So Martin McGuinness has resigned his Westminster seat.
And there will be a bye-election in Mid Ulster. It is of course pathetic that Slugger O’Toole should focus on the total irrelevance that Westminster seats are resigned by applying for a paid office under the so called Crown.
Its a bizarre piece of parliamentary nonsense. Yet it amuses not just one but two Slugger contributors….so far. Shabby….very very shabby. But …typica
And so this is Christmas…….and I will not be keeping my eye on the Czar of Russia until the New Year.
So I wish you and yours a really fantastic Christmas. Thanks for reading this blog in 2012.
Nollaig Shona Daoibh agus Athbhliain faoi mhaise daoibh!
Eight years ago yesterday (20th December 2004), the Northern Bank in Belfast was robbed.
Some speculation surrounds the identity of those responsible.
PSNI have today released this photograph taken from CCTV Footage.
Once again, I can assure you all that I will not be getting a OBE or MBE from Mrs Windsor this year. In fact Mrs Fitzjames Horse is a shoe-in to be offered one at some stage. She has been a dedicated employee in the “caring” sector long before we married thirty years ago. And she jokes with me that she will accept a bauble when inevitably offered. At least I hope she is joking.
But as always the question is……how many Kaffliks will be on Mrs Windsor’s “Nice List”. In Jubilee Year, “Royal Visit” Year, Olympic Year….it is inevitable that some local Kaffliks will be “honoured”. Perhaps Fermanagh folk who arranged that visit to the Church in Enniskillen. Perhaps the Olympic boxers, Paddy Barnes and Michael Conlon? Perhaps an honoury knighthood for An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny? I wouldnt put it past him.
Is it going to be one of those yaers when some SDLP councillor will get a medal of sorts. And could I live with the shame of it? Could I live with the humiliation of someone in the nationalist community getting appointed to the House of “Lords”.
No doubt “Dimbleby” Walker already has a template prepared with only the names to be inserted.
But I wonder if this year…..and I have been predicting this for years and “stopped clock” syndrome suggests that I will be right eventually, Lilibet might be advised that the time is right to appoint an English Catholic churchman, like the Archbishop of Westminster to the “Lords”….possibly along with Muslim, Jewish and non-conformist leaders. It WILL happen.
The “Middle”…dontcha just love it? The fluffy kittens of Norn Iron Political Life.
They have been attacked recently. They are unused to it. I deplore the attacks on the Alliance Party. I also deplore attacks on the DUP, UUP, SDLP and Sinn Féin. People might say they will vote Alliance as a consequence of these attacks. It will make no difference to me. I did not change my voting behaviour as a consequence of the murders of Robert Bradford (UUP), Edgar Graham (UUP), Sheena Campbell (Sinn Féin), Miriam Ryan (IRSP), Paddy Wilson (SDLP). Would anyone really expect me to do that? So why should I do so because someone had their window broken?
Having your window broken or even your party office burned down is ……..as I continue to say……..disgusting. But in itself….having your window broken is not some kinda policy statement by the Alliance Party.
The “Middle” presents itself as some kinda alternative to Nationalism and Unionism. It is….it would claim non-tribal. It is no such thing. There are many decent, wonderful people in the “Middle” but not disproportionately higher than the decent people in Nationalism and Unionism. The moral high ground that some letsgetalongerists occupy is no different from the moral high ground occupied by extreme fundamentalist Catholics and Protestants.
With Nationalism and Unionism, you get exactly what it says on the tin.
With the “Middle” you get……..well whatever they say they are. Effectively it is a coalition. Strangely all British political parties…those that “letsgetalongerists” tell us we must strive to emulate have their roots in Religion. The Conservative Party as Anglican or “high Church Catholic”. The Lib Dems as non-conformist and Labour in non-conformist and migrant Catholicism.
And the Alliance Party is not much different. Despite a younger, secular element, its roots lie in part in ecumenical based religion. This is of course not only reasonable…it is to be admired…………people witnessing God thru politics. But there is a coalition here. Alliance roots and possibly future is “liberal unionism”….based on Terence O’Neill era belief that unionist outreach (its not a new concept) to Catholics is the better way to ensure the “Union”.
The “Middle” has the effect of creating a block, including many Catholics who are apathetic and/or content with the Norn Iron constitutional status. Its effect is to delay Irish Unity. Therefore from a unionist perspective, Alliance Party is fulfilling a unionist agenda regardless of declaring itself “agnostic”. Simply put, Alliance is a party which is in favour or accepts the status quo.
Unlike Sinn Féin and SDLP, it is not working actively towards Irish Unity.
The “Middle” is the unionist antidote to the Census Results.
The “Middle” and its agenda whether faith-based ecumenism or pragmatic “liberal unionism” is not value-free in constitutional terms.
As John Denver put it “some days are diamonds…some days are stones”. Today was one of thodial diamond Days. At 2.30pm, my #1 son and his wife had a baby daughter, our third surviving grandchild and fourth overall.
The baby is 7 lbs 8 ounces. And beautiful. Both baby and mother are doing well.
There are few better feelings in the world than touching a baby’s forehead and saying “hello I’m your grandad” and today I experienced that again….it’s nice. The great thing is that this feeling is one that is known to nationalists, unionists and letsgetalongerists.
Family…no matter how it is structured has the grace to bring out the best in us. I am at my best …..attempting to be Grandpa Walton….and doing a passable imitation of Grandpa Simpson.
So…..virtual cigars all round.
The Census revealed that the population is 48% Protestant and 45% Catholic. That looks significant but closing gap. Yet apparently it is a difference of 54,000 which does not seem that big at all. As the Unionist population is getting older and the Catholics are disproportionately of “child bearing age”. ……there will eventually be parity. So when? Census 2021? Census 2031?
I suppose a lot depends on outside factors. Now that Glasgow Rangers are confined to the dustbin of history……….there wont be many Scottish football titles heading to Ibrox. It would appear that in May each year, for a few years at least……..Celtic fans will have a lot to celebrate……..which could well lead to a rise of Catholic births in February 2014, 2015 and 2016.
Of course we might have a decade of success on the GAA field……which would be good news for the birth rates in Tyrone, Derry, Down……and maybe Armagh.
I almost choked on my Corn Flakes (yes I like a late night snack) watching the UTV News tonight. Did you see that strange woman with the massive Union Jack bow in her hair? Thankfully UTV singled her out to interview. That in itself should set the cause of Unionism back forty years.
Although the lady’s photograph is all over Twitter and Facebook………and I confess I am guilty of adding some comments…..I have decided not to post her photograph here. She might be a bit…and Im putting this delicately……odd.
That’s the thing about the Flegs issue. We now have two feminist icons. The “No Surrenderrrrrrrrrrrr” woman at the City Hall doors. She is a You Tube sensation. Now she has been joined by a woman who might be May McFetridge’s body double.
Notwithstanding the protests and violence and my Daughter-in-Law and wife have had travel difficulties……..it is hard to see any real thought behind these protests. It lacks substance………which is of course cold comfort to those who have been intimidated by loyalists.
There has been no inter-community rioting. Despite loyalist provocation the VIOLENCE remains confined to being loyalists attacking PSNI…….and PSNI being overly-restrained. Indeed the protests seemed to have failed to provoke the wider violence that appears to be the reason behind it all.
Take the “no surrenderrrrrrrrrrrrrrr” woman. That was the most dramatic appearance of a loyalist protester at the door of a public building since Michael Stone was grappled to the ground at Stormont. “May McFetridge” seemed to me to be more interested in getting her fifteen minutes of fame on the telly.
Perhaps………I am now leading a sheltered life. I am not travelling in and out of Belfast so I am inclined to think of these protests as a demonstration of loyalist stupidity and impotence…….albeit with the capacity to injure and kill.
Which brings me to a post on Slugger O’Toole about the Peace Rallies at the weekend. The question is are they worth it?
And there is no clear answer. Certainly I recall my mother and her friends marching on the Shankill Road in Belfast…..and I have been at the odd mass rally at City Hall myself. But ………..Im not sure we need a Peace Rally for the “Flegs” issue. It is a simple matter of thuggery and an ineffective PSNI response (for political reasons). The faceless organisers can turn the protests……and the violence……..off and on.
Nationalists have not been lured into violence………so why have a Peace Rally? In fact the call for a Rally ……in itself…….suggests an agenda that might involve re-visiting democratic decisions.
Is the Peace Rally merely a tactic to get people off a hook on which they impaled themselves?
My campaign to form a new political party and have eight MLAs elected to the Stormont Assembly received a boost today when I received the gift of some CHOCOLATE MONEY.
Yes that’s right…….chocolate money…..innocent money…….Quaker money (Cadbury’s are Quakers too arent they?).
I must be frank…….I would rather have had £97,000 over a period of four years. Thats what the Alliance Party got from Rowntree…..but I suppose I should be grateful and make the most of it before Mrs FitzjamesHorse puts the money on the Christmas tree.
I suppose if you are going to have a mass Rally for Peace outside Belfast City Hall, then nine days before Christmas….and peoples shopping progress already delayed by ten days of loyalist “protest”…..is the wrong time to actually have it.
Yet it was a bit of a disaster. If you are going to have a “mass” protest ……you need a lot of people. Up to one thousand people attended. Other estimates say “hundreds”. I wasnt there ….but lets say “800” which means that about 1% of the people there…. are on my Facebook or Twitter account……which indicates that it appealed to the “politically aware” rather than the Public as a whole.
Did we actually need a Peace Rally? I dont think we did. Lets be frank…..there was little or no inter-community violence over the ten days since the “Flegs” vote was passed at Belfast City Hall. Rather it was loyalist rioting and the power to stop it all was in the hands of the PSNI….and they chose mostly to not use that power. Incrementally they suggested higher degrees of loyalist paramilitary organisation…….and at the time of the attempted murder of a PSNI officer, they publicly and possibly privately put out the word that “enough is enough”………and since midweek there has been a scaling down of the protests.
Or ……to put it another way….those who “turned on” the Violence had already turned it off before today.
Yet some people are saying that the “image” is important. That somehow we need to send out the right “image” to folks in USA and Britain…..that the rioting they witnessed on their TV News was not the real Norn Iron. Well frankly what we saw on our TV screens was more real than MTV Award Shows, Titanic Exhibitions, stupid lapel badges with meaningless “Our Time, Our Place” slagans and G8 summits.
Keeping An Eye On the Czar of Russia 