O’Conall Street

Sen Hillary Clinton will be offered the Secretary of State post and she will accept. So say the Chicago jungle drums this Sunday morning.

Today O’Conall St launches ‘Lame Duck Executive Watch’.

It has been 148 days since the last meeting of the DUP - Sinn Fein led Executive. There is no doubt this is a Lame Duck Executive, in office, but out of power and increasingly misunderstood by the ordinary man and woman on the Street.

We will track proposed legislation and Programme for Government commitments to highlight the cost of this crisis in societal terms.

Our 14 Ministers have a basic annual salary bill is £1,118,228. This does not take into account the cost of Private Offices, Specials Advisers or the other resources which are required to ensure the proper running of an Executive.  Since June 19th when the Executive last met the Ministers have cost the tax payer £453,418  in salaries alone. Each working day that passes our Lame Duck ministerial team costs Northern Ireland £4,300.  

On Sunday we will reach 150 days of stalemate.

The siege of Derry did not last as long as the Executive stand off which today reaches 147 days.

Fair play to the Belfast Telegraph for providing us all with the daily reminder that the DUP and SInn Fein are failing the people of Northern Ireland.

This morning BBC Radio Ulster thought they would tackle the issue. Nobody from the DUP or SF was available to debate, another sign of the communications crisis both parties now find themselves in.  So in stepped Brian Feeney and Roy Garland, two verterans of conflict politics.

Maybe it is just me or maybe it is a generational thing but I don’t meet anyone - unionist, nationalist, working class, middle class (don’t know too many ‘upper class’ people), young or old for that matter - who thinks this stand off is justified or legitimate politics. Everyone I know thinks it is a joke that stinks of petty power games and selfish party interest. 

The DUP and SF will need to face the people at some point in the future. Brian Feeney thinks the people will put them right back in. I would never be so presumptious to second guess the electorate but I do wonder what SF and the DUP’s message to the people of Northern Ireland will be? 

If the texts into Good Morning Ulster are anything to go by, the electorate may well have something to say back to them …..

Never underestimate the ordinary person’s ability to bite back.  

It’s not every morning a Minister comes around for breakfast but today, Margaret Ritchie MLA, the Minister for Social Development took time out to speak at a Weber Shandwick sponsored briefing on Urban Regeneration.

Speaking to O’Conall St the Minister said Urban Regeneration is one of many important paths in the routes towards a shared culture and a shared future. 

“When regeneration is done right, it transforms not just buildings and architecture, but the way the way people feel about public space and how we use it. If I can sum up my message to you, it is that, in today’s environment where the economy is the key political driver, social and environmentally responsible urban regeneration must also be linked to improving the local economy”

We are slowly weaning ourselves of Obamanomics and Obama politics here on O’Conall Street and turning our attention to the analysis of his campaign in communications terms.

He has rewritten the political campaigning manual and built a vibrant net-roots organisation bursting with millions of advocates - ordinary people who spontaneously took a stand on his behalf.

More about all that in the weeks ahead but here is a great video about what happens to the advocate after the event. The man himself is untouchable but who says we cant laugh at each other

  
Obama Win Causes Obsessive Supporters To Realize How Empty Their Lives Are

90 years on and RTE are making an effort to remember. I posted my personal views on the need for Ireland to do more in this regard on Sunday.

Last night’s Time Team on Channel4 was a lovely tribute the miners who went to war to tunnel.

Back at ground level, our MLAs are deeply concerned at the potential cut backs in UTV. So concerned are they that they have summoned the TV bosses in to explain their actions. Oh to be a fly on the wall there.

MLA - This is a disgrace you are ignoring our institutions of government. You are failing the people. Good people will loose their jobs…. bla, bla, bla….

UTV boss - We are heartened you are so interested. We so appreciate all you are doing as as Assembly and an Executive to tackle the economic crisis. The people of Northern Ireland owe you a great debt. In fact we are going to go back to the bosses in London and make the case to reverse these cutbacks because there is so much going on here in politics which we should be covering……

Signing off on a sad note this cold November morning. Mama Africa (Miriam Makeba) is dead. May she rest in peace.

The Education Minister Caitriona Ruane stalled on specifics and appeared to back deregulation of education here if she fails to get her way on what replaces the 11plus. Her comments came during a rare TV interview on today’s Stormont live. I asked a respected political commentator how she would sum up Ms Ruane’s interview. “A race to the bottom” was her reply.

I’ll let you  be the judge of that, but one thing for sure, I am none the wiser for having watched ten minutes of her on TV. Just hope she can be a little more specific when she is trying to convince fellow polticians of her plans, what ever they are.

Just one thing though. My dad was a life long socialist and I am very happy to be described as a social democrat. I was always told centre left politics was about levelling up, not levelling out.

Thanks to Pete Baker over on Slugger for the Youtube video.

The IDA has fired a broadside against the Irish Government for promoting a scheme  which could see jobs go to Northern Ireland rather then the Republic. The Irish Times today has the story of the Cross Border Financial Services Initiative, a scheme which allows Irish banks to set up back office operations in the North in order to ensure access to well qualified staff on this island.

This is a short sighted and very regrettable stance by the IDA. It illustrates the entrenched mindsets about all island cooperation which still exist in certain quarters in the Republic.

One can only hope that this will not become a political football in the South and that the government and opposition will continue to support the development of an all island economy despite the short sightedness of some public servants.

There is no one as Irish as Barack Obama. Yes the boys have a song out to celebrate ‘our’ President!

There are no McDevitt’s on Menin Gate (Belgium) but there are thousands of other Irish names amongst the 58,000 for whom there is no grave. The Irish Peace tower stands on a hill over the final battleground where the 16th and 36th divisions pushed the German lines back in June 1917. There are some wonderful inscriptions as you walk in. They say different things but have a single message best summed up in the words of Tom Kettle:

To dice with death, and, oh! They’ll give you rhyme
And reason; one will call the thing sublime,
And one decry it in a knowing tone.
So here, while the mad guns curse overhead,
And tired men sigh, with mud for couch and floor,
Know that we fools, now with the foolish dead,
Died not for Flag, nor King, nor Emporor,
But for a dream born in a herdsman’s shed,
And for the Secret Scripture of the poor.

The drive from Flanders (Belgium) to the Somme (France) takes you along the western front’s most famous sites. Arriving in the Somme valley, seeing the 74,000 names at Thiepval and acknowledging the epic achievements of the 36th Ulster Division, remembered at the Ulster Tower is thought provoking and utterly sobering. The blood sacrifice of the huge international army is everywhere. I counted 83 cemeteries along the was and forty seven nationalities.

Irishmen are everywhere. In the 16th Irish Division the fallen from ‘nationalist’ Ireland lie side by side with comrades from the UK, India, South Africa, Morrocco, France, Belgium, Canada and many more. Many of the states have since decided to erect their own memorials to the soldiers of the Great War. The finest is undoubtedly in Vimy where Canada built the most wonderful monument to its war dead. We arrived there from the living memorial that is the National South African monument at Devilles Wood. A wonderful circular building it makes no bones about South Africa’s own difficult history since the first world war. It’s a monument to everyone who went to war for the African state. From the Afrikaners in the Somme trenches to the ANC activists who fought for democracy, the building quite literally squares the circle and allows the modern republic to remember without undermining itself in any way.

The South African visit was a welcome boost after our pilgrimage to the only monument to the 16th Irish Division in the Somme. Nestled in the church grounds in Guilemont is a celtic cross. Do cum gloire Dé agus onora na hEireann (for the glory of god and the honour of Ireland) is the epitaph to the thousands who fell between the 3rd and 9th of September 1916 on the green fields of France. It is in stark contrast to the Ulster tower built within two years of the establishment of Northern Ireland and opened by the embodiment of the new jurisdiction, Edward Carson. They were quick to remember, it seems the ‘Free State’ was in a hurry to forget.

The flags of so many nations still fly today in France and Belgium. Some are still in the commonwealth although many are not. The empire is gone, Europe is at peace and still the flag that is missing is that of Ireland. Nowhere is the Republic of Ireland remembering its dead as a sovereign and independent state. The peace tower at Messine is wonderful and a fitting tribute to the first battle in which the two traditions fought side by side but it is ultimately a monument to peace and reconciliation on the island of Ireland. It is surely time the Republic of Ireland, free, confident and proud take its place amongst the modern states to honour its sons who went to war for Ireland and who made the ultimate sacrifice.

In March along with a group of friends I went paid my respects to young Willie McBride. He lies on the banks of the river Aucre in Authille Cemetery alongside Muslims, Jews, Sikhs, Hindis and a lone German soldier. Immortalised in song but forgotten by the modern republic that was to share his island.

From an Irish point of view the words on this Remembrance Sunday are surely - We must remember them.