Opinion

DSD shows unusual level of scepticism over development plan

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson

Newton Emerson writes a twice-weekly column for The Irish News and is a regular commentator on current affairs on radio and television.

Newton Emerson
Newton Emerson Newton Emerson

The Department of Social Development (DSD) has backed out of Belfast’s £300m northside regeneration scheme, or more accurately it has allowed its support to lapse, as ministers are not supposed to be making big decisions while the assembly is dissolved. Stormont’s support would have been statutory rather than financial but without official powers to vest land and approve plans the scheme is probably sunk. It seems DSD did not believe its full vision would have been delivered by the private developers, which is unusually assertive scepticism in a project of this nature. The £400m Victoria Square regeneration scheme, approved by DSD in 2002, had a promised public library that the developers never built and a much-lauded “cultural dimension” that turned out to mean a multiplex cinema. Although this all became apparent shortly after approval was granted, DSD just whistled and pressed on.

**

Sinn Féin’s annual conference was preceded by months of arguing over how much television coverage it would receive. First, Sinn Féin argued with the BBC about not screening the event in the north due to the impending assembly election. Then the SDLP argued with Sinn Féin about it being shown in the south but not in the north. In the end, the main day of the conference was knocked off northern headlines by President Obama’s comments on Northern Ireland, made in response to a question from SDLP Youth vice-chair Cliona McCarney at a ‘town hall meeting’ of 500 youth activists in London. It would be genuinely absurd to suggest this was done on purpose. But still, what a remarkable outcome.

**

The SDLP has been ridiculed for claiming its manifesto was “fully costed” when it was only partially costed, with even that apparently based on a mistake about Stormont’s income. However, even without mistakes and omissions, the phrase ‘fully costed’ should always sound the alarm. More often than not it means each promise has been costed in isolation, with all those costs then added up. But almost everything a government does affects everything else it does, so unless all promises are considered together, a ‘fully costed’ manifesto is completely worthless.

**

UUP councillor and Upper Bann election candidate Doug Beattie has been removing flags from lampposts in loyalist areas of Portadown, personally, publicly and in broad daylight. No loyalist connections or sympathies protect him while on his ladder-borne exploits - a distinguished British military record is his only ‘community authority’. Yet Beattie has received none of the usual police warnings to desist from such behaviour lest it cause a breach of the peace. It is more obvious than ever that the PSNI’s flag policy comprises a piecemeal post-rationalisation of staring contests.

**

Radio Ulster bulletins and programmes led on Tuesday morning with a report from the Nevin Economic Research Institute on the impact of Brexit. Both sides of the euro-argument agreed it was a sound piece of analysis but it was still odd that the BBC felt no need to mention the institute’s inextricable link to the Irish Congress of Trade Unions or its stated focus on research that contributes to trade union goals. It is not as if the institute is coy about these matters, which of course are nothing to be coy about. So why deny listeners that knowledge and perspective, especially when most of them must have been scratching their heads and asking “who’s Nevin?”

**

There is a telling contrast between the Labour Party’s treatment of its Northern Ireland members and its treatment of Bradford West MP Naz Shah. Ms Shah was not expelled after a social media post suggesting the “transportation” of Israelis to America as a “solution”. Worse still, it seems her subsequent suspension from the party was for drafting an apology that accepted the left has a problem with anti-Semitism - Labour HQ expunged all references to this before releasing her statement. Meanwhile, Labour’s general secretary has threatened to expel its Northern Ireland members en masse for running candidates in the Stormont election. This is a good indication of how the Corbynistas feel about their comrades across the water.

**

There has been another widely-reported instance of the intoxication defence, this time in the case of a Belfast rioter who had his name and date of birth tattooed on his arm. The tattoo was prominent enough to be visible on CCTV footage and the culprit’s Facebook page, enabling even the PSNI to catch him. In the dock, Ryan Samuel Elwood’s barrister asked for his client’s alcohol and cannabis consumption to be taken into account - yet intoxication is an aggravating factor in violent offences and possession of cannabis is a crime in itself. Elwood received 10 months in custody. Would it have been less or more if he had been sober?

newton@irishnews.com