The government has scored another recruitment coup for its amnesty legislation, hiring Co-Operation Ireland chair Peter Sheridan to run the investigations commission.
Few doubt he is personally qualified. If the commission is seen to deliver, an incoming Labour government would be tempted to leave it in place and amend the legislation rather than repeal it. But the schedule looks impossibly tight – perhaps a few months between the commission starting work and Keir Starmer becoming prime minister.
Sheridan was an RUC officer throughout the Troubles and a PSNI assistant chief constable. This is considered unacceptable in principle by a range of victims groups, rights bodies and legal academics, although it is unclear what difference this makes when they were implacably opposed to the legislation regardless.
It may matter more that Labour’s new shadow secretary of state, Hilary Benn, strongly believes in recruiting outsiders for contentious tasks, recently praising how this helped deliver decommissioning. Sheridan might get some international oversight, if not an international replacement.
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The Northern Ireland Investment Summit began with an announcement of 1,000 new jobs from professional services company Ernst and Young.
While this is great news, it seems incidental to the reason for the summit: exploiting dual-market access and other features of the Windsor Framework. These advantages only apply to manufacturing. Northern Ireland has fully Brexited the other three aspects of the EU single market: services, capital and labour.
As with Brexit, stories on the Windsor Framework need clarity on when to use “because of” and when to use “despite”.
Michael Gove is also a little unclear. The UK levelling-up secretary told the summit Northern Ireland can be a “Hong Kong” between the UK and the EU.
Hong Kong became a gateway to China by switching to services. An industrial powerhouse when China was closed to the world, manufacturing now accounts for less than 1 per cent of its economy.
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Sir Jeffrey Donaldson told the summit Northern Ireland needs an air link to North America to build economic ties. He failed to mention Stormont is still subsidising this link five years after losing it.
Long-haul air passenger duty was devolved in 2012 and cut to zero to save the Continental service from Belfast to Newark. Continental withdrew anyway in 2017 and an attempt to replace it by Norwegian Air failed the following year. However, the £2 million annual deduction to the block grant has continued, racking up a pointless £10 million bill.
The deduction also keeps rising – it will be £2.5m next year – because it is linked to UK-wide passenger numbers, even if not a single person departs long-haul from Northern Ireland. Naturally, we have skilled negotiation by DUP ministers to thank for this ingenious arrangement.
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The DUP is being kept out of Stormont by the influence of “a small number” of “hardline unionist opinion formers”, according to Steve Baker, minister of state at the Northern Ireland Office.
To whom might this curious phrase refer?
Blogger Jamie Bryson clearly thought it meant him, responding" “I wear the badge ‘unionist hardliner’ with pride.”
Senior figures within Orangeism and loyalism must also be contenders.
The unelected unionist with the most direct influence on the DUP is its leader in the House of Lords, Nigel Dodds, although seems unlikely Baker would think of a fellow parliamentarian in those terms.
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As Lough Neagh dies, political parties are arguing over whether the lake-bed should be acquired from the Earl of Shaftesbury and brought under public ownership.
This looks like displacement activity from confronting what really needs to be done: tackling pollution from farming, food-processing and an overloaded sewage system, none of which occurs on the earl’s feudal dominions, preposterous though his tenure may be.
Would any party in Northern Ireland ever demand farmland be taken out of use? In fairness, that question terrifies all politicians. The Dutch government collapsed two months ago largely due to an attempt to buy out polluting farmland – and it was offering above market rate.
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North Down MLA Alex Easton is threatening legal action over the closure of minor injuries units in Bangor and Newtownards.
The independent unionist, formerly of the DUP, says the South Eastern Trust is “gaslighting” his constituents by claiming services have been centralised to the Ulster Hospital in Dundonald.
“The new service at the Ulster isn’t even new, because there’s been a minor injuries unit there for years,” he said.
In reality, the new service at the Ulster is an urgent care centre, a somewhat different facility, although the Trust is hardly helping to clear up confusion. In a press statement responding to Easton’s remarks, it referred to the Ulster’s new “minor injuries unit”.
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The PSNI has occasionally run campaigns against pavement parking, most recently in 2021. In March it apparently gave up, telling journalist Shauna Corr that parking offences are “decriminalised” and “enforcement is the responsibility of the Department for Infrastructure”.
That did not stop Bangor neighbourhood officers issuing over 20 tickets for “inconsiderate parking” on pavements in Helen’s Bay last weekend, and proudly declaring it online. Good for them – but if this service can be provided for the wealthy and well-connected, why not for everyone else?
