Kennedy's fatuous World Cup motion says it all about Stormont.

The News Letter reports that Danny Kennedy has proposed a motion at the Assembly for local representatives to send their “best wishes” to England in the World Cup.

The business committee will decide whether the UUP deputy leader’s proposal is worth debate.  If any common sense is applied, their deliberations won’t take long.  It isn’t.

Whatever your view on the vexed question whether to support the English this summer, or not, this is exactly the type of amateur debating society nonsense which gets Stormont a bad name.

Kennedy says he will back England in the absence of another home nation in South Africa.  Bully for him.  I’m sure many people here will do likewise, and argue their case at lunch hour or in the pub.

The Northern Ireland Assembly, however, doesn’t have a UK wide remit and there is absolutely no need for it to send good wishes to any team at a World Cup, unless Northern Ireland qualify.  No-one in England will know, nor will they care, if this motion is passed.

It says a lot about Stormont that any member can contemplate adding this type of pathetic, pointless, points scoring exercise to its business.  This is a toothless Assembly without the tools to seriously hold the Executive to account.

Fewer pieces of Executive business make it to the chamber all the time and, although this motion is unlikely to make it unto the Assembly's schedule, the filler becomes progressively more trivial.

Instead members are reduced to debating whether to support England in the World Cup, or trotting out  simplistic analogies between the Middle East and Northern Ireland.

Comments

Andrew said…
Apart from the potential needling of raising such a motion Stormont isn't the only place where these silly motions are proposed.

Westminster, for one, has had it's fair share.
2 June 2010 at 11:15
Owen Polley said…
True. But EDMs occasionally raise something relevant. And a higher proportion of Westminster's time is spent at the serious work.
2 June 2010 at 11:34
Gary said…
Also it fans the flames. Next time round will demands that we commiserate with the Republic of Ireland getting beaten by the French or every-time our European neighbours get into any major competition that it should be raised and discussed in the Assembly.
2 June 2010 at 18:21
Hernandez said…
Embarrassing. A good example of Northern Ireland's inferiority complex.
2 June 2010 at 19:34
Andrew said…
Do you think they do this kind of thing to impress the public?

Solidarity, common interest and all of that?

I hope not.

Still, this is the example that has been set and our politicians inevitably try to be imitators.
2 June 2010 at 23:20
James Quigley said…
I'm cringing just reading this. Firstly, because Danny Kennedy is an MLA in my own constituency and I always considered him to be above this sort of tomfoolery. Secondly, because I can already hear Barry McElduff proposing that the Assembly wish Tyrone well in the All-Ireland final in September (if that horrible band of arrogant gits manage to make it there).
4 June 2010 at 13:00
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