| Culzie | Date: Monday, 2012-01-23, 11:37 PM | Message # 1 |
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| Hain reveals his tactics at the heart of peace process
Published on Monday 23 January 2012 08:39
THE Secretary of State who succeeded in persuading the DUP and Sinn Fein to share power has revealed the mix of flattery and strong-arm tactics he used to bring Ian Paisley and Gerry Adams together.
In his memoirs, which are published today, Peter Hain says that he used threats of withdrawing DUP Assembly members’ hundreds of thousands of pounds worth of salaries and allowances to build pressure for a deal with Sinn Fein.
Mr Hain put private pressure on the DUP MLAs, he says, as they came to face re-election in 2007, having already been elected to an Assembly which had been suspended “and I couldn’t see the public acceptance of the charade of voting a second time for something which did not exist ... I would cancel the 2007 election if there was no settlement by then”.
He adds: “The DUP hated the gauntlet being thrown down in this way. Soon they were to hate it even more when I determined upon another stratagem popular with the voters, in fact almost wildly popular.
“I would not be prepared to keep paying for long the salaries and generous allowances Assembly members received if there was no progress towards a settlement.
“‘You are bullying us, Peter,’ Ian Paisley thundered at me. ‘The Ulster people will never stand for that.’ The problem, he knew full well, was that in this instance the people would stand for it, especially when I started saying in speeches and interviews that Assembly members were the only citizens who did not have to turn up at work to get paid ... the members hated this and hated me for doing it to them, grimacing as they conceded I was right.
“Peter Robinson quietly told me approvingly it was causing real consternation in the large DUP Assembly group, and also to party officials and leaders, since another element of the public funding involved was paid directly to the parties to enable them to organise their Stormont activities with support staff, in the DUP’s case amounting to hundreds of thousands of pounds a year.
“Robinson could not say so publicly of course, but he felt it helped ‘reformist’ elements like him who wanted a settlement against the large body of refuseniks in his party.
“Inside information also indicated that my threat had caused deep concern among the families of DUP Assembly members, understandably worried about how they would pay their mortgages.
“Effectively they were being pressured from a tangent never before tried and which might well not have worked years earlier, before Assembly members had become a semi-permanent political class with all the trappings and lifestyles of modern democratic politics — save for a functioning legislature.”
http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news....3445932
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| RSAUB | Date: Tuesday, 2012-01-24, 2:23 AM | Message # 2 |
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Colonel general
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| This isn’t surprising, when you start to get interested in the inner-working of party branches, how family orientated and reliant on family and long standing friendships, it’s scary. Very much an old boys club, and certain people are heavily influenced by money, especially a lot of these free-Presbyterians but this really shows the difference between our career politicians and those we oppose, some of whom have a deep conviction to their cause that their prepared to starve themselves to death for it.
I always wonder how the likes of the British government would have liked to negotiate with the likes of Billy Wright if he had been elected with an electoral mandate, someone who would be totally unacceptable to the Irish.
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| Culzie | Date: Tuesday, 2012-01-24, 9:28 PM | Message # 3 |
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| Your'e right its not suprising,and I know I should be used to it. I know what they are now,but it still bugs me that these people sit there in their ivory towers when they led the people along the road which ended in death for some of them. They only used the people for their own ends and I don't think gave a toss about them. I read one time a wee piece about Garabaldi and it said something like that after he had led Italy to being a country he refused to take part in politics and only wanted to return to the way he had been before. Not many like him,especially among the crowd here.
Yes it would indeed have been interesting to see how they would have dealt with Billy Wright if he had won an election. Though I think he may have still been taken care of. I remember reading in the Irish News the release of goverment papers after the hidden period was up. One report dealt with Lenadoon and the part played by the Rev Bradford. In it it said that the army officer commanding there said 'that man Bradford is a menace and will have to be dealt with'. In the event of what later happened we can draw our own conclousions as to what he meant by that.
Ulster Protestants consider themselves to be a separate nation. This nation they call Ulster
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| RSAUB | Date: Wednesday, 2012-01-25, 4:56 PM | Message # 4 |
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Colonel general
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| Indeed and now information has been brought into the public domain that the security forces had prior knowledge of the attack on Robert Bradford that ultimately ended in his assassination.
Garibaldi came out with a fantastic quote about patriotism and politicians, but I can’t find it on the web. It’s in a book on Italian fascist that I have.
Here’s some of his quotes, very true and heartfelt for anyone who loves their country the world over.
Quotes:
"Every Age has its own peculiar faith. Any attempt to translate into facts the mission of one Age with the machinery of another, can only end in an indefinite series of abortive efforts. Defeated by the utter want of proportion between the means and the end, such attempts might produce martyrs, but never lead to victory."
"The Family is the Country of the heart. There is an angel in the Family who, by the mysterious influence of grace, of sweetness, and of love, renders the fulfillment of duties less wearisome, sorrows less bitter. The only pure joys unmixed with sadness which it is given to man to taste upon earth are, thanks to this angel, the joys of the Family."
"Constancy is the complement of all other human virtues."
"Without country you have neither name, token, voice, nor rights, no admission as brothers into the fellowship of the Peoples. You are the bastards of Humanity. Soldiers without a banner, Israelites among the nations, you will find neither faith nor protection; none will be sureties for you. Do not beguile yourselves with the hope of emancipation from unjust social conditions if you do not first conquer a Country for yourselves."
"A Country is not a mere territory; the particular territory is only its foundation. The Country is the idea which rises upon that foundation; it is the sentiment of love, the sense of fellowship which binds together all the sons of that territory."
"God has given you your country as cradle, and humanity as mother; you cannot rightly love your brethren of the cradle if you love not the common mother."
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