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Brake Failure & The Trump Effect

It’s a bit hard to know where to start with this week’s events across the pond. But we, like many others we’ve talked to, were transfixed by Monday’s inauguration event and by what’s been happening afterwards.

Bombastic speeches, air kisses, billionaires galore, cleavage gazing, one-arm salutes, prison releases and executive orders by the truckload….it had it all and more. Who will forget the ranks of business’s super rich in the premium seats, Bill Clinton’s bewilderment or the look on Kamala Harris’s face when Donald got into his stride.

It was a bit more entertaining than when Sir Keir Starmer took over in London, wasn’t it? And, as transitions of power go, the one between Biden and Trump went a whole lot smoother than the one in Dublin the other day between Fianna Fail & Fine Gael and……Fianna Fail & Fine Gael. If the Yanks showed us how it should be done, the Irish showed us how it shouldn’t.

Like him or loathe him, Donald Trump is a big man in every sense of the word. Maybe we’re wrong (it wouldn’t be the first time), but we suspect that we’re not alone in starting this week with a sense of foreboding and coming out of the first couple of days with an acceptance and maybe, just maybe, an inkling of what a lot of Americans feel about the man and his policies.

It’s a strange feeling, being drawn just a little bit in a direction that you don’t particularly want to go. But, then again, maybe it’s just us. Perhaps it’s just the impending and long overdue collapse of the woke agenda that had us reaching for our MAGA hat and Stars & Stripes.

So what to expect? The woke agenda and DEI – it’s business equivalent – look all but doomed. And sustainability and the so-called race to net zero has more than a few new hurdles ahead of it too. While Ed Milliband in the UK can barely run the fridge in his second kitchen off wind power, Donald and the modern day JR Ewings will be drllling, baby, drilling.

Maybe they should bring Dallas back. After all, it doesn’t matter if it’s not very PC any more, does it?

Back here, various media outlets have been trying to ask what it will mean for Northern Ireland? Very little is probably the best answer. Trump, for starters, has no interest in foreign policy, except for in the high-profile war zones where he can get involved and score points.

He’s already flown his colours up the mast in the Middle East by apparently playing a part in securing the ceasefire deal and hostage release, and by parading Israeli hostage families on stage at his post-inauguration rally. Ukraine will be next, Trump will aim to broker a deal with Vladimir Putin and Zelensky and the Ukrainians will have to suck it up.

Meanwhile, trade wars are the surest bet. They are bound to happen. Trump has already fired a broadside at a European Union that he clearly doesn’t like and it can only get worse. So the effects on Ireland will be felt, for sure.

As for the UK, Keir Starmer is out in the cold. He could yet regret David Lammy’s ill-judged rant about Trump back in the day, and if Elon Musk really does have the President’s ear, then he and the UK are probably up Schitt Creek without a paddle. It’s pretty clear that he won’t be getting an invitation to tea and biscuits in the White House any time soon.

As for Northern Ireland as an entity, maybe Ian Paisley (who was at the inauguration) can pull a few strings. Writing in the Belfast Telegraph, Suzanne Breen even floated the suggestion that the deposed North Antrim MP could have some kind of envoy role to play. Now wouldn’t that go down like a toasted snotter with some of the parties here?

Meanwhile, our First Minister is apparently reserving judgement on whether she’ll accept an invitation to the St. Paddy’s Day bash in Washington this coming March.

Diplomacy is the name of the game and snubs are rarely a great idea, Michelle. Also, for the US administration, you’re really not that important.

Brake Failure

Gavin Robinson spent a lot of time quite a few months ago reassuring his party’s supporters that the Stormont Brake was a splendid idea, the latest in a long line of victories for the DUP achieved since the party helped to secure the even more wonderful idea that was Brexit.

But there’s a bit of a problem. Assuming that the Stormont Brake is a hand brake rather than a foot brake, Big Gav metaphorically tried to yank it up recently but found that it didn’t work. What happens instead is that Gav has to ask the Secretary of State very nicely if he’ll pull it for him.

It’s a bit like one of those learner driver cars with dual controls. Only Gavin’s don’t work. He might think he’s in control, but Mr. Benn in the passenger seat is really doing the driving. And Mr. Benn doesn’t seem to want to be told what to do by unionists.

The whole debacle has got some of our politicos back on to the Protocol/Framework bandwagon of nonsense. Jim Allister has been at it for ever but now even moderates like the Ulster Unionists’ Steve Aiken are telling us how trade has been brought to its knees by the Irish Sea Border & Co.

We don’t have the best of both worlds, trumpeted Stevie, we’ve got the worst of both worlds.

A pithy little sound bite, indeed, Steve. Pity that it’s complete horse****.

Gerry’s Pandering

Most Stormont politicians are detached from the everyday reality of struggling to pay the rent, says People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll. And it’s hard to argue with Gerry on that one.

So he’s trying to interest his fellow MLAs in The People’s Housing Bill. It might sound a tad on the socialist side of the fence and that’s because it is. It would outlaw no-fault evictions, which wouldn’t be a bad thing, but it would also introduce rate caps, which would be a bad thing.

The inescapable effect of enforced rate caps would be a lot of landlords selling up, an immediate shortage in available rental properties and, yes, rent rises. It’s a proven vicious circle.

In a certain light, the bold Gerry looks a bit like the new US Vice President, JD Vance. But that’s where the similarity ends. Vance is a right-winger whilst Gerry favours the left. Oh, and Vance is a shirt and tie man whilst Gerry prefers a tee-shirt, possibly of the Primark variety, but who can be sure?

That’s something that Edwin Poots will be aware of. He gave Assembly members a dressing down this week about their dress sense, saying that some MLAs have a “very loose interpretation of smart”.

Pootsie even warmed to his theme, rebuking those who’ve been spotted taking cups of coffee or drinks cans into the chamber. How terrible. Oh, and he reminded them that they’re supposed to acknowledge the Speaker (ie, him) when leaving the Chamber.

You’ve all been warned. Dress well, genuflect to the man in the big chair and leave your cappuccino (or oat milk latte if you’re in the Alliance Party) outside.

Kiwi Surprise

While Gerry smartens himself up, he will continue to take an interest in the travel activities of the Stormont Assembly’s Chief Executive, a civil servant for whom duty means no international bounds.

Lesley Hogg, according to the excellent John Manley in the Irish News, is currently in New Zealand on her second all-expenses paid trip Down Under inside a three-month period. She’ll need a few Red Bulls to counter all that jet lag.

Apparently, she’s down in the NZ capital of Wellington for a ‘professional development’ conference, organised – wait for it – by the Australia & New Zealand Association of Clerks At The Table. The event, it seems, brings together parliamentarians from Oz, NZ, Canada, Fiji, Tonga and the like.

Back in November, she jetted off to Sydney in Australia to escape the winter weather here……sorry, we meant to say to attend another conference. She also managed to squeeze in a trip to the remote South Atlantic island of St. Helena a few months earlier.

And where does Gerry Carroll come in. He seem to have been the only MLA to have raised an eyebrow at the costs involved in all of this long-haul travel for conferencing purposes.

But sure it all comes out of the public purse. What else are we going to need it for?

Anger On The Farm

Providing the weather calms down (see below), our farmers won’t be doing much farming on Saturday. Instead, a lot of them will be driving their tractors on a number of protest rallies around the country.

As is well known, the farmers – a bit like almost every businessman or woman – don’t like what Rachel Reeves did in her October budget. In particular, they don’t like the proposed changes to inheritance tax which will hit a lot of farm businesses hard.

So, while business people (and hospitality owners, specifically) have been sucking it up, the rural types will do what they’re pretty good at, and that’s protesting. It seems to be in the country blood.

Rachel Reeves won’t be paying much attention, though. While they’re trundling around our country roads, she’ll be quaffing foie gras and pinot gris with the great and good in Davos. As any self-respecting socialist does.

So, if you’re a tractor spotter (if there is such a thing), Saturday will be a great chance to see lots of Massey Fergusons in one place. If you’re trying to get from A to B, it might not be quite so great.

But, all power to them, hope they get their message across.

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