O’Conall Street

Well probably not.

But yesterday did see a significant step forward in the bedding down of stable and dynamic government in Northern Ireland. For the first time since devolution returned earlier this year, the DUP and SF were forced to line out against the SDLP, UUP and Alliance over the Programme for Government.

Peter Robinson, DUP Deputy Leader, said this could put the executive in crisis. I have to say I think Mr Robinson may be engaging in some spin of his own here. The government is a powersharing one not a voluntary coalition. It is made up of diverse groups with opposite allegiances. Their may have been attempts during the St Andrew’s negotiations to turn it into some sort of traditional collective government but in this unique society such a model will not meet the particular needs of our political divisions.

The NI system of government gives great opportunities for consensus . It allows for much greater exploration of the issues and open debate about what is best for this region. That is one of its great strengths. The North is different from the rest of this island and the big island next door and its system of government will also by definition need to be different.

Rather than causing a crisis I think robust debates on important matters like the Programme for Government, the Investment Strategy and the Budget are good for Northern Ireland. A divided assembly is not a mandate to return to the politics of crisis or finger pointing but a direction to all parties to sit down again and negotiate a better Programme for Government, a better Budget and a better Investment Strategy. When the Executive launched its consultation on the draft documents listed above, it was not launching a tick the box exercise but one of the best opportunities for public and stakeholder consultation and open political debate anywhere in the world. 

There are advertisements in today’s press for a public consultation event on the Programme for Government, the Budget and the Investment Strategy, at the Spires Centre in Belfast on Wednesday 5th December at 7.00pm. If you want to have you say on rates, water charges, the maze stadium or anything else you can go along. Everyone is welcome. Just drop an email to pfgbudget@nics.gov.uk . I’ll see you there.  

Its one of those stay in and read the papers Sundays. They are heaving with interesting articles on the new government in Oz, the breast screening scandal in the midlands, Obama’s edging ahead of Hillary in Iowa as well as the intriguing story of Justine Delaney - Wilson who’s interview with a government minister in which she alleges he confessed to taking cocaine is still raising as many questions as answers.

The latter is disturbing. In a verbatim reproduction of an interview with the Sunday Tribune Ms Delaney Wilson is to be blunt all over the place. Journalists are at the epicentre of democracy. They are entrusted with fact and have a duty to report the truth. On an island where so many of the other ‘estates’ of government are treated with cynicism by the general public it is essential that this matter be resolved for the journalist’s sake and for the sake of her profession.

 There is also news this Sunday of the death of the book. Amazon launched this week the Kindle, an electronic book reader about the size of a paperback and which weighs about 10oz. It can hold up to 200 books and reviews suggest its screen quality and definition is very good. They also commend its lower power requirement meaning the batteries will go on and on allowing the avid reader plenty of time away from his or her nearest plug. Brilliant I thought. A gadget that I can fit in my pocket capable of holding a small library. That was until I started reading the small print. Like down-loadable music a Kindle book cannot be passed around like a favourite read, with the endless opportunities to discuss with friends which inevitably ensue. Nor does it feel or smell like a book and you cant run your fingers down a shelf full of kindles looking for that great quote.

Last month a close friend of my late father’s family returned a present my grand father had given to her late husband. It was a beautiful leather bound copy of Byron’s works. A few Google searches later and we knew it was printed between 1850 and 1870 and is now worth several hundred pounds. What I also know is that it links me, an avid reader, to at least two previous generations of readers and their families. Its was a beautiful gift and one which I will treasure. No Kindle download will ever bring that satisfaction nor create the same talkability amongst friends and family. The book is one of the oldest communication technologies in the world. It revolutionsied launguage, politics and learning. It changed the course of human history and opened our eyes to the world. I for one hope it is printed for ever!

The Australians are counting the votes after a six week election campaign which Liberal PM, John Howard hopes will deliver him an historic fifth term in office. But opinion polls suggest he will be defeated by Labor’s Kevin Rudd who needs a significant swing of 26 seats in the Canberra parliament.

13.5 million Australians have a vote and voting is compulsory, yes compulsory!

As I write exit polls on the east coast suggest Labour (Labor in Oz) have a seven percent swing on the more industrialised, urbanised and liberal side of the country. There are also suggestions that Howard himself could loose his Bennelong - Sidney seat to glamour Labour candidate and former news anchorwoman,  Maxine McKew. The Liberal PM has also been engulfed in accusations of a dirty tricks campaign in the final week when a fake letter linking Muslim extremists  to the Labor Party was blamed on his supporters.

Watching live feed on Australia’s ABC, there are suggestions a number of smaller grouping such as the greens could make a significant breakthrough in the Australian upper house, the Senate. The big issue appears to have been the economy and in particular interest rates.

Interestingly winning the popular vote does not guarantee a majority in Parliament and Labor’s lead in the big cities and New South Wales (even a majority of the national votes) does not guarantee victory. Indeed Mr Howard slipped through in ‘98 with a minority of the popular vote.

Kevin Rudd, a Queenslander, and Labor leader (check out their logo, website and policies   - look familiar??) has reputation a for organisation and head for policy. Apparently he speaks Mandarin too!

For live feed on results click on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.

Some aussie election blogs:

OzPolitics

Google Oz Blog

And for some light relief check out the Guardian NewsBlog Australian election top ten which leads with a YouTube link to an election wrap with the unforgettable line,  “I’m the fliest Mudda Rudda that you ever did see, now sit back, relax, while I speak Chinese”.

UPDATE, 9.45am

Labour will win a majority in Parliament. Howard’s future hanging on a thread.

UPDATE, 2.25pm

To read and see Kevin Rudd’s pretty impressive victory speech click here. Howard’s seat on a knife edge.

Sir David Varney’s report into business taxation in Northern Ireland was to be published yesterday but alas the British government has been forced to delay in the face of what appears to be a very hard kick back from the Assembly and business groups across Ireland. Word on O’Conall Street is that we may see something next week. In the meantime all the representative groups and politicos are taking full advantage of the extra window to lob more arguments in favour of harmonisation Sir David’s way. And the arguments are very strong as O’Conall Street noted some weeks ago. The level of support in the business community for harmonisation was underlined by the publication this week of an ICAI survey which shows overwhelming support for a reduction in corporation tax amongst Chartered Accountants in Northern Ireland.

It has been a bad week for Sir David. Gordon Brown brought him in to oversee the merger of HM Customs and the Inland Revenue and the turn of the Millennium. Sir David was the first chair of the only public body to loose every child’s personal details in the post. There is a long list of commentators suggesting this monumental cock up can be traced back to the less then perfect business processes which Sir David pushed through. We should remember also that Sir David quit following revelations of £1.28 billion a year being lost through fraud and errors in the tax credits system. I will find it a little harder to take his report seriously after this week’s events. 

We await publication with interest.  

Bit slow on it on O’Conall Street these days. RTE have a quirky story about yet another Internet phenomenon which has apparently passed me by. 

According to RTE  

“Seven score and four years ago on this date, US President Abraham Lincoln delivered what would become one of the most famous speeches in history.

His Gettysburg Address, just 272 words long, was a powerful summary of the young nation crippled by war.

Seven years ago, a man named Peter Norvig created The Gettysburg Address Powerpoint Presentation.

He posted what has now become an internet phenomenom after one too many bad presentations at a meeting in January 2000.

On his website norvig.com, he says many people get ‘frustrated at seeing too many presentations where PowerPoint or other visual aids obscure rather than enhance the point.’

His Powerpoint ‘address’ is titled ‘Gettysburg Cemetary Dedication’ and provides bullet points instead of President Lincoln’s lyrical prose”

You can make you own mind up by following this link. I have to say I think the man had a point (about PowerPoints that is, not the great speech)

Here is the full text of Lincoln’s fantastic speech:

The Gettysburg Address

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation, so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate - we can not consecrate - we can not hallow - this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us - that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion - that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain - that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom - and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

WILFING

Off now to watch Iain Stewarts new series, Volcanoes tonight. Happy days!. Also read on Yahoo news that  Brian May, rock star and astrophysicist, has been appointed chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University.

May will be installed as the university’s figurehead leader early next year, according to the Yahoo news report. The 60-year-old Queen guitarist said the appointment was “a great honor and a great new challenge.”

He is an honorary fellow of Liverpool John Moores University, which has a well-known astrophysics research institute. Now who says science isn’t cool.

The Taoiseach told the Dail today that he would favour an Irish honours system if it commanded all party support. So far Labour is sceptical, SF love the idea and FG like it as long as its doesn’t breed cynicism. Sure nobody in NI is ever cynical about the fact that half of each honours list is made up of civil servants reaching retirement!

I have been following the Irish Labour Party Conference in Wexford this weekend with interest. I owe my political training to the oldest party on this island and still have many many friends amongst its members.

Conference took a wise decision to establish a commission on potential organisation in NI. I am told the speeches were passionate and none more so then from the long term campaigner for Labour organisation north of the border, Mark Langhammer. But this is not a matter of the heart. It is as Eamon Gilmore rightly stated on RTE radio this lunchtime, a duty of all progressive parties (including Labour)  to think not just about tomorrow but about the next decade and the decade after that. The political sands of our small island are shifting and with the shift there will be an inevitable realignment of the political parties of this island. The SDLP analysis as adopted at its conference two weeks ago is that alignment will take place along the left - right divide and I agree. There is therefore a huge opportunity for progressives across this island to begin exploring common ground.

A number of Labour delegates commented in a vox-pop for RTE radio today that the left - right divide in Ireland has been blurred since the twenties. Why? because Fianna Fail captured the traditional left in Ireland during the early year’s of the State and built the most successful political movement in Europe on it. Gilmore was right when he said DeValera would be well unimpressed at some of the actions of modern FF and that Lemass would not have let the health system get to the state it is in. But in politics, as in life, possession is 9/10’s of the law and the soldiers of destiny still have the support of the natural Labour voter.

When Ronan Farren, a delegate at the Labour conference, said any splintering of the nationalist or unionist votes to accommodate another party would only benefit the two party’s most entrenched in the sectarian divisions of this region, Sinn Fein and the DUP, he was right. As no major southern party, not Labour, not FG, not FF are suggesting an abandonment of the Good Friday Agreement then the outcome of discussions about realignment will have to be about much more than simple organisation.

As the SDLP working party members, the Labour Party commission and Fianna Fail’s northern committee sit down to begin their respective deliberations, the question facing them is not simply to organise or not. They need to consider the impact of debates about unity, the challenges presented by two jurisdictions, the opportunities of greater economic and social integration and the fact that no matter what they may believe, anything coming from the south will be perceived as nationalist by the one million or so British people who live on this island. Gilmore hit the nail on the head when he said its not just about tomorrow, its about the next generation.

Real Irish republicanism and Irish labour share common roots, they look back to 1798 and have shared political platforms since. They could ignore each other as they look into the glare of twenty first century Ireland alone but I think that would be short sighted indeed.

The issue is not simply that we keep the red flag flying but that we recast Irish politics and Irish republicanism in language and polices that really can take us to a new Ireland.  

Last night was the North’s big PR do with the Pride Awards in Belfast.

The competition was tough and well done to all the winners. Weber Shandwick were honoured with two gold prizes for Down Royal and the Robbie Millar Scholarship as well as two silvers.

Our industry is maturing well and rising to the challenge of a growing economy and devolved government. The number of entries by or on behalf of private sector organisations is growing and the standards are definitely increasing.

It is important that a creative industry like our’s honours excellence. Peer review and acknowledgement is not just motivating for the winners but provides a public benchmark against which the every practitioner and clients can measure performance.

 For full results and case studies of the winners visit the Pride website.

Across the island of Ireland there is one front page this morning, a picture of the dead family of seven, lost in a house fire in Omagh, Co Tyrone.The picture appears to have been taken at their baby’s christening. Not since the Stardust do I remember such a singularly tragic inferno. It’s a hollow call but for God’s sake check your fire alarm tonight.

There is another piece in today’s Newsletter which caught my eye. It’s a full page ad taken out on behalf Crossgar Auctions and Liquidations. I am told by big Stephen McGrath, a fellow Weber Shandwick consultant here in Belfast, that they had a similar ad in last week. It’s a strange thing for a private business to do. Whatever the rights and wrongs of the different trade unions positions, taking out bizarre adds which read a like a 60’s Paisley sermon is unlikely to change anything. It’s not particulalrly good PR either.

Also in today’s Irish News a long interview with Nigel Dodds. Last week I was in the company of twenty or so other business people at a Northern Ireland Chamber of Commerce dinner. Ian Morrow, a senior staff member at the chamber and one of a rare breed of genuine polyglots in Belfast, organises these occasional dinners to facilitate debate between business and figures in public life. We enjoyed a lively and extremely constructive debate with Nigel Dodds, the Minister for Enterprise Trade and Investment. I have always recognised Dodd’s ability and to see him now able to dedicate himself to the furtherance of the Northern economy was heartening. He talked extensively about the challenges facing our small region and was very open minded about how we might effect a step change in economic terms over the next five years. He was lobbied hard on the issue of corporation tax and was strongly supportive of the need to archive a significant reduction from the British Government. He also addressed the skills challenges facing an every changing manufacturing and services centre.

The other week at the gigis I had a number of conversations with senior business figures about the past few months. Optimistic is the only word to describe them. To a woman, and man, they are up for the new North. They are increasingly crossing the border, building deal by deal, an island economy which threatens nobody. They are also looking to the Executive for leadership and vision. They want incentives to invest, to be encouraged to hire and to be able to profit from their own risk. That seems to be to be a fair deal. In a month when some of our traditional industries surrendered to global pressures knowing there is a new breed of manufacturing are service sector entrepreneurs in our small region determined to make a go of their businesses, right here right now, is an indication that after a lost generation the time has come to start trading.

John Simpson, the elder statesman of Northern economists was commenting just recently that our public sector although big is no bigger per-capita than Scotland’s. Whilst efficiencies are needed and their is certainly room for a reduction in the number of public servants North of the border, the real answer is to grow the private sector so the is becomes the genuine driver in this region, so we were better able to maintain the public services we hold so dear. I left the dinner pretty sure this is one thing Nigel Dodds and I can agree on.  

Finally BBC Spotlight last night reported on the killing of Paul Quinn in a cow shed on the border recently. The programme reported that their is strong local suspicion that republicans were involved in the murder. I don’t want to dwell on the who done it argument but focus on the need for communities to be free from control and intimidation. South Armagh is a beautiful place with fine people. It is also a place with a mixed reputation which last week’s killing will not help. People like the late John Fee worked tirelessly to change this and all those in government North and South must resolve to allow this proud community to rid itself of the shackles of the past.

O’Conall Street has learnt with great sadness of the untimely passing of John Fee. John was an SDLP MLA for Newry and Armagh during the first Assembly. Before that he was Seamus Mallon’s Parliamentary Aide.

John was a young man with a big heart. Intelligent, brave and great company John was a bulwark against physical force republicanism in the South Armagh area. He was badly beaten in the early nineties for speaking out against the IRA and never waivered from his belief that the cause of Irish nationalism can only be furthered through peaceful politics. I know he will be sorely missed by his constituency and his family. Those of us who had the pleasure of working with him during some of the most interesting times in Irish politics want to acknowledge the significant contribution he made to his country and his courage in the face of intimidation and threat.  

May he rest in peace.

Any comments or messages of condolence will be passed on to Collette and John’s family.

Update 13th November, 16.35.I have just returned from John’s funeral. The people of Crossmaglen could not have paid him a greater tribute and the service was a reflection of himself, full of faith, music and great oratory. The hundreds that packed into the Parish Church including Hume, Durkan, Rodgers, Ritchie, McGrady, McDonnell, Austin Currie, the SDLP MLAs and a number members of the Oireachtas, heard Seamus Mallon pay tribute to his friend and colleague in a magnificent eulogy. A fitting tribute for a great man.