I hope I’m wrong, but I still believe Sinn Fein strategy is to talk peace, yet destabilise Northern Ireland by winding up the Prods and then blaming them when power-sharing doesn’t happen. Still, the DUP is learning something. In Strabane, for instance, its spokesman countered the United Ireland motion by citing the views of several members of the Dail, including Bertie Ahern, Liz McManus and Liz O’Donnell.

Indeed. Even so the Strabane and Moyle manouevers seem aimed more at unsettling the SDLP than winding up unionists. And it is sometimes forgotten that as an independent political party, Sinn Fein is perfectly entitled to use whatever legal means it can to achieve it’s end.

However in terms of Sinn Fein’s perceived strategy of ‘winding up the prods’, the DUP appears to be calling time by simply playing the ball back. The fact that such ‘games’ as are open to ambitious parties of either stripe are ‘zero sum’ is a reflection of the lack of power available to anyone locally.

Councillor Henry Cushinan defended the decision by arguing;

“Let’s not forget that there are two traditions in this borough.  My tradition cannot support the Royal British Legion.”

This refusal to recognise that people of all backgrounds have served in the Armed Forces (and receive support from the RBL) contradicts the more open position of former Antrim Sinn Fein Councillor Martin Meehan.  Despite Cushinan’s exclusivist definition of the nationalist tradition, the SDLP had no difficulty in supporting the motion.

Once you start trying to define what it means to be Irish, two things inevitably happen. The first is that you immediately create a dichotomy between who is and is not entitled to call themselves Irish - hardly very inclusive. The second thing is that you create a hierarchy of entitlement within Irishness so that some Irish people can lay claim to being more Irish than some other Irish people. All we will end up doing is producing a checklist of qualities which supposedly embody Irishness and invite people to tick them off one by one to see how truly Irish they are. And woe betide any who fail to make the tribal grade.

They accept that devolution is here to stay, but can also see that the current system is unfair. William Hague has already gone on record to demand: “English MPs should have exclusive say over English laws,” and David Davis, the shadow home secretary, supports an English parliament. “The people of England deserve nothing less,” Davis insists, “than the same choice as the people of Wales and Scotland.”

Although it won’t take its seats (yet), the DUP reps will make a presentation - which should suit those of a proselytising nature. The correct response is to interpret this as further evidence of the political ‘thaw’ in the DUP, and it probably isn’t entirely risk-free for the party. But it’s a gamble worth taking, not that those good living souls would ever describe it as such.

And that’s why today’s visit to what is essentially a talking shop will be lauded from all political quarters. How could it be otherwise? The Shinners took risks for peace, now that the DUP are starting to follow suit, wouldn’t it be just terribly uncivil not to proffer them the same courtesy?

Because the two governments have to continue to act like there’s a November 24 deadline, and know the DUP will be holding the ball when the whistle blows on the Agreement, any potential signs of movement will be trumpeted from the heavens like the Second Coming.

If they continue to follow the Sinn Fein political formula for party advancement to the letter, the DUP stands to make political gains while extracting concessions. Like Sinn Fein, it only has to respond to pressure from within. That means delivering to DUP voters, by demonstrating that politics works. And because politics has to work by November 24, there’s a feeling of familiar choregraphy about what might happen.

As the party continues to reap plaudits for each tiny, carefully-measured step forward, it will bask in the spotlight of international praise that would make an Adams or McGuinness blush. And, with any luck and a quietish marching season, maybe enough consent will have been manufactured by the time it comes to making the key, crunch, deal-making concession or U-turn.

If this is the DUP strategy, they could be on to a winner. If I was in the UUP, I’d be worried. It’s all very well pointing out that the DUP are “only doing what we did XX years ago”, but that didn’t get the SDLP very far, now did it?

The other thing that I, as an outsider, most admire about the RC Church is its constant nourishing of public beauty. In its liturgy, its music, and particularly its art and architecture, it makes the Church of Scotland seem pinched and mean. Every time I am lucky enough to be in Rome I am awestruck by the splendours of the baroque (and in particular the ubiquitous work of Bernini) in church after church after glorious church. I used to console myself in the bleakness of my Protestant soul that this art was vulgar. No longer am I so stupid.

ON the other hand, I believe the Reformation was necessary and that Martin Luther was probably the most significant human being of the past millennium. He paved the way for Calvin and Knox, so important to the Kirk. In some ways, like John White, he was a bad man, and he was a terrible anti-Semite, but he also had the vision, energy and titanic moral force to smash the dark ages of the mind. He gave religion back to the people, and made it something that could be personally appropriated. In a way, the Reformation was anti-authority. It ushered in the centuries of individual freedom which have given us not just capitalism and prosperity but also a record of consistent technological achievement beyond the imagining of those in the dark ages of ignorance.

Maybe this individualism has gone much too far, just as Catholic authoritarianism has too often been abused. But the point is that these two great strands of Christianity have been central to the creation of our modern world and have touched every part of our lives – intellectual, material, cultural – whether we are religious or not. In this greater historical context, sectarianism seems spiteful, petty and altogether pitiful.

So what I am asking for in Scotland is a kind of grand educative cleansing. Let’s seek an enlightened understanding of the two separate traditions, and respect them equally. The people who can best kick-start this new approach are the religious leaders themselves, if only they had the courage and the vision to do so.

From the BBC report -

Speaking on GMTV’s Sunday Programme, Mr Hain said republicans were increasingly heading towards engagement in democratic politics.

He said the IRA was “cracking down” on criminal activity, although there were still problems with some dissidents as well as loyalist paramilitaries.

“But the overall picture is of a Northern Ireland light years away from where it was,” he said.

“I don’t think that any politician in Northern Ireland can use the excuse for much longer that the IRA poses a terrorist threat or that it’s organised some central criminal conspiracy as a reason not to join in a power-sharing government over the coming period.”

While the Sunday Times reports -

THE latest report of the International Monitoring Commission (IMC) on Wednesday is not expected to upset this week’s round of negotiations, according to Irish government sources. The report will not give the IRA a completely clean bill of health, but will state that steady progress is being made.

It will confirm that the IRA is no longer recruiting or preparing for a return to violence. It is understood that the IRA is continuing to gather intelligence on political and economic matters and does not pose a threat to the security forces. The organisation has also scaled back some of its criminal enterprises.

First there is the issue of Sinn Fein. If they get between 8% and 10% of the vote and translate that into seats they will win between 11 and 16 seats in the next Dail. And the paper (before delegates) spells out what that will mean if those seats constitute the effective balance of power. Second, there is the question of the Rainbow.

No one believes that a Fine Gael-Labour-Green Rainbow could win a majority and have more seats than Fianna Fail, the Progressive Democrats, the non-left independents and Sinn Fein unless it were to be supported and kept in office by Joe Higgins, Seamus Healy, Catherine Murphy, Tony Gregory and perhaps one or two others.

And the rub: “That my friends is a slump coalition”.

Ask yourself one simple question on transport infrastructure. Would a Rainbow including the Greens build and complete a national network of motorways now under construction? Yes or no? What would they do on one-off rural housing?

The one thing that we can be sure of is that Labour would win every battle on policy. Why? Because (Labour leader) Pat Rabbitte has told us so. He has repeatedly stated that the Labour Party would be the driving force in a Rainbow government and that, by the way, explains exactly why he wants to depend on the Greens, the Socialists and the left independents.

Interestingly, the rank and file of the party have voted to back the leadership’s refusal to enter a pre-election pact with Fianna Fail.

By Alex Kane

Is anyone really surprised by the so-called “honours for cash” scandal? Bearing in mind that we have an unelected and unrepresentative House of Lords, packed to the gills with people who have been given the nod by a magic circle, why would anyone be surprised that some of them have actually bought their way into the place?

Since the 14th century hard cash has played a key role in securing seats in the Upper House. When Lloyd George needed funds for the Liberal Party he secured the services of Maundy Gregory, who set up an office in Parliament Square, and between 1916 and 1922, brokered the “sale” of 120 hereditary peerages, 1,500 knighthoods and 25,000 of the newly created OBEs. The going rate for a knighthood was £10,000 (about £250,000 in today’s money), while a peerage went for a minimum of £50,000 (over £1 million).

The 1925 Honours Act, introduced after Lloyd George’s resignation, made it a criminal offence to “sell” honours, but Gregory was still accepting cash until 1933, when he was reported by someone he had tried to interest in a knighthood. Gregory still enjoys the distinction of being the only person to have been convicted and sentenced under the 1925 Act, but, as recent investigations have revealed, it is still possible to enter the Lords on the basis of financial contributions alone.

And it remains possible because membership is still controlled by political parties. Life peers, or “working peers” as they now like to be known, tend to come in through Dissolution Honours (at the end of a Parliament); Resignation Honours (when a Prime Minister resigns); or Political Lists (appointed on a party basis to boost party strengths). The problem, of course, is that the present system doesn’t actually ensure that the best suited are elevated.

The system encourages cronyism. An outgoing Prime Minister will reward former loyalists. The parties elevate their own favourites, including many, best described as celebrity or cash supporters, who have made little or no contribution to frontline politics. And as for the Dissolution Honours, they are tossed out to former MPs and party leaders irrespective of the nature of their political legacy. Why should MPs rejected by the electorate be given a home in the Lords? Why should former Cabinet Ministers, often responsible for failed policies and reforms, be elevated and recast as “elder statesmen”? In other words, why should the political establishment be allowed to nurture and reward itself and its favoured circles?

For all sorts of reasons, not least of which is that I am a democrat, I would prefer the Upper House to be smaller and elected. We certainly don’t need a second chamber which has more members than the Commons, and nor do we need one which is, in the fullest and strictest sense of the terms, unrepresentative and undemocratic. Since Blair, and Thatcher before him, have done so much to undermine the public respect for, and political authority of, the Commons, it is essential that we have an Upper House which isn’t a self-preservation society for dinosaurs, donors, former MPs and mates of the magic circle.

But the fact remains that political parties need hard and constantly flowing cash if they are to remain in business. I have very strong reservations about the tax payer being expected to fully fund the political parties, for I suspect that the parties would simply swallow up the cash and not bother about a broad based membership.

It is quite clear that there are enough people out there who like having the gongs, and baubles, and titles, so let’s have a system where they can buy them on the open market. That strikes me as being a more honest approach than that of continuing with the pretence that the present honours system recognises and rewards the genuinely deserving. It is important that we salute the brave, the extraordinary and the innovative, but what we have now singularly fails to do so; leading to the triumph of mediocrity over meritocracy.

Q312 Lady Hermon: May I just take you to paragraph 14 of your written paper? There is a comment which jumped off the page as I was reading through it and that is: “Finally, it is important to note that while we believe the majority of illicit fuel is not sold through legitimate filling stations in Great Britain, our latest assessment is that a very significant proportion of the illicit fuel sold in Northern Ireland is sold through retail filling stations.” How on earth has this come about? Do people do it knowingly or willingly?

Mr Gerrard: I think there are a range of behaviours involved. Certainly once there is a volume of illegal fuel - be that smuggled fuel or be it laundered red diesel, mixed kerosene or whatever it may be - there is what you would term illicit sale through the use of tanks by the side of the road but most people will not buy fuel to put into their vehicles through those sites; most people will want to go to what looks like a legitimate filling station. Some of those individuals owning those sites will know they are buying illegal fuel because they are part of that criminal network. Some of them will have suspicions because they are buying fuel at a price that they cannot buy legitimately. Oil has a floor price; you cannot buy it legitimately below that floor price but this is often below that floor price and it is attractive. They may say they did not know, but they must have had suspicions. Equally there are people who will be buying fuel which is illegal but paying the full price, therefore they are completely unknowing of the fact that they are selling illegal fuel, so I think there is a range of behaviours involved. Our difficulty is that we engage in a good deal of enforcement activity targeting retail sites but our frustration is that we will seize fuel and where we can we will seek to prosecute people, but that site we cannot close down.

Q313 Lady Hermon: When you say “we” could you just tell me how big is the “we”? How many people are actually engaged in Northern Ireland - I mean exclusively in Northern Ireland - and actually going round testing fuel and seizing fuel in Northern Ireland? How big is your operation?

Mr Gerrard: In terms of testing the fuel which is done by our detection officers there is about 100 or 110 of those. In addition to that we have intelligence officers, we have criminal investigation specialists and we have non-compliance officers who will raise duty assessments. Over all we have just over 160 officers in Northern Ireland exclusively dedicated to oils activity.

Q314 Lady Hermon: What would help you in your investigations in Northern Ireland in dealing specifically with the retail side?

Mr Gerrard: I think there are two parts to that. There must be more that we can do to improve our inter-agency cooperations with the other agencies in Northern Ireland; I am absolutely certain of that. I am aware of a recent operation where we received fuel from a particular vehicle that was delivering fuel to the retail sites. It was delivering that fuel from the back of a normal truck, it was a skip with a tank in it. I am sure we have all seen when fuel is legitimately delivered to retail sites it is cordoned off and you have the hazchem signs because it is a very hazardous product. This is not; this is done through a hosepipe down to the floor. So there is something we can do with health and safety; there is something we can do around the quality of the fuel with the Trading Standards people; there are things we can do to improve our co-operation. From my perspective it is not my responsibility. When I look at what we do in GB it is very difficult for someone to get illegal fuel into legitimate retail sites because those sites are licensed. I have friends who work for the oils majors downstream and certainly one of my friends has been interviewed under caution twice and it terrifies her because of the potential health and safety issues at her retail sites in GB. That does not happen in Northern Ireland. I have been involved for six years in Northern Ireland and there is an issue about how those sites are licensed and are those licences effective for the 21st century; I would say that they are not.

Q315 Lady Hermon: We have heard evidence from another witness at another session of the Committee and that point was made, that the introduction of the licensing system in Northern Ireland would be very helpful. Having tabled the question I then had a reply from the Minister, Angela Smith, which is very disappointing but I will read it into the record: “Proposals to streamline a type of petrol licensing regime are currently being considered”; they are only now currently being considered and you say you have been working there for six years.

Mr Gerrard: Yes.

Unionism should be willing not only support and represent the innocent victims of the troubles, but also challenge the majority voice of nationalism’s tailored story glorifying a sustained sectarian murder campaign to a relatively unscarred generation of young people.

One truth that escapes Sinn Fein Youth’s story to young nationalists is that the prisoners who went on hunger strike were not in prison due to their belief in a united Ireland, or even obtaining one through force. They were sentenced for crimes including murder, attempted murder, conspiracy to murder, bombing, hijacking and membership of nationalist murder gangs.

He also expresses concern at the percievied motivation of nationalists voting Sinn fein to many unionists.

The problem is, that it is not an unreasonable conclusion for law abiding people to draw from this campaign, that a vote for Sinn Fein is a vote for retrospectively legitimising murder.