There we have it, austerity is the price of the union.
The sacrificial Sinn Féin slogan that encapsulates the sacrifice they were forced into – the reality, their capitulation to the Tories for a Fresh Start. Actually it’s quite good. I have to give it to them they have a great press team, their ability reminds me of the fairytale of Rumpelstiltskin and the miller’s daughter who could spin straw into gold.
However, let’s deal with the reality. SF have rolled over to the Tories, make no mistake about that.
Handing back power until December 2016 to Westminster, where just to remind you, they don’t take their seats, rendering them useless, is allowing the Tory government to pass legislation without the scrutiny of the north’s MLAs to impede them. What are Sinn Féin thinking of? Have they completely lost the plot?
At the very least one would have expected that the experienced negotiators would have achieved some significant concession from the British government in return for such a conciliatory gesture from Sinn Féin. No, it appears not.
Unless of course – now I hasten to add I am only speculating –there was a dirty little secret deal done. Let’s face it both the British government and Sinn Féin have form when it comes to this.
If, and I say if, this was the case, it would have to be something really big in order for Sinn Féin to take the humiliation of having agreed that Westminster should legislate for us. As it is, it appears that Sinn Féin have indeed been outwitted by the British.
As usual and of no surprise the victims once again have been ignored, no agreement could be reached. I have to question whether there is any real conviction from SF in relation to this.
Here was their very real opportunity and yet they failed to deliver.
The Tories were pushing for a deal, asap. Now we know why given Osborne’s autumn statement.
The DUP wanted it finalised before their conference so that Robinson could leave on a positive note.
So why, oh why, was there not a deal hammered out that would force the British government to remove their blanket of national security from their bill on dealing with the past? This is absolutely paramount to getting justice for all those killed during the Troubles. That and the IRA being completely honest about their role, now there indeed might lieth the problem.
DENISE JOHNSTON
Magherafelt, Co Derry
Destructive damage in Syria shouldn’t be brushed off
A fundamental question in the parliamentary debate on Syrian air strikes was not faced and will not be faced because it would call into question the whole enterprise.
How many Syrian civilians are likely to be killed? Of course, the answer is uncertain but some sort of estimate has not been made, at least publicly. Already the US has dropped almost 3,000 bombs on Syria and since September France has joined the campaign. How many civilians have they killed? We do not know, nor do the American and French governments offer us any figures.
Curiously, however, we do have an estimate of the number killed by the Russian air strikes since September. According to a couple of anti-Assad Syrian groups, it is 400 to 500, including about 100 children. Yet there are no corresponding figures for US-French attacks.
There is nothing new in this. The attack on Iraq that began in 2003 led to massive numbers of civilians deaths. According to an academic study in 2013, it was 461,000. The Lancet has given a figure of over 600,000, and some others have put it at more than a million. There was no proportionality here between Iraqi and western mortality.
If we in the west really value Iraqi and Syrian lives, we should be demanding of our governments that they give us estimates of the numbers they have killed or are likely to kill by going to war in these countries. Such enormous destructive potential should not be brushed off in the manner of US Commander Tommy Franks: “We don’t do body counts”.
If, during the Troubles, the British government had contemplated bombing Dundalk because many IRA members used it as a base, there would have been an outcry – not least because of the number of innocent people who were likely to be killed.
In the light of such glaring double standards, is it altogether surprising that many young Islamic radicals are not well disposed to some western societies or the lives of our citizens?
BRIAN McCLINTON
Lisburn, Co Antrim
Fascists not welcome
The pathetic attendance at the Protestant Coalition’s march and rally on Saturday at Belfast City Hall against the resettlement of Syrian families proves this motley assortment of self-publicists has no mandate, no support and no place in our society.
Aligned on the fringes of unionism, and with right-wing extremists, its a racist, xenophobic, psuedo Christian cabal which professes fundalmentalist Christian values but in reality has an isolationist, neo-conservative agenda – the antipathy of Christ’s teachings.
They refuse sanctuary to a meagre few families fleeing war as refugees, whose world has totally changed to danger, fear and uncertainty. In fact the only reality they face is continued insecurity death destruction and loss.
Civil society here has failed the test of humanity by failing to challenge on the streets the lies deceit and betrayal of the Protestant Coalition. Only the Anti-Fascist Action group heard the call to defend those in need of our charity, support and brotherly love.While the DUP votes to create more refugees and the racist Protestant Coalition march to demand they stay in the middle East to be killed.
I say open the borders. To the psuedo Christians I say, feed My flock.
FRA HUGHES
Belfast BT15
Death penalty restored
In 2004 the 13th Protocol to the European Convention on Human Rights prohibited the UK from restoring the death penalty yet on December 2 the British Parliament voted for the death penalty for the residents of Syria.
This so-called ‘precision targeted bombing’ is nothing short of a fallacy as videos of distraught parents pulling their lifeless little children from the rubble in both Syria and Iraq have proven time and time again. The belief that peace can be achieved by killing more of ‘them’ than they kill of ‘us’ is the policy of the dark ages in which military might comes out on top irrespective of right, wrong, fairness, justice or humanitarianism.
DAMIEN GC DEVANEY
Larne, Co Antrim
Lazy way to fight a war
World leaders need to unite to put enough soldiers on the ground to target Islamic State members in their strongholds. Carpet bombing of Syria in the hope of picking off a few IS members here and there is the lazy man’s way to fight the war in which the main victims will be thousands of innocent men, women and children. A whole generation will be wiped out. There must be a better way. I am not saying there isn’t a problem. I know there is because I was in Paris on the weekend of the attack.
We must urge our politicians to think of more creative ways of dealing with the problem and not always falling back on old failed methods.
MARY BURNS
Co Down
Sad reflection of society
With the High Court judgment on NI abortion provision going against human rights does this now place children with life-limiting illnesses in extreme danger or does it show that modern society in reality views them as mediorities and a burden on the health system?
Given that the usual pro-choice calls from the Republic, now stating that this doesn’t go far enough, shows that this is a reality that only now dare raises its profile to cast a most unsavoury reflection on our new, sophisticated society? How sad, how demonic and how true.
JDP MCALLION
Clonoe, Co Tyrone
