Opinion

Holidaying politicians can't stay away from Twitter

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.

First Minister Arlene Foster believes Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir should temporarily step aside. Picture by Hugh Russell
First Minister Arlene Foster believes Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir should temporarily step aside. Picture by Hugh Russell First Minister Arlene Foster believes Finance Minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir should temporarily step aside. Picture by Hugh Russell

ARLENE Foster and Sinn Féin finance minister Máirtín Ó Muilleoir have both been largely unavailable for comment on the Stormont witness coaching scandal - O Muilleoir for the whole of last weekend and Foster until yesterday. Holidays are the official reason. The finance minister was in the Basque Country, which is the Sinn Féin version of going to Spain, while the first minister was at an undisclosed location. Everyone deserves a break and in this age of instant communication that means being incommunicado. But how credible is that stance while still tweeting news and politics stories, as Ó Muilleoir did every few hours and Foster continues to do every day?

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While most senior DUP figures maintain a diplomatic silence, assembly member Lord Morrow is still loudly insisting that his party will report Sinn Féin’s Daithi McKay to the police. On what charge? McKay is accused of coaching a witness while chairing a Stormont committee inquiry but nobody can cite how this constitutes a crime. TUV leader Jim Allister, a Queen's Counsel, has said the police would have to investigate any allegation of “misfeasance in public office” but this is only a civil offence and still ultimately requires the office holder to have done something unlawful. The law on Stormont committees relates solely to their appointment. Short of members assaulting each other, they can operate however they like.

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Daithi McKay has been succeeded by his predecessor. The North Antrim MLA has been replaced by Philip McGuigan, who held the same seat for Sinn Féin from 2003 to 2007, when he unexpectedly stood down in favour of McKay. The official explanation was that Sinn Féin was phasing out council and assembly double-jobbing and McGuigan also wanted a back-office role, so it was easier to combine that with staying on at Ballymoney town hall rather than at Stormont. However, half of MLAs were still councillors four years later, nobody else preferred town hall to Stormont and McGuigan’s back-office job appeared to be at Stormont. Now he has been co-opted ahead of two female North Antrim councillors, despite his party’s usual preference for promoting women. One conclusion from these events is that, for all its voters and members, Sinn Féin is suffering from a talent shortage.

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The European Commission is investigating Stormont’s deferral of domestic water charges, having apparently decided this breaches the EU Water Framework Directive. This will be tricky for Sinn Féin, which deferred the charges, still holds the water portfolio and is now compelled by Brexit to be pro-EU. Stormont’s argument is that householders pay for water through the rates. A more robust response would be that the directive’s requirement is for funding that discourages use, this is interpreted differently across Europe as everyone sees fit and EU directives are not even EU law, let alone national law, although Whitehall rubber-stamped this into UK statute as usual. Can we still give Brussels robust answers, even at this difficult time?

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Jeremy Corbyn’s challenger to lead the Labour Party, Owen Smith, has claimed he was a back room player in the peace process. From 2002 to 2005, Smith was a special adviser to secretary of state Paul Murphy. Referring to this time during a BBC leadership debate, he said: “I was part of the UK’s negotiating team that helped bring on board the loyalist paramilitaries.” On board to what, exactly? Stormont was suspended throughout this period and loyalists did not attend the 2004 Leeds Castle talks, which in any case failed. In 2005, the UVF and the UDA orchestrated the worst rioting Northern Ireland had seen in years. Still, dealing with the brigadiers must have made some impression. Smith went on to work for a drug company.

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Chief Constable George Hamilton has had a brush with the Twitter phenomenon known as ‘the outrage bus’. When an anonymous officer complained online of having too many responsibilities, Hamilton told them to “dry your eyes”. The bus began to roll until the story made headlines for days and the Police Federation had effectively accused the chief constable of insulting officers driven to mental illness. Perhaps a chastened perspective will now filter down on the absurdity of social media policing. The PSNI investigates several thousand Facebook and Twitter postings a year, typically leading to one hundred or so convictions. When people first started complaining of being offended on Facebook, the police simply advised them to stop using it.

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Members of a Glenariffe GAA club have voted to move their front gates, which bear the names of two IRA gunmen from the 1920s, to secure funding for a community centre that had been withheld by unionist-majority Causeway Coast and Glens Council. Tensions remain, however, with some Gaels outraged by the gesture and some unionists still complaining the gates will remain on site. Luckily, a lasting compromise is obvious. The club could put the name of an IRA gunman on one front gate and the name of somebody shot by the IRA on the other. I don’t see how any reasonable person could object to this.

newton@irishnews.com