Talking to the Council
No, not one of the eleven new super councils. Instead I am thinking of commenter Susie Flood's 12th council, the one still ruling the IRA. Tony Blair's Chief of Staff, Jonathan Powell, writes in his book, serialised in today's Guardian, about the PM offering to talk to the masked men of the IRA Army Council. Gerry Adams would always say the "time was not quite right, and maybe we should do it later".
Hard not to wonder whether the main reason for avoiding such face to balaclava talks was that some of the muffled voices might have sounded awfully familiar to the PM?
Jonathan Powell is not naive. He also writes "of course we knew some of the people we were talking to as Sinn Fein leaders were also leaders of the IRA". But he adds "the two organisations were different. There wasn't a complete overlap in their membership and their political imperatives were not the same. Some in the physical force republican movement were not politically subtle and some in Sinn Fein were not engaged in physical violence."
So, in offering to meet the IRA Army Council, was the PM simply covering all possible bases, or buying too much into the notion of "hawks and doves" within the republican movement?
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In my opinion Jonathan Powell is nothing more than an attention seeker. How did he get the job as chief of staff? I think by publishing books could do more harm than good and then give people like Jim Allister (BOWEN) some propaganda.
In my opinion Jonathan Powell is naive. By writing "of course we knew some of the people we were talking to as Sinn Fein leaders were also leaders of the IRA". Sure the whole country knows that. I think this is a clear case of publishing a book in order to raise a few pound. After all who else would employ Jonathan Powell...? The circus