Secretary of state Brandon Lewis insists his comments were misrepresented after he gave ITV’s Robert Peston an interview the night before the election.
When Peston asked if there will be a ‘Single Market 2’ bill in Tuesday’s Queen’s speech, allowing ministers to switch off parts of the protocol, Lewis replied “we’ve not said that” and offered platitudes on protecting the Good Friday Agreement, negotiating with the EU and only taking further steps if necessary.
Those platitudes have been London’s consistent line. However, the government allowed two weeks of media reports plus a heavy hint from Brexit opportunities minister Jacob Rees-Mogg to imply a bill would be in the speech. The DUP began depending on this ahead of the election, so Lewis appeared to be throwing the party under the bus.
Given the secretary of state’s frantic clarifications after the broadcast, it seems this was cock-up rather than conspiracy. The government should not have put its constructive ambiguity under a TV spotlight hours before the polls opened. But when would have been a good time to reveal there will be no bill? Admitting it in the five days between the election and the speech would have been made the DUP appear negligent or even complicit in duping its own voters. Thursday’s Spectator reported there will be a bill to “protect the Good Friday Agreement” instead.
Assembly Election Results
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When Jayne Brady was appointed head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service last June there were hopes her private sector and engineering backgrounds would bring a new broom to Stormont’s bureaucracy.
Following media pressure, she has responded to the whistleblower scandal at the Department of Agriculture, which saw a senior vet hounded out of her job then chased through the courts for years before being awarded £1.25 million.
Brady is commissioning an “independent review” along with the heads of the departments of agriculture and finance. If this finds any breach of the civil service code of ethics or discipline policy “those procedures must also be operated with full confidentiality”.
At this point in a civil service story it is traditional to mention Yes, Minister’s Sir Humphrey Appleby. Perhaps Trigger from Only Fools and Horses is more appropriate. After 20 years of changing the head and handle on his broom, it was still the same broom. The council then gave him a medal for saving money.
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Sinn Féin has defended a letter it sent to hardline republican group Saoradh in 2020 inviting it to join the campaign for a border poll. Any engagement in politics would have moved the dissidents away from violence, the party says.
The same consideration should be given to unionist parties meeting the Loyalist Communities Council over the protocol. There is no ethical difference - the main difference is that loyalist engagement has had a measure of success. The LCC was instrumental in ending protocol-linked rioting last year and preventing its recurrence. Some republican condemnation of dealing with the LCC is so hypocritical it can appear the success is the problem.
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Stormont’s ‘spend local’ voucher scheme was enormously wasteful, according to research by Queen’s University Belfast. Most of the £136 million leaked out of the local economy via supermarket chains, or was spent with businesses unaffected by Covid, or was saved or used to pay off debt.
The experience should be a warning for the energy grants most parties pledged in their manifestos. Handing out equal sums of cash to the entire population is an idea economists only consider under a handful of esoteric circumstances. Even the epidemic was not extraordinary enough in the end to warrant it. While many people in Northern Ireland are struggling with their bills, many others are not. Only the former require assistance.
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Belfast’s Radisson Blu is flirting with a public relations disaster after its operators objected to a social housing proposal, telling council planners “we do not want to have a four-star hotel with public access to its environs to be in the middle of a housing estate.”
The objection was made by Inislyn Ltd, a Belfast firm that operates the hotel and a nearby office building in the Gasworks site. It cited constant anti-social behaviour and “incursions” by youths from the vacant land earmarked for housing. There is no doubt this has caused serious problems, including insurance issues. However, there would be no surer way to stop it than by filling the vacant land with the proposed high-quality homes. This is as close as town planning has to a physical law, as anyone who lives near a former bonfire site can attest.
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There are over 70 Irish passport offices in Northern Ireland, operating through Post Offices - exactly the same system that operates in the Republic. That has not stopped Sinn Féin demanding “an Irish passport office in the north”, nor has ridicule on social media over its apparent misunderstanding. Figures this week revealed there are more Irish passports being issued in Northern Ireland than British passports. Sinn Féin responded this “highlights the clear need for a passport office in the north”, when it highlights the opposite - the 70 existing offices are doing a great job.
What Sinn Féin really wants is a highly visible Irish government office in Northern Ireland. It would be less ridiculous to just say so.
