Person A: Have you heard the latest?
Person B: Let me guess. Putin has used an axe to hack his way into the White House.
Person A: No. Or at least no, not that I’ve heard of.
Person B: Fianna Fail’s leader Micheal Martin has set up a branch of his party in the north and will run against Gregory Campbell in the next Westminster election.
Person A: No, Fianna Fail is still working on the notion of becoming an all-Ireland, oops, all-island party.
Person B: I give up. Tell me.
Person A: Claire Sugden has dived into the Cash-for-Ash controversy.
Person B: Who’s she? A former DUP MLA?
Person A: No, Claire is an Independent MLA and the Minister for Justice.
Person B: Ah – that’s Justice as in those blindfold statues of the half-naked woman with the scales Newsline 6.30 always shows when there’s a court case being reported?
Person A: Correct. But this is not a court case. Or not yet anyway. As I say, it’s the Cash-for-Ash controversy.
Person B: And the Minister for Justice has told Arlene to go on gardening leave while the mess is investigated. Smart move.
Person A: Not quite. She’s in favour of an investigation but she sees no reason for Arlene to step aside, even temporarily.
Person B: I see. Well, tit for tat.
Person A: I beg your pardon?
Person B: You scratch my back. I’m assuming this is the Claire Sugden who was appointed Justice Minister last May? Not an identical twin?
Person A: No, the Justice Minister doesn’t have a twin and Yes, she was appointed last May.
Person B: And of whom First Minister Arlene said at the time: “I thought it was entirely graceless the way some people are struggling for relevance in the assembly, they attacked someone who has stepped forward to take on a very difficult job.”
Person A: How clever of you to remember that.
Person B: It’s a gift I have. I’ll scratch your back later. But isn’t the Justice Minister at risk of cracking her skull by diving in at the shallow end?
Person A: Explain if you would.
Person B: Well, as Karen Patterson pointed out on Maidin Mhaith/Good Morning Ulster this morning, if a prison officer was involved in an investigation, Claire would call for him to step aside until the investigation was complete. On full pay, of course.
Person A: Well yes.
Person B: And Arlene herself stepped in when Peter Robinson stepped out temporarily.
Person A: True.
Person B: Did Claire Sugden say anything about an election?
Person A: Yes. She said it would solve nothing.
Person B: But Claire’s own Independent seat would be safe if there were an election?
Person A: Um, there are those who say she would fail to be elected.
Person B: But that’s not why she says there’s no need to call an election.
Person A: Of course not. Justice is blind. Justice scales are evenly balanced.
Person B: But in this case they’ve balanced towards Arlene.
Person A: You may say that. I couldn’t possibly miss this bus. Cheers!
Person B: Farewell. God know when we shall meet again.
Person A (over his shoulder): That’s from a Shakespearean tragedy, right?
Person B: Indeed.
Person A: How very apt. Farewell.
Justice was already going to come under scrutiny over this, I think it has already failed.
Another nail in Stormont’s coffin.
Go girl power!!!
Couldn’t have a nationalist as justice minister remember?
We now see why.
Smash Stormont.
Corrupt to the core.
Sudgen was the only MLA outside the DUP who sided with them on the vote of no confidence in December. Now she is falling in behind the DUP and asking Foster to remain in post until an investigation takes place – Why did she not opt for the highest level of scrutiny to allow justice to prevail, in a Public Inquiry. I actually wonder how Independent Claire Sudgen is when all the other parties have asked her to step aside in the interim, and her a lone voice siding with the DUP – Is she the latest puppet of the DUP? On the other side, shes has much to fear. She could be potentially the likely loser in a 5 seat constituency under new Assembly rules.
If there is an election, Sinn Fein should not accept being excluded from the justice ministry.
If it is available, Gerry Kelly should take this portfolio and if unionists cant live with it, let them bring Stormont down over it.
They would have some cheek after this.
Justice Minister? Independent? Don’t make me burst out laughing out loud.
SF should be reading out a list of conditions, the length of one’s arm before even thinking about coalition with the DUPer dinasours……………and that’s after an election.
Q. Clare Sugden.
A. Yes.
Q. Who she?
A. Guess.
Q. Does she wear shades?
A. Yes.
Q. Does she wear them at nighttime?
A. Only on her forehead.
Q. Not in front of her eyes at nighttime, so?
A. No.
Q. Does she play the mouth organ?
A. Pass. This is a family blog.
Q. Does she wear baggy trousers?
A. Not in public.
Q. Has she transformed Stormont?
A. In what way?
Q. Comprehend, savvy, understand?
A. No comprendo.
Q. Into a House of Fun.
A. No, again.
Q. Oh?
A. More like ‘Our House’.
Q. Our?
A. Yes,, she and Arl the Snarl.
Q. I’ve lost you.
A. Clare and Arl are BFFs.
Q. How do they show it?
A. By the songs they sing.
Q. What songs?
A. Arl snarls ‘My Girl’.
Q. And Ms. Sugden?
A. ‘It must be love’.
Q. How does that go?
A. (Clears throat)
‘Every night, every day
I know that it’s U I need
To ensure the True Blues stay’.
Q. Should that not be:
‘To keep the blues away’?
A. Get a grip.
Q. You mean she moves like a marionette?
A. How do you mean?
Q. You know, jerky-like, as if being pulled by a string.
A. Now, you’re sucking diesel.
Q. She’s into Ska, so?
A. No. Ni hea.
Q But?
A. But, what?
Q Does she not put her hands about like, say, the Nutty Boy?
A. Who?
Q. Edward Carson.
A. You mean the statue of Edward Carson?.
Q. Yes, exactly. Arms all over the place.
A. That she does.
Q. And doesn’t shout ‘Ooh, ahh, up the SKA?’
A. No, no. no.
Q. You’ll have to help me out here.
A. Think of a chorus line.
Q. Ok.
A. All in a row.
Q. What else?
A. Now, think of this chorus line bending over backwards.
Q. What?
A. Even as they go forward.
Q. But, that’s Madness !
A. It is and it isn’t.
Q. Explain yourself.
A. It’s Madness but with a difference.
Q. What difference?
A. It’s Madness with Method.
Q. That’s sounds suspiciously like Suggs to me.
A. Sugs. One g.
Q. What happened the other g?
A. Come on, you’re not as naïve as you look.
Q. You mean – a back hander?
A. Care-ful ! This is as legal blog. More like a red-hander.
Q. What’s a red-hander, then?
A. Come on: your turn to tell me.
Q. Like, what you get when you put your hand in a fire?
A. Now, you’re burning wood pellets.
Well Miighty Perk …so the musicality extends into the realms of ska and bluebeat.
Re the Loot For Soot/Cash for Ash debacle on my own blog , just yesterday , Jude…it appears that I have been Forbidden to comment further for some reason…totally “Verboten” to further respond to gio and all the other playmates….any ideas?…Still Standing By Yer Man!
Claire Sugden hasn’t come across as being too bright in her statements.
In public service where there is an enquiry/ investigation and there is an employee who may be the subject of the enquiry and is in a position where s/he may be in control of evidence or of those who may be called as a witness then it is sound practice that this person be suspended on a temporary basis.
This happens to police officers, prison officers, teachers, doctors, nurses and public servants.
People who claim that an election will not change anything do not know the future. The DUP/ Arlene Foster could well suffer at the hands of the unionist electorate who may offer a protest vote to the Aliance, TUV or Ulster Unionist Party.
Anyone taking bets yet on when Stormont is going to fall?
Arlene has been a disaster as First Minister. Any young girls looking on and being inspired by Arlene will think sheer Arrogance and burning half a billion quid of tax payers money is a virtue. Not to mention alienating an entire community by describing their elected representatives as “rogues”. Arlene is, in her own words, the “Gate Keeper” at Stormont……sounds like something out of He-Man and the Masters of the Universe….
Is Claire Sugden really an independent MLA? her latest actions/words suggest she may as well join the ranks of the DUP….
When/If an Election is called I think its a big opportunity for MikeTV and the UUP to swipe some MLA’s from the DUP. But will MikeTV urge UUP voters to transfer to the DUP? We seen how he butted heads with the DUP during the Westminster Election but that still didn’t stop him from forming pacts with them…..that’s almost as ridiculous as the DUP saying to Unionist voters to “vote DUP to keep SF out” but yet its the DUP who take the shinners into power when the votes are counted…..
‘Boo hoo, the FM and DFM have both let me down’ cried Claire Sugden (but obviously not enough for her to resign her title.
And what did the ‘independent’ unionist expect in the world of politics?
Though she doesn’t clarify how either of them did disappoint her.
But at every turn our ‘impartial’ justice minister has sided with the DUP at every point in our crisis.
Heard Seamus McKee supposedly interviewing Caral Ni Cuillan on Arlene’s adamant refusal to stand down.
Instead of asking questions, he was giving her a lecture from the DUP point of view, and then tried negotiating conditions the DUP would be happy with.
It was a disgraceful anti-Sinn Fein piece with no attempt at balance – when are Sinn Fein going to refuse co-operation with the BBC until they change their bigoted outlook?
you prefer the peace process journalists then.
I prefer journalists, rather than hacks with an agenda, such as McKee – is impartiality too much to ask?
Bring on the election. A lot of issues to clear up in West Tyrone. All the parties positions on Gold mining and wind turbines for a start. I dont think the peace dividend we were promised should have meant wind turbines on every hill in west Tyrone and the possibility of pollution from gold mining. There are a lot of disappointed voters in this area.
Claire Sugden has proved to be a light weight, completely out of her depth when the chips were down. When she was approached by the media she was caught out like a rabbit in the headlights. Poor me, “I am on my own, I have nobody to turn to to support me”!
She is only in the post because A) she is not a Catholic & B) she is an MLA not aligned to Sinn Fein, SDLP, Alliance, UUP, DUP or TUV. She was rocketed to power as an anomaly and she enjoyed the power but it would seem she doesn’t enjoy responsibility or scrutiny and so like Arlene Foster she chose self interest over what is best for everyone else.
If there is an election she is gone back to the mediocrity of the Council chamber!
SF’s transparent investigation allows for private sittings…