Ten things to emerge from last night’s leaders debate:
- Arlene’s lipstick was on crooked, so when she spoke there was a suggestion of Humphrey Bogart and “Here’s lookin’ at you, sweetheart’. Is somebody getting paid to do her make-up? Or is there a make-up mole in there, intent on damaging the DUP leader?
- Mike Nesbitt got the sound-bite of the night. Responding to Arlene’s 5-point plan, he suggested it should be 5-word: ‘Do not mention Peter Robinson’. Arlene did her best to come back with talk of remembering 1998 when unionism was a pushover (sub-text: thanks to you spineless UUP gits).
- Noel Thompson missed the chance of the night to get a very important answer. He asked it twice but both times Arlene danced away and Thompson gave up. It was of course “If Martin McGuinness were elected First Minister, would you serve in the Executive with him?” So that’s both Simon Hamilton and Arlene Foster who are iffy about democracy if it delivers the wrong answer.
- All of the parties expressed concern over Health, and the need to take politics out of Health (whatever that means). David Ford made the wry observation that the DUP were so concerned over Health, last time out they made it their ninth pick of the Ministerial portfolios.
- The matter of gay blood left Arlene looking kinda isolated. She talked about matters ‘around the risk issue’ but sounded seriously unconvincing. Mike Nesbitt told Noel Thompson he’d accept his blood and he hoped Thompson would accept his, which was interesting but irrelevant. Except I’ve missed something?
- “I will not allow the past to be re-written in any way!” Arlene said several times. I’m pretty sure she meant that no one was going to tell her the IRA and other republican paramilitaries were anything but a bunch of murderers. But maybe not. Maybe she just wanted her electorate to think that and act accordingly on Thursday.
- Martin McGuinness said he worked with Ian Paisley, who was his friend, Peter Robinson, who was a friend of the peace process (get that?) and Arlene Foster who was a friend of the peace process. At which point Arlene smirked. Bet her electorate got that one.
- Martin McGuinness told Colum Eastwood that he, McGuinness, was going into government post-election, while the SDLP were maybe/maybe not. Eastwood responded with a dig about Sinn Féin not going into government in the south, which got a big laugh and cheer (presumably from Colum’s supporters).
- A young man in the audience complained he’d been cut off at the last televised debate from asking about the promised Irish Language Act, so he’d now like to ask…Alas, wel’ll never know what because Noel cut him off. Groundhog Day. Or Lá Collach Talun (I think).
- There were several efforts to pin down Martin McGuinness for saying he wanted Britain to come clean about its involvement in the dirty war, while himself having refused to divulge IRA information when he appeared at the Savile Inquiry hearings. “That was then, this is now” Martin retorted. Not the most convincing answer of the night.
In the Spin Room (yes, Virginia, very brazen name for a room), Jim Allister wanted to pump £130 million into Health instead of using it on “useless cross-border bodies”. A GP gave the night’s most vivid statistic: if you’re living at the bottom of the Lisburn Road you’ll die ten years earlier than someone living at the top of said road. Suzanne Breen (Indo) said that Martin McGuinness was very dull with a single transferable speech; Brian Feeney (Irish News/VO) said that McGuinness was the dominant figure in the debate – avuncular, statesmanlike, looking to the future. They were both wrong: McGuinness was considerably more than a single transferable speech (though there were hints of it occasionally) but it was one of his less statesmanlike performances.
How would I rate them? Well, I’d prefer to fail them all – the hour was mind-warpingly tedious – but here goes.
Mike Nesbitt: Got his sound-bite early, made Arlene sound unsettled occasionally. 8
David Ford: didn’t make any gaffes but didn’t say anything memorable either. Sidelined in the debate. 5
Arlene Foster: Fairly mature performance – appears to have settled into new job. But caught on the gay blood thing and dodged the serve-under-McGuinness question. 7
Colum Eastwood: feisty, eager not to sound boyish, spoke too quickly. Got in dig re Sinn Féin inconsistency cross-border but creaked a bit in bid to sound fully adult. 6
Martin McGuinness: avuncular but not always comfortable uncle. Straddled past (need for British to come clean) with future (need to work together to improve things generally). Even though it was asked by Nesbitt and then by an audience member, handled awkward question re Savile non-revelations with some poise. Is beginning to assume a bulldog expression, patented over 70 years ago by Winston C; may be in breach of copyright law. 7
Overall, dull ninety minutes that I’ll never get back again. Fresh Start televisually? I think not.
I didn’t watch it, as I was otherwise engaged so have only read this and the Irish Times piece
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/lively-and-sharp-ni-assembly-debate-without-it-being-too-nasty-1.2633776
It does seem that ‘normal’ politics is starting to creep into the (six) County Council on the hill, which I suppose is something to be thankful for. Having seen Martin McGuinness on telly during the 1916 Commemorations & SF Ard Fheis, I thought he looked tired and knackered, particularly in comparison with the ebullient Adams. I guess Martin has to deal with the DUP on a daily basis, which is going to take it out of the best of us. It’s a wearying and thankless job he has, and I think he deserves the gratitude of everyone for maintaining the peace that younger people here now take for granted. Maith an fear.
The best part was the post debate discussion where UKIP David McNarry made an eejit out of himself again.
Apparently his manifesto pledges to end waiting lists entirely for hospital appointments but there is no strategy at all, like literally nothing, to achieve this great dream.
It was amusing watching him obfuscate. Not as bad as the other week when he was going to deport doctors for not paying parking tickets but still quite bad.
Does anybody else find these young people they get on these programs very samey and increasingly tiresome. They all sing from the same hymn sheet ‘ these politicians don’t talk to me’
‘They keep talking about the past and we need to look to the future’
I found myself saying last night to the TV ‘ awk fuck up you whinny spolit brats, 3700 people were murdered & 10,000 seriously injured in a geographical area the size of a postage stamp, of course they talk about the past!!!’
The debate is set to be pushed off the news agenda today though because Gerry had revealed, unbeknownst to anybody else, that he founded the Civil rights association!!!!
Antonio
Yes it’s true. Gerry founded NICRA before he never joined the IRA.
People don’t remember him doing it because back then he was black.
jude, that remark about about Arlene’s lipstick was sexist and totally out of character for you. I think that newsreaders should read the news in the nude but I would expect better from you. A fair and astute summing up with nary a hint of bias.
I expect to be put in the Morality stocks at dawn, fiosrach…
Jude, I would also criticise your criticism that Arlene’s lipstick was put on crooked.
You expect far too much from the make-up artist who finds it impossible to put the lippy straight on a crooked mouth!
Sexist you say???!!! HYSTERIA ALERT!, HYSTERIA ALERT! *Flashing lights* OFF WITH JUDE’S HEAD NOW!! SEXISM MUST BE EXTERMINATED!!
lol sorry I couldn’t help myself but that’s society’s usual reaction but I would like to think commentators on here have an IQ above 80 and can think for themselves and be considerate of other’s opinions/views without ridiculous accusations of sexism or whatever. Of course if someone is bluntly sexist then let their views be aired, debated and criticized if need be, regardless of their gender.
I am sorry to say I missed the whole thing so didn’t see. Was it crooked or smudged?
Come to think of it there was a wee stain on Martin’s collar. Hmmm…!
Any dandruff?
Pointis, I think Gerry is the flakey one!
Gio,
I am smiling as I type this, have you a hang up on Gerry Adams?
Last week there were conspiracy theories doing the rounds about Zionists owning all the media and the banks etc have you got the same thing going with Gerry?
I can understand you being able to get him in on the conversation about Ken Livingstone but Mother of all that is good how can you work him in on Arlene’s lipstick?
The more I thought about this the more I laughed, do you think Gerry might have jumped out of a wardrobe behind her when she was applying her finishing touches before the show?
There is usually a reason why someone has an fixation about another individual. To be fair you are not in the same league as Maria Cahill in that I don’t think anyone reading her posts could be in any doubt that she detests the man and your posts don’t reflect hatred just sarcasm and a very regular pot shot.
So what is the story?
Genuine dislike for Gerry Adams is usually confined to, loyalists, Orange Order, Royal Black Perceptory, Royal Purple Purple Perceptory, DUP, UUP, TUV, PUP, UKIP, EIRIGI, FIANNA FAIL, FIANNA GAEL, IRISH INDO, IRISH TIMES, IRISH LABOUR, IRISH WATER, 32 COUNTY SOVEREIGNTY MOVEMENT, IRISH NETWORK FOR UNITY, REPUBLICAN SINN FEIN, Willie Frazier and Maria Cahill.
I am not being nasty or mean spirited I am just genuinely interested and I hope you don’t take it the wrong way!
Pointis
No problem, its a fair question.
I don’t think I drag Gerry into every comment, though maybe it seems that way.
Its just that Jude’s coverage is almost invariably so uncritical of Sinn Fein that I can’t help myself sometimes.
Also it is Gerry more than Martin you are quite right.
McGuinness seems more honest to me and more down to earth. I cannot imagine him tweeting the nonsense that Gerry comes out with.
Adams as we all know is widely considered to be lying about one of the most significant parts of his life and activities from that period; for example the issues around Jean McConville and Mairia Cahill.
I find it insulting to be fed shit and told that is sugar.
It is the determination of some to keep maintaining the (what I see as) fiction that demands to be challenged.
Maybe, like Jude, I am a bit contrary.
Thanks for answering that question Gio, you would have been well within your rights to ignore it.
There is a niche in the market for an apathymeter. The turnout at the election will tell its own tale and therein remains the problem of our democratic deficit. The Good Friday Agreement was approved by voters in Ireland in two referenda held on 22 May 1998. In the north of Ireland, voters were asked whether they supported the multi-party agreement. In the 26 counties, voters were asked whether they would allow the state to sign the agreement and allow necessary constitutional changes to facilitate such proposals. In 2016 we have petitions of concern in the north of Ireland and horse trading in the other 26 counties.
The proceedings last night confirmed a history of poor administration since 1998 with the British Government in a supervisory role. Sham fights about the role of First Minister and Deputy First Minister remain a distraction from underlying problems, as articulated by the GP who gave the night’s most relevant statistic concerning evidence of health inequalities.
There was a clarion call to take politics out of health care. What utter nonsense. Health care is a political issue and the views of clinicians are ignored on a daily basis. There was no attempt made to discuss the concentration of wealth which results in health systems that give priority to private patients. Recent events in the north of Ireland confirm the fact that if a woman has the means, she may secure termination of a pregnancy without facing a criminal prosecution.
The question about the Irish language was dismissed out of hand on the basis of time constraints and there was no attempt to engage in a serious debate about legacy issues. A dynamic politician would have subjected Theresa May’s statement about events in Hillsborough 1989 to serious scrutiny during the debate.
“No-one should have to fight year after year, decade after decade, in search of the truth.”
Sham fights reflect the fact that real power is exercised at Westminster and local politicians remain content to delegate difficult decisions to Mr Cameron et al and therein lies the source of the problem. A reconfiguration of the legislative assembly will facilitate more petitions of concern and stifle debate about the concentration of political power at Stormont, the reality of unemployment, economic migration, poverty and health inequalities throughout the country.
I found the whole thing a depressing downer Jude…unemployment..young male suicide..kids leaving in their thousands….serious educational under achievement among State schools or young Protestant fellas…Drugs on every fkin corner..all seemed to be non issues…..
Her lip stick !,!!!!!!!! oh who the fk cares about her fkin lipstick
I know, Jude, I know. Your last sentence is what the present Mrs C said, almost to a syllable. All that you mention is important. But they did talk about some stuff that is also important. And some that isn’t. My main charge would be that it was dull and unenlightening. First rule of communication: engage your audience. zzzzzzz….
Jude, joking aside…..I actually think Jude W and fiosrach might burn you at the stake then scatter your ashes to the wind if you mention Arlenes lipstick again……
Bloody hell Jude W and fiosrach he mentioned her bloody lipstick, he wasn’t calling for Arlene to be padlocked to the cooker and to the sink! Get a bloody life, both of you lol
I agree with much of your analysis, Jude. However, I found Arlene to be ignorant, confrontational and uneasy. I find her demeanour very off putting as though its her way or no way. Huffing and puffing her way through the debate.
Noel Thompson wasn’t as critical and inquisitive as he could have been. Perhaps, Tara Mills would have made a better presenter?
I found the whole think dull and much of the societal issues we face were ignored. The party’s seem quite intent on not promoting their policies to win over the electorate but undermining the other party’s policies and win cheap political shots. Perhaps the highlights of the night were the party’s aligned ideologically were attacking each other – but after a while this becomes boring.
I chatted with a group of first time voters this morning and we ranted for an hour about the debate. Not one positive comment was made amongst our new generation of voters. The word embarrassing was used a few times and within that hour a more sensible conversation emerged. Jobs, Education, University places, their future – not even / hardly even mentioned last night. This idea the last executive created 40,000 new jobs – an important question I was asked – how many jobs were lost in the sitting of the executive? What types of jobs were brought to the North? With continual cuts to budgets in education, further and higher education, why stay in the North?
Now if that opener, Esteemed Blogmeister, doesn’t end up ranking right up there along with ‘It was the best of times, it was the worst of times’ and ‘ Last night I dreamed I went to Manderley again’ and ‘In a hole in the ground there lived a hobbit’ one will surely eat one’s deerstalker.
-Arlene’s lipstick was on crooked.
Unlike yourself the name which first entered one’s mind (?) was not that of H. Bogart but rather than of C. Francis. Chanadh Connie trath / Connie used to sing :
-Bet your bottom dollar you and I are through
‘Cause lipstick on your collar told a tale on you, yeah’.
What on e. was going down here? Was Arlene still going through her Darlene Edwards phase and lampooning the old hit of, c.f., C.F. ?
-You said it belonged to me, which made me stop and think
Then I noticed yours was red, mine was baby pink
Who walked in but Mary Jane, lipstick all a-mess
Where you smooching my best friend, guess the answer’s yes.
Hmmmmm.
Is there more to this than meets the kisser ? Arlene / Darlene , after all, did split from her first love, the droopy UUP. And then, this mysterious reference to ‘baby pink’. Does this mean she may well be about to do a runner on the hitherto dashing DUP and hightail it to the welcoming arms of the philandering PBP ?
One thing is sure, such an opener would scarcely have passed muster with the Sexist Busters who patrol the main drags of medialand down here in the Free Southern Stateeen. Where even a less than glowing reference to the eyeliner of, say, Panti Bliss, is frowned upon.
Moving on: was the N-word given a mench during the debate? It certainly hasn’t gone away down here, you know.
Yesterday, Lord Toady of Toady.fm (aka Matt Cooper of Today.fm) gave the topically tropical issue another airing, when he invited Deaglan de Breaduin (late of The Unionist Times) and from the Sindo came (gulp) Cutie Ruthie all dressed up in her distinctive Edwardian duds.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, the quote of the show came from the lips of the latter(being a wireless show one is unaware if RDE was wearing lipstick, and if so, whether it was, erm, lopsided or not):
-I know, if I was an African American I would be furious with Gerry Adams !
Eh?
And there was The Perkin thinking all along she actually was.
As for the other impartial contributor, Deaglan de Breaduin, one listened, and listened, alas, in vain to his drawing a parallel between the use of the equivalent of the N-word south of the Black Sow’s Dyke . That would be to the G-word – Gaeilgeoir. In Norneverland it would probably translate as the L-word, a speaker of Leprechaun.
One suspects that the G-word is spoken by the global-minded monoglots of the FSS with the same goodwill and generosity of spirit as the N-word is by non-African Americans. Certainly, if the n for number of different ways it is misspelt, is anything to go by.
G. Adams is probably the last man walking in public life to wear a fainne in his left lapel. It signifies that G. is a, erm, Gaeilgeoir and happy to speak in Leprechaun with anyone so inclined.
Fainne, incidentally, means ‘ring’ and there is one highschool of linguistic thought in New Yawk which traces the origin of the definitive Stateside word – phoney – to fainne. Dating back to the late 19th C when Irish immigrants in the Bronx were hoodwinked by a bogus jeweler who was passing off goldplated rings for the real deal ding-a-ling.
While the ethnicity (alleged) of the jeweler is normally mentioned, The Perkin is loath to do so, and so run the risk of a hail of, erm, LIivingstones.
Curious , all the same, how some words to the lips stick.
I have just received a flyer in the post stating that Sinn Féin, Alliance and the Greens support abortion and advising voters to vote pro-life or not at all.Accompanied by a gory picture of a fully formed dead baby. The fact that no person/organisation had the courage to append their name gives me two options. One, blame the SDLP and bin it or two, blame unionist dirty tricks and bin it. Had there been a name on it ,I would have considered it. This is the cowardly behaviour that cost Ms Gildernew her seat last time. Twill be interesting to see the result this time.
With all the planks on show, did anyone remember to count the knots?
I thought the debate was dull except for the audience member calling Martin McGuinness a “terrorist scumbag” and “the British Army wouldn’t have been here in the first place if it weren’t for the IRA”. The gobshite behind these comments needs to do two things: Take a lesson in History, the British Army wasn’t brought into the North because of the IRA but due to Unionist mobs backed by the RUC and B Specials burning Catholics from their homes. The 2nd thing this gobshite should do is stop embarrassing himself, he looked and sounded like some yob from Ballymena or a Loyalist flag protestor.
As I said yesterday, Assembly Elections here are boring. We can usually guess the result before votes are cast. Sinn Fein is obviously aiming to gain an extra MLA so they don’t have to depend on others to introduce a petition of concern. Mike Nesbitt or “MikeTV” as I like to call him, is far more impressive than Arlene Foster. I honestly think the UUP is going to take a lot of votes/MLA’s/MP’s from the DUP in the long run. If I was a Unionist I would be voting for the UUP.
Jim Allister performed his usual role of being a broken record very well after the debate. Why wasn’t he in the leaders debate or Billy Hutchinson? It would’ve spiced things up a lot more. Jim is in La La Land. This man literally thinks that Stormont can go back to the “Good Old Days” of when the taigs knew their place. The DUP use to think like that but they were forced to compromise. If TUV ever became the largest party they would have to do the same, no matter what they say now.
This attitude that thinks Catholics are irrelevant is the biggest delusion in Unionism, especially now Catholics are becoming the majority.
I’m afraid it’s far too late to hope for any great steps forward in tomorrow’s election. But here’s one proposal for a way forward before the next one that attempts to break the stalemate
https://eurofree3.wordpress.com/2016/05/03/northern-ireland-and-the-end-of-british-politics/
Looked at your blog Ben. Two thoughts.
1. Your title doesn’t work. Swift was being ironic. You’re not.
2. It’s a PR election with designation on constitutional preference. If the “free Irish” only want to vote for nationalist designating parties then they can just do that. No need to put all the nationalist designated in the one party.
BYC – so sorry to be the one to break the news to you – Swift was a satirist, Jane Austen was the one who preminently did irony in Eng literature!
Since I did not suggest putting “all the nationalist designated in one party” I can only presume you misunderstood the post
In light of the above,your observation that my title doesn’t work for you is hardly surprising.
Pity you seem to have such difficulties understanding the title, post and English genres.
From Oxforddictionaries.com
Satire: “The use of humour, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule”
It seems a bit churlish to link to your own blog and then complain when others don’t find it hilarious.