Three Thousand Versts of Loneliness

Sammy Wilson, he’s a jovial chap isn’t he? The East Antrim MP shows the ‘human side’ of the DUP. He’s less known for bigoted outbursts or fanatical evangelism than for wisecracks and sunbathing in the nip. Indeed Wilson’s views on climate change are rather entertaining. They might raise a few chuckles accompanied by a glass or two of red and a selection of cocktail snacks, were it not for the small, significant detail that Sammy is the minister charged with protecting and managing Northern Ireland’s environment. Sammy, you see, is something of a conspiracy theorist. He does not believe that there is a meaningful scientific consensus that man is influencing climate change. In fact he believes that the notion that CO2 emissions are damaging the environment is an almighty swizz which a handful of scientists and an army of green fanatics have employed to browbeat governments into instigating ‘anti business’ policies. So if we accept Sammy’s analysis, almost the entire developed worl...

Having predicted possible disappointment in Bratislava , I should not have felt so devastated after Northern Ireland lost 2-1 in their opening World Cup qualifying match against Slovakia. This defeat was particularly galling, however, because the Slovakians were eminently beatable and Nigel Worthington’s men’s display was blighted by below par performances, lapses in concentration, ill discipline and basic tactical errors from the manager. I expressed the opinion on Friday that Worthington had two likely formations available to him, and of these two formations, 4-5-1 would eliminate any realistic possibility of returning to Belfast with 3 points. I argued strongly that a second striker would be needed in order to support David Healy and prevent the Killyleagh man becoming isolated and ineffective. Our hapless supremo did select a second striker (Paterson), but unfathomably decided to play him on the left wing, thus ensuring that not only did Northern Ireland line up 4-5-1, but they...

Regular readers of Three Thousand Versts will remember my preoccupation with the future of a bar on the Lisburn Road, which has been known variously as the Ashley, Hunters, Vaughans and Deez (yes, with a ‘z’, exactly). The previous exciting instalment had Deez reverting to its old management and purportedly reinstating the much superior Hunters moniker. That seemed to be a happy ending of sorts. Alas, more than two months later, the gaudy yellow and pink colour scheme was still there, deafening music was still rendering conversation in the bar difficult, the bloke who apparently ran Deez was spotted drinking at the bar and to add insult to considerable injury, Sky Sports and Setanta were no longer available. Bringing things right up to date, the bar has been shut for the past week or so. This is, to put it mildly, unfortunate timing. Northern Ireland play the Czech Republic at home on Wednesday night and Hunters is easily the closest pub to Windsor Park. The most benign int...

Come Saturday night we will know a lot more about Northern Ireland’s chances of qualifying for the World Cup in South Africa. Come Wednesday night the Green and White Army will have a fair idea whether it is even worth dreaming about an African odyssey come the summer of 2010. Put quite simply, if Northern Ireland lose the first two matches of the campaign, then the rest of the group games are merely for FIFA ranking places, we’re not going to the World Cup. Failing to qualify for South Africa would not, of course, represent abject failure for Nigel Worthington’s squad. Realistically, it would be a fine achievement to top the ‘group within a group’ which also includes Slovenia and Slovakia. Overwhelmingly the Czechs and Poland will be favourites to progress, but in the European Championships we regularly defeated opposition of a similar standard (and better, the eventual champs for goodness sake!) at Windsor Park. Naturally, expectations have risen commensurately. However, North...

It is grimly ironic that whilst Gordon Brown becomes ever more vociferous declaiming the benefits of Union, simultaneously he continues to disassemble the very machinery which holds the United Kingdom together. The Labour government have made plain their intention to abolish separate government offices for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales and, in a speech to the Scottish CBI last night, Brown denounced the SNP’s ‘ bleak separatist obsession’ and in the same breath promised to devolve greater tax raising powers to the Scottish Parliament. Gordon Brown seems unable to accept, that from the moment plans were hatched to devolve power asymmetrically to Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland, rather than diminishing ‘bleak separatist obsessions’, his government has provided them with succour each time it has indulged nationalist demands. In some respects the Prime Minister’s thinking on fiscal autonomy is understandable. Scotland’s government has power but not responsibility. It can...

The Scotsman might be a tad premature when it states that policing and justice will be devolved to Northern Ireland ‘within days’, but certainly whenever the least pretext presents itself, Gordon Brown’s government intends to do away with separate Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. Whether the new minister’s post is referred to as Secretary of State for Regions or Nations, it now appears inevitable that Labour will deliver another blow to the Union which they purport to value so highly. The NIO is loathed by both nationalists and the ‘ourselves alone’ wing of the DUP alike. But removing the ministry and its equivalents in Scotland and Wales will diminish representation for those regions in central government. Furthermore, even if the DUP and Sinn Féin manage to reach an accommodation on policing and justice, institutions in Northern Ireland will not then become instantly more effective or more robust. There are other fundamental issues about which the ...

O’Neill has drawn attention to a new blog, written from a unionist perspective, entitled The Dark Eleventh Hour . I must confess that I’m a little unsure as to what the author, ‘Union First’, means by his mission statement, carried at the right hand side of the blog. Presumably over weeks and months, he (I’m judging by his choice of photo to illustrate a story about a cannabis seizure) will outline in more detail what the broad terms of this manifesto entail. He is clearly opposed to ‘poor and weak governance’ delivered by the current arrangements at Stormont, however, choosing Germany in 1933 as an archetype of people ‘throwing off the shackles’ of such government is an unfortunate analogy, to put it mildly. Nevertheless, assuming that the intention is not to endorse Hitler’s rise to prominence, it is good to see another unionist voice arriving in the blogosphere. There is a good spread of Northern Irish unionist blogs in particular developing and the strength of unionist bloggin...