Secretary of state Hilary Benn has brought fresh harmony to Stormont by uniting Sinn Féin and the DUP against him. In a keynote speech to mark one year since devolution was restored, Benn bluntly informed the executive to get on with public sector reform and stop using lack of money as an excuse.
The furious reaction from the two main parties showed this had “struck a nerve”, to quote SDLP leader Claire Hanna. Sinn Féin was able to take a straightforward republican line of ‘how dare London tell us what to do’.
That was not really an option for the DUP, so it raged against Benn’s comments on the Windsor Framework instead. The most strangulated unionist response was from UUP leader Mike Nesbitt, who warned Benn not to “go down the route” of prime minister Harold Wilson’s infamous ‘spongers’ speech during the 1974 Ulster Workers’ Council strike.
Read more: Stormont’s unionist majority won’t be coming back, Mr Benn - The Irish News view
This was an absurd comparison. The facts are that Stormont has enough money, it has always had enough money, it received an extraordinary 9% increase in its budget last year, and even the extra money it claims to need it could immediately raise by increasing rates to standard UK levels.
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Sinn Féin has reshuffled its executive team following Conor Murphy’s departure to the Seanad, bringing first-time minister Liz Kimmins in to replace John O’Dowd at the Department for Infrastructure.
O’Dowd has moved to finance, leaving behind his policy to fund NI Water through a developer levy on new houses. It might be expected this will make little difference, as any credible alternative to domestic water charges should be a flagship party policy.
However, since O’Dowd first revealed his plan in the assembly last April, it has become painfully obvious that Sinn Féin itself never mentions it. No party statement or document ever boasts of having a solution to the thorny problem of water funding.
Read more: NI Water pauses major works in Belfast due to ‘significant funding challenges’
So is the policy just a diversion? Is Sinn Féin serious, but too wary of criticism from developers to promote the idea?
Kimmins’s enthusiasm, or lack thereof, should bring some clarity to these questions.
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It is a “scandal” that Queen’s University Belfast is opening a campus in India while seeking voluntary redundancies at home, according to the University and College Union, the trade union for academics.
This seems a little harsh. Queen’s is being transparent about its plans and its need to generate revenue abroad to subsidise Belfast. The new campus has been developed with Indian partners and will offer courses tailored to the Indian economy, in India.
Contrast that with Ulster University’s three fast-growing ‘branch campuses’ in London, Birmingham and Manchester. They are marketed at overseas students and specialise in short business courses. With 10,000 students paying £20,000 a year, the three sites must be bringing in £200 million of almost pure profit.
However, I have to make that estimate myself as Ulster excludes the branch campuses from its published accounts, on the grounds they are a joint venue with a separate course provider.
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Sinn Féin is coming around to Stormont reform. In December, it joined the DUP to block a review of the veto power of large parties to collapse devolution.
The review was proposed by the SDLP at Stormont’s reform committee. Last week, Sinn Féin brought the same proposal back to the committee, where it passed with only the DUP opposed.
Reviewing the veto does not mean it will be abolished. In reality, any serious reform requires cross-community consent. But Sinn Féin’s change of position remains significant, reflecting the shifting balance in Northern Ireland politics.
The DUP reversed its long-standing opposition to mandatory coalition after Sinn Féin became the largest party in 2022. Now it seems Sinn Féin is heading in the opposition direction.
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Questions are being asked about how a football pitch at Lisneal College in Derry was replaced at a cost of £710,000, while schools in far more urgent need of repair are falling apart.
DUP education minister Paul Givan has rejected accusations from other parties of political influence and the Education Authority has issued a statement explaining the new pitch was a routine minor project in the works since 2019.
Alas, it had to issue another statement correcting a mistake and other points remain unexplained.
The good news for Givan is that the whole saga is within the normal range of Education Authority incompetence. Nothing much worse need necessarily have occurred.
The bad news is that Givan can hardly say that about the main agency under his department, especially after appointing two former DUP ministers to its board.
Perhaps the most suspicious circumstance is that the first statement was issued at 11pm on a Friday night, a time that can only be connected to Education Authority working hours via an interdimensional wormhole.
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During the strange ‘shadow executive’ period of 2022, when the assembly had collapsed but the executive lingered on, DUP agriculture and environment minister Edwin Poots was able to pass a law by himself reducing fines for farmers who commit repeated pollution offences.
Read more: Assembly to vote on reversing Edwin Poots’ relaxation of environmental penalties imposed on farmers
Other parties criticised him for this after the pollution crisis struck a year later in Lough Neagh. All parties have called for that crisis to be addressed.
Yet when Andrew Muir, Poots’s Alliance successor, tried to reinstate the fines he was blocked by the three other executive parties in the assembly, with the SDLP abstaining.
Members fell over themselves to warn farmers might be bankrupted over innocent mistakes, albeit obvious and extremely smelly mistakes made with some effort over and over again.
Special mention must go to UUP deputy leader Robbie Butler, who twice during the debate said farmers “want to be green, but they cannot be green if they are in the red”.
Does he not think this issue makes people queasy enough?
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Perhaps the most suspicious circumstance is that the first statement was issued at 11pm on a Friday night, a time that can only be connected to Education Authority working hours via an interdimensional wormhole
Sinn Féin councillors have asked for Belfast City Hall to be illuminated for what they have called ‘Irish National Day’ - the Republic’s National Day of Commemoration, which is on the Sunday nearest July 11 and this year would be on July 13.
The City Hall is usually lit up orange and purple on July 12.
No doubt Sinn Féin would declare this to be an exercise in equality rather than pot-stirring. No doubt unionists would accept that gracefully and not try stirring in return: Commonwealth Day often falls within a day or two St Patrick’s Day, for example.
Nevertheless, it might be best not to replace the expensive illumination system, which council officials say has reached the end of its service life. City Hall has taken down its flag only to turn itself into an enormous glowing flag.
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