USA Presidential Election…Kaine Or Pence?

Posted on November 8, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

Make no mistake about it. The real winners in this USA Presidential Election will be (at least) one of the candidates for Vice President. The real loser will be Hillary Clinton. And frankly Donald Trump never wanted to be President in the first place.
Typically…Nixon, Reagan, Clinton, G W Bush, Obama…Americans elect a President for eight years. Since 1968, only Carter, and G H Bush have been ousted after just one term.
The nominal winner tonight will be punished by the Electorate. There is no way that Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump will return to the Oval Office. The contract is for four years and Americans will insist on it…retribution for a campaign that has been nothing short of scandalous and waged by two politicians who are deeply unpopular.

The balance of probability remains that Clinton will win. Her “supporters” are effectively divided between working moms (ie women who work in Wall Street and Hollywood and have maids from El Salvador to do the heavy lifting)…and people who are either Democrats or simply people who hate Trump even more.
In 2008, I was more lukewarm than most about the election of President Obama. He may well have been popular in western Europe but was always going to be the case that he would (properly) act in the interests of the United States. Eight years after his election, USA is still an ally of both Israel and Saudi Arabia. Did any over-enthusiastic Europeans think it would be any different.
Yet there was History made in 2008.
To be fair, John McCain and George W Bush and the Media saw that.
I have been watching USA for over fifty years….via Sgt Bilko, Boots and Saddles, The Lone Ranger, via Bonanza, Rawhide and the High Chapparel, via Kojak, Cheers, Law and Order, via Modern Family….via the Beach Boys, Tamla Motown, Emmylou Harris and the Eagles, via the Assassination of John F Kennedy, George Wallace, Martin Luther King, Watts, Cuban Missisles, Watergate, Vietnam, Rodney King, O J Simpson, 9/11….Saddam, Ghadafi, Osama Bin Ladin.
There was certainly a feeling in 2008 that USA had finally come to terms with its HIstory.
One of the horrible realities of the past eight years has been how that has been reversed.

The Grand Old Party of Abraham Lincoln tried to build a coalition to reach beyond fiscal conservatism. It flirted with Tea Party, evangelicals, National Rifle Association and anti-government people and now find themselves as merely part of the coalition led by Donald Trump.
Hillary said that about half his supporters were “deplorable’ and its never a good idea to insult voters. As we know …in Norn Iron, not everyone voting Sinn Féin approved of IRA violence.
Besides there are good reasons, notably Obamacare, where Republicans can feel unashamed of their choice.
Are all Trump supporters racist? Clearly not.
Are all racists voting for Trump? Thats a different question.
There is of course an anti-intellectualism at work here. And it has echoes of the Brexit vote in England/Wales.
The same TV reporters who rushed from London to Sunderland and Middlesbrough to interview the working class who dared to vote to leave the EU in spite of all the evidence that EU was a good thing….these same reporters are now spent several weeks in Ohio and Pennsylvania, interviewing working class people who support Trump.
There is another parallel…Boris JOhnson who led the Brexit campaign never thought he could win. Likewise those who voted to leave.
And Trump does not think he can win. Nor do his supporters.

Simply put, the people who style themselves as marginalised and disenfranchised are addicted to their sense of grievance and failure. If in Sunderland rust belt, you actually succeed in leaving Europe, who exactly do you blame for your shortcomings.
If Donald Trump gets into the Oval Office, who will the people in the Ohio rust belt blame for their shortcomings.
But actually I blame the liberal elite more…I blame the arrogance of the intellectuals.
To be fair, comedian Bill Maher (I detest him) got it right with his apology to John McCain, Mitt Romney. They were decent men who had different views to Maher…and the vitriol had in fact led to the rise of Donald Trump.
There we have it.
The Republican Party AND the liberal elite are culpable for Donald Trump.

I am of course left of centre. You would expect me to be a Hillary supporter. I find her pretty awful. I dont see the point in me supporting a candidate for office in another country. It is risible that people here in Norn Iron cant accept we have no dog in this fight. It is perplexing that some see the American President as Leader of the Free World. It is bollox.

Nor do I think that my own social democrat kinda politics is really accepted or acceptable in USA?
Nor can I put my hand on my heart and say that I would be a Democrat or Republican….if I had been born and raised in USA.
Nature and Nurture.
If an ancestor had boarded a USA-bound ship in 1847…well the point is …that they didnt.
Therefore I am NOT Irish-American.
I am not a wee fat baldy man …dapper with a bow tie….who teaches History in a small college in New Hampshire. Nor am I retired steel worker in Pennsylvania.

I wont endorse anyone.
Nor will I condemn any of my friends who make a choice, one way or the other. We have too much history.
If I identify with anyone …it was Bernie Sanders. And I have total contmpt for the way that the Democratic Party was complicit in Hillary Clinton seeing off his challenge.

Frankly Hillary Clinton missed the boat in 2008. She felt a sense of entitlement and lost the nomination to Obama. True she has added to her CV since then but increasingly she looks like a candidate who is ten years past her sell-by date.
Later tonight, her supporters might claim that History has been made.
Obama made History as the first black President.
HIllary Clinton might do the same as the first woman President.

But Barack Obama is a much more substantial figure.
And there is nothing “outsider” about Clinton.

But this is really about Tim Kaine and Mike Pence.
This has been a campaign that has shamed USA. LOsing is its own punishment. Winning merely means that the new President starts off being hated. If Clinton wins, I think its inevitable that within two years, she announces retirement thru ill health.
Step forward Tim Kaine, a patently decent man but somehow lacking gravitas.
If Trump wins, I suspect he will be forced out, thru adverse publicity or he will just get bored.
STep forward Mike Pence, who has the gravitas.

And what about USA?
Well the balance of probability at 6pm Irish time is that Clinton will win.
The result will be accepted by nearly everyone.
But the pool of malcontents, marginalised and disenfranchised is now a lot bigger than it ever was.

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Fáilte Bangor Sinn Féin

Posted on November 2, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

One of the most interesting and welcome developments over the past few weeks has been the formation of a Sinn Féin cumann (branch) in Bangor, County Down.

Frankly SDLP have under-performed in North Down and while the selection of a credible Assembly candidate in Conall Brown (a leading member of SDLP Youth) is welcome, it is far too late for the Party to make an impact. SDLP has been content with token effort.

The reasons are complex. Catholics are very much a minority in North Down and Nationalists even more of a minority. Unlike most other parts of Norn Iron, the connexion between Catholicism and Nationalism is not so deep. (Irish) Nationalism, whether SDLP or Sinn Féin is a left of centre political philosophy but many (but not of course all) Catholics in North Down are politically “conservative”.

At times, North Down seems semi-detached from Norn Iron, almost embarrassed to be part of the squalid sectarian make-up and very much at ease with itself as not very different from seaside towns in west of Scotland and north west England.

It is very much the home of a succession of independently minded Westminster MPs such as Jim Kilfedder, Bob McCartney and Sylvia Hermon (the  current MP).

There is a strong Alliance presence but Green Party are now sharing the so called “middle ground”. It is a constituency where for four decades, Catholics have kept their heads down and voted Alliance as a matter of conviction or as the least dogmatic of the unionist choices. It is not just Bangor….it is a familiar pattern in Lisburn, Newtownards and Carrickfergus.

To some extent, the formation of of a Sinn Féin cumann challenges this mind-set of local Catholics. While it  is tempting to think that 14% of the population are “Catholic” and can be the springboard for an Assembly quota…the number who identify as “Irish” lags some way behind.

I am on record as saying that ALL political parties have a duty to present themselves to the electorate in ALL constituencies.

So….it is to the credit of Sinn Féin that they are prepared to join SDLP in organising in Bangor to accomodate nationalist voters ..around 700 voters (400 plus SDLP and 300 plus SF).

My long-held belief is that TUV, UUP, DUP should stand in constituencies that are overwhelmingly nationalist as a courtesy to all voters. To their credit SDLP and Alliance do this.

And Sinn Féin? Well no….just like TUV, UUP and DUP….Sinn Féin want squalid sectarian voting pacts to maximise the nationalist vote. Indeed, as Bangor SF members learn how to canvas with their comrades in South Belfast, nobody seems to have noticed that Sinn Féin stood down in South Belfast to “help” SDLP MP Alasdair McDonnell  in 2010 in a failed attempt to get SDLP to reciprocate to help Michelle Gildernew MP in Fermanagh-South Tyrone.

So Sinn Féin are either inconsistent or hypocritical. And as South Belfast members mentor their  Bangor comrades as they canvas Seahill, Clandeboye and Ballyholme, it might come up on the doorsteps.

Is this the normalisation of Politics, that the DUP-SF one party State love to promote? Well the old unionist regime liked to promote Politics 1922-1972 as normal British Politics. After all everyone was entitled to stand as a Party and get votes…..including Joe Campbell of Sinn Féin in North Down in 1955 and 1959. So this breakthru ….Sinn Féin in Bangor is not quite the breakthru that it is selling.

Of course, it is to be expected that Sinn Féin, Bangor claim Winnie Carney as “one of their own”. The Bangor woman is one of the leading figures in the Easter Rising of 1916 and was part of the garrison in the GPO. WInnie’s story cannot be told without regard to her own later history….and of course Sinn Féin have already embarrassed themselves by claiming the unbroken link from the heroism in the GPO to the version of their Party in 2016.

It is of course a very selective history.

They cant promote Winnie Carney on their 2016 literature and draw a veil over 1970s, 1980s and early 1990s. One of the consequences of a very limited republican tradition in North Down is that Bangor (with few exceptions) was relative Troubles-free from 1970 to 1998.

Towns like Belfast, Omagh, Enniskillen, Armagh, Dungannon, Derry and several others were bombed and inevitably the Brigades, Batallions and Companies responsible were local men and local women.

But when Bangor was devastated, it was by Active Service Units acting on plans made outside Bangor. Actually the bombers were from….er South Belfast.

I dont think Sinn Féin plan to mention that on the flyers, proudly using the name of Winnie Carney or on the doorsteps in Seahill, Clandeboye and Ballyholme.

 

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Naomi Long…Sheesh

Posted on October 26, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

Today Naomi Long became Leader of the Alliance Party. Yes….it seems that they can get even more pompous and sanctimonious.

Not sure if a purpose can be found for David Ford. Does he stand down from the Assembly just six months after being narrowly re-elected. Is there a successor waiting in South Antrim.

Will Ford become “Lord Ford” and go to the House of Lords …as early as the New Year. Of course, he could like “Lord” Morrow remain in the Assembly.

Thank GOD, I am retired from Blogging or I might actually care.

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Having Your Cake (And Eating It)

Posted on October 26, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

I may be an old man but I am not one of those who goes around complaining about Political Correctness. You will rarely, if ever hear me say “it’s Political Correctness gone maaaaaaad”. This is because Political Correctness is a very good thing…it is simply good manners.

But that Appeal Court Decision on Mondayq about the “Gay Cake” controversy is maybe ….ahem……Political Correctness gone maaaaaaaad.

Ashers Bakery make exceedingly good cakes. That’s the first point Id like to make. But a couple of years ago, did not want to bake a cake with a seemingly pro-Equal Marriage motif. They were sued and had to pay damages. It is a family-run business and the family has Christian beliefs, more fundamental than my own. The Appeal Court today upheld the original decision.

It seems a shame that such a trivial matter should be dealt with in such a heavy manner. A family-run business seems a soft target. After all, Equal Marriage is not on the statute book…I wish it was…but it isnt. A more difficult target for Gay Rights activists might be the DUP and UUP MLAs at Stormont who have blocked the legislation.

Belfast might be different now but Seamus Heaney understood that smoke signals are loudmouths in the land of the “password, hand grip, nod and wink”.

Some anecdotes. We paid the utility bills at the City Hall  (circa 1962) and as we were leaving, my father told me that the cashier was wearing a masonic badge and ring. The “wee newspaper man” came into our street from the Protestant end of the street…carrying his News Letters and Northern Whigs and scurrying past the Catholics with his head down. I went into his shop once and thought he was a bit ignorant with me….but as my father said “hes a bitter wee man….theres plenty of them around”.

Fast forward to early 1970s when my mother bought my shirts in a very large department store with a poor record on employing Catholics. When I protested, she said she only bought me the best.
Of course the combination of Legislation, Enlightenment and Boycott ended a lot of Discrimination in Employment.
But as my father would have acknowledged, Catholics can be bitter wee men (and women!). If you rejoice that the wee lassie in the bank displays a name tag “Saoirse”, you might find that the wee lad with the name tag “Norman” is actually nicer to deal with.
Thats how we are …all the same under the skin.

In Belfast, the number of department stores and multi-national firms and a city centre which was effectively a “neutral zone” hid a lot of sectarianism. Or alternatively it facilitated people who were not obsessive about such things.
But in the provincial towns with the shopping areas like Scotch Street and Irish Street and the grapevine, things were very different.
Getting a haircut in Belfast even in the 1970s, I never thought of such things. Dungannon was different. Unable to find a barber at 4.30pm on a Saturday, I crossed the town and was subjected to a lot of very blunt interrogation “we dont get Catholics in here….”
It still rankles with me that I crossed town and was badly treated.
Not typical…which is why thirty five years later, I still think about it.

Of course it is wrong for employers and businesses to act in a sectarian way. There are sanctions. But I wonder if there are appropriate sanctions on consumers who act in a certain way. In Norn Iron, we live in parallel universes….we go to different churches and schools. We read different newspapers. We live in different areas. We play different sports…..and even when we go  “up the town shopping”, we seem to be happier in Scotch Street or Irish Street.

But there are no penalties for not thinking about using the barber, the hairdresser, the newsagent, the chemist, the florist in Scotch Street (or Irish Street) and heading for the barber, the hairdresser, the newsagent, the chemist, the florist in Irish Street (or Scotch Street).

Few of us are actively sectarian. There is a passiveness to it all. Few businesses are actively sectarian. There is not much profit in appealing to one section of a divided population. Few business owners raise their head above the political parapet. They are as political or as apolitical as the rest of us but as some business owners called out by the Orange Order to protest about Parades being re-routed….and the business owner was seen on the TV News….then it was certainly a disincentive for Catholics/nationalists to use his business.

Be honest. If a prominent member of Sinn Féin opened a coffee shop in Belfast City Centre or a prominent DUP member opened a chemist shop in Belfast City centre would you make a point of supporting it, not supporting it….or would you be indifferent?
(EDIT…..I WROTE THIS LAST NIGHT BEFORE SEEING REPORTS CALLING FOR BOYCOTT OF DONALD TRUMP HOTELS AND RESORTS)

If “bitter wee men (and women) ” can run a business is it possible for “bitter wee men (and women)” to be customers?
Is It a bad thing to support or boycott a business because the owner is white/black, Catholic/Protestant, Muslim /Christian/Jewish, Gay/Straight? But is it somehow ok to support or boycott a business because the owner has a different political outlook to our own?. We might argue that Politics is about Choice.
But isnt it also about Perception. Can we assume that the more traditional Christians, Jews and Muslims have conservative views that we as liberals might not like.

Take…..cakes. Birthday Cakes….Wedding Cakes ….etc. Most cake shops will hardly refuse to bake a cake. No great problem for the Scotch Street baker to put “Happy Birthday Saoirse” on the cake. Taig money is equally valued. No great problem for the Irish Street baker to put “Happy Birthday Norman” on the cake. Orange money is equally valued.
But in the provincial towns with parallel lives and Scotch Street and Irish Street values, people are concerned about causing offence. We must NEVER cause offence.
So that “First Communion” cake will be iced in Irish Street.
So that “12th July” cake will be iced in Scotch Street.
While it is unlikely that any Baker will refuse the commission, it does not seem unreasonable to discomfort anyone with ordering and declining.
Is it really so different from New York or London?
Would ordering a cake with a pro-Palestine message “offend” a Jewish baker in New York?
WOuld ordering a cake with a pro-Zionist message “offend” a Muslim baker in London?
Most liberal minded people would say that it would potentially offend and that there is an onus on the person ordering the cake to be more considerate.
Certainly it would seem high handed for a court case to result.

But in Belfast, it is deemed illegal for a Christian owned business to decline to ice a cake with a message they deem secular and offensive.
It would have not have happened in Scotch Street. Or Irish Street.
Can it really be the case that some liberal gay people were so outraged that they could not buy a “gay cake” in a Christian baker….that they called in the Equality Commission to fund a court case and appeal?
Can it really be the case that a Christian family had to defend themselves on this charge? Yes, in the process they were backed by broader fundamentalists with the assertion that Christianity was under attack.

The problem with LetsGetALongerism (and forgive me if I have said this before) is that it is remarkably selective.
If I go into a Muslim-owned bakery and ask for a cake featuring a portrait of Muhammed (peace be upon him) and the order is refused as portraits of Muhammed are offensive….then I can contact the Equality Commission and have them fund my case against the Bakery????
Maybe Patrick Corrigan will stand outside the City Hall with one of his famous placards “Je Suis Fitzjames Horse”?

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Vote For Mike…And Get Colum

Posted on October 24, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

I am of course retired from Blogging and I have absolutely no interest in the Future.

Yesterday, Colum Eastwood, Leader of SDLP addressed the UUP Conference. It is apparently …historic. So say the Bloggers. My own threshold for “historic” is higher. On the other hand, my threshold for “almost risible nonsense” is low.

Like most things in Norn Iron, it is too late.

SDLP and UUP are now very much the second fiddle in the nationalist and unionist tribes. As of May 2016, Sinn Féin lead SDLP by 28-12 on the nationalist side and DUP lead UUP by 39-16 on the unionist side. Our “cross-community” government is therefore a DUP-SF coalition. Their public stance might be that they detest each other but actually they love POWER much more so they need each other.
SDLP and UUP opted out of taking a seat in a grand coalition. Probably they would have better advised to do this in 2011. And DUP-SF have typically acted without Grace…having humiliated the minor parties around the Executive table, they are intent on marginalising Opposition.
The question is can SDLP and UUP co-operate in Opposition? Clearly…yes.
The other question is can they form a “joint” Opposition? And clearly the answer is…no.
How on earth can a socialist party like SDLP have a joint platform with a right-wing Party like UUP?
But obviously they can co-operate on facilitating each other.

Much has been made of Mike Nesbitt addressing his UUP “when you vote for me, you get Colum …when you vote for Colum , you get me”
OH GOD NO!
Have you ever heard anything more cringeworthy?
Obviously if you vote for Mike Nesbitt and his UUP and get Colum Eastwood and his SDLP, you have a good deal.
Just as obviously if you vote for Colum and his SDLP and get TV Mike and his UUP, you have got a very bad deal.
There may be some advantage in TV Mike being two people…the one who tells us he made history on Saturday …or the one who entered into electoral pacts with DUP (Fermanagh-South Tyrone, East Belfast and North Belfast) to maximise the pro-union vote at the Westminster Election of 2015.
With SDLP unlikely to hold the new South East Belfast seat in 2020, will Mike consider an electoral pact with SDLP? I doubt it. With SDLP committed (correctly) to no election pacts with other parties, will Colum give UUP a clear run in South Antrim and Fermanagh-South Tyrone? No!

Of course nationalists hate DUP more than they hate UUP.
Of course unionists hate Sinn Féin more than they hate SDLP.
But pitching the notion that the best way to keep the “deplorables” out of the Executive is to vote UUP and SDLP for negative reasons, rather on their own merits is not exactly inspirational.
Of course this is called “progressive”. The commentators love it. The Bloggerati love it.

But what happens at the highest level of Politics…the Assembly Chamber, the STephen Nolan Show, the seminars at Queens University, or council chambers ….doesnt trickle down to street and parish pump level.
Few if any UUP voters in Bangor, Antrim and Lurgan will be casting a second preference for SDLP.
Few if any SDLP voters in Warrenpoint, Derry and Coalisland will be casting a second preference for UUP.
And the next Stormont election is the best part of five years from now.

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Next Deputy Leader Of SDLP?

Posted on October 19, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

To be very clear, this is NOT a comeback. I will not be resuming my Blogging career. I am enjoying retirement far too much. This post is in response to a request and also to tie up some loose ends.

When I retired on 11th August, I closed the Blog. This unfortunately meant nobody could actually view the Archive. That was not what I intended….I intended the Blog stay open to facilitate anyone who was interested in things that I have said over the past five years. So a few weeks ago, I changed the settings so the Blog is still “open”.

I digress. A few weeks ago, I was sent a link to a post on Slugger O’Toole by Kris Nixon (aka Barman) regarded by some as a leading blogger in the Belfast Metrotextual Mutual Admiration Society.

The subject of the post was Claire Hanna, SDLP MLA for South Belfast. It was really a non-post that observed that Claire is on TV a lot, the post of Deputy Leader in SDLP is vacant and Claire might be a candidate.

In other words, it was a Dog Bites Man story …too obvious to be interesting. Surprisingly when I read it on Slugger, there was already over one hundred comments. I did not read any of the comments but was tempted to comment myself but I have not made a comment on Slugger since May 2015 and I have no idea what my password is.

There are some events …ie Claire Hanna on the TV ….that are simply too obvious to blog about. The story here is not so much “More Than  Meets the Eye” as “Less Than Meets the Eye”. And sometimes the Eye misses what is really going on.

There is really no special significance in Claire being on TV a lot. The BBC and UTV studios are in South Belfast…in Claire’s constituency. If the case can be made that the previous Deputy Leader, Fearghal McKinney was the SDLP man most likely to be on TV with Mark Carruthers and Paul Clark….then it has to be said that Fearghal was also a MLA in South Belfast. Of course the previous Deputy Leader, Dolores Kelly also appeared a lot …she lives in Upper Bann, less than 25 miles from TV studios…..but the man who could not be beaten out of BBC and UTV studios was Conall McDevitt….surprisingly BBC and UTV never charged him rent. Conall was Deputy Leader but of course represented South Belfast.

So….Claire Hanna’s frequent TV appearances are as much to do with South Belfast as “Deputy Leader”. Kris Nixon speculates that Claire is the leading candidate to be Deputy when the post is contested.

Again…….how surprising is this? I suspect that a straw poll of SDLP watchers  would arrive at the same conclusion. Which tends to invite the question ….why is Claire’s TV appearances such a big story.

Logically when SDLP elect a new Deputy Leader, it will be at the next full Conference. And logically, it will be one of the twelve MLAs currently at Stormont. Of these, only four were in Stormont at or before 2011. Colum Eastwood is Party Leader, Mark H Durkan can be ruled out as a Leader and Deputy from the same constituency (Derry-Foyle) would not work. Patsy McGlone     is on the Speakers Panel and that requires bi-partisanship. Alex Attwood is certainly a possibility but he is maybe a senior statesman in SDLP rather than a contender.

Two  MLAs Daniel McCrossan and Claire Hanna were first co-opted to the Assembly in 2015 and the other six were all elected in 2016. With respect to the other five, Nicola Mallon has a seniority as she was a Special Advisor (to Mark H Durkan).

Factkor in that “gender balance” was a theme in the 2015 Deputy Leadership which Dolores lost to Fearghal and it is almost certain that the next Deputy Leader will be a woman….Claire or Nichola.

Both are star turns…Nicola is quietly effective while Claire is more…energetic.

I would think that Nicola sees her future at Stormont and therefore more suited to the role of Deputy Leader. Claire might well have had one eye on being SDLP candidate at the Euro Elections in 2019. She is a former International Secretary of the Party and has good European connexions and fought a good campaign in the EU Referendum. Brexit means that there is unlikely to be Euro Elections and thats a career path that is now closed to Claire. I am not suggesting she would win a European seat, merely stating the obvious …she would be a very credible candidate.

Likewise any aspiration to succeed Alasdair McDonnell as SDLP MP for South Belfast is not very realistic with boundary changes creating a new constituency which SDLP will have difficulty holding.

This means any future for Claire within Politics is at Stormont. Unless of course she leaves frontline politics and goes to a Quango.

SDLP has reached a curious compromise with itself. The buzz-phrase is “progressive nationalism” but nobody seems to know what it means. To me, it looks like a band-aid to cover the nationalist and “progressive” wings of SDLP.

Famously SDLP was formed by Civil Rights activists (Hume, Cooper, O’Hanlon), Republican Labour (Fitt, Wilson), Nationalist (Currie), Liberal (Wilton) and Norn Iron Labour (Devlin). …and the organising of NDP activists. There were always arguments of course….Wilson was murdered by loyalists in 1973, Devlin and Fitt left the Party after a decade or so. But in general, SDLP seemed pretty co-ordinated in its best years. But as the Party declines, the fault lines are starting to show.

Claire self-identifies as a “progressive”. Well I am sure most people say that about themselves. But other people say it about Claire. But those other people also say it about themselves.

Conall McDevitt (former SDLP MLA for South Belfast) praised the election of two “progressive women” in South Belfast…ie Claire Hanna and Claire Bailey (Green Party). That would be the same Conall McDevitt who stood for the Party Leadership in 2011 and Claire was one of his cheerleaders.

To some extent, Conall is the forgotten man. He resigned from Stormont in 2013 (and Claire lost out to Fearghal McKinney inthe co-option convention)….a result which did not surprise any SDLP watchers but surprised Dr David McCann of Slugger O’Toole.

Since 2013, Claire has been one of the leading critics of Alasdair McDonnell, succeeding him in the Assembly as a co-option about a year ago and successfully backed Colum Eastwoods leadership campaign. She has also been succeeded in Belfast City Hall by Donal Lyons…who is her husband.

Yet despite having impeccable SDLP credentials….her father is a former General Secretary of the Party and her mother a former MLA and Executive minister as well as having a husband on the City Council (he is also a SDLP staff member)….any Deputy Leadership campaign would have to involve people outside the Party rather than within the Party.

Why do I say this?

South Belfast is a very important SDLP constituency. Perhaps more members than any other and it will carry a lot of weight at any Deputy Leadership election. But it would be a mistake to think that all SDLP folks in South Belfast will support Claire. The McDonnell-McKInney faction is as strong as the Hanna faction. And no SDLP Leadership campaign is complete without Claire covered in stickers supporting the “progressive” candidate. She is somewhat the face of “change” or “rock the boat” within SDLP. It wont always play well with the Party as a whole.

While Claire has outreached to a demographic in South Belfast….self styled progressives , students,academics, “economic unionists” and refugees from the failed Platform for Change nonsense….she really needs to nurture SDLP members in (say) Ballycastle, Maghera, Derrylin and Camlough.

These people in North Antrim, Mid Ulster, Fermanagh and South Armagh have paid a high price for SDLP membership and for the electoral consequences of division within the Party.

Claire is good with a catchphrase. Her onservation that people choose political parties on the basis of “best fit” rather than “perfect fit” can go down well when talking to Queens University  or chatting to ex-pat Labourites from Australia, USA and England but back in Ballycastle, Maghera, Derrylin and Camlough, there are people who are totally and absolutely SDLP.

When trying to sign up new members at a QUB or UU “Freshers Week”, there is a choice …ask people to join  to further the values of SDLP or ask people to join and use SDLP as a vehicle to bring SDLP in a “progressive” direction.

SDLP Youth is really “SDLP Students”, not representative of the Party as a whole or even young people as a whole. It is a mixed blessing. They were the footsoldiers in the Equal Marriage and EU campaigns and thats to their credit…but there is a narcissistic silliness about the youth wing. They need to abandon  the Facebook postings of “being blocked”, too much nonsense about support for “progressive” campaigns for Democrat candidate in the 4th Michigan Congressional District, the latest Social Democrat superstar in Denmark and endless selfies with Irish Labour feminists in An Dáil.

That’s all bollix. There is more to Politics than a degree, a Twitter account, a selfie-stick and a block booking for the Stephen Nolan show. It is unreal. It is Fantasy Politics.

To this end, SDLP needs to have a quiet word with young activists who are involving themselves in the “Repeal the Eighth” (ie abortion reform) campaign in the Republic of Ireland. Of course they can act as individuals but SDLP remains a “pro-life” Party. Whatever the merits of the campaign, it is counter-productive. Thats the line that Claire needs to walk in South Belfast….and with the SDLP as a whole.

To emphasise, I no longer give a tinkers curse about elections in 2019 and 2020 but I wish SDLP well as they have selflessly represented me and mine. But the Party is riddled with inefficiency and an amateurism that betrays those it seeks to represent.

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And It’s Goodbye From Him

Posted on August 11, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

I have seen the Future…and I dont really like it. So I dont want to work for it. And I am too tired to work against it.

It might be sixteen years ago since I saw a BBC journalist touring USA as part of reporting the 2000 Election campaign. It was suggested that the new-fangled Internet would change Politics for ever. It has….it has changed it for the worse.

Donald Trump would not have been possible without the Internet. And Brexit (thankfully) would not have been possible without the Internet.

Like William Caxton’s printing press, it changes the nature of Discourse. Cheapens it. The politics of Facebook. The politics of the Hashtag. The politics of the Blog. There is a lot of fun in being a wee, old, fat man with an ipad. If I was ever right about one thing, it was the title of this Blog…Keeping an Eye on the Czar of Russia is exactly what I have been doing.

It started out on 11th August 2011 as an alternative to blogging. But somehow it became serious with occasional quirkiness. A Blog only rises above the level of a “Journal” when people read it…comment. And in a strange way, it is the “commenters” who forced the Blog to become more serious. …more (dare I say it) “responsible”.

But Politics is going in directions I dont like. Five years ago, I believed in the Good Friday Agreement. Today…I dont. I voted for Brexit on the basis that it might be a game-changer….the point at which the Good Friday Agreement can be put in the dustbin of HIstory. Whether it was the Agreement itself or the outworking of it or sabotage from London is almost irrelevant.

It wont deliver for Nationalists. Sinn Féin is in office without power and is satisfied. SDLP are pouting that they are not in power but really they should shoulder some of the blame. They were out-played after 1998. And seem to have embraced a form of words “progressive nationalism” as a form of words to cover internal divisions. While some advance SDLP, others seem intent on changing SDLP to advance a different agenda. The Party is best served at Council level but are undermined by a faux professionalism and those that purport to see abig picture of PES colleagues in western Europe and British Labour and Irish Labour. Avoiding niche campaigns like student loans and roaming charges for mobile phones in Europe might be a good idea.

Brexit gives SDLP an opportunity to advance nationalism. Will they take it? Probably not.

Too many people seem satisfied with DUP-Sinn Féin. The one party State with two wings (as Mark Durkan put it) is the “new normal”. For fifty years, journalists went along with the Stormont regime. For thirty years they were uncritical of the British Administration and now they just go along with the new regime at Stormont.

This DUP-SF government is actually a Constitution and I see no way of changing this in the short or middle term. This will outlive me.

Peace is of course a big prize. I dont underestimate it. And I like a  police service which is at least modern and reasonably decent. Ten years ago, I would have encouraged young men and young women to think of PSNI as a career.

Undoubtedly police serve the “Community” but it is increasingly obvious that PSNI serve the needs of the DUP-SF “State” as much and as enthusiastically as the old RUC served the unionist “State”.

The police will fight Crime….except that in which the State is or was involved.

I really dont want to give it credibility by supporting it. I want to ignore it.

So….Time to move on.

Thanks to the people who have read and supported this Blog.

It is now an ex-Blog. I will be closing it down after the weekend and de-activating Twitter and Facebook accounts.

Slán!

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Rt Rev Monsignor John Murphy RIP

Posted on August 9, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

Monsignor John Murphy died at 8.10pm on Saturday night. You have probably never heard of him. He would be pleased about that. Because he did not seek or like the limelight.

He was in his mid 80s. A priest for 57 years. Ordained originally for the Diocese of Salford in the north of England. He served in Burnley and Bolton. He also spent a lot of time at Old Trafford watching Manchester United. He was friends with some of the coaching staff and players.

In the mid-1960s, his father died and he returned to County Antrim on long term compassionate leave to look after his widowed mother. He was an only child.

Like so many temporary arrangements, it turned out to be permanent. He was assigned to the Parish of Hannahstown but based at the small country church of “The Rock” in the hills above West Belfast. As the name suggests, during Penal Times in the eighteenth century, Mass was celebrated on rocks in remote areas. Catholics in Belfast would be alerted to “illegal” Mass by the lighting of a fire in the hills.

In the late 1960s, Hannahstown was a three-priest parish spread over three churches at Hannahstown, the Rock and the “Barn” at Hillhead on the fringes of West Belfast….and West Belfast was spreading out…new churches were built and the new parishes at Lenadoon, Twinbrook and Poleglass were established from Hannahstown in the 1970s.

But things were changing fast in Norn Iron. Internment without Trial was introduced in August 1971 and a prison camp established at Long Kesh near Lisburn. It later became the Maze Prison. In 1976, Father Murphy was appointed Catholic chaplain at Long Kesh/Maze.

You maybe think that there are other better known chaplains. Fr Murphy was THE chaplain. Others were at best “assistants” to him…priests who had no parish responsibility (perhaps schoolteachers) who were recruited to help. As the prison population increased, it was deemed a security risk to have too many prisoners…members of IRA, INLA …either internees or convicted of “terrorism”….murder, bombing, kidnapping….attending just one Sunday Mass.

Fr Murphy served as prison chaplain from 1976 to 2001…twenty-five years …accompanying prisoners on compassionate leave for family occasions such as funerals, carrying out his duties in prison cells, where the walls were smeared with excrement as part of the “Dirty Protest”. Negotiating on behalf of families, including the various Hunger Strikes and being with some of the ten hunger strikers who died. It was also dangerous. His church at the Rock was bombed. His home beside it was also bombed in  a seperate incident.

All the time he operated under the radar. Of course his family….he had no siblings. But his cousins knew something of his work and the need for discretion. The less detail they knew, the better for all.

Of course the older cousins knew him as “John” and the younger ones as “Father John”.

Yet at the event in 2009, to commemorate his fiftieth anniversary as a priest, all were surprised at the video which filled in some of the detail.They saw him making presentations to the United Nations, to European Union and Human Rights organisations. Private audience with the Pope. A leading voice in prison chaplaincy at local, national and international level. He talked to people in the Norn Iron Office and the Department of Foreign Affairs in Dublin. But he never spoke to journalists.

Certainly when journalists approached him, they were sent away.  The Catholic Church wanted to record it all. He declined. Relatives with a sense of the historic events he had witnessed could not get past his sense of extreme discretion. Few without a sense of “spirituality”, will understand the reason….he was a “Marian”priest with a sense of discretion modelled on the Mother of GOD. SHe witnessed historic events and said nothing.

His great friend Bishop Edward Daly died yesterday. And in Bishop Daly’s book, you will see one of the few references to Father Murphy, the Long Kesh priest. In other books, you will read about “The White Fox” and “Murph”.

Is there a legacy to the chaplaincy at Long Kesh/Maze? AWell certainly at An Féile event three years ago….at ironically St Oliver Plunkett Church (a church dedicated to an Irish bishop hanged, drawn and quartered in London), part of the audience was a row of men who described themselves as “ex prisoners and athiests” who told us that the Catholic Church had done nothing for them. A report I wrote on that lecture by Dr John Brewer is in this Blog’s archive.

That’s how it goes. Yet I think today’s funeral at the Rock presented an alternate version. Ex-prisoners were among the mourners. And a leading member of Sinn Féin, prominent at the time of the 1981 Hunger Strikes sat in a reserved seat across the aisle from the elderly cousins.

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The funeral Mass was concelebrated by three Bishops and six other priests. There were about forty priests in the congregation.  His chaplaincy during the Troubles necessarily impacted on fellow priests and families all over the North…in Belfast, Derry, South Armagh, West Tyrone etc a lot of parishes were represented in Long Kesh.

There was something moving in seeing four fully robed priests carry the coffin from the church and  gently laying him to his rest in the graveyard. Moving to hear his friend Father Gerry McCloskey give the main address. Last night, I struggled to find words that really got the essence of Monsignor John Murphy. But I think Bishop Noel Treanor got it right….”he was demure to the point of anonymity”.
Yes …that’s it.

Like I said his dwindling number of older cousins called him “John”. They knew him as a contemporary and as playmate.  and his younger cousins, who first knew him as a priest called him “Father John”.

Rest in Peace “Father John” ….you deserve it.

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Orange Parades: The Obvious Solution

Posted on August 5, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

I am glad I am giving up Blogging next week. Blogging has given up on me already. Satire is dead.

I am not sure if I heard the News correctly earlier in the week. A former member of the Orange Order (Adrian) who used to protest about Gay people is now a transgendered woman called Adrienne? Have I got this right?

He now wants to rejoin the Orange Order…Womens Section? Am I still right?

Being a fully paid up member of the “liberal elite”, I have never had much time for the Orange Order. I tend to empathise with residents who find their parades offensive.

But on the other hand, I feel I should have a certain sympathy with Adrienne.

The problem with being a “liberal” is that I am used to living with Angst. I have always believed that we can live long enough to cure all Fears….eg as a retired man, I dont fear Unemployment.

But I think I have finally out-lived Angst. I just dont care enough anymore. Plenty of young SDLP people to do Angst for me.

I can certainly understand my colleagues getting irritated that PSNI are not enthusiastically enforcing the laws on drinking in the street during Orange parades.

Indeed I can understand “family” residents in the Belfast Holylands getting annoyed when thousands of Queens University students are partying in their streets for St Patricks Day …St Patricks Week….and indeed every night of the year.

It  is one of those odd things about Policing that if a passing police patrol sees you urinating against the wall of a Catholic Church on a night in February or a British war memorial on a night in December…they will quite rightly arrest you. If on the other hand several thousand people decide to do this in broad daylight, not everyone will be arrested.

Thats how Crowd Control works….the easy option. Walk down the street alone drinking a can of Budweiser, you will be told to stop. Party with thousands in University Avenue on 17th March or walk with thousands thru Shaftsbury Square with several boxes of Harp and….well, the chances are that no body will arrest you.

The normal rules are suspended. So it is hypocritical for people, including SDLP voices to point up that the PSNI are not going to tolerate excessive anti-social behaviour during the Pride (formerly Gay Pride) celebrations in Belfast this weekend. Much as I like to see young people with their rainbow flags and painted faces….there is an undercurrent of anti-social behaviour. Last year I saw two Rainbow Warriors smoke a substance which was not Benson & Hedges.

Of course the key is ….is the behaviour legal and does iit cause offence. In this and in all respects, LGBT should be treated fairly…indeed thats what they and all reasonable people want.

Supporters of Orange Order and indeed militant Republicanism claim that their behaviour does not cause offence. The only people who can judge are people who are or not offended. Likewise the LGBT people will say they dont cause offence. But the best judges might be casual passers-by in Belfast City Centre.

Obviously we should tolerate these expessions of (as they all claim) “Culture”. More obviously we should not encourage illegal or anti-social behaviour….and be adult enough to realise PSNI will (in part) be pragmatic in respect of enforcement.

For a person like myself who finds that painting kerb-stones red, white and blue….or green, white and orange is tacky and offensive, I am not in any way uplifted to see kerb stones painted  in rainbow colours. That is crass and a disgrace. Likewise I am not convinced that street murals celebrating good stuff like Marriage Equality is somehow more acceptable than murals about Hunger Strikers and King Billy.

This behaviour merely divides the City further. There is no single drumbeat that represents Belfast.

Yet maybe Adrienne….the transgendered Orange supporter is the unlikely representative of Belfast. Is it actually possible to support Orange culture and Rainbow Culture. After all Orange and Green are in the Rainbow.

Adrienne is getting a good press in the Blogosphere

Maybe if all Orange-men became transgendered, they would be more acceptable marching past Ardoyne.

It must be worth a try.

 

 

 

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A Quiet Hero: Mrs FitzjamesHorse

Posted on July 31, 2016 by fitzjameshorse

No greater love has a retired man than getting his working wife out to her work every morning at 7.30am…before he goes back to bed for a couple of hours.
On Friday, I did that for the last time. Mrs FJH retired on Friday.
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Unlike me…Mrs FJH has actually been working for nearly four decades making lives better in West Belfast. Unlike me…Mrs FJH is not lazy. I spent most of my working life, looking out for a raindrop so that I could phone in saying that I was trapped in a flood, a snowflake so that I could report a blizzard and a sneeze that could lead to six months off with pneumonia. I am married to a woman who has a work ethic and a devotion to making lives better. At times, it has been downright embarrassing.
But on Friday she retired. She has done her time.
Welcome to my world.

I think the dynamic has changed for both of us. Working five days a week means that there are “windows” available from 5pm on Friday to 9pm on a Sunday….hardly more than a few hours for grocery shopping, visiting family, going for a drive etc. It all seems to end too quickly with getting diesel for the car around 7pm on a Sunday night.
Initially…I dont think that my wife will notice much difference. I guess this feels like an ordinary weekend. Tomorrow will feel like a normal day off. And this week. And this month.
But there will be a dawning that this is how it is…forever. And its generally good. Actually…its always good.
For this is exactly the weekend we planned and lived for.
There was a time when we loaded two babies into a car and drove over the mountain into Belfast…twice a day.
And now those babies have babies or are about to have babies of their own.
And there are great joys and sad tragedies shared.
And more to come.
Thats the good thing about Retirement. Windows open.
The alarm clock has been disconnected. If we take a notion to go to Tesco at 2pm on a Tuesday, thats what we will do. And if we want to go on the train to Derry for the day, we will do it. Or if inlaws visit on Wednesday evening, we wont be watching the clock, thinking its an early start. If the grandchildren come to visit on a Thursday, it wont be unusual. I will no longer be the sole grandparent at the school nativity play, sports day and summer evening under-14 GAA match.
MY retirement was a good thing.
OUR retirement…an entirely different dynamic…will be a lot better.
It is empowering for us both…and the things I used to do to kill a few hours like going to An Féile, the annual festival in West Belfast to watch assorted spoofers from Sinn Féin and their admirers in the blogging community appear artistic and cultured, well it holds little appeal in 2016. But you can still read about it on Slugger O’Toole.
The Future is not a “public” thing.
The Future is surprisingly “personal”.
Others think the EU Referendum was about “our children and our childrens children”. Which is rhetorical bollix.
Our childrens future involves a son becoming a father for the first time.
Their childrens future involves a 3year old getting a pair of shoes to start “big school”.

We intend to enjoy it.

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