Deja Vu All Over Again
Back on May 29th the Assembly debated the pressing issue of fuel poverty. Members began discussing the matter between 4.15pm and 4.30pm. Just after 5.45pm, members supported the Ulster Unionist motion "That this Assembly calls on the Minister for Social Development to review the strategy for the eradication of fuel poverty, particularly amongst pensioner households and households with children."
It's a bit surprising then that on the provisional order paper circulated amongst the parties for next Tuesday the UUP is wanting to debate exactly the same issue with exactly the same motion. The Alliance Deputy Leader Naomi Long has called on the Ulster Unionists to withdraw the motion immediately. 鈥淭here are so many groups lobbying local MLAs who want their concerns raised in the Assembly" she says "to be debating exactly the same motion again is disappointing and reflects very badly on those who proposed it. Whilst we recognise that it is vitally important to tackle the issue of fuel poverty, the UUP should not be proposing the same motion twice. I hope that this is merely an administrative oversight from the UUP, and not evidence that they have run out of fresh ideas so soon after the summer recess.鈥
Perhaps a substitute motion could be drafted in the style of the great baseball player Yogi Berra, who uttered the words " It's deja vu all over again".
UPDATE: The motion's proposer Roy Beggs Jr. says his party has deliberately brought this issue back to the Chamber because the Social Development Minister has failed to conduct the review called for in May. Strange they didn't change the wording of the motion to reflect this...
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Mark
UUP BORROW BOYS
It is no surprise that the UUP (Utterly Useless Party) has tripped itself up by tabling again a motion on fuel poverty that was debated in the Assembly in May. The UUP is a Party wholly bereft of independent or original thought. Its MLAs have become so used to plagiarizing other Parties鈥 speeches and ideas that they have now gone completely dolally and started cribbing from their own material which was probably pirated from somebody else in the first place.
The UUP - What a waste of political space!
Susie
Carryduff
Amusing comments Susie - cheap, but amusing.
Just to get the chronology right:
May 07 - all-party support for UUP fuel poverty motion in the Assembly calling for review of the (failing) fuel poverty strategy. (Susie is, of course, wrong on this - the motion was not merely debated: it was passed.)
4 months later ... and nothing has happened.
So, Sept 07 UUP put down same motion as the clearest possible illustration that nothing has happened.
We have an Assembly wasting its time and taxpayers' money debating non-binding motions. That is the real problem which the fuel poverty motion illustrates.
But, as Susie so obviously illustrates, why allow real politics to get in the way of cheap partisanship?
I would like as much as anybody for the UUP to form an effective opposition, ideally standing shoulder to shoulder with the SDLP. I think if they market themselves to the middle-classes, they will do well.
But they need to get the basics right here. Is there nobody who's been through all this before can give them a bit of advice now and then?
They need to re-assess just how badly damaged they are before trying to play politics and being made to look stupid (again).
And there's no point in any UUP members or supporters coming on to try to explain what they were really trying to achieve.
It's not important. What is depressingly important for the UUP is that they can't keep up and are struggling to learn.
Good luck, Reg.
Oh, and an economic policy asap please.