Junior makes his own Irish land grab

Yesterday's debate in the House of Commons makes interesting reading at one point:

"Like the hon. Gentleman, who is also a great Unionist committed to the Union, I believe that the same benefits should flow whether in the north of England or the northern part of Ulster. [Interruption.] That includes Donegal; we will get it back into the Union at some point soon."

For these are the words of Ian Paisley in response to an intervention from David Anderson the Labour MP for Blaydon. Anderson has referred to the North of Ireland and it appears that Paisley was pedantically pulling him up that the most Northern point of Ireland is not the off shore part of his North Antrim constituency, Rathlin, but is Malin Head in Donegal.

But he has gone beyond pointing out that fact as has asserted that Donegal will be back in the Union soon. Now Paisley's party the DUP have recently been telling Sinn Féin there colleagues in the Northern Ireland Assembly that there will be no need in the near future for a border poll regarding the status of the six counties of Northern Ireland. So how, if there is to be no border poll, can he claim that Donegal will be back in the Union soon?

Is he suggesting a county by county poll? Results could lead to an interesting patch work across Ireland is certain counties vote to come back/stay in the UK and others vote to leave or remain in the Republic of Ireland.

Or his he going to launch a military strike on some part of another EU member?

Electorally in the last general election it doesn't look like the voters of Donegal are Unionists. Of the six Teachta Dálas elected two were from Sinn Féin one in each seat* and the independent elected for Donegal South West was previously a Sinn Féin councillor.

Now my family has direct roots in Donegal and indeed the neighbouring  county Londonderry. There would be uproar if both of those counties were no longer border regions. The people of Derry couldn't buy their cheap petrol in Euros just over the border an the people of Donegal couldn't buy cheap electronics etc in The Foyleside shopping centre in Derry City.

So just how is Ian Paisley junior planning to get Donegal back into the Union soon?

The answer my friends is simple.

In his (and only his) dreams.

* Indeed in both seats electing under STV Sinn Féin topped the poll. In Donegal North East it was enough to be elected on the first count, in SouthWest it left them 202 votes short of quota.

In response to Dorries and Burrowes

I could go into a long rant about the latest comments of Nadine Dorries and David Burrowes on the issue of equal marriage. But they basically hoist themselves by their own petards so easily this time.

First up is Enfield Southgate MP Burrowes, writing on ConservativeHome today he opines about next weeks third reading like this:

"the news that the issue of gay marriage is coming back to the Commons next week is like those Jaws film trailers. Just when you thought it was safe to return to a new Parliamentary session, focussing on the key issues facing the country, the Marriage (Same Sex Couples) Bill returns to infest MPs."

Surely in the 8 years he has been MP since beating the man who beat Portillo he will have noticed that all legislation goes through the process of three readings and votes in the House of Commons, if they pass the first and second reading of course.

So unlike the film Jaws this is how our Parliamentary democracy works week in week out. Just because you''ve voted against a bill twice (in the minority) doesn't make it into a horror movie franchise.

Next up Mid-Bedforshire's MP who carried out surgeries and voted in the jungle Nadine Dorries; who has recently had the Conservative whip restored. She was Tweeting away about Charles Moore's article in the Sunday Telegraph yesterday including asking:

"If gay marriage bill takes sex out of marriage could a sister marry a sister to avoid inheritance tax?"

Now we don't allow brothers and sisters to marry at present, so I'll leave Nadine to work out that answer for herself. Maybe in a cockroach invested coffin simply for asking such a stupid question.

Do UKIP really want Government to stop "meddling" in marriage? - a test of libertarianism

There has been so much in the media over equal marriage over the last week, where do I start?

How about UKIP first?

UKIP's David Coburn has a point when he said last week:

"If so, it [marriage] is clearly in the domain of the churhc and other faiths - and it is none of the Government's business to meddle with it"

When that it is marriage equality he has a point. It should be left up to each religious group to define marriage as they see fit, and also those of no faith to do likewise. Now I come to the test that shows just how libertarian he and UKIP claim to be (comments he made at the weekend).

You see other members of the party including the MEP Roger Helmer have in the past argued that it lead to incest. Yet it is the Government's "meddling" that stipulates which close relatives are not allowed to marry. So are UKIP wanting this "meddling" to be lifted so that whatever any church, faith or non-faith group decide is acceptable is allowed? Because according to Coburn Government shouldn't meddle, so are UKIP actually wanting them the remove the "authoritarian" legislation that prohibits siblings, cousins, parents and children from getting married?

I don't think so.

Just as the Government stipulates which relatives you cannot marry it also stipulates that marriage must be between one man and one women at a time. We have Government meddling against bigamy, you can go to jail for that. Yet Government meddling also allows the vow "to death do us part" to be broken by divorce, a bit of government meddling that Nigel Farage himself partook of in 1997. So if the Government hadn't meddled in marriage to allow divorce Farage would be a bigamist and should be in jail. Do UKIP want to remove one or both of those authoritarian measures in the pursuit of libertarian utopia?

But then there is another crunch issue. The meddling already in place by government is that it can only be between man and women. So if we lift that bit of meddling and leave it up to faith groups to do what they want about marriage equality there is one problem remaining. You see UKIP are arguing for Government not the meddle, allowing civil equal marriage and those faith groups that want to, to do so surely is the logical outworking of Coburn's comments, isn't it?

Finally something else for UKIP to consider,not all marriages in this country, no matter how much UKIP wish they were, is a religious marriage. Another bit of Government meddling allows them to be carried out in a civil ceremony by a registrar. Now sadly that bit of meddling has to be regulated not by a church or faith group, but by Government. So either UKIP are insisting that all marriages are carried out by faith groups or they also want the Government to do away with all civil union ceremonies as well.

UKIP can't have their selected "libertarianism" going only one way.

Andrew Simpson Olympic Yachtsman 1976-2013

Simpson on the right with Iain Percy

Andrew Simpson was the crewman who along with Iain Percy won gold in the Star class at the Beijing Olympics and silver in the same class last summer.

He was a competitive sailor in the Finn class before teaming up with Percy, winning silver in the 2001 European Championships and bronze in the 2003 worlds. But of course that was a class where fellow Brit Ben Ainslie ruled supreme so the chance to crew for Percy allowed him to take part in two Olympics.

With the Star class cut from the 2016 Olympic regatta Simpson's eyes turned towards the America's Cup, like those of his teenage training partner and rival Ben Ainslie. Yesterday he was training with the Swedish crew Artemis Racing in San Francisco Bay for who he was the strategist. The catamaran flipped over and he was trapped underneath for 10 minutes and efforts from doctors out in the bay and onshore were unable to revive him.

Speaking after missing out on gold only in the medal race last summer when the wind shifted Simpson said,

"It's a lottery at times. That last run proved it. We didn't get it right. Sorry for everyone who's watching. We tried our hardest." 

Sadly that lottery of water, wind and men trying to control both claimed his life yesterday.

Thoughts are with his wife Leah, their young son Freddie, the rest of the Artemis crew and all his friends and family.

Andrew Simpson 17 December 1976 - 9 May 2013

Pretty in Pink #BradleyWiggins #Wiggo #GirodItalia #Giro

Those readers who know me know I love my cycling. In fact later this month I'm looking forward to getting my hands on Mapping le Tour, a book that covers the maps (another of my fascinations) of the previous 99 runnings of the longest running Grand Tour.

But tomorrow sees the start of the 96th edition of the slightly younger Giro d'Italia. It is the race that contains both last years winner Ryder Hesjedal and the winner of the Tour de France last year Bradley Wiggins. But there are three other previous grand tour winners in the mix Vincenzo Nibali  (Vuelta a España 2010), Cadel Evans (Le Tour 2011), Michele Scarponi (Giro 2011). Plus other contenders who have stood on Grand Tour podium, either as king of the mountains or in the top three in General Classification.

The leader of the next three weeks on the roads of Italy will wear the Maglia Rosa (Pink Jersey) you can follow my thoughts of the day's routes and action over on my sporting almanac.

But in the meantime I think this song is appropriate and as for genre almost Wiggo-esque.

'For Everyone' caveats may apply

In my humble opinion when you say you stand For Everyone you'd better make the right adjustments to make sure you do stand for everyone.That is what I think the Alliance Party's amendment so today's motion on the constitutional convention and equal marriage aimed to do*. However, it appears that three of the Alliance Party's own MLAs couldn't even do this (Trevor Lunn voted against his party's amendment and Keiran McCarthy and Judith Cochrane abstained by voting in both lobbies). You may recall back in October that these three either voted the same way or were strangely absent. To do so once voters can excuse to do it twice on the same issue loos like a habit.

I have no issue with the three Alliance MLAs who then, after the amendment was defeated, abstained on the substantial motion. However, with Cochrane and McCarthy joining Lunn in the No lobby it makes we wonder if all of the Alliance Party is for everyone, or whether some add too many caveats. As many will know from my past the reason I hadn't up until December last year joined the Alliance was because as I said too often they weren't liberal enough for me, but don't panic I'm going anywhere just yet (well not apart from being the member from Kirkwall).

But then there was the party that brought the motion Sinn Féin. Unfortunately they had ignored one important fact in putting that motion before the Assembly this time around. You need to bring with you those of faith who are on your side, by ignoring part of the motion from October that did that they were not going to get as much support as October, all other things being equal. That is why there were only 42 votes for this time.

When the Liberal Democrats formed their motion which subsequently became party policy and the skeleton of the policies in the rest of the UK, we made sure that faith groups were not compelled to do anything, but also recognised that some were ready right now to carry out same-sex marriage and that others may follow after dialogue within themselves. But you cannot oppose church government from government and the same should be true in reverse.

However, whatever the outcome of today let us not lose sight of the true villians of the piece the Unionist MLAs. With only one exception, East Belfast's Michael Copeland, from the biggest two groupings all the rest voted no. You would imagine that there were no LGBT people in the protestant/unionist/loyalist population the way this group carried on, thank goodness for Copeland along with Basil McCrea and John McCallister.




The DUP have signed up to the St Andrews Agreement adjustments to the Good Friday Agreement. They are still meant to promote equality of opportunity to all, without prejudice to sexual orientation. The more they continue to deny any advance to the LGBT community the more we have to consider that they are not fulfilling their obligations under Section 75 of the Belfast Act.

The conclusion of today is that all parties in Northern Ireland are somehow or other signed up to equality of opportunity for all, yet each is bringing their own caveats to the table on what is, no matter what Sammy Wilson says, a matter of equality.

* However, our churches are exempt from certain areas of equal employment legislation. No woman has ever challenged the Roman Catholic Churches right to not ordain women, and churches are at liberty not to employ LGBT people should they so choose.

When the church turns on its own

So it appears that Second Donegore Presbyterian Church in Antrim want to turf out one of their elders. The problem of course comes when that elder happens to be the leader of one of the parties in the Northern Ireland Assembly and also the Minister of Justice.

For it is the church of David Ford that apparently has some calling for him to step aside as an elder. Of course being involved in religion and politics doesn't mean you have to take the churches line on everything does it? I mean we live in a democracy and not a theocracy.

Of course being a church elder means that someone is meant to care for those that come across his path, now I know for a fact that David Ford has come across a number of gay people in the course of his parliamentary work. In fact I'm sure the leader of the Yes to Fairer Votes campaign in Northern Ireland fitted that description, if you really must box people. But he, that individual, was also a fellow Presbyterian and the son of not one but two elders in the Presbyterian Church. The reaction of the one who was at the time that I came out I have mentioned before.

Now Christians are all for saying that they will love the sinner and hate the sin, yet they don't want gay Christians to talk about being gay in front of them. They also don't want us to tell them that we have found someone we love, and they certainly would rather we burned in lust as singletons rather than enter a committed relationship.

Therefore I have a few questions to Second Donegore.

Are you prejudging all LGBT people with the worst extremes whereas most of us just want that one person to love? Do you really want to cause Presbyterians who are gay to confound sin upon sin as they try and fit in with what you will accept of them? Would you want them to marry in a sham ceremony to a person of the opposite sex to potential hurt that person and any children when they later admit to who they are? Or you rather that they were honest at the start?

One final thing before you go casting stones. Are you really loving all sinners equally, or are you condemning some more heavily than others so that they cannot stand being around you and your judgemental attitude?

What Mr Ford is doing is casting aside that judgemental attitude and looking at the wider picture. Offering protections for those like Second Donegore who oppose same-sex marriage, while at the same time offering protections to the desire of those elsewhere who want to be treated equally. After all we are all sinners when we stand before God are we not?

Update 24 April 8:30 David Ford has stepped aside from his duties as an elder in the Presbyterian Church at this time.

As I said last night it is sad that the church should hold our politicians to account in this way. There are plenty of things that politicians have to legislate for that are contrary to a literal reading of scripture, but those that are religious and in politics often realise that there are times that they have to reach out and make a change. The bible after all does lay our rules for how to treat slaves and the anti-abolition movement was as much part of the church as anything else. The same applied to the civil rights movement in the USA, white Christians did not want to have mixed-race rmarriages sanctioned or there to be integration. They looked in disgust at those who looked like them who advocated change, much like that elder member of the congregation [correction] quoted in the article did of Mr Ford.