Long warm summer and winter storms predicted

Do you know this man? Yes the one on the right. 

Robin Newton MLA (DUP) has been beavering away on behalf of the people of East Belfast for some years without making much of an impact. Today he is a Junior Minister at the Office of the First and Deputy First Minister.

David Gordon notes in the Belfast Telegraph this morning that the latest DUP reshuffle will not excite too many commentators but seems to have a cold electoral logic to it. Maybe Newton needs the job to build himself up for a East Belfast Westminster challenge next year – the seat is currently held by the First Minister, Peter Robinson. Foster, who stays in DETI, will certainly need to mount a big challenge in Fermanagh South Tyrone and Dodds can now focus on the party. A job he did well in the 90’s under Paisley. As for Sammy Wilson, no one I spoke yesterday with could see any logic in keeping the discredited Environment Minister in post, unless of course the objective of the exercise was to wind up the UUP and SF.

Nelson McCausland has already made it clear he will not be turning up at any GAA grounds which might have a republican connotations, in their name for example. Is it a minister’s job to judge when art is political or when sport might have historical connotations?

As for the Executive expect a slow warm summer and some winter storms. It looks like the business of government will again take a back seat whilst the DUP see off the TUV. Mick over on Slugger wrote caustically on Monday that SF too seem less then in love with government;

As if to underline the political idleness which has bedevilled the operation of OFMdFM (and been passed on to the Executive) over the last two years, the focus of the deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness’s remarks were on the Orange Order and its alleged role in the deadlock over parading. It’s as if no one in Stormont Castle believes that serious policy work actually matters to the wider population. When proposals to drop the transatlantic cable at Coleraine rather than Derry the public debate focused on whose backyard it was supposed to land in, not how best can we exploit this opportunity.

All this creates an opportunity for the SDLP and the UUP. Both parties have to date unable to challenge the big two in a serious way. Their strategy has been to leave the DUP and SF to it, separately highlighting their failures as partners in government and hoping for an electoral return. 

Maybe the time has come to for the UUP and SDLP discuss the possibility of  a platform for change, possibly with the support Alliance and the Greens, which can offer the electorate an alternative power sharing administration at the following election.