the sunday papers

national | politics / elections | opinion/analysis Sunday November 23, 2003 15:25 by iosaf

incorporating the sun, sunday, the sunday review, preview, view.

It has been long observed that people for some reason on their non-banking days readily absorb shite about Dangerous Places, Famous People, Sensible Saving Options, Holidays, Interesting facts, Sport results, Media, gardening and health as well looking at the “issues” including why the Greek Judicial system is being permitted to allow five people imprisoned on the flimsiest of evidence to die.
what is the northern ireland assembly really, and how can we persuade the White House to send us Bush for more than week.

hmmm. I for one never liked the shape of it.

The Thessalonika Situation is not one of "party politics", it is now a question of _Life_ or _death_.

It is very apparant that the campaign to free them is gathering pace posing serious questions of the Greek Government and Establishment which will not "go away" if the cases of the Thessalonika 7 are not examined.

So, the cases will be gone through, and it also appears _very likely_ that the evidence will be seen to have been fabricated. Thus, the deaths of the hunger strikers if they happen will effect future Greek Society and it's search for the now _very apparantly necessary_ reform of it's Judicial/Security complex. It is generally thought that States such as Greece prefer to find the impetus for such self-examination from within. We in the anarchist community [whatever that might mean], are asking for the release of 7 prisoners. And more of us, for we are rarely cohesive in our specific concerns, are demanding the release of those 7 prisoners.

I recommend reading
http://flag.blackened.net/af/Undercurrents/pages/categories/saloniki.php

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The Northern Ireland Assembly was established in the final years of the 20th century [ Thursday 2 December 1999 power was devolved to the Northern Ireland Assembly and its Executive Committee of Ministers]....as a "novel new way" to adminster the "other Irish State".
It's predecesor in this was the Northern Ireland House of Commons which divied up the democratic participation between 1921 and 1972.
It's most interesting results were the first and last.
1921 40unionists - 6nationalist 6 sinn fein
1968 34unionist (24 pro-O'Neill, 10 anti)
3 independent unionist (pro-O'Neill)
6 nationlist - 0- Sinn Fein 3 nationlist(pro-civil rights)
2 NILP 2 Republican Labour


The present assembly was suspended from midnight on 14 October 2002 and was dissolved on 28 April 2003. And it will have another bout of "democratic participation and divvying up of the popular mandate and rant-chant stuff that we anarchists generally feel best to dis-associate ourselves from" on the 26th of November 2003.

[that's this week]
Now in the meantime who rules Northern Ireland?
Like if you have a problem with northern Ireland who do you write letters to? To qoute Kissinger "who do I phone"? I decided to ask the British Embassy in Chile:
http://www.britemb.cl/government/d_nothern_ireland.html
all the power was "restored" / "devolved" /given back.... and then it just dissappeared.
= if you have a problem with Northern Ireland the most reliable option is "phone the British Government at 10 Downing Street, that is of course when the anarcho-hackers haven't trounced the switchboard".

So who are the current 108 assembly members that spent almost the majority of the term in suspension?
SDLP 177,963 votes 21.99% 24 seats
UUP 172,225 votes 21.28% 28 seats
DUP 145,917 votes 18.03% 20 seats
Sinn Féin 142,858 votes 17.65% 18 seats
Alliance 52,636 votes 6.50% 6 seats
UKUP 36,541 votes 4.52% 5 seats
Ind Unionists 24,339 votes 3.00% 3 seats
PUP 20,634 votes 2.55% 2 seats
NIWC 13,019 votes 1.61% 2 seats
UDP 8,651 votes 1.07%
Labour 2,729 votes 0.34%
Workers Party 1,989 votes 0.25%
Conservatives 1,835 votes 0.23%
Nat Law Party 832 votes 0.10%
Socialists 789 votes 0.10%
Greens 710 votes 0.09%
Ind Nationalists 528 votes 0.07%
Ind Labour 121 votes 0.01%

the "closest" run seats were:
Danny O'Connor of the SDLP defeated Jack McKee of the DUP by 49 votes in East Antrim
Carmel Hanna of the SDLP defeated Steve McBride of the Alliance Party by 151 votes in South Belfast (with some votes undistributed which would have made the final result closer)
Cedric Wilson of the UKUP defeated Danny McCarthy of the SDLP by 159 votes in Strangford
Independent Unionist Fraser Agnew defeated Martin Morgan of the SDLP by 289 votes in North Belfast
Peter Weir of the UUP defeated Alan Graham of the DUP by 308 votes in North Down (ironically he then joined the DUP in 2002).

There have been a few changes:
Roger Hutchinson has sat since '99 as an independent Unionist, and then got expelled and is now a DUP head. John Hume has been replaced by Annie Courtney in the Foyle constituency which interestingly covers exactly the same electoral space as Derry City Council.

Now something "very old-fashioned" about the Northern Ireland "house of commons/assembly/governing divvyed up electoral bit/Stormont" is that the people who sit there have a fairly decent chance of getting made "Lords". And quite a few have, to the great annoyance of their counterparts in the other Irish State cutely referred to as "the south".
The most recent being Lord Alderdice who resigned as leader of the Alliance and as a life peer was already sitting in the House of Lords at the time of the 1998 election; he has now been joined by John Taylor whose title is Lord Kilclooney.
Being called a lord is very good for the political career. So obviously these men are very good at politics and it's "deomcratic participation duty of the citizen making the institutions of a state that will promise and rant chant peace and prosperity" (accept when it's suspended).

I shall bore the southern or foreign reader no longer if you are interested in the Northern Ireland Assembly elections go read the copious pages of facts and figures at
http://www.ark.ac.uk/elections/p2003.htm
included are predictions.
I hope to publish a "how northern Ireland the six counties bit the other Irish State voted and ·not voted· 2003" next week.
link to NI papers:
http://www.abyznewslinks.com/ukingni.htm

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Now the pappy bits of the Sunday Paper:

Horoscope: don't go near them, the presence of superstition in contemporary affairs has not yet peaked and can in some ways be credited with the continuing investment by Hollywood and the West's propaganda culture industry in retelling myth. Scratch your head and be doubtful as much possible.

Gardening: It is probably too late now to get good quality mycellae from the hillsides, so keen cultivators will be turning their attention to hydroponics and keeping the electricity costs down. Don't worry it all be worth it.

Famous People: Bush, he really has negative charisma, as a puppet and face of Empire he has proved one of the easiest to oppose, I strongly urge all Western Governments and the forthcoming Northern Ireland Assembly to invite Mr Bush as often as possible to our countries and ask him to stay longer.
I suspect that toppling of Bush in effigy one the most curious expressions of British popular revulsion at what Bush represents, has internalised in at least "English" popular culture. I think Mr Bush will be burnt in effigy on the bonfire next year for November 5th, which almost guarantees his role as "bogeyman" of the Anglo-Saxon self-identity. [We might reflect on the most frequently burnt effigies through the 19th and 20th Centuries, the most unusual perhaps for Irish readers and thinkers being Oscar Wilde who was burnt five years in a row at the "psychically nodal bonfire" of Lewis East County Sussex.

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