A good day to bury bad news?
I drove up to Londonderry this morning to get in place for a special Stormont Live this afternoon which will cover David Cameron's statement to the Commons and the findings of the Saville report.
Derry looked particularly attractive in the June sunshine - groups of tourists followed their guides around the Bloody Sunday memorial and Free Derry Corner. Up on the walls near the Apprentice Boys HQ, another guide waited to take people on a "Siege Heroes" tour.
Over at Guildhall square the massed ranks of the media prepared to cover the families' reaction to the voluminous report they are now studying inside the building. Some of my colleagues are heading in to try to glean what they can during an hour's "lock-in".
Earlier in the week I wrote about how the entirely unconnected sagas of the Bloody Sunday Inquiry and the Review of Public Administration were running strangely in tandem. It may be coincidence, but the Executive's failure to sort out their plans to streamline the local councils has emerged on a day when a far bigger story will push it out of the headlines.
When the former Arlene Foster appeared alongside the First and Deputy First Ministers inside Stormont Castle to unveil the eleven council compromise, it was hailed as an example of the Executive breaking a logjam. So why, under Edwin Poots, has the plan back fired?
Is it the argument Mr Poots makes, that without more collaboration on back office services, the merger no longer makes financial sense? Or is it to do with boundary concerns and unionist fears that Belfast could go green? Or what about suggestions that some politicians are still uncomfortable about the proposed governance arrangements for the new councils which would see the introduction of a proportional system to the handout of all posts?
Pay your £9 million (the bill the Environment department has so far wracked up) and take your choice. But what's clear is that the long awaited publication of the Saville report seems a fairly good day to bury some bad news.
I'm 
© 2012~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~36~RS~)
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So the Deputy First Minister wants everyone to start talking about the past. Maybe he could be the first to start, followed by Gerry and Ian and all the rest.
Saville is out I have not read it just headlines and main points I hope it can bring closure to this as some have had to live with this for a long long time.
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Mark
SAVILLE EXONERATES MCGUINNESS............................
Well that’s what McGuinness said today.
He proclaims his innocence on the back of Saville’s incontestable verdict that fourteen innocent people were murdered by out-of-control Paras. It’s a pity that Saville didn’t question in greater detail what McGuinness was doing with a “Thompson machine-gun” on the day of the murders.
By the way, the Guardian report of a few days ago was light years off the mark in its forecast that “unlawful killings” would be Saville’s verdict. Perhaps It would be appropriate for Inside Politics to have the paper’s Ireland Correspondent, Henry McDonald, on next Sunday’s programme to explain his gratuitous speculation that caused uncalled for pain to the victims of Bloody Sunday.
Susie
Carryduff
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3. SusieFlood
"what McGuinness was doing with a “Thompson machine-gun”"
Probably...probably. Read page forty six of the document. Read it again, then post accurately this time. There are enough idiots on this blog who present opinion as fact.
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See no evil hear no evil; it was all the republicans fault
"why not put the soldiers in Government"
If the these soldiers can get a mandate then they would be entitled to represent their voters. Somehow though I doubt if too many people would vote for terrorist liars such as these soldiers.
p.s. Who fired the first shot Stormontspy???
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9. rhinestonecowboy
"Did you read the report?"
A quote from David Cameron, British Prime minster: "on balance the first shot in the vicinity of the march was fired by the British Army and that none of the casualties shot by soldiers of Support Company was armed with a firearm".
Now. Have I again proved you to be what you really are???
In regards to my reading the report. I have not finished it yet. When I'm done I will lend it to you. Or you could adopt your usual toot of see no evil hear no evil. Holding your fingers in your ears and repeating "la la la la" does not make the truth go away you know!!!
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Mark
ASSEMBLY NUMBSKULLS DELIVER AS EXPECTED ON RPA
Here we are again with the politics and policy of deferral. No decisions taken, put them on the back-burner, retreat to the sectarian laager, blame themuns, etc, etc, etc.
Surely people will wake up soon to the reality that the incompetence/sectarianism that is rife within the DUP/Sinn Féin Fascist Coalition is taking us nowhere.
Susie
Carryduff
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5. DisgustedinDERRY
From this day onwards, the members of the 1st Battalion of the Parachute Regiment who murdered people on Bloody Sunday are terrorists and will go down in history as such!!!
From this day onwards, the 1st Battalion of the Parachute regiment will be remembered as a collective group of liars!!!
From this day onwards, Lord Widgery will be known as a man who covered up the truth... he will be remembered as a liar!!!
From this day onwards, the men murdered and the men and women wounded by British terrorists on 'Bloody Sunday', will be remembered as innocent victims of state terrorism!!!
From this day onwards, the members of the 1st Battalion of the Paratroop Regiment, who were implicated by Saville, will be remembered as a group of terrorists, who fired live rounds on unarmed and innocent civilians.
Time now for convictions!!!
Time now for Wilford to be stripped of his awards and pensions!!!
Time now for all those terrorist Paras who were implicated by Saville to be stripped of all awards and pensions!!!
Time now for all the terrorist Paratroopers implicated by Saville to be put behind bars where they belong!!!
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