大象传媒

拢30 billion to get something like a working Assembly before Blair toddles off into the sunset - to allow Tony to claim it his Legacy.
And when it once again falls out of bed - Tony will be able to say 'wasn't me gov I had already left'.

Cynical maybe (hope not)- but after 10 years of lies deceit and rubbish - it would fit the Governments bill.

Will Gavin Estler be mentioning the huge 拢53 billion bribe being given to Adams, Paisley & Co to get them to revive the Northern Ireland parliament with devolved powers of a kind denied to England? Yes, that's over 拢50,000 per Northern Irish household and over 拢31,000 for each person ~ adult or child!

For sceptics, here's the link to HM Treasury:

No wonder voters in England get more cynical by the day!

Why has no one ever demanded that Prostestant arms be surrendered or seen to be disposed of?

The meeting between Rev Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams looks very nice and friendly,But if you watched it on the news,There was allot you could read between the lines,Neither man looked at each other when speaking,They both had a point to make and that was it,No further forward or in any purposeful direction,There will never be any coming or going from either party,This is just going to drag on for years and years to come.

NORTHERN IRELAND: BLAIR WANTS THE PEACEFUL AGREEABILITY OF PEOPLE WHO DON'T KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON...

Sleepy minded obedients totally ignorant of the situation or what it took to get like that...

who trivialise human life for the sake of ignorant self belief and the desires to seem desirable...

Only thoroughly cultured commissioned officers could understand the socialisms and the situations...

but the way forward is via courts of dispute and negotiation not the peace of the well wishing dumbos...

In every town along the south coast of Britain their ignorant peaceful people have ruined our lives...

...in the belief that people should shut up and do what they like whilst they think about it and make money following orders education and training to seem good in their careers...

...completely trivialising the worth of our lives and arguments....and getting annoyed when awoken out of their obedience dreams and the opiated idleness of their appreciation of their emergency...rather than our causes and concerns...

We do not follow the pathetic lead of hopes and fears or beliefs and indignancy...

We only follow the lead of the practical and the knowledgeable so far as to discover what is worth it for us to do and make choices expedient to the situation...

Separation is appropriate and contractual divorces of contributing parties and accountable appropriation is usually the understood workable way forward...

Blair and Hain..think people should be drugged into compliance and agreement as a punishment for disturbing the peace...our lives are all worth more than their fatuous simple minded punishment club thinking...



BCD TLC

Hi, I'm a teacher living and working in Northern Ireland. Previously Sec.State Peter Hain had warned that if devolved government was not set up by the 26th March he would roll out a programme to end academic selection in NI. Has the DUP managed to secure a government assurance that this will not now happen? Every 大象传媒 report I've heard until now has mentioned the govt guarantee on water rates but no-one has mentioned the vastly more important subject of education! Our schools system is one of the few things we have to be really proud of here.

The Lancet 2nd Iraqi Dossier is under renewed criticism.

"Iraqi Health Ministry figures put the toll at less than 10% of the total in the survey, published in the Lancet" & the British government was "advised against publicly criticising a report estimating that 655,000 Iraqis had died due to the war" [1]

This months earlier criticism [2]

In total, this is the 3rd Lancet report which has been criticised by its peers [3]

The editor, Richard Horton, has not only questionably politicised The Lancet but undermined its reputation with dodgy research.

This dubious research with dubious motives, is on par with anti-war brigade objections to the Iraq Dossier *

* but with this rag tail bunch of agenda opportunists ... no one is really surprised (hence waning support & believability) [4]

vikingar

SOURCES:

[1]
[2]
[3] #11 /blogs/newsnight/2006/10/lancet_iraq_survey_methodology_under_fire.html
[4]

Today's power sharing deal is a great day for Northern Ireland I think with both sides prepared to work together to make the deal work. There may still be difficulties to work out but at least they are sitting down and working together for peace. I hope that this will be the start of a new beginning for Northern Ireland which has to be an opportunity grasped with both hands. It is so sad that thousands of lives have had to be lost to get where we are today. These people must never be forgotten as I am sure they will not be. I hope that progress continues to be made and the dark days are finally over and there is a bright future ahead for all.

How like a scurvy....journalist!

A truly momentous and unexpected day - and Gavin Esler has to inject a dose of pessimism in a desperate attempt to sow disagreement between Mr Paisley and Mr Kelly. Symbols, shynmbols - we are heartlily sick of symbolism in NI, Mr Esler. If you had grown up there, you would be too. Can we not, for once, echo and emphasise the optimism of Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams?

As someone who grew up during the troubles in N Ireland I do not view this as a 'historic day'. Rather than ushering in a new era of peace I regard today as the establishment of a new republican-led consensus which will inevitably lead to a united Ireland very soon.
With hindsight the British government should have 'handed over' the north to the Irish republic at the start of the troubles in order to save the pointless waste of lives during the past thirty years.

Northern Ireland as a labour dispute: the young boss class has almost by birth overtaken the ignorant bigot promoted too high...

Young boss: gets himself in trouble then gets out by taking command... outcomes world focus... inspirations of the easy life futures... a passion for potential and clever contributions... and annoyance at waste of human life and failures in understanding ...company worthy with gang gathering power...

Ignorant bigot promoted too high:
indignation and immoral angers, i'm better than you are pugnacious disgratitude at people considered inferior 'cos they've got no manners and don't know us they way we like...

With a we've been here longer than you have argument essence..just like we get in every company we meet...

Maybe established members with ethical problems need to be removed by a Department Of Ethical Training...but when we played through all the roles and administration subterfuge we realised Blairites had implemented it already!! to get rid of us and make us lower class until we wanted to blow them up ...but we followed the politics leadership of Adams...

Rumours Adams and Paisley were told by Blair they would only be allowed on British terrestrial telly if they spoke with the words of Blairism!

Are we sure like Saddam the characters are indeed original? how would we know from the adapted photos...Blair's dialogue preparations seem hypnotised!?

Now there is no political leadership to follow..only Blairism ..but fortunately we have the super company above politics as an alternative future to look forward to...where customer representation to each service ensures practical ways of getting on as we wanted rather than bizarre unknown beliefs and deliberate facetious conflict to prove who was better...

From a man exploring through common sense a future without inferior establishment conflicts degenerating those we care about...

Jill Jago makes an excellent point (3 above on 26 March). Licensed weapons in Northern Ireland reached an unprecedented level in 2005, (144,544), which has since been reduced by about 5,000. This drop appears to be partly due to the implementation of the new Firearms (NI) Order which treats the renewal of licence applications as if they were first-time applications, all requiring referees. Although no official figures are accessible, it is thought that over 90% of licensed weapons are in the hands of Protestants.

It is astonishing that there has never been a moritorium on the granting of licences, ever at the height of the "Troubles", especially since NI is the second most heavily armed population in the world - Brazil occupying first place.

Even at this time of a fragile detente between the DUP and Sinn Fein, we should always bear in mind there has never been formal decommissioning of loyalist weapons or the requirement to hand in their licensed weapons.

Let me close with a warning from Sam Duddy, a leading loyalist. When asked by the 大象传媒's Hugh Sykes in May 2005 how loyalists respond to a democratic movement towards a united Ireland, Duddy was unequivocal: "I envisage loyalists and Unionists taking up arms". No problem, they have the weapons, all of them licensed... Only the IRA's weapons have been decommissioned.

The pact between Sinn Fein and the DUP has to hold...

No web broadcast. Methinks someone did not set the time properly to adjust for BST.

Jill Jago wrote: "Why has no one ever demanded that Prostestant arms be surrendered or seen to be disposed of?"

Forty years on and there's still a bewildering lack of understanding in the rest of the UK as to what's been going on in N.Ireland. Protestants were not armed any more than Catholics were armed. The guns and bombs belonged to either Republicans or Loyalists whose activities were an anathema to both Protestants and Catholics alike.

For the record, one of the Loyalist factions - the LVF - were the first to decommission some of its weapons and did so in front of TV cameras.

However, the greatest act of decommissioning in the entire process took place today - the decommissioning of the Peter Hain. Perhaps Mr. Hain will go away and take his penal, unjust and half baked legislative agenda to a part of the country where his party has the good grace to offer up such tripe to the electorate.

The NI Peace Settlement achieved by the British Prime Minister (started by ex PM John Major) is one of the few positive legacies of Tony Blair *

* trust we do not discover than in order to secure this peace (dates 'coinciding' with the end of this premiership) Tony Blair performed another 'political alchemy' trick whereby a true solid settlement became nothing more than a hollow unworkable compromise agreement.

Hay Ho !

vikingar

Re.No. 17: Steve Mac - It seems there is also a bewildering lack of understanding among people in NI too!.
The point I think Jill was making is that the IRA have deciommissioned, the Loyalists have not. The Loyalists who, if not in the past , certainly today are much more about organised criminality than ideology still have their arsenal.
'For the record' the LVF decommissioning of a handful of WWII rifles was an unashameded and undeniable publicity stunt. They have not handed a single bullet over since. This from organisations who claimed to only exist because the IRA did and who would disband when they did. The Government's solution has been to offer a 拢1million bribe to them to disband!

I dont think its true to say Republican and Loyalist violence was an anathema to both Protestants and Catholics alike. No terrorist organsiation can survive without a significant degree of support from the community, both communities. Although in fairness,Sinn Fein are now acceptable to the middle class Catholic electorate because they have renounced violence.

Peter Hain's strategy of extortion was pretty clearly stated. The stick of Water Charges and Academic selection with the carrot of a financial package. Maybe the ends justified the means but I think we'll see Water Charges dropped now as a result and thus helping create a 'Feel good factor' to aid the process.