THE Assembly Commissioner for Standards, Douglas Bain, has suspended his investigation into the Stormont witness coaching scandal to avoid prejudicing a police investigation. This is a repeating pattern - after the National Crime Agency began its Nama investigation, the only person prepared to testify to Stormont’s inquiry was... Jamie Bryson. In fact, multiple inquiries cancelling each other out is a repeating pattern across our political arena. The witness coaching affair was referred to both Bain and the police by the DUP. It might seem the PSNI investigation is the more serious of the two, especially as Bain has no powers to sanction MLAs. However, as the police cannot even say what crime might have been committed, chances are they are simply delaying what little even the standards commissioner can do. The moral of the story is that if you really want something investigated, you launch one investigation at a time.
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The morning after BBC Spotlight broke its latest Nama revelations, DUP education minister Peter Weir allowed primary schools to prepare pupils for unofficial transfer tests. Many found the timing of this suspicious and some were upset by the policy itself, with the children’s commissioner expressing “deep concern” that “this decision will do little to reduce the gap between richer and poorer students.” Maybe so, but neither should it make the gap worse. Weir’s decision is effectively meaningless, as he has merely withdrawn unenforceable guidelines that were already being widely ignored. The DUP has hinted at a longer-term vision of saving the grammar ‘ethos’ while selection fades away. This remains on track, with much of the heat now removed from the ideological standoff. Another curiosity about the timing of Weir’s announcement is how it mirrors Theresa May’s grammar school fudging in England.
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One of the implications of Northern Ireland’s new Westminster constituency boundaries is that it will be harder to accuse Invest NI of ignoring west Belfast. This frequent allegation, made again just last week by the SDLP, relies on a ludicrous comparison with south Belfast, which contains most of the city centre. Now the city centre will be transferred to a new south west Belfast constituency, meaning east Belfast will appear disadvantaged. Everyone will then presumably swap positions on the issue with all the unseemly haste of a mad hatter’s tea party.
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The spirit of the Women’s Coalition lives on. Former deputy leader Jane Morrice, who was head of the European Commission’s Belfast office throughout the mid-1990s, has proposed a new programme of EU peace funding beginning when the current one ends in 2020. This would be premised on sharing Northern Ireland’s peace-building experience with the world, so it could survive Brexit while continuing to trickle cash back to this part of the world. It is all rather reminiscent of the Women’s Coalition’s response to its 2003 electoral wipe-out, which was to propose that one third of councillors be appointed from “civic society.”
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Sinn Féin MLA and national chairperson Declan Kearney has given an oddly underreported speech about dissident republicans, accusing “the British security and intelligence services” of ‘playing’ them to “disrupt, divide and demoralise” the nationalist community. Kearney did not use the term ‘securocrat’, which apparently remains decommissioned, but he did refer to the “dark side” - a term used by Martin McGuinness after the 2014 arrest of Gerry Adams to allege an anti-agreement cabal was operating inside the PSNI. Perhaps the reason Kearney’s allegations have fallen flat, despite their seriousness, is that they seem to have been provoked by what he called “vile, personalised abuse on social media platforms.” Who knew the Shinners could be such sensitive flowers?
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Syrian refugees in burkinis were given a police escort on Benone Strand, after what the PSNI described as “concerning” Facebook posts about a beach barbecue organised by the North West Migrants Forum. In BBC reports of the story, only police faces were pixellated out. You might describe this as the Northern Ireland veil.
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Upon his election to Belfast City Council in 2011, Sinn Féin’s Máirtín Ó Muilleoir became the driving force behind a three-year “Investment Programme” promising £150m of extra spending. Most of this turned out to comprise existing funds and projects, many of them not even the council’s responsibility, plus mere hopes and promises of more. Nevertheless, it produced great headlines, a 40-page glossy brochure, years of puffery in the council magazine and a vague, warm sense that Ó Muilleoir, his party and the city were on the up together. So is it any wonder that within weeks of become Stormont finance minister, Ó Muilleoir has been speaking of a Northern Ireland “stimulus package” with “plenty of actions to build up the economy?” He mentioned it again this week while discussing any special budgets that may be needed to deal with Brexit, as if to be clear that the stimulus package stands alone. Will there be a brochure?
newton@irishnews.com
