Archives for June 11, 2007

As I left Parliament Buildings this evening an Ulster Unionist berated me for being too generous towards Ian Paisley. On Stormont Live, Jim Fitzpatrick asked me for a rating out of ten for the First Minister's First Question Time. I gave him 7 and a half, reflecting that he had his hits and his misses.

The hits were a good put down on Danny Kennedy, when the Ulster Unionist deputy leader tried to emphasise his closeness to Martin McGuinness, "a self confessed IRA commander". Dr Paisley said a "man in a glass house shouldn't throw stones". His second best hit was scored against Sinn Fein's Barry McElduff who complained about the failure to set an exact date for a meeting of the North South Ministerial Council. After a quick word with his son Ian Paisley Junior, the First Minister responded that the Executive was waiting for the formation of a government in Dublin after an election in which Mr McElduff's party "didn't do very well". "Where have you been?" he asked the West Tyrone MLA. It reminded me of one time when the DUP leader asked me "who are you, Rumpelstilstkin?"

His biggest miss, however, came in failing to answer questions from the SDLP's Thomas Burns and Patsy McGlone. Obviously keyed up for a question about Ian Paisley Jr.'s recent comments about gays, the First Minister trotted out a pre-packaged reply even though the two SDLP MLAs had in fact cross questioned him about old quotes from his son rubbishing the role of junior ministers.

So 7 and a half out of ten? No doubt if I had been leaving the building in the company of a DUP member he would have told me I'd been too harsh. I'd be interested to know if any of you watched Stormont Live on BBC1 this afternoon and what your verdict was.

However, I have a horrible suspicion that the main sentiment will be annoyance from fans of afternoon TV that we were on at all. At least noone got killed in the chamber - I think the programme we replaced was "Murder, She Wrote".

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The no jacket required brigade scored a tactical victory this afternoon when the Deputy Speaker Francie Molloy relaxed the usual dress code as Stormont broiled. With a long hot summer ahead, Naomi Long argues that any review of the dress code should be extended to cover female MLAs.

A glance around the chamber reveals that the designation system defines more than your views on the border. Nationalists are all in their shirt sleeves. Unionists insist on keeping their jackets on. The Alliance leader David Ford has been glimpsed with his sleeves rolled up.

There is clearly room for extended academic research here. Is there a biological or cultural explanation? Is unionist blood temperature cooler? Or is this all about "old decency"?

" Sure me father wore it as a lad in the grand old days of yore
And it's on the 11th I love to wear, the Hugo Boss jacket and tie set my father wore".

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Sinn Fein's Alec Maskey is planning a heist. He wants a bank emptied of its contents. In this case the bank in question is in Stranmillis in South Belfast, and the contents are bottles.

Republicans have been accused of being too efficient at emptying banks in the past (e.g. Christmas 2004) and Alec has some experience in this activity himself as a teenager.

However, when it comes to bottle banks, the South Belfast MLA wants the Council to do the job more frequently, or, failing that, to install extra bottle banks.

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It's a sultry day at Stormont and the perspiring MLAs are obviously in rebellious mode. Last month, Sinn Fein's Barry McElduff asked whether the politicians had to keep their jackets on. Today the SDLP's Pat Ramsey joined the shirt sleeves brigade, raising a point of order with the Speaker. Willie Hay promised to monitor the temperatures, but in the meantime the MLAs are continuing to bake in their jackets.

Despite this, the politicians are appearing to keep their cool, even though the topic under discussion is the vexed matter of domestic rates.

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