Irish Political News

They’re not likely to find a rare Viking-era hoard of silver coins of Arab origin, circa AD850, like these Swedish archaeologists. Nor any Viking-era hoards. And probably not coprolites.. But the archaeologists digging at Stonehenge are already excited.  It is the first dig there for more than four decades, and they’ve only just got through the backfill of those previous digs.  ANYhoo.. The dig is scheduled to continue until 11 April and there may be a Timewatch programme to follow in the autumn.  The companion website has daily updates, messageboard, and video clips.  Ignore the modern-day supernaturalists. And, yes, I know Newgrange is believed to be older.  But it’s all relevant..

White House announcement (done, like the "resignation" of Alphonso Jackson, en route to Ukraine) --

President George W. Bush today announced that Special Envoy to the European Union, C. Boyden Gray will also serve as Special Envoy for Eurasian Energy. Mr. Gray will engage directly with senior European, Central Asian, Russian and other political and business leaders to support the continued development and diversification of the energy sector.

That position as "Special Envoy" to the EU is in fact an extended recess appointment for Gray i.e. one done without Senate approval. It's not clear what the backstory is here i.e. whether there was nothing for Gray to do in Brussels given that he's not actually the US Ambassador to the EU or if there's some new wheeze involving oil or gas deals at work. But the US Senate needs to find some way to rein in this parallel diplomatic system, especially given how closely it seems to conform to the obsessions of George Bush and Dick Cheney with energy supplies. It's all too clear where that obsession has already led.

Visiting the French team in the Premiership.

Photo: AFP/Pool/Matt Dunham

As the Internets will be full of people looking for the Geert Wilders film "Fitna", which is easy to find, here instead is the reaction of the Prime Minister of the Netherlands, Jan Peter Balkenende. With an eye to reaching the largest possible audience for his condemnation of the film, he speaks in English for a couple of minutes after the 2 minute mark.

The thinking appears to be that Denmark was too late in offering an official reaction to the cartoons, which seems to rely on finer distinctions between country and state than the loons might be willing to make. As the BBC religious correspondent Frances Harrison pointed out, other than showing images of the Danish cartoons, Wilders makes no new potentially "blasphemous" images in Fitna. So maybe this controversy won't have legs.

The New York Times is giving Nicholson Baker's book, Human Smoke, the star treatment. Two reviews -- one very negative, one very positive, the latter by Irish writer Colm Toibin. A profile of the author. A free excerpt of the book. The headline on Toibin's review, Their Vilest Hour, accurately captures the deeply anti-Churchill message of the book. And of course, there's plenty to be against. For example, the bits of Churchill that Jonah Goldberg glossed over when looking for evidence of 1920s Liberal Fascism --

Winston Churchill visited Rome. "I could not help being charmed by Signor Mussolini's gentle and simple bearing, and by his calm, detached poise in spite of so many burdens and dangers," Churchill said in a press statement. Italian fascism, he said, had demonstrated that there was a way to combat subversive forces; it had provided the "necessary antidote to the Russian virus."

"If I had been an Italian I am sure I should have been entirely with you from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passions of Leninism," Churchill told the Romans. It was January 20, 1927.

But anyway, the main business of the book is as Toibin says --

an eloquent and passionate assault on the idea that the deliberate targeting of civilians can ever be justified

and in particular the effectiveness of the bombing of cities. Baker says it didn't even achieve its stated purpose, let alone meet any moral standard:

the bombing served to kill and maim the civilian population, yet the survivors did not blame the Nazi leaders, who used the bombing as a further excuse to inflict suffering on the Jewish population, claiming, for example, that evictions of Jews were “justified on the grounds that Aryans whose houses were destroyed by bombing needed a place to live.”

But one could turn that around and note the implied pathology of the wartime German population -- that just about any event could be used to rationalize the Holocaust.

And there's another issue. Before there was the large scale allied bombing of German cities, there was the war in the east with the invasions of Poland and then the USSR. Battles in which the Nazis initially had little opposition. And still they set about killing everybody. Jewish people first of course, but Slavs didn't rank highly for Nazi Germany either. Hitler's Germany was evil. The Allies were not, at least not intrinsically. The pacifists had no answer for how to save the non-German eastern European population.

UPDATE: A conversation with the author on the website of Haverford College.

It'll take someone who knows Polish language and politics to sort it out, but in its report on how Polish president Lech Kaczynski used this picture of Drogheda man Brendan Fay (left) at his Canadian wedding to argue against the Lisbon treaty, the New York Times says --

The Polish president also showed a map of pre-World War II Poland, linking his anti-gay oratory to historic Polish anxieties about German encroachment.

But wasn't the president arguing, separately from the gay marriage issue, that the Lisbon treaty could allow Germans who owned property in what is now western Poland to initiate legal claims for the property on the basis that it was part of Germany before 1945? Maybe Kaczynski's speech was weird enough to have linked the two issues, but it read like they were completely different arguments.

Two electorally chastened conservatives head to vote today -- the ever stylish Jose Maria Aznar and Sarko Junior (Jean), running for mayor in his dad's old fiefdom in the Paris suburbs.

Results due for both tonight. It's interesting that Aznar doesn't seem ready to leave the limelight, even though he's not the party leader anymore.

Photos from El Pais

Andersonstown News Belfast Media Group managing director Máirtín Ó Muilleoir has pointed to Guardian journalist Ian Jack’s appearance at a public meeting in St Mary’s University College on Thursday - “I told the truth, what else was I to do” - part of the Sinn Féin organised “Gibraltar/Milltown Martyrs Anniversary”.. but it’s always worthwhile going to the source.  Ian Jack has posted his account of the meeting at the Guardian’s CommentisFree blog

“The intention - the bomb stored in Spain - has by now almost vanished from republican memories and I didn’t raise it with the audience on Thursday night. They were polite and attentive and they had come to remember and grieve; Niall, Séamus and Mary were there, and many others who had known the dead. My silence came only partly out of cowardice and respect. The truth was that there was hardly time.”

Ian Jack goes on to make some other interesting observations

In such a situation, the attractions of republicanism are easy to see. Sinn Féin is “the movement” and therefore confidently going forward; a partner in government; on the front foot and not the back. In West Belfast, especially, it runs the show through webs of old and often military connections. The seats at St Mary’s College were filled by families who knew one another well enough to make jokes about each other, suggesting the kind of intimate city life that has vanished in England. The Irish language is popular in schools and evening classes; there may now be more Gaelic speakers in West Belfast than Dublin. Money has been a great balm. The local paper, the Andersonstown News, was founded as a radical sheet in 1972 by the Andersonstown Central Civic Resistance Committee. Today, after considerable and controversial government investment, it’s a thick bi-weekly brimming with property ads for terraced houses off the Falls Road for around £200,000.

All this, and yet Belfast remains an introverted city split into “nationalist” and “loyalist” settlements by “peace walls”, where in the west you can make a pilgrimage to martyrs monuments and murals like inspecting the Stations of the Cross. Daniel, a young Sinn Féin activist, took me round the circuit - Milltown, Bombay Street, the gable end showing Bobby Sands - and displayed a lively and informed knowledge of every death. Fascinating, but the theme of grievance and injury stretching back to 1798 was also claustrophobic, like looking down a long tunnel of woe.

We went for some supper and I asked Daniel if the organising committee for the Gibraltar-Milltown Martyrs Anniversary had ever considered extending an invitation to the friends and relations of the British corporals Woods and Howe, whose deaths ended the cycle of March, 1988. Might not reconciliation be a more forward-looking programme than martyrdom? He said, “Yes, we could have done. Maybe we should have done.” Perhaps next time they will.

Whilst the UK’s parliament, the House of Commons for now, today voted down proposals to hold a referendum on the Treaty of Lisbon - exposing divisions within parties in the process - the Republic of Ireland’s government prepares to publish their referendum legislation.. but no exact date yet.  Meanwhile, with perhaps some prompting from a mischievous press, certain EU state leaders have endorsed suggestions that Taoiseach Bertie Ahern would be a good first candidate for the envisaged post of President of the Council of the European Union - other [undeclared] candidates do exist. The potential conflict of interest would explain why Mr Ahern has played down the suggestion.. although a previous report, also playing down that suggestion, did point to another possibility for Mr Ahern - that of EU Commission President..

England Expects throws up an interesting anomaly. It seems that in a recent vote to respect the decision of the Republic’s referendum, the two Unionist MEPs (otherwise known Brussels as ‘the two Jims’) found themselves on opposite sides of the vote.  Sinn Fein’s Ms de Brún does not seem to have registered in the vote at all, which is strange since, presumably. her decision would have been something of a no brainer. The aye’s included Jim Allister, and the noes, Jim Nicholson. What makes it interesting is the degree to which the UUP MEP was critical of Brown when he refused a referendum for the UK:

“The new EU Treaty will have a profound effect on the way the UK is governed taking further powers away from Member States and it is nothing less than an affront to democracy that the Prime Minister will not allow the British people to have their say on it.

In which case, presumably, Jim would expect the rest of the EU to ignore the result of any such referendum?

UPDATE: Checking the figures at the original source, it seems Mc de Brún was there and voted in favour of the amendment. Interestingly, Prionsias de Rossa seems to have voted against respecting the outcome of the Republic’s referendum. Curiouser, and curiouser…

If you had thought that Sinn Féin disapproved of anyone making allegations without producing solid evidence.. Well, apparently it depends on who’s doing the alleging and, perhaps, what those allegations are.  At the launch of his party’s 20th Anniversary Gibraltar/Milltown events porgramme [sic], SF leader Gerry Adams made some allegations of his own.

Mr Adams said today: “It is my strong view that the killings in Gibraltar were authorised by Margaret Thatcher, and it is my strong view that the Irish government of the day passed information to the authorities about the movements of those killed. I cannot prove that, but that is my conviction.”

There are a couple of points to make about this.

Firstly, what is Adams alleging?

That a democratically elected government passed on information about the movements of known terrorists, or even persons of interest, to another democratically elected government which prevented the completion of planned terrorist acts?

That’s what democratically elected governments do, Gerry.

And they’re trying to do it better all the time.

If the Irish government had information on the movements of known terrorists and, by not passing it on, had allowed the murder of others in another country there would be serious consequences.

But there’s a much more obvious way that such information would have been passed to the British government or, rather, to MI5. And it is my strong view that informers within the Provisional IRA passed on that information in this case.  I can’t prove that, of course..

Will the Serbian people in their current mood vote for a song called "Double Cross My Heart"?

"Give us another chance/We're sorry for Riverdance". Brilliant. [added: Link to Dustin's performance of Irelande (sic) douze points]

An Irish entry from a Slovenian? The Serbs will love that. Song is too much "My heart will go on" anyway.

4th song has a little of that white soul about it. Amy/Joss etc. Her mother hemmed the dress.

Act 5. Best quality on backing instruments. But not much else going on.

Act 6. Is that the Hill Street Blues soundtrack? And he can't hit the high notes. God -- how bad was it in rehearsal?

We'll be back later with the result. Prediction: Assuming that the Dustin vote doesn't swamp the others, Act 1 has the best chance of being a decent competitor in Belgrade -- it has the right amount of eurotrash quotient.

UPDATE: We got pulled away from liveblogging the result show but Maman Poulet had it covered. So it's Dustin. Prediction (and so much for our previous prediction): Eurovision will disqualify him on the grounds that he is not a person.

[link to event; squid is also liveblogging with pictures; see also Maman Poulet]

Of all the sages who've noted that Balkan wars can get very messy, Chistopher Hitchens approvingly cites ... Leon Trotsky.

Add more of a moustache, and it's a bit odd how embattled Prince Alois of Liechtenstein (reeling from the exposure of large scale German tax evasion in his principality) resembles his fellow hereditary ruler, Bashar al-Assad of Syria.

AP Photo/Keystone, Arno Balzarini

Via Conor Pope at PriceWatch, who laments the absence of a video. I’d be lamenting the absence of a tune.. ANYhoo.. It’s not my licence fee money.. but it’s worse than I thought.. and it will probably be RTÉ’s Eurovision entry.. Generally demented?  If only.. Adds Keith has heard all six of RTÉ’s options. Update The public have spoken.. the RTÉ turkey it is.. [added link]

If some of our MP and MLAs are taking the heat over the way they claim their expenses, we are not likely to find out too quickly what our MEPs are up to, since they, along with much of the EU bureaucracy, are beyond local scrutiny.

Not that the ref needed reminding, but Liverpool's Fernando Torres notes that it was Marco Materazzi's second bookable offence, and so he was off.

Materazzi's aggrieved look doesn't quite reach the feats of his stellar acting job following the Zidane head-butt.

And, unlike that earlier game, Materazzi's team lost this time.

AP Photo/Paul Thomas

One of the schizophrenic elements of Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia today is evident above. The popular perception, signalled by the flags in the streets, is that the US is their main patron -- which also made Albania one the few places outside of sub-Saharan Africa that George Bush can visit.

Leave aside that Kosovo was Bill Clinton's operation, which Republicans at the time opposed. The new official Kosovo flag, shown in parliament above, is an obvious nod at the European Union. Because the country will in effect be a protectorate of the EU -- not the USA -- for a long time. The flag thus represents a greater realism than the streets.

Photos: AFP and AP

Isn't it ironic that after all the fussing about whether India and Saudi Arabia were ready for Carla Bruni to be seen with Nicolas Sarkozy, it's back in France where she's most likely going to have to keep a low profile?

Remember those Iranian speedboats of mass destruction and ensuing competition among current and aspiring future Republican presidents to say how close the incident had come to war, and indeed how close it would be to war the next time the same thing happened?

The chief of US naval operations today downplayed the low flight of a Russian Tu-95 over the aircraft carrier USS Nimitz in the western Pacific Ocean.

The Tu-95 flew over the Nimitz at about 2,000 feet while another bomber flew nearby Feb. 9, but both were escorted by U.S. aircraft and the event did not even warrant a call to “general quarters” or for crews to man battle stations, Navy Adm. Gary Roughead said.

In fact if one reads further down in the story, there were actually 4 Russian bombers in the vicinity of the carrier. But as the Pentagon says --

“It is free and international airspace,” he said, “and we're just trying to now go back and look what message was intended by this overflight.”

The scariest speedboats ever were also in international waters. Perhaps the difference is that they Philippino Monkey's radio doesn't broadcast that far.

Forget the beer and the gun. That's the same look.

With little information on their entry, the BBC noted a local [Northern Ireland] link to the shortlist for RTÉ’s entry to the Eurovision Song Contest 2008. But there’s a turkey in the bunch.. as some bloggers have already spotted.  And he’s an RTÉ employee.. RTÉ’s Morning Ireland talked to those involved [RealPlayer file].  As with last year’s song the public will decide.. the fools.. and with the topic already being discussed on RTÉ’s Questions and Answers [RealPlayer file] the prospect of the turkey going to Belgrade is real.  Fittingly, yesterday’s Irish Times went to John Waters for his considered opinion..

“Don’t forget that we are talking about the Eurovision. It’s fun, it’s kitsch and nobody takes it all that seriously,” he said.

Not after last year, John, not after last year..

Btw, this is how Mr Waters described his song last year.. [via Google Cache]

“When we heard that DERVISH were going to represent Ireland in Eurovision we decided to write a song combining an Irish flavour and a European theme, one that addressed the changing nature of both Ireland and Europe. They Can’t Stop the Spring is a kind of Celtic celebration of the eastern European revolutions and their eventual outcome, including the presence in Ireland of thousands of new Irish from Czech, Slovakian and Latvia.”

Fun, kitsch and not taking it seriously?

That’s what the BBC thought last year.. And we all remember how well that went..

“All together now.. Crush the flowers.. Crush the flowers..”

Keith, formerly of this parish, might have something to say on this.

In the meantime.. Can we vote for Lordi again?

The latest twist in the Société générale "rogue trader" scandal is an investigation by US authorities of insider dealing in the bank's shares prior to the public revelation of the bank's losses from the trading and the subprime mortgage mess.

Being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission, according to the Wall Street Journal (subs. req'd) --

... board member and American investor Robert A. Day and two foundations associated with him, people familiar with the matter say. The U.S. attorney in Brooklyn, N.Y., has opened a criminal probe related to the bank, according to one person familiar with the matter, although its precise focus wasn't immediately clear.

Mr. Day, investment manager with U.S.-based Trust Company of the West, and the foundations sold about $140 million of Societe Generale stock approximately two weeks before the bank notified its board about the billions of trading losses.

That would be Robert Day, massive donor the Republican party both in California and nationally ($700K in the 2004 cycle) -- including to finance an electoral stunt that would have changed California's electoral college delegation from winner-take-all to proportional representation, which would have tilted the scales towards a Republican candidate in 2008 (almost no other state allocates delegates this way).

Incidentally, Day is also a McCain donor, although he hedged his bets with small donations to Hillary Clinton and Chris Dodd. The pundits love that "both sides" stuff.

RTÉ reports confirmation that the Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, and the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, will use the opportunity in Manchester next week to hold talks on a number of issues.  Among the items listed in the report

They will discuss the devolution of justice and policing powers from Westminster to the North. It is now accepted this is unlikely to happen by the target date of May 2008.

Although, it’s also worth noting that not everyone will publicly acknowledge that acceptance.. despite the evidence. Perhaps something for the next Londonderry meeting to discuss?

Of course, if there’s time, they might also want to continue that non-public conversation on the future for the Common Travel Area and how the new e-border controls fit in..

Regarding the Sarkozy-Bruni ("l'ex-mannequin") wedding --

"It lasted the usual 20 minutes or so," said François Lebel, mayor of the eighth arrondissement of Paris. "The bride wore white. She was ravishing, as usual."

One wonders if Sarko should be concerned that the mayor conducting the ceremony thought the bride was hot. Because how did Sarko first meet his previous wife, Cecilia? --

A law student and parliamentary aide as well as a model, she was first married at the age of 27 to 51-year-old children's TV presenter Jacques Martin at the town hall of the chic Paris suburb of Neuilly in 1984.

The man who performed their marriage ceremony was a certain Nicolas Sarkozy, then the 29-year old mayor of the suburb.

The Assembly website notification of today’s meeting of the Education Committee warns that “Please note these timings are indicative”.  However the Education minister, Sinn Féin’s Caitríona Ruane, took the 10.00am-11.00am scheduling literally and, when the alloted hour was up, abruptly left the meeting announcing that she had “another engagement to attend” - that hour included an opening statement by the minister which lasted more than 20mins.  The Committee members might have wanted to ask more questions about some of those contentious proposals.. or, indeed, those “cost-neutral” ones, but the minister had left the building..  As the BBC report states

In December, Ms Ruane was criticised for a lack of detail in how the new transfer process would operate, but she said at the time her statement was merely an “early briefing”.

The minister promised to bring more detailed proposals to the assembly in the new year, but education correspondent Maggie Taggart said “there was little light shed on the future for post-primary pupils” during Thursday’s meeting.

And as Mark Devenport notes in his blog

Safe to say, after this somewhat confrontational performance, relations between the Minister and the Committee cannot be said to have improved.

Adds Additional quotes here

French bank Société générale says that they told Bank of France president Christian Noyer on Sunday that they had huge losses due to a rogue trader and were dumping the assets before publicly announcing it. The US Federal Reserve says that it did not know on Monday night that this was going on when it decided to cut interest rates after overseas markets crashed that day. American markets were closed for MLK. News accounts seem to be ignoring this timeline.

White House photo by Shealah Craighead

One of US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke's breaks over the last few days was to lead a tour of a modern Turkish art exhibit at the Fed's HQ. Laura Bush was there too. Ben (with his back turned) seems inordinantly focused on the nothingness surrounded by purple/violet to the left. Maybe it provides a mental respite from the stock market gyrations.

It's a little bit odd that Dominique Strauss-Kahn, Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, and so presumably an apolitical bureaucrat, can attend a forum for the renovation of the French Socialist Party.

photo: AFP/Florian Rey

Some big announcements from the Boris camp expected? Iain Dale has suggested that Boris camp will make one or two major personnel announcements in the coming weeks. He made the comments at a debate on whether Boris can become Mayor last week. While Iain did not go as far as to tell the story as a definite, he did say that he was expecting some announcements with a bit of a wink, wink, nudge, nudge. In short, in the coming weeks Boris may well be announcing some high profile figures to take over from the GLA groups current heads. This includes people such as TfL commissioner, Peter Hendy, and London Underground MD, Tim OToole. Iain even touted David Davis as TfLs new commissioner. It is all part of what Iain called clearing the house " an Americanism often used by newly elected Mayors in the US, apparently. A bad move, Boris I have to say, if this does turn out to be the case Londoners should be worried and so should the Boris camp. Why get rid of Peter Hendy and start again at TfL? The very bottom line is it will cost a small fortune to start again at TfL and the other GLA functional bodies. Even more importantly, however, is getting rid of some real talent solely for political reasons is a mistake. Hendy is very popular at TfL having worked his way up through the ranks all the way from bus conductor. He knows his onions and is, publically at least, non-political. Why would we want a politician running our capitals transport system? Tim OToole is every bit as capable and popular as Hendy and both have done fantastic jobs at TfL. Hendy started as MD at London Buses and ask any Londoner and they will tell you that the buses in London today are a world away from what they were ten years ago. OK, so we have bendy buses and lost the route-master, but this is small fry compared to the overall improvement. Tim OToole has overseen a period of massive improvement on the underground and at a time when the Metronet contracts are up in the air the last thing LUL and its passengers need is change at the top. (more…) Previous in series