O’Conall Street

The news that the UUP and the Conservative Party are to reignite their old relationship is not I am afraid the minor political earthquake which top Tory blogger Iain Dale is describing it as.

Even after their fallout in the eighties over the Anglo Irish Agreement the parties remained sisters in Europe and soul buddies at Westminster. David Trimble was always a one nation Tory as have been the majority of UUP MPs ever elected to the commons. That Trimble (a Tory peer) is being touted as a prospective member of the shadow cabinet is hardly surprising.

Looking at it from an NI perspective it is hard to see what the UUP gains. It will not affect their Assembly presence nor will it assist in the reorganisation and rejuvenation of the party locally. Fact is the only people who can fix the UUP’s problems in NI are the UUP itself.

Things are different when you consider the implications for the Tories in Westminster. The next election could be a very tight run thing and having any number of UUP MP’s on board and ready to support the government can only be good news for Mr Cameron. He can claim to have a footprint in every corner of the UK, all be it a very small one in Scotland and Wales, becoming a truely one nation party again. What ever that means….

The UK is becoming increasingly regionalised and politics is less London centric than ever and the UK is less united than at any time since the Act of Union. You could argue that integration of political forces across the UK runs against the clear desire of Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland to enjoy greater autonomy and express their individual identities, social and economic priorities in a more powerful way.

Should the inevitable happen, and I believe their is an air of inevitability about all this, the one thing the UUP is going to have to watch out for are the conflicts of interest which will arise if the Tories are in government in London and the UUP are in the Executive in Belfast.

When an issue of difference arises who will they stand by?

Their Leader and Prime Minister or the people of Northern Ireland?

This is a problem the DUP are unlikely ever to have and all politics is, I am afraid, local.

I don’t want to moan today about the Power Sharing Executive which never meets or about the French President who came and left.

It may be summer but there is no evidence of the mood lightening in political terms on this island. In fact we are told today that Sinn Fein are willing to negotiate all summer to break the deadlock in the Executive and by Mr Adams that Ireland needs to negotiate all summer with Europe over what he describes and as the ‘dead’ Lisbon treaty. I am sure the government appreciate Mr Adam’s word of advice but am told there are more than a few TD’s believe the Sinn Fein’s priority should be the day job and the bread and butter in the North that need immediate attention.  

On a more summery theme, came across an interesting article last night about that other old chestnut, creationism. Slate.com has a piece by Christopher Hitchens about Salamanders and Creationism. It’s a great read and I have reproduced below for your intellectual enrichment.

It is extremely seldom that one has the opportunity to think a new thought about a familiar subject, let alone an original thought on a contested subject, so when I had a moment of eureka a few nights ago, my very first instinct was to distrust my very first instinct. To phrase it briefly, I was watching the astonishing TV series Planet Earth (which, by the way, contains photography of the natural world of a sort that redefines the art) and had come to the segment that deals with life underground. The subterranean caverns and rivers of our world are one of the last unexplored frontiers, and the sheer extent of the discoveries, in Mexico and Indonesia particularly, is quite enough to stagger the mind. Various creatures were found doing their thing far away from the light, and as they were caught by the camera, I noticed—in particular of the salamanders—that they had typical faces. In other words, they had mouths and muzzles and eyes arranged in the same way as most animals. Except that the eyes were denoted only by little concavities or indentations. Even as I was grasping the implications of this, the fine voice of Sir David Attenborough was telling me how many millions of years it had taken for these denizens of the underworld to lose the eyes they had once possessed.

If you follow the continuing argument between the advocates of Darwin’s natural selection theory and the partisans of creationism or “intelligent design,” you will instantly see what I am driving at. The creationists (to give them their proper name and to deny them their annoying annexation of the word intelligent) invariably speak of the eye in hushed tones. How, they demand to know, can such a sophisticated organ have gone through clumsy evolutionary stages in order to reach its current magnificence and versatility? The problem was best phrased by Darwin himself, in his essay “Organs of Extreme Perfection and Complication”:

To suppose that the eye, with all its inimitable contrivances for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical and chromatic aberration, could have been formed by natural selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest possible degree.

His defenders, such as Michael Shermer in his excellent book Why Darwin Matters, draw upon post-Darwinian scientific advances. They do not rely on what might be loosely called “blind chance”:

Evolution also posits that modern organisms should show a variety of structures from simple to complex, reflecting an evolutionary history rather than an instantaneous creation. The human eye, for example, is the result of a long and complex pathway that goes back hundreds of millions of years. Initially a simple eyespot with a handful of light-sensitive cells that provided information to the organism about an important source of the light …

Hold it right there, says Ann Coulter in her ridiculous book Godless: The Church of Liberalism. “The interesting question is not: How did a primitive eye become a complex eye? The interesting question is: How did the ‘light-sensitive cells’ come to exist in the first place?”

The salamanders of Planet Earth appear to this layman to furnish a possibly devastating answer to that question. Humans are almost programmed to think in terms of progress and of gradual yet upward curves, even when confronted with evidence that the past includes as many great dyings out of species as it does examples of the burgeoning of them. Thus even Shermer subconsciously talks of a “pathway” that implicitly stretches ahead. But what of the creatures who turned around and headed back in the opposite direction, from complex to primitive in point of eyesight, and ended up losing even the eyes they did have?

Whoever benefits from this inquiry, it cannot possibly be Coulter or her patrons at the creationist Discovery Institute. The most they can do is to intone that “the Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away.” Whereas the likelihood that the post-ocular blindness of underground salamanders is another aspect of evolution by natural selection seems, when you think about it at all, so overwhelmingly probable as to constitute a near certainty. I wrote to professor Richard Dawkins to ask if I had stumbled on the outlines of a point, and he replied as follows:

Vestigial eyes, for example, are clear evidence that these cave salamanders must have had ancestors who were different from them—had eyes, in this case. That is evolution. Why on earth would God create a salamander with vestiges of eyes? If he wanted to create blind salamanders, why not just create blind salamanders? Why give them dummy eyes that don’t work and that look as though they were inherited from sighted ancestors? Maybe your point is a little different from this, in which case I don’t think I have seen it written down before.

I recommend for further reading the chapter on eyes and the many different ways in which they are formed that is contained in Dawkins’ Climbing Mount Improbable; also “The Blind Cave Fish’s Tale” in his Chaucerian collection The Ancestor’s Tale. I am not myself able to add anything about the formation of light cells, eyespots, and lenses, but I do think that there is a dialectical usefulness to considering the conventional arguments in reverse, as it were. For example, to the old theistic question, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” we can now counterpose the findings of professor Lawrence Krauss and others, about the foreseeable heat death of the universe, the Hubble “red shift” that shows the universe’s rate of explosive expansion actually increasing, and the not-so-far-off collision of our own galaxy with Andromeda, already loomingly visible in the night sky. So, the question can and must be rephrased: “Why will our brief ’something’ so soon be replaced with nothing?” It’s only once we shake our own innate belief in linear progression and consider the many recessions we have undergone and will undergo that we can grasp the gross stupidity of those who repose their faith in divine providence and godly design.

It is hard to believe that Iris Robinson MP, MLA, should find herself in the eye of the storm again but today, on the Nolan Show, she is reported as asserting that it was the ‘Government’s role to uphold God’s law’.

Iris is entitled to her beliefs and entitled to protection from persecution for what she believes in.  

The fact that she can make such statements on air is because we live in a liberal secular society. Secularism is the assertion that governmental practices or institutions should exist separately from religion or religious belief.

It asserts the right to be free from religious rule and teachings, and freedom from the government imposition of religion upon the people, within a state that is neutral on matters of belief, and gives no state privileges or subsidies to religions. It allows for the proper separation of Church and State.

This is not an anti religious principle. Quite the opposite. It asserts the freedom of religious belief and the right of churches to organise and promote their faith without interference or intimidation from the state or society.

The Government has an altogether different role and duty and that is to legislate for the freedom to follow all beliefs and none. I know where I stand on this issue. It will be interesting to see where the majority of people on this island stand. 

Russell Brand claims to have coined MILF in tribute to the very elegant Sadie Frost. Now US political blog, Wonkette, has taken the sexual fantasy a step further with GILF (Governors I Love to ….) and the top GILF is none other than Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. This darling of the conservative right and now officially America’s hottest governor, is being tipped as a potential running mate for John McCain in November. And just to reinforce her home town credentials she is a former beauty queen too.

This is, I know, a very sad excuse to put pictures of good looking politicians on O’Conall Street but in the Twelfth week anything to lighten the mood.

With the French Cabinet also brimming with attractive ministers of a centre right persuasion I am reminded of a question which has dogged me since adolescence.

How come conservative parties always have better looking ladies?

Are Fianna Fail Social Democrats? That’s the question which is being posed today by SDLP MLA, Patsy McGlone.

Just a week after Mark Durkan said the party was not for sale and Brian Cowen said there was little chance of FF organising North pf the border in the short or medium term, the Mid Ulster MLA has come up with an interesting proposition - that FF and the SDLP enter into a ‘contract for social democracy’ .

According to the Sunday Business Post, McGlone said the SDLP had to consider realigning on an all-Ireland basis, as the economy, culture and sport were all coming together on that basis.

”On a personal level, it is a widely-held view of many of us in the SDLP that the natural alliance is on social democratic grounds with Fianna Fáil,” he said. ”Quite clearly, Fianna Fáil is representative of the same body, socially and economically, as ourselves, because we have a common inheritance of constitutional republicanism.

”There is a commonality of spirit with the parties in the Republic, but to a greater extent with Fianna Fáil.”

McGlone is in favour of a ”contract for social democracy” with Fianna Fáil, ensuring economic growth and protection of the least well-off. The link would mean a strong nationalist alternative to Sinn Fein, capable of putting Sinn Fein and the Democratic Unionist Party under pressure.

”People are saying to me that it’s good there is an executive, but what legislation have we seen? What investment? Young mothers are asking what is happening with the education system,” said McGlone.

But he said that, while a linkup was needed, laying down a time-scale would be wrong. ”There is a progression of negotiation, of talks, of different emphases within different parties in any dialogue,” he said.

He is open as to whether the SDLP should merge completely with Fianna Fáil, or have a looser alliance. ”There may be something radical out there in terms of structure which has not been considered.”

This interesting intervention from the Mid Ulster MLA is not without difficulty. As a social democratic party the SDLP is a sister party of the Irish Labour Party and a full member of the Party of European Socialists. Is Patsy suggesting that Fianna Fail should also become part of this international fraternity? 

Mark Durkan’s remarks last week were clearly designed to close this debate and a response to the growing view within the Party that the SDLP and its principles are not for sale. If you ask very, very many members they will tell you that they want to be in a strong SDLP, not FF, FG, Lab or the PDs.

One thing for sure. The endless discussion about the SDLP’s future lying in the hands of others is a distraction from the real challenges facing the party, to reorganise, recruit new members and renew its policy platform.  All three of which are surely a prerequisite for successful future realignment.

Mr McGlone is right. The SDLP need to become more of an opposition in the North. That is something they can achieve themselves if they put their mind to it.

As for his offer of a contract with a social democratic FF, the ball is now in the soldiers of destiny’s court. Many will be very interested to hear their response, particularly given their commitment to private sector involvement in the southern health service.

The much written about crisis in the Executive hit the BBC today and all the fingers are pointing at Sinn Fein who appear to be on a political version of a go slow over the DUP’s refusal to agree to an Irish Language Bill and the devolution of policing and justice.

There is an Executive meeting scheduled for July 24.

Will they meet to discuss the future of the eleven plus, water charges, PPS 14, Social Housing or gambling to mention just a few. Or will they place an Irish Language Bill in a category above all other policy and one which must be addressed before anything else can happen?

I cant believe I am writing this.

Off to worry about house prices!

Wondering if anyone in the Executive is?

Last week the French Ambassador to the UK may have described his president as a political force of nature but this summer a man who has not even been elected to the highest office will cross the atlantic like a a great warm wind. Obama is coming to Europe.

The media tell us he intends to make a major foreign policy speech at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, an honour normally reserved for American presidents. He may be the presumptive nominee in the US but in Germany it appears he is already the presumptive president.

According to the International Herald Tribune:

Berlin Mayor Klaus Wowereit said the capital would be thrilled to welcome Obama, wherever he wanted to speak.“Of course the Brandenburg Gate is an important symbol and we would be delighted if one of the most promising presidential candidates, namely Barack Obama, would use Berlin as a platform, either before the Brandenburg Gate or elsewhere in the city,” Wowereit told N24 broadcaster.

Wowereit diplomatically added that Berlin would also welcome Republican candidate John McCain.

The prospect of an Obama presidency has excited many in Germany, where trans-Atlantic relations have cooled significantly during the tenure of President George W. Bush. A poll of 501 Germans conducted last Thursday for the Bild am Sonntag newspaper found that 72 percent would like to see Obama win the presidency, with just 11 percent preferring McCain. Bild am Sonntag did not give a margin of error.

In the past, only sitting U.S. presidents — not candidates — have had the honor of addressing a crowd in front of the Brandenburg Gate, which has symbolized both a divided and later a united Germany.

Ronald Reagan memorably stood on the former West German side of the Brandenburg Gate in 1987, exhorting Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev to “open this gate” and “tear down this wall” — referring to the Berlin Wall that for decades divided the city in two.

In 1994, Bill Clinton symbolically spoke from the other, formerly Eastern, side, declaring “Berlin is free!” In 2002, the former U.S. president addressed a crowd of 1 million at the formal unveiling of the newly refurbished monument.

Although John F. Kennedy did not speak at the Brandenburg Gate, his declaration in Berlin of solidarity with besieged West Berliners in 1963 — “Ich bin ein Berliner” — is deeply remembered here.

With his message of hope, his relative youth and his trim figure, Obama has often been compared to Kennedy, especially in the eyes of many Germans.

Also on the trip will be visits to London and France. It is a terrible pity he is not coming here. I am quite sure the streets of Dublin and Belfast would fill to welcome a man who has put hope back into politics.

The BBC’s Dublin Correspondent Shane Harrison has posted an reflective article on the BBC websitesaying Brain Cowen has now put on the backboiler any suggestion that Fianna Fail will organise north of the border in the short term. This comes only days after SDLP Leader Mark Durkan said his party was not for sale, a move seen by many as distancing the the northern party from an early realignment with a southern one.

According to the BBC:

Taoiseach Brian Cowen has said there is no imminent possibility of his Fianna Fáil party organising in Northern Ireland.

His remarks are seen by many as putting the idea on the backburner, but the idea was never really on the front-burner.

Even before Mr Cowen took over from Bertie Ahern as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader, there was speculation he was less keen than his predecessor on the idea of his party organising in Northern Ireland.

This assumed that Mr Ahern was the main man pushing for Fianna Fáil, which translates as the Soldiers of Destiny, marching north.

But I suspect it was never the case.

In a BBC interview shortly after he announced his intention to quit as Taoiseach but before he left office, he advised his party “to be careful” about not making any major decision on Northern Ireland without “reflecting a good bit” on standing for elections and considering its relationship with the SDLP.

He said that while he was “glad” Fianna Fáil was recruiting in Northern Ireland there was “no rush” on organising north of the border.

These comments were echoed by Mr Cowen on a recent visit to Belfast.

June and July used to be dominated by parading, civil unrest and ’street politics’ which forced many to flee on early holidays, damaged business and did this island’s reputation abroad no good what so ever.

This year the first parading headline came with a very minor spat between the Orange Order and Larne Council over bunting - yes bunting!.

Instead of Drumcree, Ormeau, Ardoyne and Dunloy today’s headlines are dominated by banks, builders, liquidity and the now properly listed in the Oxford Dictionary - credit crunch.

The papers make unpleasant reading. The Daily Telegraph reports that Bank of Ireland in GB has frozen commercial lending and is closing its doors to new business for three months. The same paper also carries an interesting story about  Royal Bank of Scotland (NatWest) paring off senior managers with experience of previous recessions with small business customers who are carrying significant debts. There is concern in business circles that many of the new generation of bankers are too young to have experience full blown recession and are having to learn quickly about trading in a very different context.

The Irish business correspondents are reporting on the need for the banks to introduce liquidity (release cash) into the residential property market. This has received the backing of Construction Industry Federation. 

Back to the Twelfth.  

Things are moving along a pace and in the right direction, but can I make a very personal point. I live off a major arterial route in South Belfast. I am not going to take the position that Orange feet have no right to be on that road but I do believe that with rights come responsibilities. Ours is a little cul-de-sac which means we are ‘locked in’ during the parade.

Last year we were at home for the day. The morning procession passed off without too much ado but on the return walk back into the city things were pretty bad. I counted 56 people (some girls) using our little street as a toilet and the litter was simply unacceptable. All in all the parade took two hours to pass. After about an hour I gave up on the toilet count and retreated to the back garden to get away from the bands but had to confront reality when a group of young girls from a band came knocking on the door begging to use the loo. I would love to have spoken to the adult responsible for these young ladies. They should have been given access to proper facilities by the people who were leading them.

Surely the time has arrived when the Orange Order should be required to provide portaloos, litter points and properly marshall their flagship parade. Most of our neighbours have the economic means to leave on the Twelfth. This is a major reason why this part of Belfast has to date been happy to live and let live. That is no excuse for bringing tens of thousands onto the streets and making no arrangements for them.

We will be heading off again this year as I suspect will the vast majority of our neighbours and by the time we return the council will have tidied everything up again - at our expense. 

Off to GB for the next couple of days with work and the dreary cloulds of recession are clearly visible on the horizon.

Fifteen billion euro hole in the Irish tax revenues predicted. That’s the Irish Times lead.

No escaping the downturn north of the border either with the nationwide building society and the royal institute of chartered surveyors both highlighting the extent of the crisis in the construction sector. Not the greatest backdrop for the first meeting of the assembly’s new all party constrution industry group.