Listening to Radio 4, a song came on by the late, great Derry singer Josef Locke.
It made me laugh, as it kind of sums up how Stormont operates – or doesn’t.
It was called ‘Blaze Away’ and the lyrics say: “We’ll make a bonfire of our troubles. And we will watch them blaze away. And when they have all gone up in smoke clouds, we’ll never worry should they come another day.
“Here we are, there’s work to do. Don’t let troubles trouble you. Bring them along and we will stir them up. Bring them along and we’ll burn them up.”
Sinn Féin and the DUP have been the biggest parties in charge of the Executive for more than 15 years – and each time they hit a wall, they bought time.
Now usefully propped up by Alliance and the UUP, the governing on the never-never has come to a reckoning. No more tick from the UK tick man.
Stormont simply does not work. The system of governance is not competent. It mitigates against good government.
As an edifice, Parliament Buildings is impressive, but gives the inmates a false feeling of grandeur and self-regard. In truth, there are better run county councils.
Brace yourself, dear reader, for some sham point-scoring.
Sinn Féin will blame the Brits. The DUP have already labelled the draft budget the Sinn Féin one. Alliance blames both. Meanwhile, Mike Nesbitt is struggling to keep the health service on life support.
The finance minister says he’s in listening mode over the budget. And he has said he took input from each minister. So why the grumbling?
It depends on whether the finance minister listened but already had a Sinn Féin prescription pre-written.
In reality, this draft budget should have been agreed in advance by all the Executive parties before going out to consultation.
Where is the collegiality? Where is the inclusiveness? This is not how a team should work or look. Unless it’s a tug of war.
The mandatory nature of the coalition is not the problem – those operating it are. Coalition partnerships – mandatory or voluntary – require generosity, and most of all trust.
The one-trick pony of being against everything from the TUV is hardening the DUP, when in fact it’s only noise.
Northern Ireland is not economically sustainable without significant subsidies from the UK Government, and even now the Irish Government have been digging deep too.
If Northern Ireland were a business, it would have gone bankrupt decades ago.
Politically, the place is a basket case. The need for structural reform is self-evident, but there is no political will to change it. As they said in Star Trek: “It’s life, but not as we know it.”
Northern Ireland has never been and can never be a state. Nor is it a country – not even “our wee country”.
Some unionists and indeed some commentators acquiesce in the false narrative that the north is a country. They are full-blown delusional.
I get the pride in athletes or teams competing under a NI banner. I am actually proud of them, but because of their sporting accomplishments at international and Commonwealth levels – not under what flag is flown or anthem played.
Being a small place, we should be able to get behind them… but please, please stop saying ‘our wee country’.
The real calamity of Stormont mismanagement lies in the sleeping volcano that is the consequences for policing from under-resourcing.
Policing is collapsing in plain sight and it is not for the want of commitment by the Chief Constable.
To put it bluntly, the Stormont Executive does not have the money to fund its own policing service.
The budget for policing must taken out of the Stormont budget and funded directly by the Home Office in the UK. Money for policing has to be ring-fenced.
If a region can’t police itself, citizens/taxpayers have a right to call on the UK Government to afford them the same level of policing and security as other parts of the UK.
Of course, the elephant in the room is the falling number of Catholic applicants to the PSNI, which could very quickly drop to 23%.
The return of 50:50 recruitment has to be reinstated as a priority.
It’s a fantasy to believe that policing can in any way be reflective of the community it serves when it attracts so few of the nationalist population.
Yes, a diverse police service is needed, and you can have as many minorities represented as possible, but that’s icing on the cake.
The RUC never had full community acceptance – nor did, as events have proved, it deserve to.
Seamus Mallon often said: “Solving policing is the key to solving politics here.” Unfortunately, policing is not solved.
That suits some. Those who think it was better in the good old RUC days and those who want gardaí. Both are mistaken.
Policing is all about the here and now – not the never-never land like Stormont budgeting.