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democratic_Centrism

Listed below are comments made by democratic_Centrism between Saturday, 3rd October 2009 and Monday, 23rd November 2009.

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Not living in caves 6:15pm on 23 Nov 2009 Yes the opening part was as far as I can recall the moderate bit. And you are right YellowSmurf, it reminded me of Tony Blair going to Europe and Gordon Brown recently too in the European Parliament, talking things up beautifully about Europe, but the narrative never ever met the reality, which Labour as a party had done nothing on in terms of building up consensus in Britain to be more supportive of EU ideals.

Robinson said look back at the old assembly wasn't it a failure and this new assembly is working, why would you want direct rule? But the truth is that while there were confrontations and arguments and failouts it was a breaking in period, this assembly has been consistently bad tempered and in stasis.

This time it is only the taut party grips of SF who manage to hush up its massive political failure in education and the DUP's grip in hushing up of executive walk-outs and non-agreement of agendas etc. All quiet on both fronts then you would think? But people can see past this as just very strong party management of putting gloss on failures. As to let go of this grip would mean everything would fall in on itself.

"The DUP kept faith with its principles" - yeah right - well until First Minister power-sharing became an option. So why did the DUP take up its ministerial seats and govern with Sinn Fein IRA (sic)? I wonder if big Ian was written down why he did what he did? Don't get me wrong, he was right to accept reality and moderate a little, but ehm, after all those years, it's just a little bit out of kilter with, if not diametrically oppposed to, that old DUP principle.

Can't wait for Paisley's memoirs, the years 2006-2007 in particular.
Blair camp not hopeful 7:11pm on 19 Nov 2009 What do you mean Blair had "no chance" you should have told me that before I wasted £50 quid on 4/1 odds over at PaddyPower?!
Pressing ahead? 7:06pm on 19 Nov 2009 'Building on Success', is this to be filed under another one of your comedy articles Mark?!

"Do we build on what we have achieved or risk throwing it all away chasing unrealisable goals?"

I.e. Should we ditch moral clarity and principled stances for the more nuanced style of pragmatic politics that we should have let others try and get on with 30 or so years ago?

I reckon thanks to Gerry and Trimble and Paisley for the Peace Process, now time for a peaceful change of government and style of government, s'il vous plaît!
Blair camp not hopeful 6:56pm on 19 Nov 2009 EU turns down most effective communicator and global player shocker!!!

You may well get your vote yet for the next president if it goes federal after all. Hurrah!
More e-mail woes for Alliance 01:49am on 13 Nov 2009 "but he did say that Mr Woodward was trying to do the right thing in the current situation"

And he's absolutely right.
Parallel Realities 12:39pm on 11 Nov 2009 If Stormont hasn't had its chips make sure to point a chip on each shoulder before setting off.

That's how we do business here, parallel grievances, double negativity and outcomes of always looking back not forward.

Isn't it funny how nationalists of whatever ilk are so great at predicting the past and reconstructing history to suit themselves yet fail miserably when asked to show some useful and relevant leadership for the future.
A potent intervention? 3:41pm on 04 Nov 2009 You need only look at the recruitment process involved with the police to see that it favours middle-class people who have the ability to deal with confrontation in a professional way, and to log notes and record details accurately. Fair enough you might say.

However, with that comes a mindset of a police service not equipped to deal with the problems in working class areas. For example, police attitudes in working class areas tend to differ, perhaps shorter patience to deal with people who are less articulate, police may be less inclined to follow cases through as perhaps they don't like their accents look down on their behaviours, view the areas as just one massive problem in its entirety making them unenthusiastic to tackle the cases issue by issue, individual by individual. If the mindset is that of just one big problem based on the whole area being beset with criminality and social deprivation - something these recruits aren't accustomed to - this is hardly conducive to solving individual cases of criminality.

The answer is to knock this policing with the community on the head and get the community into the police.

I'm not against a professional career recruitment process where smart people get to fill out application forms and go through the hoops and become qualified police officers but there is a massive link missing in that sometimes you need people from the communities there in the police on an equal basis in terms of status and stature, even if it is only giving advice and knowledge;but, perhaps the best way is just to employ them, where possible and desired.

Leadership on the ground by those that care than say from a detached and heavily regulated, if not politically correct, hand above. Time to meet in the middle somehow.

If the police can opt themselves out of fair employment legislation and EU laws then I reckon they can come up with other more imaginative recruitment practices too. Policing change shouldn't stop at 50:50, new processes should be considered so as the police get the personnel who can deal with the problems on the ground effectively.
Is the Brown offer a "con"? 01:13am on 24 Oct 2009 @ 'Walnut Desk'

Very impressive, must be to match the wooden head.
Waiting for Hillary 02:26am on 11 Oct 2009 Please spare us a dime, spare us a dime.
Blair for President? 4:04pm on 03 Oct 2009 RE 5. At 2:03pm on 02 Oct 2009, christophergill wrote:

Christopher, your own oratorical-of-sorts summation of Blair is good, the mistakes you mention are right. Only the other day I was thinking about the Blair-as-president situation. I agreed with the faults over Iraq war and war against terror and those flawed political "beliefs" that is to say Blair believed in America as a model of progress. A bit starry eyed. That was then.

And also, as most enterprising individuals admit - you learn from your past mistakes and it makes you a better person in terms of experience and making better decisions and getting better outcomes in the future.

So your own views are correct but probably have relevance in the year 2005. Things have moved on a good bit.

The current Tony Blair is not only well briefed but is an extremely active global partner if not leader in multi-faith tolerance, in global climate change and in peace processing in the middle east. Not to metion those strong and relevant connections stateside. The past is there for Tony Blair to bit him a little; but, it is the future which holds the challenges and Tony Blair's vast and relevant political networks and connections are indespensible to a modern Europe. He is as a man serious about poverty and genuine on getting global climate change agreements. These are two of the most important issues in today's world let alone Europe. Check Google is you don't believe me re Blair's post-PM work!

To close, I do feel he shouldn't be paid a considerable salary given that most people coming to the post will likely be wealthy because of the experience and background of the person required for the post - wealth and power are sadly connected in all spheres of life; ergo the EU President will already have enough money to get by without ever having to work another day. There will also be something more edifying if the EU keep the salary down for Blair as it will make things stick better by reducing those moralistic arguments belonging to the hard-right anti-EU brigade.

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