Joe Costello: the north's not getting OUR money

I was listening to RTÉ radio the other day when a Derry woman came on. She’s a journalist/presenter with RTÉ and nationalist/republican in her background. So it gave me a tiny jolt when I heard her referring to the south’s efforts to cope with the weather as an attempt to keep all roads passable “throughout the country”.

Pernickety? A silly hyper-sensitive response by me to the use of ‘country’ rather than ‘state’? It would be if besides reflecting our thinking, words didn’t help shape it.  By consistently and constantly referring to the twenty-six-county state as ‘the country’  or to the six counties as ‘the country’ (as in Stephen Nolan’s ho-ho catch-phrase ‘the biggest show in the country’),  the population is nudged another fraction of a millimetre towards acceptance of the present political arrangement in Ireland as something permanent. 

Words are powerful in other ways too.  Sometimes we use them to talk about Thing A, when in fact we’re really talking about Thing B. Step forward Labour’s Joe Costello. He’s the spokesman for that party’s transport policies, and he’s just announced that the A5 ain’t going to happen, when and if Labour get into power in the south. You remember the A5. That’s the road from Augnacloy to Letterkenny, running round Omagh and Strabane en route. Brian Cowan says he’s for it.  Now Joe says it’s no go -  the southern taxpayer won't help fund a road running through the north.

On financial grounds you might think it hard to fault the Labour man - over £400 million is a lot of money, especially in these straitened times. But you might also want to query him a bit on what he sees as ‘Ireland’. Is it the twenty-six counties? Does he see people north of the border as his fellow-countrymen? Is he opposed to partition or for it? Does he believe that the north and south working together is the logical follow-up for any party claiming to be even mildly nationalist? Or is Irish unity something to consign to the rubbish-bin of history? 

Joe's line is a slightly more subtle version of the “going north to shop is unpatriotic” cry we heard a year or so ago from a Dublin minister.  So this is as good a time as any to come clean. Guys, if you are pro-partition,  say it, and let’s see if the people of the twenty-six counties   agree with you in the coming election.  If you’re anti-partition,  shouldn’t you be seizing every opportunity to develop and implement projects  which show what Irish people, working together, can achieve?

The irony of all this is that the proposed A5 road would be a concrete example of border-blurring work AND a sound financial move. Besides benefiting Omagh, Strabane and Derry, it'd unlock Donegal from the economic Siberia it’s found itself in since the foundation of the southern state.  Win-win, I think they call it. 

Michael, Joan and Pearse

I’ve seen only one brief clip of Pearse Doherty’s  budget  speech in the Dail yesterday, but I can see why it’s been attracting a lot of attention. On the RTÉ News yesterday, the Doherty clip followed on similar clips showing the response of Fine Gael’s Michael Noonan and  Labour’s Joan Burton to the government’s austerity package.  Since I’m not an economist, I’ve no reliable way of knowing if Noonan and Burton were talking sense. For all I know, between them they may have provided the key to unlocking the dungeon cell where the Irish economy is shackled to the wall. But judging solely on presentation,  Noonan  and Burton both were in the  C- category.  Noonan, poor man, sounds most of the time as though he is semi-sedated. It’s also hard to forget that he was once a disastrous Fine Gael leader and that the party’s present leader wobbled terribly just six months ago when the deputy leader tried to depose him. Watching Joan Burton perform, I kept being reminded of another decent but deeply unimpressive politician, Michael McGimpsey. Burton and McGimpsey share the same dolorous tone and undertaker looks. None of us can help how we look, I suppose. But  both Noonan and Burton, in the clips I saw, read from a script which they could have helped, with Burton managing to stumble over the bit she had to read out.

Doherty in the clip I saw didn’t say much of substance – it was largely bashing the government for their ineptitude and their willingness to protect those with most while penalising those with least.  But if we judge solely quality of delivery, he won by a country mile  - an A-,  I'd say.  He looks and is young, he sounds and probably is sincere, and in the bit I saw he spoke without notes. OK, maybe he spent the rest of his speech with his nose in a sheaf of papers, but not in the bit RTÉ showed.  It’s probably unfair but that kind of thing matters a lot to people. Against all the odds, David Cameron won the leadership of the Tory party because he spoke fluently for over half an hour without notes.

In one discussion website posting yesterday, a contributor suggested Doherty’s performance would be worth as much as 5% to Sinn Féin in the next election. I very much doubt that. But it’s another shoulder to a Sinn Féin bandwagon that  is beginning to make the enemies of republicanism feel faintly unwell. 

Shame on me? Sorry, I'm shameless

I should feel more shame. When you’ve done something you know is wrong, so wrong you’re going to be faced with public humiliation that has echoes of Mao’s China, where they used to take those who had transgressed and parade them in public wearing dunces’ caps -  when you’ve sunk that low, you should be drenched in remorse and wish the earth would swallow you up.  Brazen creature that I am, I feel none of that.

My wrong deed occurred a couple of months ago. I was driving on a side road that links two main roads, one that twists and then goes sharply downhill for about a quarter of a mile. The sign at the start of the road says 30 mph,  but somehow by the time I was half-way down that hill I was doing 39 mph. I know it was 39 mph, not because I saw it on my speedometer but because about three weeks ago I got a letter telling me the RUC, ooops, PSNi had clocked me doing that, and did I want a £60 fine and three points on my licence or  an £80 fine and a four-hour workshop where I’d be made aware of the dangers of speeding?  Since I don’t like the thought of docked points and since I’m a pensioner (oh God- did I say that?) and I don’t get docked pay for taking a half-day off, I’ve opted for the reformatory workshop and the £80.

Yes I know, speed kills,  it takes three bus-lengths or whatever to come to a stop if you’re doing 30 mph, I shouldn’t have been breaking the speed-limit, but ...I don’t feel a bit guilty. There was no danger of my hitting anyone. Yes, that extra 9 mph could have made a difference, but so could the amount of sleep I’d had, the attention I was giving to my radio, the cleanliness of my windscreen, the cleanliness of my glasses – there’s no end to the factors that can conspire to have bad things happen to us.  I’ve a mild sense that I’d probably have been better with  less press-on-the-gas but that’s it. Without being too overweening,  I believe I’m capable of making decisions about what speed makes sense in a given situation. I know the law doesn’t agree but that doesn’t alter my belief. Do I need a hidden cop camera to control me or I’ll turn into a public menace? I don’t think so.

In fact, some research suggests the opposite. In England, they’ve experimented with removing traffic lights at a particular junction. Result: not more crashes but fewer. Instead of amber-gambling to get through the lights, drivers became actively engaged in deciding who’d arrived first at the junction and who therefore should go next.  In short, decision-making power was devolved to  the individual.  I like the sound of that.

Maybe we should be active, not passive. Maybe there comes a point where we need to be allowed decide for ourselves the right and reasonable course of action.  Or maybe not. Maybe I’ll learn remorse and the shame of irresponsible actions after I’ve attended this rehabilitation workshop in the middle of the month. Watch, as they say, this space. 

Repeat after me: a war crime is a war crime, except when it's not

Well, it didn’t take long.  If you or I were about to jump on someone’s back and pummel them, we’d wait until they’d passed and then try not  to make it too obvious we were motivated by something other than selective indignation.

But not  Amanda Foreman. The ink was scarcely dry on the poll that showed Sinn Féin as the third most-popular party in the twenty-six counties  at 16%, and tipped by Paddy Power to get twenty or more seats in the next election, than Amanda had jumped onto the Shinners’ back and was clawing wildly. “Sinn Féin should never be able to escape Jean McConville’s ghost’  her headline announced in Saturday’s Guardian  newspaper.  Say what? Amanda, for the umpteenth time, describes in detail the last hours of Jean McConville, who as far as we know was abducted and killed by the IRA in the 1970s. The way Amanda tells it, the IRA killed her because “she had Protestant blood” and had tended a wounded British soldier.  On these grounds Amanda says Gerry Adams is “alleged to be a war criminal” and shouldn’t be allowed to run for a Dail seat in Louth in the next election. “Teach her story to future generations” Amanda concludes,   “and at least the moral debt owed to Jean McConville can be repaid. Jean McConville, Jean McConville, Jean McConville”.

Contrast this with the press treatment of another Troubles story from the same period.  For years a British soldier called Clifford Burrage claimed he had killed a young man called Michael McLarnon in 1971. He said he had done so because Mr McLarnon was carrying a rifle at the time, a fact  supported unequivocally by his commanding officer (BBC Radio Ulster last week played a recording of the officer's totally-certain Sandhurst tones). It has now emerged that  both Burrage and his commanding officer were lying.  Burrage in fact didn’t kill Michael McLarnon – another British soldier did; and McLarnon was shown to have been an unarmed, innocent victim. His family, far from calling for the prosecution of his killer or Burrage or his commanding officer,  merely dismissed Burrage as a ‘Walter Mitty-type character” and expressed their delight that their brother’s name has been finally cleared.

Central question:  why, in the absence of any evidence, is Amanda Foreman denouncing Gerry Adams as a war criminal, while neither her voice nor any other is raised to demand the trial of Burrage, his commanding officer or the murderous British soldier who actually killed Michael McLarnon?  I found myself puzzling over that until I remembered Bloody Sunday 1972, when fourteen innocent civilians were shot down in broad daylight by members of the Parachute Regiment in Derry.  The reason is because  the British army did the  killing. When that happens,  the very best you can hope for is a public 'Sorry'. Remember the almost pathetic gratitude of Bloody Sunday families when David Cameron apologized for the killing of their loved ones?  No prosecutions, no denunciation of the Tory party, no allegations of war crimes.

Writers like Amanda are very good on indignation, regardless of evidence, as long as it’s directed against  Gerry Adams, Martin McGuinness, or anyone connected to Sinn Féin. Apply the same criteria to British Army killings, where the evidence is abundant and where proven lies have been used to protect murderers?  Oh really, now. Don’t be silly.

So here’s my modest proposal for the next time a Shinner-bashing story erupts from the British or Dublin 4 press  (don’t worry,  there are lots coming down the line, as the south's general election approaches). Simply close your eyes and repeat two words to yourself: Michael McLarnon. Michael McLarnon. Michael McLarnon.  Alternatively, you could recite the names of the fourteen Bloody Sunday dead. If  you can remember them.

Don't believe all you read in the papers...

 I wanted England to win their bid for the 2018 World Cup. No, really. You’d have needed a heart of stone not to feel a twinge in your gut for poor Willie Windsor, David Cameron and especially David Beckham as yesterday’s decision was announced. All those millions of pounds and dozens of flights and hours of schmoozing – for what? Nothing. Russia got the gig, not England.  Willie W and David C  were upset because they don’t like to be associated with a loser; David C,  who unlike the other two knows and loves football was gutted, sick as a parakeet, proper devastated. The blame for this awful showing (England got just two votes, one of them from their own representative) is being placed on the media, particularly a BBC Panorama  programme days before the event, claiming all sorts of corruption within FIFA. If it hadn’t been for that,  we’re encouraged to believe, football would have been coming home.

Would it? It doesn’t do to over-estimate the power of the media. For years newspaper commentators in the twenty-six counties told us that Sinn Féin were finished south of the border. Beaten, done, a busted flush. One commentator, Senator Eoghan Harris, took a public £100 bet with me at odds of 10-1 that Fianna Fail would mop up the remaining Sinn Féin seats at the next election. Ooo-er, Eoghan. Yesterday a Red C poll indicated that Sinn Féin in the south have just passed out Fianna Fail, 16% to 13%. If those results were extrapolated across the state in the coming general election, far from mopping up Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail would win fewer than twenty seats and Sinn Féin would go from five to around twenty-five.

Will it happen? Unlikely.  Such a generalisation ignores the intricacies and quality of candidates in the various constituencies.  Things won’t be as bad as they look for Fianna Fail and not as rosy as they look for the Shinners. But clearly political earthquakes are on their way. Fianna Fail will take a terrible kicking in the voting booths, Fine Gael and Labour will benefit but not as much as they should, leaving Sinn Féin in a position to catch much of the disillusionment with Fianna Fail.

What does all this teach us?  That most of the world don’t like the English much, that most of the south can’t stand Fianna Fail, and that if the Sinn Féin electoral wagon continues to rattle along,  its gathering momentum will worry not just Fianna Fail,  but Fine Gael and Labour as well.

Philip Hollobone: the hammer of misguided minorities

I’ve just come from a discussion on ‘The Stephen Nolan Show’ on BBC Radio Ulster. The focus was the recent  call by Philip Hollobone, the Tory MP, for south of Ireland prisoners in British jails to be repatriated.  Since Britain has generously extended a large loan to the south of Ireland, the south should respond by taking back its citizens, he says.

There may or may not be a case for such repatriation throughout the EU but Hollobone’s contribution to the British House of Commons debate has less to do with that than with appealing the bigot/semi-bigot vote that appears to lurk in his Kettering constituency.  He has previous, as they say.  Last February, in a Commons debate, he said that  a Muslim woman wearing the burka was  ‘like walking around with a paper bag over your head’.  The Northamptonshire Race Equality Council called on the police to investigate Mr Hollobone for incitement to racial hatred (the call was rejected). Last June he introduced the Face Coverings Bill in parliament.And according to the TheyWorkForYou website, Mr Hollobone’s voting record in the Commons suggests he’s very strongly opposed to gay rights.

So this is the man who wants Irish prisoners repatriated from Britain. The sub-text of the statement is unmistakeable. It’s an appeal to those dark little thoughts that loiter at the back of some British minds about the Irish – that they’re violent, criminal, and of course thriftless and shiftless. Send them back where they came from. Enoch-talk.

As to such repatriation being a quid pro quo – we give you a helping hand to get out of your financial hole, you take back your citizens from our prisons – my cat has given itself a hernia laughing. George Osborne, the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, has admitted that it’s in Britain’s interests to help support Irish banks, since an enormous amount of Britain’s financial dealings and exports are dependent on a healthy south of Ireland economy. Britain, quite rightly, is concerned with looking after No 1. That's what prompted the €7 billion loan, not altruism.  

Speaking of money. Hollobone argues that Irish prisoners are costing Britain too much. Were the repatriation thing to become mandatory throughout the EU, the many British prisoners in EU jails would return to their home country.  When he sees the bill for incarcerating his own repatriated criminals, David Cameron may wish to revise his  response to Hollobone's brain-wave: the British prime minister told Hollobone 'You make a very good point'.   

Little Alex goes forward

They say the opposite of being loved is not being hated. It’s being ignored. This is particularly urgent if you’re a politician: the day the public forget who you are is the day they’ll stop voting for you. So with elections coming up here in May, politicians are busy digging their elbow into our ribs. Some of them –not many – are sufficiently young not to be laughed to scorn by posting messages on Facebook and Twitter. Others, like Edwin Poots and Peter Robinson, get attention by issuing statements criticising the GAA or attacking Catholic education. And then there’s little Alex Atwood.

I’ve always felt an affection for Alex. Somebody once said of Richard Nixon “Just think what that man could have achieved had he been loved!”; and when I see Alex’s little face tense up as the TV cameras approach, or hear him deliver over-long responses to questions as though he was still part of a particularly dull debate at Queen’s thirty-five years ago, I want to wrap my arms around him, give his tummy a rub and say ‘There, there, little man, we won’t let them hurt you, I promise’.

But of course Alex is a politician so the poor diddums has to go out there and shout ‘Look at me!’ with the best of them. His latest wheeze is to push for an extension of Sunday opening hours for shops. Alex says that some changes are needed because consumers ‘now have greater expectations’ which I think means they want longer opening hours. How does he know? Search me. Why do the birds go on singing. Why do these eyes of mine cry?

But Alex does tell us he’s considering bringing us into line with shops in Britain. Well, why not, sure don’t we live in a post-nationalist era. In England they can open on Sunday for six continuous hours, whereas here it’s just five. An hour, Alex figures, will make all the difference. It will ‘boost the local economy, benefit the tourist industry and support regeneration of town and city centres. This would be very useful in the current economic environment and going forward’. Jeez. Going forward, eh? That’s the mistake the south made – they didn’t go forward. They should have skipped that IMF loan and talked to Alex first.

To calm fears that he’s gone all red-eyed and radical, Alex reassures us: ‘I believe a review would be a timely and balanced way to go forward’. See? I told you – or rather Alex did. Going forward. That’s the key.

So forget those silly nightmares you’re having about your January credit card bill. Get down to the shops as soon as Alex pushes that legislation through. No need to thank him, either. Just make sure next May he gets your No 1. Going forward.