Wordle 3 - Arlene Foster speech

In its full unblurred glory here.  Text below the break.Building the 2021 economy

Accident

The powerpoint for my contribution to the Blogging for Unionism session at the DUP Conference, entitled the Accidental Blogger.

An Accidental Blogger

Wordle 2 - Peter Robinson speech

In its full unblurred glory here. Full text below the fold.

Wordle 1 - Nigel Dodds speech

In its full unblurred glory here. Full text below the fold.

Conference Update 2

Proceedings have begun with the first session a debate on reforming government and financing public services.  UPDATE Two hard pressed BBC technical staff snoozing on the sofa outside the room. UPDATE Problem with electricity supply for a few moments.  UPDATE For the want of a Mac, colleague fighting with a PC laptop and slowwifi to get conference photos uploaded.

Music

The entrance music has been finally sorted.  It is one of those small details that manages to lead to lots of discussion with much reviewing of lyrics and videos.  Whenever you have a couple of wits in the office this becomes even more difficult as they can find a humorous take down on almost anything.  Anyway here are my three suggestions that were not selected.

Moby - Lift me up

Tiesto - Adagio for strings


ACDC - Thunderstruck

Conference Part 1

Up at about at 6.30 to finish my powerpoint for the blogging workshop. Now about to head off to the Federation of Small Businesses breakfast event to talk to some local companies. As regards what I'll blog I'll be trying to at least doing some wordling and key excerpts of speeches.

8.50am UPDATE:  Wifi signal is working even if the mobile isn't.  The minor last minute preparations have prevented me from getting to the breakfast so having to opt for the coffee and lots of biscuits.  I have now been informed that the Blogging for Unionism session will be videoed - there go half my jokes.

Forward

DUP's Conference PPB.

Conference

I'll be at the DUP conference on Saturday under multiple hats - member, staff, contributor. As there is apparently free wifi at the venue I was considering adding blogger to the hats.  On the day this may prove impractical but if the opportunity arises what would be useful to try and cover?

Quote of the day

"To have seen the financial crisis coming, he argues, it would have been better to “go back to old-fashioned readings of history, studying institutions and laws. We should have talked to grandpa.”

Serve

A simple and engaging web ad on a concerning problem, suicide among war veterans, but that still provides a hopeful outcome to aim for. (Hat/tip A Pint of Unionist Lite Daily)

55/45

Our government has decided to support the Irish government and economy through a direct loan of over £7 billion as well as billions more through European Union support mechanisms.  It must be recognised that this decision is not an easy one, to characterise it as a black and white issue would be a mistake.

There is national interest at play.  An Irish economic and banking collapse would have consequences for the British economy with the resulting pain particularly acute for Northern Ireland as well as the need for a further bailout of some of our banks. 

However, it would be a misjudgement to represent the bail-out as an panacea for Ireland.  It will not prevent the Republic experiencing acute economic pain in the next few years.  Its aim is to prevent a collapse not spare the Irish from pain (nor prevent the knock-on effects of that pain to Northern Ireland).  The second problem is it may not work.  There is the potential to be throwing good money after bad.  The lack of any positive signs from the Greek bailout makes such concerns rational as do the economists' predictions (scroll down) that a number of countries will end up quitting the Eurozone even with bailouts.  The bailout may simply be buying time rather than solving the problems.

This leads us to the complicated factor in the decision, the Euro.  How much the Euro contributed to the Irish crisis will no doubt be debated for years to come but what cannot be disputed is that Ireland finds itself without a number of economic tools that a country with its own currency would have.  The problems within the Eurozone have pretty much validated the Thatcherite critique of the entire project but validation does not mean protection from the consequences. 

There is an attempt to defend what was done as for Northern Ireland.  However, this leads to something of a contradiction.  Previously we had been informed the cupboard was bare both in terms of cash and borrowing.  Action on either would not be in our national interest.  Now the Coalition government has managed to find both, cash for the EU and now loans for the Republic.  So concern for the banking sector seems to have been the motivating factor.

However, it was the Euro that negated the need for our participation in the bail-out.  The IMF are sufficiently concerned about the world economy and the EU from an economic (and equally political perspective to keep propping up the Euro) that whatever borrowing Ireland needed would have been forthcoming.  The absence of a £7bn loan from us would not have left Ireland wanting it would have beens ecured elsewhere.  It would have also kept us out of the potential morass of further bail-outs for other countries. Any promises that we won't should be treated with the sceptcisim any statement on Europe from this government deserves.  For me the 55/45 comes down on the side of No.

The die is cast on our particpation but if the government's concern for Northern Ireland is genuine there is a further step it must take.  The Coalition government is to produce a paper on the future of British banks, the over-reliance of Northern Ireland on Irish banks must be addressed in that paper.

When Harry met Sally met an election

Background information here.

Arnie

George Savage MLA may not come to mind when looking for an Arnie/Terminator type but in the Portadown Times he's trying to do his best I'll be back impression.  He states:

"...watch this space. The Upper Bann constituency hasn't seen the last of George Savage MLA."

Curiously he hinted of:

"...a group of malcontents could emerge from Ulster Unionism to set up a party within a party..."

Meanwhile his fellow non-selectee Harry Hamilton claims:

"...his moderate type of Unionism had been rejected by the old guard."

Dominoes

They had been referred to as the PIGS but events seem to be leading to GIPS with Ireland apparently in talks for a bailout and Portugal now talking about getting in on the act:

"Meanwhile, Portugal's finance minister has said his country is at a high risk of needing a bailout due to the danger of contagion from other debt-hit euro nations."

Freedom

Good pic.

Quote of the day

"Given Sinn Fein's decision to drop Gerry Adams into Louth const, does that make him leader of the parachute regiment?"

Irish Labour Party tweet on Gerry Adams promising to do for Louth and the Republic what he did for West Belfast.

Exception

While official denials continue to emanate from Dublin about a bailout for the Irish economy, the working assumption of everyone else appears to be that it will happen.  Professor Morgan Kelly provides an insight into why while a former IMF economist, Simon Johnston, advices them to do it now rather than later.

However, Coffee House blog reveals some of the possible detail of the bail-out.  The bail-out may not be restricted to the credit facility available to Eurozone countries but also involve access to the emergency funding mechanism that all EU members potentially contribute through.  This would involve a potential £6bn loan bill for the UK with it appearing the Treasury consider Ireland an exception to the previous rule:

"It's thought that any bailout to Ireland will be made from the European Financial Stability Facility Fund – a eurozone mechanism from which we're exempt – but there's also talk (£) of deploying the EU's emergency fund, which could make us liable for a loan of up to £6 billion. Whereas Treasury officials were keen to keep a solution to the Greek crisis within the eurozone, they are now telling the papers that, "This is not like Greece. [Ireland] are close trading partners."

It also sums up the difficulty of such decisions:

"It rather sums up the peculiar situation facing Europe, including the UK. Failure to act means that the contagion from Ireland could spread. But action carries with it clear costs, both fiscal and presentational. It's true to say that few domestic voters will relish the idea of propping up ailing economies elsewhere, particularly at a time of gruel and restraint at home. And what kind of precedent is being set should other countries, such as Portugal and Spain, go the way of Ireland themselves? A few years ago, the Celtic Tiger was a proud, growling beast. Now we must grapple with the consequences of its death."

Small Bites

The government will be able to transfer some powers from Britain to the EU without a referendum under new proposals, despite promising the public would get to vote on any such move.

The new EU Bill says a minister will be able to simply state the transfer of power is not significant enough to merit a referendum in some cases.

110%

UUP health policy has managed to become even more confused.  Previously their finance spokesperson, David McNarry argued against the ringfencing of health (twice) while others said UUP policy was:

"Health has been protected in England and Wales. The Ulster Unionist Party welcome this announcement and stresses that the same principle must be the case in Northern Ireland."

Yesterday Sammy Wilson proposed to provide the same protection to health spending as there is in England and Wales.  As Ian Parsley points out this means:

"Entirely in line with the rest of the UK, Health will be protected. Oh, and entirely in line also, social services and public safety won’t be."

However, it now appears that neither of these two positions was UUP policy.  They have now adopted a third and attacked the Wilson announcement.  Their health spokesperson, John McCallister, argues not simply for protection but for a £600m increase in health:

"...health and social care is underfunded in Northern Ireland to the tune of £600m compared with England - we believe this disparity must be rectified as part of the Budget discussions."

Over the 4 years of the CSR in strict cash terms this would require £2.4bn to be found for health (more with inflation).  This is higher than the revenue cuts of £2.2bn under the Coalition plans.  So one of the three UUP health funding policies is advocating increasing the cuts in all the other department by almost 110%.