It’s all gone very quiet out there. There’s nothing much happening on the Northern Ireland political front as our MLA types take what they think is a well-earned break in their caravans or rented cottages after months of hard toil since they returned to Stormont.
Well, not exactly nothing, to be fair. Our First Minister must be elsewhere as we haven’t seen signt not sound of her for ages. But her able deputy popped up earlier this week over at the big Farnborough Air Show, where quite a few Northern Ireland companies are selling their wares. So there’s some work going on.
And, judging by the recent flow of government press releases, the Shinners haven’t all gone to Bundoran, you know. As a paid-up member of the redhead community, Finance Minister Caoimhe Archibald probably doesn’t do sitting by the pool slathered in Ambre Solaire. So she’s been making the most of the photo opportunities, even visiting Portrush on Monday as the clock started ticking towards next year’s Open Championship (more of which shortly).
She’s also been teaming up in a double act with Economy Minister Conor Murphy and even in a Stormont three-way photo shoot with big John O’Dowd. And why not, lads? Make hay while the sun shines. Or, at least, while the DUP are still down in Millisle.
Over at Westminster, Sir Keir continues to glide through his first weeks in the job, getting a welcome chance this week to bring some of the troublesome lefties in his party into the headmaster’s study and give them a satisfying thrashing. That’s the kind of thing you can do when you’ve got a monster majority in your back pocket.
We even had the spectacle of Sir Keir and Rishi Sunak squaring up for PMQs but on the other side of the dispatch box. It was smiley and friendly, as it turned out, but it was hard to escape the feeling that Rishi’s wee heart wasn’t really in the fight.
And so, with all this peace and harmony abounding, we’ve all been watching America more keenly than usual. It’s certainly not peace and harmony over there. Far from it. Joe Biden eventually conceded at the weekend that he wasn’t up to doing anything very much at the moment, let alone running against Donald Trump and potentially spending another four years as President.
So Trump will line up, it seems, against Kamala Harris and you can’t help but feel that he’d much rather be facing Joe. In typical vein, Trump and his camp have started off as they mean to go on, by firing insult after insult at the VP. That’s what American elections are all about it. Insults and bad-mouthing. Aren’t they great?
Then there’s those wonderful TV ads. The ones where both sides weave together every personal insult they can, and a sonorous voiceover artist tells the TV audience what horrible, awful, not to be trusted people either candidate is.
Why can’t we have political TV ads over here? Not only would it put a few extra pounds into the coffers of impoverished media outlets, but we’d get to hear what Michelle O’Neill really thinks of Emma Little Pengelly and what everyone else thinks of Naomi Long.
A Case Of The Casements
Some things never change. Northern Ireland politics might have gone quiet for July, but they’re still at it over in Westminster, and we had a spot of Northern Ireland-style them’uns and us’uns debate this week.
Secretary of State Hilary Benn said that the government would be working ‘as quickly as possible’ to assess the options for Casement Park. And that, of course, was akin to waving a green, white and gold coloured flag in the face of some of our more fiery unionists.
TUV leader Jim Allister, relishing life on the benches, was quick out of the blocks, warning against ‘pouring millions of pounds’ into the project at a time when the health service here ‘needs fixed’.
And Sammy Wilson (surprise, surprise) said much the same thing. It would be ‘indefensible’, he thundered, if the government committed millions to the stadium for just ‘five matches’ at time when – wait for it – there are ‘huge health waiting lists’.
Roughly translated…..don’t spending money on them’uns when there are lots of us’uns waiting for hospital appointments.
The English, Welsh and Scottish members must have wondered what on earth was going on. The government was promising to fast track progress on a brand new stadium for Northern Ireland, but some of Northern Ireland’s MPs didn’t seem to want it. What strange people they are…..
Walking On Sunshine
Surely it was never intended to be taken seriously. Was it?
The Orange Order’s suggestion that it’s members took a wee dander down the Garvaghy Road in Portadown this Sunday afternoon, on the ever so slightly condescending basis that all the natives will either be down in Dublin or glued to their tellies for the All-Ireland Final. If ever there was a silly season story, this had to be it.
That said, Sinn Fein is taking it seriously enough that they’ve organised a meeting with the Parades Commission….remember them? On the other side, the DUP’s Carla Lockhart, God love her, called the Orange Order’s suggestion ‘forward-thinking’. Heaven help us.
It’s all just a bit too far fetched. The Orange Order has applied, it seems, to complete its walk down the road every year since 1998 when the whole Drumcree Crisis kicked off. The answer has always been a firm No, and that’s not likely to change. Is it?
Maybe, one day, the good folks of the Garvaghy Road will decide that a nice Orange march with a few bands would be rather nice. But, for now, it looks pretty unlikely.
If the Parades Commission don’t play ball, maybe the Orangemen (and women) of Portadown could head west and march in Galway. There won’t be many people around there either. They probably wouldn’t mind.
High Rollers
Speaking of the distinct lack of news at the moment, it was pretty apparent during our occasional dips into The Nolan Show this week. The big man and his team were reduced to trying to cobble some sort of story out of various questionable starting points. It was all a bit flat, with the airwaves populated by the few remaining local moaners who could be arsed getting in touch.
Having listened briefly and then turned over, we read about the latest BBC presenters’ salary figures with interest.
The Daily Mail even had a graphic featuring the faces of the top 20 or so presenters and, of course, their salaries. To be fair, it all added up to a hefty chunk of licence payers’ dough. But the readers in leafy Leicestershire or deepest Devon must have wondered who the full-faced bloke at number 5 was. They’ll not have seen him, after all, presenting the 6 o’clock news or rocking up on Match Of The Day.
In fact, unless they’re a Daily Mail reader who lives here, or they sometimes listen to BBC Radio 5 at 11 o’clock on a weekend night, they’re not going to have a scooby doo who the big man is.
Yet it’s a fact that Nolan, on £409,999, earns much the same as Fiona Bruce (a national treasure in anyone’s book) and considerably more than the excellent Naga Munchetty, Sophie Raworth, Laura Kuenssberg and the BBC’s Economics Editor, Faisal Islam, who gets a palty £246k.
Well worth the money, Faisal is. We’ve learnt a lot from him. No comment otherwise.
Antrim? Yes, Of Course, Ma’am
They’ve all got to do it, haven’t they? As soon as there’s a sniff of the White House, they’ve just got to dig up some Irish roots.
So we’re all indebted to the local historian who has shed light on the apparent County Antrim links of US Vice-President and potential President Kamala Harris, who at first glance doesn’t have that red-faced County Antrim look about her. But let’s not be doubters. Look at Barrack O’Bama.
Kamala, as we all know, is of Indian and Afro-Jamaican descent. Her mother, Shyamala Gopalan, was born in Madras (now Chennai) in India, while her father, Donald Harris, was born in Brown’s Town, Jamaica. But Brown’s Town -wait for it – was said to be founded by Antrim man Hamilton Brown.
“My roots go back, within my lifetime, to my paternal grandmother Miss Chrishy (née Christiana Brown, descendant of Hamilton Brown (Antrim) who is on record as plantation and slave owner and founder of Brown’s Town and to my maternal grandmother Miss Iris,” Donald Harris, a former Stanford University professor, is reported to have said about his background.
There you have it. It raises a few slightly disturbing questions about Mr. Brown’s relationship with his slaves back in the day, but let’s not go there.
If you’re Irish, Kamala, come into the parlour. There’s a welcome there for you.
Swinging In The Rain
Relentless drizzle, rain coming lengthways up the fairway, and temperatures more akin to November than July. The world’s best golfers got a taste of what they might expect next summer at the Open Championship held last week at Royal Troon on Scotland’s Ayrshire coast.
As the crow flies, it’s a short hop from there to next July’s venue, Royal Portrush. And these courses sort the men out from the boys, don’t they?
Unfortunately, our own Rory McIlroy turned out to be one of the boys. The fans who took a run over on the ferry for the weekend’s golf weren’t going to see Rory. He’d long gone, probably back to Florida. And therein lies the problem. When you’re used to manicured golf courses and when winter means 24 degrees, the West of Scotland or North of Ireland can be a bit of a culture shock.
Mind you, it didn’t seem to faze Xander Shauffele, a native of San Diego, who mastered the Troon links with true professionalism.
Tourism Northern Ireland wasted no time in pointing out that, now that Troon is done and dusted, the clock is ticking towards next July and the fairways – and brutal rough – of Portrush. Bring it on.