and a patient is one that is built on trust and understanding. Clinicians are bound by a strong moral code but also by the guidance from the General Medical Council – rather than by instructions from the Department. We believe in patients being able to make informed choices about their treatments, and in a clinician being able to prescribe the treatment they feel most appropriate in particular circumstances, within the regulatory and guidance frameworks by which they are bound.

8. We agree with many of the Committee’s conclusions and recommendations. However, our continued position on the use of homeopathy within the NHS is that the local NHS and clinicians, rather than Whitehall, are best placed to make decisions on what treatment is appropriate for their patients – including complementary or alternative treatments such as homeopathy – and provide accordingly for those treatments.

9. The Government Chief Scientific Adviser has discussed the Department of Health policy on homeopathy with lead officials, and understands the reasons for the policy decision. However, he still has concerns about how this policy is communicated to the public. There naturally will be an assumption that if the NHS is offering homeopathic treatments then they will be efficacious, whereas the overriding reason for NHS provision is that homeopathy is available to provide patient choice.

10. In order for the public to make informed choices, it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available. He will therefore engage further with the Department of Health to ensure communication to the public is addressed. His position remains that the evidence of efficacy and the scientific basis of homeopathy is highly questionable. [added emphasis]

As Martin Robbins points out in the Guardian

The report accepts that there’s no evidence that homeopathy works, but apparently this shouldn’t be a barrier to it being distributed via the NHS because not handing out medicines that don’t work might infringe the freedom of patients to choose things that don’t work. What makes this even more absurd is that they concede that: 

“In order for the public to make informed choices, it is therefore vitally important that the scientific evidence base for homeopathy is clearly explained and available. He [the government's chief scientific adviser] will therefore engage further with the Department of Health to ensure communication to the public is addressed.”

So the government is planning to launch a public information campaign against homeopathic treatments at the same time as it continues to fund those treatments through the NHS. In this glorious mess of a policy the government has come up with something so brain-meltingly stupid that even the satirical brain of Armando Iannucci (The Thick of It, In the Loop) would struggle to match it.

And as Martin Robbins also goes on to point out, both the Conservatives and the Liberal Democrats had declared their positions on the provision of non-evidence-based medicine on the NHS prior to the General Election.

Before the election I put questions on science policy to all the main parties on behalf of the Guardian. The Conservatives told me that it would be “wholly irresponsible to spend public money on treatments that have no evidence to support their claims”. The Liberal Democrats stated that they would actively seek a full review of complementary and alternative therapies and that, “[if] Nice’s advice was that the treatment did not perform better than placebo, then of course it should not be supported by the NHS.”

Both parties made a commitment to evidence-based medicine on the NHS. Both parties have performed screeching U-turns on the subject at the first hurdle, ignoring pledges made in writing only three months ago.

What should they do now? As a near namesake of mine once said, I’d make a suggestion, but they wouldn’t listen. No one ever does. It’s all very depressing.

Perhaps surprisingly Paisley senior accepts the prospect with some equinimity, but not without a little dig at his successor, “Sinn Fein didn’t become the majority party on my watch.”

Without giving too much away, my own take is that Unionists have more important things to worry about and that “achieving good governance is a great deal more important than who gets to hold the largely titular office of ‘head honcho’”.

With the NI Water story we have had a passing glimpse inside the machinery of government and it is far from impressive. There needs to be a decisive shift away from the things of ‘war’ to the concerns of ‘peacetime’.

Today’s contribution comes from David Vance, who worries not about Northern Ireland’s Britishness, but that of the UK as a whole…

The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee will probe this in the Autumn. The key question raised is the following: What would be the benefits of equalizing the corporation tax rate in Northern Ireland with that of the Republic of Ireland?

George Osborne plans to reduce the main rate of corporation tax in the UK from 28% to 24% over the next four years. The corporation tax rate in the Republic of Ireland is 12.5%.

David Cameron promised to look at Corporation tax when he was here around election time. He is keeping his word. One has to respect that.
Eamonn Mallie