Diamond Jubilee

The Handshake-fest: “Ho, hum.”

Pete Baker on June 30, 2012, 12:37 pm

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In the Irish Times, Patrick Smyth rains on “this national parade, The Handshake-fest”. Don’t get me wrong. This is not to say that The Handshake was not a “good thing”. It was. Belatedly, 14 years after the genuinely “historic” Belfast Agreement was signed, marking not only Sinn Féin’s renunciation of coercion as a means of uniting Ireland but also, crucially, a new set of relationships on and between these islands, the party takes another incremental step down that road. Masters …

“I respect those who believe that he should shake hands with the Queen as part of his role, but it does not mean that I personally have to support this.”

Pete Baker on June 25, 2012, 10:33 pm

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There’s been a bit of a political kerfuffle in Wales over the forthcoming ‘historic’ meeting between the Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s Martin McGuinness, and the Queen as she tours the UK to mark her Diamond Jubilee. [Mark Devenport is on tour?! – Ed] No, he’s not the Queen. As the BBC reports A Plaid Cymru Assembly Member is taking a break from Twitter after describing Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness as “naive” for agreeing to meet the Queen. Apparently, …

“Those at the heart of the Sinn Fein machine know all of this to be true.”

Pete Baker on June 25, 2012, 3:12 pm

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Where Mick treads softly [always stepping on someone’s dreams! – Ed], Alex Kane rips the PR plaster off. [Mixed metaphors much? – Ed] ANYhoo… from the News Letter article Let’s be blunt about this: Martin McGuinness didn’t join the IRA and become the de facto commander-in-chief of the army council just to end up at a function in which he will be ‘presented’ to Her Majesty during a tour of her United Kingdom! But the meeting between McGuinness and the Queen …