AS unionism threatens to wreck Northern Ireland over parading, we have finally found Peter Robinson's bottom line on extremism. The erection of a Ku Klux Klan (KKK) flag in east Belfast was "dreadful", "intimidatory", "grossly offensive" and the work of "some idiot", the DUP leader declared, adding the those responsible had no "local support".
Is a suspicion of local support the reason Robinson has not been so forthright about other racist incidents? We have also found the PSNI's bottom line on flags, with police removing the KKK banner plus an overnight replacement, albeit after "discussions with local residents and representatives". So why can the same decisiveness not be shown to loyalist flags? 'Residents and representatives' might dispute the comparison and police might cite the enforcement implications of local support but a key distinction for officers of the law should be that the UVF and the UDA, unlike the KKK, are proscribed organisations.
UNION flags are a trickier business, not being illegal in themselves. Last month the PSNI said it would treat any further union flags on Belfast's mixed upper Ormeau Road as a breach of the peace, implicitly admitting officers have always had the power to take flags down. However, with such arbitrary power comes a responsibility to be consistent. This week, police refused to stop union flags going up on Belfast's mixed Lisburn Road, including outside their own police station, apparently after judging loyalists would breach the peace if their flags were removed for breaching the peace. So are we back now to the threat of violence wins?
IN other breach of the peace news, the PSNI has won its appeal against April's High Court ruling that officers "wrongly facilitated" flag protest parades. The original judgment found officers had misdirected themselves on basic points of law as to whether un-notified parades are illegal, while conceding police must still have operational discretion on the ground. The appeal judgment found police must have operational discretion on the ground, regardless of whether a parade is unnotified and therefore illegal. In other words, once parading law is broken, public order concerns trump enforcing the law. So yes, it seems we are back to the threat of violence wins.
THERE was outrage from some parents in 2008 when Sinn Fein minister Caitriona Ruane praised Bobby Sands as a role model for children during a prize day speech at St Colm's High School in Twinbrook. But that was then. There was no sign of outrage this week after Martin McGuinness presented St Colm's pupils with "Bobby Sands Gaeltacht Scholarships", described by An Phoblacht as "a joint initiative taken by Colin Sinn Fein and a recently-formed group of local business people." In west Belfast at least, it seems Sinn Fein has now normalised the lauding of the Provisional IRA in Catholic schools. Ethos adds value, as they say at the CCMS.
A CHANGE in EU rules means Invest NI can now only subsidise new ventures, rather than continuing to chuck cash at existing businesses. This puts it even more firmly in the role of 'picking winners', a phrase government stopped using in the 1970s when it became painfully obvious that it was picking and then sticking by too many losers.
The European Commission had originally planned to ban all state aid to large firms, which would have forced Stormont to rethink its outdated industrial policy. If Invest NI was shut down its £175m budget would be enough to slash business rates and significantly improve physical infrastructure. Then picking winners and despatching losers could be left to the market. If we do not believe in the market, why are we encouraging private investors in the first place?
NI WATER has put a £30m contract out to tender that covers fitting meters to households and also "undertaking and management of temporary disconnections for non-payment of bills". The We Won't Pay Campaign, which is run by the Socialist Party of Northern Ireland, claims this "must mean" the executive plans to introduce charges and the contract "makes it clear" non-paying households will lose supply. However, this part of the contract can only apply to business customers. Shutting off water to a domestic dwelling for non-payment of bills was outlawed in 2006, ironically and cynically to facilitate water charging by side-stepping the public health effect of disconnection. Proponents of water charging have always kept quiet about the 2006 law as it effectively guarantees the success of a mass non-payment campaign. Should the We Won't Pay Campaign not know this?
newton@irishnews.com
* WHAT'S THE DIFFERENCE? The PSNI wasted little time removing Ku Klux Klan flags erected in east Belfast, but loyalist paramilitary flags still flutter in the breeze on lamp-posts all over the north