On the train from Dublin to Belfast. It has already been a busy day.. Hopefully a short visit to Clonard to remember Fr Alec Reid. And if I feel up to it, I will go along to the Platform for Change meeting.
I have been hard on Platform for Change but I distinguish between those who (like Trevor Ringland) have a proven record of behaving decently and having the courage to actually put their views before the electorate.
But there is an Overclass that uses Platform for Change as an alternative to Politics. Being a member of the Workers Party or Labour NI is not opting INTO Politics. It is a very public admission that a person is opting OUT of Politics.
Real Politicians…Alliance, SDLP, UUP, Conservative are involved in Platform for Change. Other very real politicians like DUP and Sinn Fein could not be arsed.
So PFC comes across as people who are NO kind of politician or the “right” kind of politician. Or the “right” kind of Academic, Journalist, clergy. The relationship between PFC and The Golden Halo in Norn Iron Society is self-defeating.
At heart it is not that much different from the New Ulster Movement of the late 1960s.
An unrepresentative Overclass that only engages with like minded people?
The COMMA PEOPLE…not the COMMON PEOPLE.
People whose names are followed by a “comma” and the “comma” is followed by the multiple degrees and the university.