Saturday, May 17, 2008
“Suppose the party leader doesn’t want to remove the minister..”
With Northern Ireland’s deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, talking of the need for negotiations between the parties in the Executive to resolve the deadlock over post-primary education, in the Belfast Telegraph Malachi O’Doherty raises an interesting point about the semi-detached nature of the relationship between the president of Sinn Féin, Gerry Adams, and the Northern Ireland Assembly.
The separation of the roles of party leader and Deputy First Minister in Sinn Fein creates the potential for every crisis on the Executive to compromise the authority of the party leader or the Deputy First Minister. And the party must be aware of that vulnerability, must ultimately want what every other government has got, the power for the removal and appointment of ministers to reside within the Executive.
How would Gordon Brown or Brian Cowan like it if senior party officials could veto their ministerial appointments? They would not accept it. Theoretically, Gerry Adams can even remove Martin McGuinness. It is inconceviable that he would try. And a further uneasy thought occurs to anyone reflecting on this problem. Surely, Gerry Adams’s political career is entirely oppositional and subversive. So can he be trusted outside the Executive to make decisions which are in the best interests of the Executive?
Pete Baker @ 01:35 PM
“They’re a canny party, they’ll grab issues of bins, just about anything, gay stuff, what they can’t do is join it together in a way that will convince people in the 26 that they’re competent.
Because they’re eejits. They’re very good at PR, that suits people at the BBC right down to the ground, let the presser, write the story.
look at it another way, name me one gay IRA cvolunteer who blew himself up or got shot or was etc. Where is this gay patriot?
They went from homophobia to pro-gay activism without any intervening period of adjustment.”
-----------So, Gregory, they’re canny, good at PR, and yet they’re eejits all simultaneously? That doesn’t really make any sense.
That still doesn’t answer the question - if they’re a single issue party, why would anyone vote for them?As far as homosexual IRA volunteers, I tend not to ask such questions of people because I am of the opinion that a person’s sexual preferences isn’t really any of my business.
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 12:42 AM“(If one were to take your logic to its full conclusion) no political party would support Irish unity because the outcome for any party (in the absence of massive realignment) would be a significant reduction in relative support. “
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(Gregory) The UUP would see their share of the vote, err, stay more or less on the near-empty mark. So they could take that gamble perhaps.
-----Well, they would see there vote share fall from roughly 15% to 5%, which would be the difference for them of being a secondary partner with some executive power to likely irrelevance.
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 12:54 AMSF are good at PR.
Voting SF would make sense (in the north) if more of ‘now’ was thought desirable.
Does that make sense?
G.
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 01:09 AM“Really Dave, don’t you have anything better to do.” - qubol
Okay, that’s funny… and I sort of agree with the sentiment. BfB delivered a great one-liner to somebody called ‘Resolve’ on another thread:
“Don’t hurt yourselves wailing, screaming, ranting, looking over at all the other poor sods in this world, and wondering WHYYYYYYYY they don’t listen to YOU.” - BfB
He’s right, of course. It’s like trying to explain the geometry and colour of a Picasso painting to the blind. If Sinn Fein can persuade folks to endorse the Unionist Veto by rebranding it as the Principle of Consent and telling them that it is entirely new and an advance for Irish nationalists instead of a variation of the Ireland Act 1949 then there is a form of logic in operation here that is completely unknown to me. As Greg said, they’re great at PR and self-promotion, but nothing else. There is no point in singing lullabies to the deaf.
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 02:10 AMSF are good at PR.
Voting SF would make sense (in the north) if more of ‘now’ was thought desirable.
Does that make sense?G.
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No.Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 06:03 AMMick Hall: I have debated this subject on slugger with middle class unionists on a number of occasions, and not once has a single one made a suggestion of how we can make the education of northern unionist working class kids better, it has always been about their own offspring.
The revised curriculum, being rolled out right now, is an attempt to reach out to children who have been missing out. It follows the piloting of the same approach in the enriched curriculum, which has been rattling along for several years now.
Guess what - the middle classes benefitted even more from the enriched curriculum than their counterparts. There just isn’t any substitute for parental and community commitment to education.
Neither your suggestions, nor English Comprehensives, nor Ruane’s chaos, is going to solve a problem that is seemingly set in stone by the age of 10 or 11. It’s just too late. Tell me what you want to do with the primary schools. Tell me what Ruane wants to do. Saying that 100% of Shankill children should go on to comprehensives, instead of 95% going to secondary schools, isn’t going to fix anything. What will the comprehensives be like? How will the 5% fare? What are you offering?
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 09:03 AMI’m traveling today but will try to answer you post more fully later in the week. I agree 100 percent with your point about there being no real substitute for parental and community commitment to education.
However in most cases working class parents love their kids and want the best for them, just as most middle class parents do, however they and then their children are at a disadvantage as they neither know how the educational system works, especially from 11 upwards due to their own lack of a decent education, if you get my drift.
As to comprehensives in England, despite all there faults, the record speaks for itself and proves they are clearly a step up from the old system of selection and sink secondary moderns.
Best regards
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 09:18 AMMick Hall
“As to comprehensives in England, despite all there faults, the record speaks for itself “
Indeed it does hence the opposition to a similar system here.
Posted by on May 19, 2008 @ 11:02 PMNot to blow a hole in Malachy’s theory, but Gerry Adams can’t remove McGuinness or anyone else.
Pat Doherty is the SF returning officer in the Assembly - mind you, that makes things worse. Marty could get the boot on the whim of the Quartermaster.
Posted by on May 20, 2008 @ 11:44 AM
