I’m not generally a fan of the mauling match that goes on at Wednesday lunchtime in Westminster, but this is something else… Mark has the detail at Devenport Diaries.. Mick FealtyMick is founding editor of Slugger. He has written papers on the impacts of the Internet on politics and the wider media and is a regular guest and speaking events across Ireland, the UK and Europe. Twitter: @MickFealty
An interesting press release from the DUP is doing the rounds: Tommy Sandford ex PUP councillor (and ex loyalist prisoner) has joined the DUP. I will reproduce the press release below: The Democratic Unionist Party has announced today that well known East Belfast community representative Tommy Sandford has joined the Party. Mr Sandford is a spokesman for the Cregagh Community Association and was a PUP Councillor for the Castlereagh Central area between 2001 and 2005. Speaking today Mr Sandford said, …
With anonymous “republican sources” briefing anyone who will listen about tensions between the DUP and Sinn Féin over the still-to-be-agreed draft Northern Ireland budget, and while noting the DUP’s response reported here “The DUP has one approach to the budget,” [a DUP spokesman] said. “We are confident a budget will be put in place. “We are not playing politics with the budget. This is too important. “Families are struggling to pay mortgages. People are wondering if they are going to …
IF this contrite statement is anything to go by, DUP Sports Minster Nelson McCausland must have hauled Sport NI chief executive Eamonn McCartan over the coals for listing off on TV reasons why we weren’t attracting Olympic interest. McCartan told the BBC that no Olympic teams had committed to train here for the 2012 Games due to our violent image, the threat from dissidents, geographical location, travel costs and access to Olympics venues. His despondent forecast neatly echoes, er, fellow …
The Northern Ireland Environment Minister, the DUP’s Edwin Poots, may be introducing a Planning Bill to the NI Assembly next week – with the intention to absorb Planning Service within the Department of the Environment before transferring planning powers to local councils. And he may be seeking views “on proposals aimed at modernising and strengthening local democracy”. But as he admits in his press release, the timetable for the proposed “transfer of Development Plan and Development Management powers to councils” has yet …
Some final thoughts on the DUP conference. Sure there was all of the buzz and razamataz of flag waving, jeering and clapping as well as the conservative morality. It was the DUP’s best-attended conference. The overflow car park overflowed – a local church that was running a craft fair and wasn’t impressed when their car park filled up with non-shoppers! There were cars parked in the hotel’s tennis courts! The men were well dressed and mostly wore ties. The younger …
12:00 The delegates finally get to wave their flags and give a stand ovation and a half to Peter Robinson who struggled to get them to sit down so he can start his speech. You don’t need to take my word for it: just ask yourselves, is Northern Ireland better off now than it was twenty years ago? Investment is coming back, new jobs are being created and there’s a real future for our young people and a reason for …
The Gransha Suite at La Mon Hotel had obviously been packed with DUP Conference delegates for the previous session on Challenges in Policing when I eventually arrived earlier this evening. PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott was still giving a few interviews to the press while a Lambeg Drum was being set up on the other side of the stage. Nelson McCausland was up next, addressing DUP delegates as a dedicated follower of culture and MLA, rather than as Minister for …
Since their last party conference, the DUP has had a roller-coaster of a year. In the first few months of 2010 it looked like they’d been turned upside down and had any loose change shaken out of their pockets as scandal-ridden Iris Robinson abruptly retired from public life, Peter Robinson temporarily stepped back from office, land deals lingered in the headlines, mud was thrown at high profile MPs, and the party suffered the loss of their East Belfast seat at …
You might have thought that when the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers met yesterday with NI Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, and Treasury Finance Secretary, Mark Hoban, the first item on the agenda would be the still-to-be-agreed NI draft budget. After all, Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness did tell us that the Deputy Prime Minister, Nick Clegg, had assured them that the NIO and the Treasury would be re-examining the figures. Strangely, there’s no mention of that in the OFMDFM …
While the Irish Government struggles to cope with the game of geo-political hardball they are engaged in, the BBC reports that our own special little pleaders – the Northern Ireland First and deputy First Ministers – have issued a statement following a meeting of the UK Joint Ministerial Committee. In case you didn’t know The Joint Ministerial Committee is established by the Memorandum of Understanding between the UK Government and the devolved administrations in Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Its purpose …
The Northern Ireland Executive met on Thursday, although you’d be forgiven for not noticing. Not that there aren’t plenty of items which are, or which should be, on their agenda. Most pressingly the still-to-be-agreed draft NI budget. And as economist Neil Gibson told the Assembly this week “I want to be clear that what’s in front of us is challenging,” [Mr Gibson] told members of the Finance and Personnel Committee. “I don’t want to underplay how hard it’s going to be to make savings, but …
The BBC reports the concerns of Northern Ireland Finance Minister, the DUP’s Sammy Wilson, about the potential need for an emergency budget if the NI Executive fails to agree a draft budget. From the BBC report Mr Wilson said some ministers had been co-operating with his department. “It would be wrong to blame everybody and I hope everyone doesn’t get tarred with the one brush,” he said. “I do think it would be seen as a failure of the assembly …
According to Dawn Purvis, the DUP are shaping up to use a ‘Petition of Concern’ to sink her bill that is designed to prevent double-jobbing (where one individual holds the post of a Councillor and an MLA at the same time). The Local Government (Disqualification) Bill has, it seems, passed all-but-one of the assembly’s legislative proces stages. As Purvis says: “The Petition of Concern is a special provision designed to ensure that motions and legislation passed by the Assembly do …
It shouldn’t be a surprise that as the BBC reports, “Northern Ireland to be last UK nation to fix a budget”. A mandatory coalition, by its nature, will generally find such a process more difficult than a voluntary coalition. But according to that BBC report On Friday, the Sinn Fein [Northern Ireland] Regional Development Minister [Sinn Féin’s] Conor Murphy said no budget would be agreed within the next two weeks. Mr Murphy said a draft budget “cannot be about a …
DUP MLA, and junior minister, Robin Newton, appears to have rattled the cage of fellow Belfast City Councillor, Sinn Féin’s Tom Hartley, with his speculation “about Sinn Fein removing six of their current Councillors” on Belfast City Council. “It seems that the current Sinn Fein group is seen as being too soft and is perceived as having become institutionalised and establishment friendly. It looks like the extreme socialist wing of Sinn Fein is unhappy with the performance of the current supposedly …
As the Irish government clings desperately on to both the country’s economic independence and to its tiny Dáil majority whilst simultaneously promising the Plain People in the South more pain in the shape of less pay, fewer jobs and disappearing public services it may seem surprising that they are still funding that road which winds its way through the middle of the Ulster countryside and for no obvious electoral advantage. Of course, all political parties in the South insist that …
The Northern Ireland Executive met today [To decide what planet they’re living on? – Ed] to discuss the outcome of the 2010 Spending Review. Apparently, they now want to meet with either the “Coalition Government” or the “London Government”. In their statement they can’t decide which. Perhaps the UK Government would do? How about the Northern Ireland Secretary of State? He is a member of that government, after all. And as the NI Secretary of State, Owen Paterson, told the BBC “This is …
That was Northern Ireland Secretary of State Owen Paterson’s reported response to the reaction of our special little pleaders to the outcome of the UK Government’s 2010 Spending Review. And he has a point. The NI First Minister, the DUP’s Peter Robinson, claimed the cuts were ‘worse than feared’ . But his party colleague, and NI Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson, has stated that “Whilst the level of budget reductions we are facing is unwelcome, and will present a serious challenge, it comes as …
I’d welcome Peter Robinson’s call to end state-funding of faith-based schools if I thought he was serious about separating church and state. But he’s just as unlikely now, as he was then, to intervene whenever a supernaturalist Minister attempts to influence what’s on display in our museums, or at our World Heritage site, or in schools within the Lurgan District Council area. And what is Sinn Féin’s position on the DUP leader’s de-segregated objective? The Northern Ireland deputy First Minister, Sinn Féin’s …
