Tuesday, March 04, 2008
Paisley’s post-dated cheque
At the Brassneck blog Mick has posted some initial thoughts on the post-dated cheque that is the resignation of Ian Paisley Snr and he, Mick that is, tells me he’ll be on More4News at 8 to discuss it further. [even Hain’s getting some mileage out of it. - Ed] Adds Among the collated responses on the BBC - who don’t seem to have seen Reg Empey’s comments yet - the UUP deputy leader Danny Kennedy makes a pertinent point about that post-dated cheque
Baroness Paisley, earlier this week, was keen to stress that she believed that her husband still had work to do. That hasn’t been the view that has prevailed in the assembly party or indeed other assembly colleagues.
And Déjà vu? More The BBC’s Martina Purdy seems to agree.
Between now and May, Mr Paisley will increasingly be seen as a lame duck first [M]inister, yesterday’s man.
Pete Baker @ 05:15 PM
Joe, Jeffrey grovels and Gregory claims it’s a ‘shoo-in’.
Posted by on Mar 05, 2008 @ 11:00 AMIt would appear to me that had Ian Og been doing his duty to his father and ‘looking out’ for him at St Andrews (instead of lobbying side-deals for Seymore S.) then his father would not have sleep-walked the rather mindless DUP clones / clowns into the GFA-Mark II.
It will be interesting if the ‘punt’ can rescue this wounded party when he eventually gets the crown of office.
Posted by on Mar 05, 2008 @ 10:11 PMhttp://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article3492208.ece
March 6, 2008Paisley limps feebly away
One by one the pillars on which “the Doc” built his reputation have collapsed
Dean Godson
Forget the patronising encomiums to the Rev Ian Paisley from such long-time foes as Gerry Adams and the British and Irish governments: the truth is that “the Doc” is shuffling off the political stage as a pathetic shadow of his former self.One by one, the pillars upon which the Rev Doctor’s eminence depended have collapsed. First, he had to relinquish his Moderatorship of the Free Presbyterians, the denomination that he founded in 1951: the faithful turned out to be deeply unhappy with his decision to enter office with Sinn Fein. When it came to making a choice between the baubles of this world and the spiritual leadership of his flock, Mr Paisley opted for the former.
This presaged deeper problems among the voters of middle Ulster. The DUP’s dramatic underperformance in an important council by-election in Dromore - when an independent Unionist candidate siphoned off a large number of votes - signalled the feelings of betrayal in the Loyalist heartland. Never before had Mr Paisley so misjudged their mood.
Finally, “the Doc” had to give up the services of Ian Jr, his closest collaborator - forced to resign from the devolved executive following a rumpus over alleged connections to a property developer. The result was that Mr Paisley lost control of the DUP, the party he set up in 1971.
So a new dynasty seems set to supplant the Paisleys - the political family Robinson, led by the DUP’s long-time deputy leader, Peter Robinson. Senior British officials have long fancied him to be a pragmatist with whom they can do business. But does the sour-faced uncharismatic technocrat have the sectarian capital in the bank to complete the unfinished business of Paisley’s First Ministership - namely the devolution of policing and justice powers, perhaps even under a Sinn Fein Minister of Home Affairs?
Mr Robinson may take the hint from the Unionist grass roots. He could recalibrate the aesthetics of power-sharing with Sinn Fein - eschewing the sickly-sweet “Chuckle Brothers” routine between Martin McGuinness and Mr Paisley (“like the smell of shit mixed with cheap air freshener”, in the words of one local wag) for a more distant public relationship with the nationalists.
But for now, some of the younger DUP modernisers reckon that they have salvaged the long-term viability of the devolved Executive. Rather like those Labour stalwarts who believed that all would be well for the people’s party once Gordon Brown supplanted Tony Blair, so the newer cadres in the DUP may calculate that an enfeebled Mr Paisley was all that stood between them and “50 years of cross-community misrule”. They may turn out to be just as disappointed.
Dean Godson is research director of Policy Exchange
Posted by on Mar 06, 2008 @ 12:26 PM
