Last night with Michelle : five things

For someone cutting her leadership teeth, so to say, Michelle O’Neill did OK on The View (BBC) last night. It requires a small gear-change in the head not to expect Martin McGuinness to appear when they say ‘the Deputy First Minister’ (No, please Virginia, don’t bore me with nit-picking ‘She’s not the Deputy First Minister as there’s no Executive’ stuff). And anyone less like Martin McGuinness than Michelle O’Neill I can’t think of.

Ms/Mrs O’Neill  did five things right, in ascending order of importance.

1. She remained good-humoured throughout the interview. Mark Carruthers can be a terrier-like interviewer. (I’m so old, I remember a discussion with Mark C where I suggested he might want to add some bite to his interviews and he insisted that his mild, quiet approach was more effective – O tempora, o mores!) Where was I? Ah yes – Mark can be pretty ankle-nipping but Ms/Mrs O’Neill remained unruffled and pleasant throughout.
2. She didn’t defend Michelle Gildernew. Michelle G, you’ll know, has caused gasps and calls for the smelling salts down Fermanagh way, by saying that Michelle O’Neill would “take no shite” from Arlene Foster, and was in fact “no dozer”. Mark didn’t pass on compliments on Ms/Mrs Gildernew’s use of ‘no dozer’ – I haven’t heard it in years and it’s a good one; he wanted to know whether the DFM approved of such phraseology. The DFM said bluntly “No”, and did the Michelle Obama thing (are they running out of  names or something?):  when they go lower, we go higher. Personally, if the worst word they use down Fermanagh way is “shite”, I’d be fucking surprised.
3. She answered questions – notably that on the cost of an Irish Language Act – the way she wanted to answer them, not the way Mark wanted her to. A cost label would have been a hostage to fortune and the uncertain future, and besides, if you haven’t agreed what an Irish Language Act would involve, it’s obviously impossible to cost it. Anyway, the DFM said that my old and intimate friend Nelson McCausland was way off the mark with his estimates, that the cost would be more likely to resmemble that of the Scottish Language Act. The Irish Language Act was the trickiest Mark tossed at her, and she batted it firmly away.
4. She struck the right tone. Generally speaking – maybe it’s the make-up – the DFM looks pretty impassive (or pretty and impassive?). In the interview she was generally impassive, but when the topic required it, animated.   She can still work on this but for a first outing, the woman done good.
5. Most importantly of all, she stuck to the point and underlined it several times. When Mark raised the Irish Language Act, when he raised the health service – whatever he raised, she kept bringing it back to what had triggered this election and the RHI scheme. I don’t blame Mark Carruthers for wanting to talk about other things – the media love variety, except they’re dealing with Donald Trump, who provides his own in-built variety by contradicting himself on an hourly basis. This switching of the focus, of course, suits unionist politicians – that’s what their crocodile remarks, their indignation about elderly British soldiers being dragged from retirement homes into court, their yelps about the Health Service are all about. Distraction, deflection – call it what you will, it’s intended to get the public thinking of something other than the half-billion that’s been filched from their pockets and literally shoved into fiery furnaces. This is what has incensed a lot of people, and not just those on the nationalist/republican side. Regular DUP voters are bound to pause a bit if they think the party they support has been squandering public money (the good interpretation of RHI) or maybe even – allegedly – engaged in some sort of shady practice (the bad interpretation).

Anyway, last night Michelle O’Neill displayed debating skill and self-confidence that I frankly hadn’t seen before. She still needs to slow down her speech to give proper emphasis to issues and to avoid the listening public having a heart seizure trying to keep up. But that aside, a very assured performance.

Oh God. I’ve praised another Sinn Féin candidate. Hand me that disembowelling sword before gio hears about it.