Adams' tours of 'bandit country'

Gerry Adams, or 'this blog' as he now prefers to call himself, would no doubt be keen to assure voters that they are not witnessing the fag end of his political career. After all, he recently assured the media that he will remain Sinn Féin's president as long as he damn well pleases (or words to that effect). Democracy, eh?

Still, there's no harm in having more than one string to your bow. Gerry is already a confirmed man of letters (albeit one who attracts widespread academic derision) and 'a blog'. Now he's turning his attention to the tourist industry, offering guided tours of South Armagh. I'm sure 'Cú Chulainn Tours', staffed by ex republican terrorists, offers a highly impartial account of the area's history!

Conservative appointment signals a party eager to get started, but they're still waiting for Sir Reg.

At the general election, whether it is held in March, April or May, Conservatives and Unionists will field a strong slate of candidates across eighteen constituencies in Northern Ireland. Today the Conservative party announced that Jonathan Caine will rejoin its team, becoming Chief of Staff to shadow secretary of state, Owen Paterson, in the run up to the poll.

The appointment is a statement of intent from Tory leader, David Cameron. He is treating the campaign in Northern Ireland with the utmost seriousness and the Conservatives are prepared to invest in the best people in order to make it a success.

Caine spent more than eight years as Assistant Director of the Conservative Research Department, where he specialised in Northern Ireland. Between 1991 and 1995 he operated as special adviser to two secretaries of state here. Latterly, he is a director at lobbying firm Bell Pottinger Public Affairs. Owen Paterson describes him as ‘one of the foremost experts on Northern Ireland politics’.

The addition of another serious figure to the Conservative and Unionist team indicates that the Tories, at least, are eager to begin campaigning in earnest in Northern Ireland. Unfortunately, as I intimated yesterday, the Ulster Unionist selection process has dragged on in several constituencies. Compounding these delays, the party’s leadership has proved unwilling to firmly dismiss speculation that agreed unionist candidates could stand in South Belfast and Fermanagh South Tyrone.

This prevarication is expensive. It is important that the New Force starts to explain its vision and introduce its candidates to the voting public, as soon as possible. The sense of impatience within all levels of the Conservative party, and amongst Ulster Unionists in constituencies where selections have already been made, is becoming palpable.

The pact has been forged on the clear understanding that eighteen candidates will contest eighteen seats and the potentially contentious business of allocating the constituencies to one or other of the parties may as well be started sooner, rather than later. There’s no valid reason not to get on with it!

Wells, that's a lot of money.

The Belfast Telegraph reports that the IFA could face a bill approaching £500,000 after settling an unfair dismissal case, brought by former Chief Executive Howard Wells, out of court. Wells was fired months after he began internal grievance procedures, citing anti-English racism within the Association. David Bowen, who held the post before Wells, was also awarded an enormous pay off when he was replaced at the helm of Northern Ireland’s football governing body back in 2005.

During Wells’ tenure at Windsor Avenue, he became incredibly unpopular with supporters, and his dismissal was widely welcomed. Admittedly the former Chief Executive proved a consistent advocate of a multi-sports stadium at the site of the former Maze prison, which enthused few fans, but otherwise the animosity which he attracted was puzzling.

It was commonly perceived that Wells’ stewardship coincided with a spell of excessive commercialism at the IFA. However, for years football people had bemoaned a lack of professionalism within the Association. The Chief Executive introduced new ticketing systems, supporters schemes and other unpopular measures. The IFA began to operate like a business, which, although it might have attracted supporters’ ire, was the corollary of professionalism which Wells was determined to instil.

Similarly, during his time at the association, Wells was eager to modernise its internal structures in order to achieve more effective decision making. He was appalled that approximately £8 million of government funding was almost lost to the local game, because a small coterie of junior clubs were intent upon blocking Sunday football. Parallels can easily be drawn with modern political parties. His plans were unpopular with grassroots‘ administrators, but they were absolutely necessary.

Wells also attracted opprobrium from Northern Ireland’s influential league club, Linfield, and its rabble of supporters. He rightly contended that the contract which governs the use of Windsor Park by the Northern Ireland national team was completely unacceptable. The arrangement, which legal experts have described as ‘unprecedented’, commits the IFA to a one hundred year lease of Linfield’s home ground, and entitles the club to 15% of all revenues from international games.

Any competent Chief Executive is absolutely obliged to dismantle this anti-competitive deal, by any means possible. Wells would have been abdicating his responsibilities, had he ignored a handicap which the IFA had wilfully inflicted upon itself. He underestimated, however, the overlapping and vested interests between Windsor Avenue and Windsor Park.

Tomorrow evening Northern Ireland fans will assemble for the team’s friendly match against Serbia. The national side has enjoyed a relatively successful four years and a commensurate increase in revenue. Yet the IFA’s finances are set to undergo substantial strain. It is a predicament which is, at least partly, self-inflicted.

The supporters will no doubt continue to complain about a lack of professionalism . The new Chief Executive, Patrick Nelson, has a lower profile than Wells. But if he is prepared to combat vested interests within the organisation, he should receive more wholehearted backing than his predecessor.

March General Election looks unlikely.

Nick Robinson explains his workings on the Newslog blog, but for reprobates slouching at the back of the politics' classroom, the answer to all this tiresome pre-Budget calculus is that a March general election is now extremely unlikely.

The BBC's politics editor believes that Conservatives nationally will be relieved that Gordon Brown cannot capitalise on an 'element of surprise'.

I'd imagine that the Conservatives and Unionists in Northern Ireland will also welcome an additional month or two to prepare for a poll. The selection process is proving more laborious than expected, with several constituencies lagging behind. Which will frustrate the areas where candidates have been selected and are raring to get started campaigning.

The Fall of the House of Paisley - by David Gordon

David Gordon played his own part in ‘The Fall of the House of Paisley’ by providing the print media’s most comprehensive coverage of the political dynasty’s links to property magnate Seymour Sweeney, and reporting other scandals which rocked the DUP during 2007 and 2008. Indeed the journalist brought to popular attention a number of the important scoops which underpin his new book’s narrative.

It should be acknowledged, however, that a local blog, with its relative lack of resources, doggedly matched the Belfast Telegraph for detail as the extent of cronyism in the Paisleys’ North Antrim constituency became apparent.

The book’s blurb describes its contents as ‘the slow demise of a powerful political dynasty’, but the actual succession of events which precipitated the departure of Ian Paisley Junior from government, and subsequently resulted in the resignation of his father from the First Minister’s office, unfolded relatively quickly. Gordon’s book moves the story along with suitable rapidity, whilst delving into sufficient detail to satisfy political anoraks.

The title is instructive. ’The Fall’ makes little attempt to revisit territory already forensically examined by Ed Moloney in his Paisley biography, ‘From Demagogue to Democrat’. The landscape which Gordon describes is populated by disorientated DUP members, struggling to rationalise their leader’s new friendship with Martin McGuinness, disquieted by hints of greed and embarrassed by his increasing propensity for ‘senior moments’.

And always in the background, Junior, with his overweening sense of entitlement, spiv-like eye for the main chance and conspicuous absence of inherited charisma.

If his political followers found it difficult to adjust to the reality of Paisley in government, imagine the trauma experienced by religious acolytes, for whom his incendiary proclamations had not comprised rhetoric, but instead represented literal, divinely inspired truth.

‘The Fall’ adeptly charts the anguish which power sharing caused within the Free Presbyterian Church. Paisley’s resignation as moderator foreshadowed a similar process, during which he chose to jump, before he was pushed, from leadership of the DUP.

As well as describing, in detail, the sequence of events which presaged the Paisleys’ resignations, Gordon also offers a blackly cynical critique of Northern Ireland’s political institutions. A lack of accountability, a self-actuating sectarian divide and the entrenchment of an atomised political class are characteristics which he highlights and explores briefly.

At times the argument is admittedly almost impermeable in its grimness. The lack of meaningful involvement, for Northern Irish voters, in the politics of Westminster is criticised as an abdication of democratic principles, yet the Conservatives’ attempt to foster participation is also dismissed as a manipulative ruse.

I interrupted Robert Service’s biography of Trotsky in order to read ‘The Fall of the House of Paisley’. And it is, in itself, a tribute that I was prevented from returning to revolutionary Russia until I’d read the last page of Gordon’s book.

The author suggests that Paisley entered government with Sinn Féin in order to circumvent Enoch Powell’s prophecy that ‘all political careers end in failure’. Not only did the axiom ultimately reassert itself , but ‘The Fall’ helps to ensure that the denouement of the Paisley story will be remembered accurately as a tragedy, rather than a triumph.

'The Fall of the House of Paisley' by David Gordon is officially launched at Queen's bookshop today. It is available from 3000 Versts bookstore.

Blogtalk NI (Episode 4)

Conall McDevitt, Gerard McKeown and I discuss remembrance, the Kelly Report and Nelson McCausland's blog. Anyone who wishes to get involved, please email carl@northernvisions.org.

Blogtalk (episode 4) from Northern Visions/NvTv on Vimeo.

'Sound republicans' - exempt from justice?

I don’t suppose that I was the only one reminded of Stuart Neville’s novel ‘The Twelve’, when I read newspaper reports detailing SOCA’s seizure of a South Armagh republican’s assets, which took place yesterday. Newsline featured pictures of Sean Gerard Hughes’ farm, and I almost expected to hear the whine of an injured bull terrier.

Sinn Féin’s response has, thus far, only exacerbated the sense of déjà vu. Neville’s book was a work of fiction, but the Republican movement which provided its backdrop hardly required a painstaking imaginative effort.

For the uninitiated, or those outside Northern Ireland, the Serious Organised Crime Agency was granted a court order to seize assets belonging to Hughes, on the grounds that they are suspected to come from laundering the proceeds of mortgage fraud, evading tax and fiddling the benefit system. He has previously been convicted of fraudulently claiming income support.

Sinn Féin’s MP for the area, Conor Murphy, who is also Regional Development Minister in the Northern Ireland Executive, has responded angrily to SOCA’s investigation.

“Sean Hughes is a sound Republican. He has spent his entire adult life engaged in the struggle for Irish unity and Independence. He has championed the peace process and the campaign to end political policing. There have been numerous attempts over the years to smear Sean’s character. …… The raids today on Sean’s home and those of a number of his relatives have caused deep anger in South Armagh. There is no justification for the deliberate targeting of Sean and his family today….As in the past when political unionism gets itself into difficulties, as the DUP have in recent weeks, the faceless opponents of Irish Republicanism who are still in prominent positions will seek to come to their rescue with operations like we have witnessed today.”

For clarity’s sake, we should set aside the many accusations of cold blooded murder and causing explosions which have been levelled at Hughes. Though they will colour many people’s perception of the type of man whose character Conor Murphy clearly believes impeccable.

Here we have a minister of the Northern Ireland Executive, purportedly supportive of policing and justice, interfering directly in its procedure, on the basis that a convicted fraudster is a ‘sound republican’. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions.

Remembrance and perceiving hostile intent where none exists.

Tomorrow is Armistice Day. Although commemorations are more commonly held on Remembrance Sunday, in the UK, the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month is marked by two minutes silence, in memory, in particular, of those who died in the First World War. Hostilities ceased, on the Western Front, at that time in 1918, after four years of mechanised warfare had wrought devastation on a generation of young men.

Yesterday, whilst recording an episode of Blogtalk NI, I was asked to consider the issue of remembrance and in particular controversy which often becomes attached to the simple act of remembering, in Northern Ireland. In retrospect, I am dissatisfied with the answer I gave and pre-emptively, I would like to add a few thoughts here.

Slugger O’Toole provides a useful snapshot of febrile debate which can attend simple, reverential acts, such as wearing a poppy, or laying a wreath. If you have the time, and the patience, there are pages and pages of it. In addition there are also serious, contemplative, generous posts, which do the subject justice. Conall McDevitt argues that the Republic of Ireland should have its own monument at the Western Front, in order to remember properly war dead from the south.

Perhaps the nastiest piece of commentary surrounding remembrance, this year, comes from the Andersonstown News and its ‘satirical’ columnist ‘Squinter’. It describes the period preceding Poppy Day as “the traditional three-week orgy of Up Yours Fenian Face”.

This ‘analysis’ might masquerade as humour and it certainly represent the most hostile interpretation of remembering offered in any newspaper, but it is a particularly acute example of a more general sickness which afflicts this province.

There are a disproportionate number of people in Northern Ireland inclined to perceive hostile intent in any tradition, political opinion or culture to which they do not subscribe. It’s all about them. Making them uncomfortable, rubbing their noses in it.

This preternatural sensitivity is not the sole preserve of either side of the constitutional question. Whilst quiet, dignified acts of remembrance can be construed as petulant displays of anti-nationalism by one commentator, an interest in a minority language or enthusiasm for a particular sport can be perceived as inherently anti-unionist by another.

Neither is the phenomenon confined to niche publications like the Andersonstown News. Brian Feeney’s output consists of little else. The use of ‘Fenian’ as a pejorative is regularly ascribed to any unionist who happens to dissent from an opinion held by the journalist. The Maze stadium is a much more trivial issue than remembrance, but all sorts of nefarious motives were implied of football supporters who happened to favour an arena in Belfast.

There have been efforts, of course, to hijack particular traditions and events, in order to use them as political weapons. Republicans have misused the Irish language and that has hardened some unionists’ prejudices against it. Similarly, it has been reported that loyalist paramilitary groups have attempted to attach themselves to legitimate Remembrance events, to the horror of genuine ex servicemen.

We should be politically sophisticated enough, however, to separate such instances from the norm.

In the vast majority of cases, almost uniformly in fact, acts of remembrance are solemn, dignified and sincerely felt. They are undertaken in a spirit of respect for sacrifice and sorrow at loss, rather than with an underlying sentiment of ‘up yours Fenian face’. Surely any reasonable person will instinctively understand the difference?

Towards civic politics. Two different interpretations.

Mr Ulster contemplates an absence of ‘civic nationalism’ in Northern Ireland on his blog, prompted by the promotion of its ethnic cousin in Scotland, by the SNP First Minister. He believes that politics in the Republic of Ireland have embraced a more civic interpretation of nationalism, whilst there is no equivalent movement to the north of the border. In contrast, Jason Walsh, writing in Humanism Ireland, argues that secularisation and diversity in southern Ireland would be boosted incomparably if the state were to absorb Northern Ireland’s populace.

As a unionist, I accept neither argument, although I see the merits of each. Dublin, I admit, is liberal and cosmopolitan to an extent which cannot be claimed of Belfast. Disfigured by a recent legacy of violence and sectarianism, Northern Ireland’s politics are currently dominated, on one hand, by the Ulster nationalism of the DUP and, on the other, by the Irish nationalism of Sinn Féin. Neither party is interested in promoting a philosophy which can appeal across a broader spectrum of society.

Mr Ulster contends that the basis of civic nationalism is preparedness to accept ‘all residents’ of Ireland as Irish. The British equivalent is equally a form of civic nationalism. He is prepared to acknowledge that there is some willingness to contemplate this type of inclusivity within the UUP and the SDLP, but he insinuates that the Republic of Ireland has moved farther and faster.

I would raise a couple of reservations. First, to paraphrase a Russian axiom, used to emphasise that Moscow is not necessarily representative of the rest of that country, Dublin is not the Republic of Ireland. It is impossible to evince the proposition that the welcome for immigrants, and their acceptance as ‘genuinely’ Irish, has been universal across a broad swathe of society in the Republic, rather than amongst a section of the urban middle class in its capital.

Second, whilst nationalism, by framing its prescriptions along less excusive lines might edge towards a ‘civic’ model, it is quicker to envisage a broader definition of the identity which it attaches to political allegiance, rather than contemplate the possibility that allegiance need not coincide precisely with identity in order to form the principal building block of a state, in the first instance.

Jason, who describes himself as a republican, comes close to an acknowledgment of this distinction. The common understanding of ‘Irishness’, prevalent in the Republic of Ireland, might be widening, but it is still predicated on allegiance to the ‘Irish’ state and recognition of a special status for an ‘authentic’ Gaelic interpretation of the culture. I don’t get the sense that the notion that political allegiance to the state and cultural Irishness can be separated is gaining substantial momentum.

I assume that Jason sees the introduction of a region with distinct cultural and political differences to the rest of Ireland as a means to sever the two concepts. I can be ‘Irish’, culturally, without owing any allegiance to the Republic of Ireland, and I should be able to offer allegiance to that state without embracing a prescriptive cultural reading of ‘Irishness’.

Although its manifestations in Ulster have not always reflected the adaptability of Britishness and its willingness to span a multiplicity of identities, unionism is better placed, philosophically, to embrace civic politics. The state it promotes emphasises political allegiance and institutions, rather than a particular cultural reading of identity. Which means that an acknowledgment of the ability of different cultures, identities and even nationalities to subsist under the British umbrella, is already a working assumption within the UK. Unionists in Northern Ireland need to do more to demonstrate, substantively, the strengths of their state, in this regard.

Allister worried by New Force

A very brief post this evening. I'm still shivering after a chilly afternoon in Lurgan. It is worth observing, however, that Jim Allister, in his speech at the TUV conference, devoted his opening remarks to the Conservatives and Unionists, rather than the DUP. There is a New Force in unionism, it is seeking to involve Northern Ireland in national politics rather than move further down the road of Ulster exceptionalism.

Glasgow North East by-election candidates

The by-election to replace Michael Martin will finally take place on November 12. The winner will barely have become accustomed to their new environment before they are back on the campaign trail. The BBC has a profile of each of the candidates - a rum lot to be perfectly honest - other than Ruth Davidson. She will do well to increase the Conservatives' vote. This is a rather grim part of Glasgow.

Incidentally, Down and Out in Lenzie and Lossiemouth, whose penthouse flat is decidedly not in Martin's old constituency, highlights another 'betrayal' by the SNP.

Facing down the Eurosceptics and neocons

I’m sure this post will foreshadow a more erudite article, around a similar theme, at Burke’s Corner. I’d imagine that BC is adamantly buffing his polished philosophical prose as we speak. Nevertheless, I like Geoffrey Wheatcroft’s latest Comment is Free piece enough to offer my own, doubtless rather more superficial, interpretation. Hopefully it’ll do until the real thing becomes available.

Wheatcroft is convinced that the Conservative party must cast off the excesses of hardline Euroscepticism and neoconservatism, as it formulates its foreign policy, in order to embrace an older tradition which is cautious, realistic and diplomatic. He detects that David Cameron has been at his least sure footed reacting to issues beyond the scope of domestic politics.

In Europe he has isolated his party from the mainstream, by withdrawing from the EPP. The Conservatives are now estranged from natural European allies. Wheatcroft describes the furore over Lisbon and a referendum as a “self-destructive obsession”. He argues that the ‘moral impetus’ for centralisation was lost when French and Dutch voters rejected an EU Constitution. Although Cameron’s scepticism about bureaucracy at Brussels has healthy enough roots, it is hard to argue with the thesis that it has led to some counterproductive decision making.

I certainly endorse wholeheartedly Wheatcroft’s contention that Cameron suffered his ‘worst moment of all’ during Georgia’s war with Russia. The suggestion that the Georgians should have been immediately admitted to Nato was an enormous lapse of judgment which has since been placed in even starker relief by the European Union’s independent enquiry, which concluded that Georgia started the war.

It was obvious from the outset that conflict in South Ossetia was not simply a result of Russian aggression. When Cameron wholeheartedly, and without reservation, backed the government in Tbilisi, he was providing succour to a President whose aggressive adventure cost many lives. He adopted an astoundingly unreflective policy directly from the neoconservative wing of his party. He was, at best, badly advised.

Had Georgia been member of Nato when the shelling of Tskhinvali began, Britain, the US, France, Germany and other member states, would have been drawn into conflict with Russia, on the side of the aggressors! In truth, Cameron’s response was as belligerent and reflexive as that of David Miliband.

However, William Hague, the shadow foreign secretary, has given every indication that the Conservative party intends to take a more cautious approach, if it forms the next government. He has spoken of the need to promote British values internationally, within realistic limits. Iraq and Afghanistan have brought the need for a more sceptical attitude to military intervention into sharp focus.

Wheatcroft heralds the selection of Roy Stewart, an arch sceptic on intervention, as PPC for a safe Tory seat. Hopefully his candidacy is reflective of broader trends within the party. The philosophical underpinnings of Cameron conservatism are thoroughly compatible with measured, cautious foreign policies. An incoming Conservative government should let that tradition prevail.