Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

  In the latest PoliticalOD podcast, The Dissenter and I look back on a year that was completely different and yet, in some ways, not so much. Over at his blog , David breaks down some of the themes in detail  The year, started out with a deal to restore Stormont, but we pointed out at the time that it offered little hope that much needed reforms would be implemented. We were right, and, though the parties will point out that 2020 was dominated by the coronavirus crisis, there isn't much sign that we can expect better governance in 2021. We've spent a lot of time over the last year unpicking the Brexit negotiations. These are now at an end and, while the media has as yet to uncover any 'fatal flaw' in the new trade deal, as regards the whole country, in Northern Ireland, we have been edged away from the UK internal market, on which our economy is so dependent. As ever, the podcast is available at Podbean , and on most of the popular podcast and streaming sites. ITunes,...

  As we hurtle toward the end of the year, and the implementation of an Irish Sea border, The Dissenter and I examine how preparations for this internal barrier are progressing. Spoiler alert: they've barely progressed at all. The government hopes that a trade agreement could soften the edges of the Northern Ireland protocol, but as David notes here , whatever happens, the lack of preparedness is alarming. Recently, I wrote a piece at CapX that spelled out the dizzying array of acronyms and jargon that businesses and hauliers face. This expanded on some of Sam McBride's reporting in the News Letter, which explained that the Traders' Support Service, set up by the government to manage trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland, will exist for only two years after Brexit day . It's all a great distance away from no costs and seamless trade. You can download or stream the article directly from our host, Podbean . We're on Spotify . iTunes. TuneIn Radio. Pocket Ca...

  On Saturday, Boris Johnson announced that England will endure a four week lockdown, joining Northern Ireland and Wales, where so-called ‘circuit breaker’ restrictions are already in place.  The evidence for these measures is opaque, though the scientific advisory group for emergencies, SAGE, says that hospitals will be overwhelmed by Covid-19 patients by December if no action is taken. When it comes to specific interventions - what should close and why - there is a dearth of material that explains the government’s reasoning.    In Northern Ireland, though, the province’s department of health recently published an ‘evidence bank’ of documents used to develop its strategy. The devolved executive imposed four weeks of restrictions on the strength of these arguments, shutting down hospitality businesses, closing ‘close contact’ services like hairdressers and beauty salons and preventing separate households from meeting indoors. For schools, the half-term break was...

  Stormont's maladministration of the Northern Ireland Renewables Obligation, or NIRO, shares many features with the RHI scandal. Intended to encourage green energy production, the scheme created a perverse incentive for companies to game the system, which undermined its original purpose. There is one key difference, though, which has prevented NIRO from dominating column inches. While officials were mistaken in their belief that London would foot the bill for RHI, and the Northern Ireland budget took the hit, for NIRO, it was electricity customers in Great Britain who picked up most of the cost. The audit office has issued another damning report, but media interest has been low. Partly, this can be explained by coronavirus and Brexit dominating the political agenda. More worryingly, it reflects an attitude that we should view streams of income from the mainland as 'free money.' Then, unionists here wonder why many of our fellow Britons view Northern Ireland's place in ...

  On the 16th edition of PoliticalOD, we discuss the Irish American reaction to the Internal Market Bill, and the response of both the government and Northern Ireland's executive to a rise in Covid cases. The common theme is ambiguity. Boris Johnson sold the Withdrawal Agreement, which creates a trade border in the Irish Sea, on the basis that it did no such thing. From its inception, we've been told that no paperwork or tariffs would be necessary, even though those features were explicitly included in the Northern Ireland protocol. There were mechanisms to mitigate the worst aspects of the deal, but they relied upon the EU acting constructively and reasonably in negotiations. It was never clear why we should expect this change of approach from an organisation that has used division in Northern Ireland ruthlessly to attack the UK, throughout the process. The Internal Market Bill is the government's attempt to ensure that the EU does not insist on the most extreme type of bo...

At PoliticalOD, we've largely avoided discussing the virus, but this episode coincides with some confused messages coming from the executive.  We're hoping to get the economy restarted and schools are back this week, but there's a risk that efforts to restore a form of normality will be undermined by the rather more panicked tone of the health minister. At the same time, the education minister was forced to perform a u-turn after the announcement of exam results became a fiasco right across the UK.  With mixed messages in mind, we look ahead to Northern Ireland's centenary, which is upcoming in 2021. As unionists look to use the celebrations to bolster the Union, in the News Letter I asked how unionism should define its core set of guiding principles . We should also be using the national dimension of this occasion to ' win friends and influence people. ' Speaking of winning hearts and minds, we look at a new 'publishing platform' called Dissenting Voice...

In the 14th episode of PoliticalOD, we discuss a bill being fasttracked through Stormont that could give ministers sweeping new powers at the expense of collective responsibility. Why has the Executive (Committee) Functions Bill received so little scrutiny and why is Arlene Foster keen to wave it through? The former DUP Spad, Richard Bullick, who was one of the party's most influential strategists, has raised worrying suggestions that his former employers don't understand the potential consequences of this legislation, in this morning's News Letter. He urges MLAs to support amendments, tabled by the UUP's Doug Beattie, that 'remove the dangerous aspects of this bill.' The Dissenter raises an important point about infrastructure that he's encountered, almost be accident, as part of his day job. Some of the more ambitious plans to create growth in Northern Ireland could be compromised by the executive's failure to deliver reforms to fundamental service...

If it weren't clearly obvious before, the Bobby Storey funeral scandal shows exactly why parties in southern Ireland were wary of forming a coalition government with Sinn Fein. "Sinn Fein is different to other parties and not in a good way," the Republic's new deputy prime minister, Leo Varadkar, remaked when he was asked for his recation to republicans' flagrant flouting of social-distancing regulations. At TheArticle, I argue that the members of this movement, which murdered thousands, think they can do what they like. And, the way that the 'peace process' is structured, they're probably right. Daily, we discover new instances of poor governance in Northern Ireland. The chances of being able to do something about that are minimal, because one party will always stand in the way of reform. We also ask whether the new Republic of Ireland government, led by Micheal Martin, will be less confrontational to unionists than its predecessor. I wrote about...

The latest PoliticalOD podcast is a Covid-free zone, as The Dissenter and I look at the government's approach to the Northern Ireland Protocol. Last month, it published a document setting out its view that the Withdrawal Agreement should entail few barriers to trade between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. I analysed the detail (or lack of it) in a recent CapX article . Big questions remain over VAT, food checks, the enforcement of single market regulations and human rights' provisions. There's still a very real threat that consumers will face fewer choices and higher costs, after January 2021. The latest row to blow up at Stormont concerns pensions for victims of the Troubles, currently being held up by Sinn Fein, on the basis that some injured terrorists will be prevented from accessing the money. We still don't know how much the scheme is likely to cost, or it's overall impact on other spending here, as the Department of Finance continues to fail to produ...

It's almost two months since our last podcast and the time since then has been dominated by Covid-19. At the start of the crisis, Northern Ireland's health service was in an unenviable position. The NHS has performed with distinction nevertheless, coping with the disease and saving lives, but when coronavirus moves into the background, its underlying problems - decades of delayed reforms and mounting waiting lists - will remain. We ask how the power-sharing executive is likely to cope with these challenges, in light of some of the dividing lines that have emerged again as we try to restart the economy and move out of lockdown. And we look at its chances of putting together a budget, given the main parties' preference for making crowd-pleasing announcements and funding pet-projects. You can download the episode from Podbean here . We're also available at Spotify , iTunes And at Pocket Casts .

The coronavirus crisis hit Northern Ireland properly just as Sir Patrick Coghlin published his report into the RHI scandal. This was an unfortunate coincidence, at a time when people were looking for the parties at Stormont to work effectively together and set aside their differences for the common good. At The Critic , I examined the problems exposed in the report in detail. A malfunctioning civil service, a lack of political expertise, but, most pervasively, a cavalier attitude to public money, so long as it was believed to be coming from Westminster. The Executive has traditionally used devolved government to extract every last penny from the Treasury, then divvy it up, rather than taking on the difficult work of reforming services. As The Dissenter argues on his blog , ministers were busy finding money for their political hobby horses, while much needed ICU units were left unfinished. The rapid spread of Covid-19 has brought a new-found seriousness to the work of most members...

William Murphy [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)] There was an unprecedented reaction when Julian Smith was replaced as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland by Brandon Lewis. On social media in particular, it seemed like the entire province was gnashing its teeth and rending its garments. But, what did the outgoing minister really achieve? He got the Assembly back up and running, partly because Sinn Fein and the DUP were desperate to avoid an election and partly thanks to some trickery during negotiations. During those talks, he comprehensively trashed the three-stranded approach, that prevents the Republic of Ireland government from interfering in Northern Ireland's affairs. There are already signs that the new power-sharing Executive is wobbling. The parties are unhappy with funding, as ever, and there's little reason to believe they're ready to take a fresh, responsible attitude to the public finances. So far, there have been plent...

Now that Northern Ireland's power-sharing institutions have been back at work for a couple of weeks, David from  The Dissenter and I met up to discuss how things have been going. So far, the new Assembly has been dominated by complaints about funding and the debacle over MOT tests, which are currently suspended due to equipment failure in the test centres. At the start of the last decade, we were in the midst of another crisis caused by crumbling water infrastructure. In the News Letter last week , I pointed out that nothing much had changed in the last ten years. By 2030 will Stormont have addressed the most pressing issues we face today? It's doubtful while the focus is always on attracting more money, rather than spending what we have wisely or effectively. There is little emphasis on genuine collaboration or a shared message from the new Executive. Instead, any difficult conversations about policy are immediately shut down. This is given visual expression by p...

William Murphy [CC BY-SA (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)] In the latest PoliticalOD podcast, we ask whether the New Decade, New Approach document really promises a new dawn at Stormont. A wave of optimism accompanied the deal - anything to get the institutions back together - but already, as I pointed out at CapX , the atmosphere is beginning to sour. An unseemly wrangle over money has broken out, as the parties struggle to explain how they'll pay for a wishlist of new commitments. As ever, their answer is that the Treasury should stump up the cash, but there is an atmosphere of wariness in London about funding Northern Ireland even more lavishly, thanks to the RHI inquiry's revelations. David and I examine more of the agreement's pitfalls. It was published in a way that flouted Strand 1 of the Belfast Agreement, it leaves key issues cloaked in ambiguity and it fails to address the structural frailties that cause Stormont to crash repeatedly. I wro...