Wayne Bridge.

For about the last month British soccer has been rocked by the scandal that Chelsea captain, John Terry had an affair with Vanessa Peroncell the then girlfriend of his England teammate, Wayne Bridge.

Today Wayne Bridge has announced that he is making himself unavailable for selection for the England team because he feels his position is untenable.

In this metaphor I am John Terry and Wayne Bridge is an amalgamation of British Establishment figures. Allow me to assure you then that once Wayne Bridge has got this little tantrum out of his system he'll soon be making himself available for selection again. After all Bridge is just a second choice player.

Sorry I Forgot.

Yesterday was Tuesday and therefore meant to be really stressful. I think in future it would be easier if the Croydon lot developed some sort of card system they could hand to me when they're trying to be difficult to save their efforts from going unnoticed.

The only real thing of note is that while my father and I went to the pub for dinner my grandmother got very stressed whilst waiting her own in case the council's little crime syndicate decided to rob her again. My father decided to exacerbate this by waiting for as long as possible to tell her that we'd returned. This ruined the rhythm of an otherwise perfect evening but does highlight why containment won't work because my grandmother cannot feel safe until the criminals are jailed.

This of course all pales into insignificance by the fact I've had my hair cut and it has gone very, very wrong. So wrong in fact that I now not only look like a girl I look like a girl with a really bad haircut. I'll just have to console myself in the fact that if I know one thing about my hair it's that it will grow out.

Northern Ireland Car Bomb.

At around 22:40 last night (22/2) a car bomb exploded in Newry, County Down, Northern Ireland. It is exactly what it seems. That is a dissident Republican group carried out a car bombing. It's really not that much of a surprise because trouble has been brewing in the region for the best part of the year now. Of course it does nothing to give the dissident Republicans a reputation as either the brightest or the best.

And That's the End of That.

Today my grandmother and my father attended an appointment with psychiatrist at the Queens road Dementia team. I did not attend. However the psychiatrist stretched their medical credibility to breaking point by announcing that my grandmother's dementia is now so far advanced that there is no possible treatment they could even attempt. Therefore the outcome of the appointment was that medically there is no further action required so no further medical action will be taken.

Now if some outstanding criminal offences, hostage situations and compensation matters can be resolved to my satisfaction Britain may once again be able to move forward with its life.

I'm sorry if that sounds like an arrogant thing to say but I would hate for the Brits to think that now the medical people have been taken out of the equation I'll suddenly forget who my father and the cleaner are and start giving the good stuff away for free.

F**k That Was Intense!

The British Academy Film and Television Association (BAFTA) Awards have just ended it London. The climax of the ceremony was Vanessa Redgrave, mother of Natasha Richardson, receiving a lifetime achievement award from HRH Prince William, heir to the British Crown that is widely suspected of murdering Natasha Richardson. The film everyone's been talking about is The Hurt Locker.

Although she did not win an award an annoyingly large part of the ceremony focused on the British actress, Olivia Williams. That was probably my fault because I did once Google her name to find out why that name had been stuck in my head all day. The answer of course is that's she was in a high profile, British film called An Education. So I'm sorry for that but alcohol does tend to make the mind wander.

Really Dull Update.

Today I've been drafting a response to the Office of Public Guardian over this power of attorney business. It's just a formality really because it's a bit rude to tell everybody else about it but not tell them.

I also saw my grandmother briefly today for the first time since Tuesday. Before I went I drew up a receipt of her spending this week. Although there was some debate over discount rates it totals up to around £120. Based on a income of £70 per week that represents over a £50 shortfall. That of course was the second phase of the Brits plan. Being unable to take large sums of money they would instead take a high volume of small amounts of money in the hope that my grandmother would be too stressed and confused to notice. Whatever will they think of next.

And only mentioned because it made me laugh the Council published free newspaper got delivered today. It featured a coloumn written by the Croydon Police Borough Commander in which he congratulated himself on the drop in the burglary rate. What he failed to mention is that the burglary rate has dropped across the borough because the small group of people who do all the burglaries have stopped because they can no longer count on the protection of the Borough Commander.

Britain's All Gold.

Following a long argument about the shape of her helmet Britain's Amy Williams has won the gold medal in the skeleton bobsleigh at the Winter Olympics. This is the first time that a Briton has won a gold medal in a individual event since 1980.

So it's official then; Amy from Bath is going down hill faster then any woman in the world. Well done the gays(!)

More From My Grandmother.

Last night she didn't get to watch the popular political discussion show, Question Time with me in what was a confusing day in British Politics. So in protest she decided to climb out of her bedroom window in one of her terrible dementia episodes.

That's a real shame because I was going to go an see her tonight but obviously that's now got to be cancelled.

So it's Been Upgraded

From a car crash then. And seeing as I've broken my silence I should tell you that I had dinner with my mother yesterday. It was such a pleasant evening of polite small talk it actually bordered on a little bit dull. In fact I only bring it up because today she's been travelling to Paris on the old Eurostar so you remember that train crash in Belgium? Yeah she's been having quite a stressful.

Apart from that tonight I had Irish stew. Well it was a lamb stew and I drank me own weight in Guinness.

Evening All

I can confirm that I am here on the Internet and I intend to be here for about the next two hours. I am though more then a little bit drunk so I apologise if I ramble and roam but sure I'll find my bed eventually.

The Death List.

Yesterday (15/02/10) officials in Dubai issued arrest warrants for 11 people over the murder of Mahmoud Al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas official. Although there appears to be some debate over the nationalities of the wanted people the killing was clearly the work of a Mossad assassination team. I'm not saying this to provoke a heated discussion over the rights or wrongs of the killing because I haven't looked at it in that much detail myself. However it is obviously the work of Mossad.

It is worth pointing out though that the Israeli Defence Force are currently glued to American military intelligence in Haiti. As are, I believe, the Canadians, the French, the Brazilians and the Dutch.

Also there was a murder by my local supermarket (Selhurst Park) on Sunday. Although this was just a murder it did mean that when I visited the supermarket today the place was crawling with police officers. The highlight of the trip was one of the Metropolitan Police's elite Viking search team trying to hurl himself under the wheels of the car. I know a policeman's lot is not a happy one but that's just taking things too far.

How's This For Dedication?

At around 05:30 my grandmother put six hours of planning into action hammering on the door and windows of my house screaming at the top of her lungs. She wasn't screaming for my father or any of her long dead relatives instead she was screaming specifically for me. I proceeded to do the professional thing of completely ignoring her and going back to sleep.

When I awoke at around 10:00 my grandmother was lucid and in perfect health. So yes that's my grandmother, loyal to the Crown to the last. I wonder how that's going to work out for her?

Also I should point out that my grandmother's cleaner / mental health professional has decided that she needs to attend my grandmother five times a week now so already I've got this funny feeling that it's going to be a long day.

Operation Moshtarak

This is the NATO led operation that is currently underway in Afghanistan. Basically it's a three phase operation designed to first take the ground then secure the ground before building a civil society on the ground. Obviously the final phase will take months rather then days but the first phase has been completed. As this is a joint US/UK operation the ground in question has been split into two sectors; the British sector and the much larger US sector. While there has been some light resistance in the US sector British troops have been able to pretty much walk into their sector unopposed.

This military success has caused the British army to throw a tantrum and resort to inventing and overplaying the security threats like roadside bombs in their sector in order to drag the operation out for as long as possible so they can stay glued to American military intelligence for as long as possible.. They have also taken to killing civilians in the hope of turning the world against the US strategy in Afghanistan. This was planned so far in advance by the British that they were, using a link that's too complicated to explain here, able to get the Belgians to prepare a train crash in order to put the Americans off their game.

Meanwhile at the Winter Olympics a reported lack of snow is threatening to delay some events forcing the entire competition to over-run its scheduled end date. After months of telling everyone that Climate scientists can't be trusted the British have suddenly changed their minds and decided that they believe in global warming after all.

Elsewhere the Pope has declared that he is in fact not a Catholic by drawing fresh attention to the Irish Child abuse scandal. So religion, child abuse and politics. I can't see that conversation ending anything other then well (!)

All things considered I'm glad my survival doesn't depend on the big bad CIA putting in a winning performance because this is like watching a car crash.

The Fightback Begins.

Now that the Brits have realised that if they want to spend my grandmother's money on her behalf they will have to go through me that's exactly what they've set about doing. In a spectacular display of mis-placed loyalty this charge is being led by my grandmother herself.

I won't go into much detail of exactly what's been happening because a secondary objective of the approach is to have me go into a long and rambling explanation all across the Winter Olympics. Plus now that my grandmothers cleaner / fully qualified mental health nurse has managed to double her hourly rate to £10 and double her weekly hours she will now also be coming on Monday mornings starting tomorrow (15/02).

I will say though that I've have found today to be so stressful that I managed to cook a full roast dinner complete with home made gravy. That means that even with my brother unexpectedly coming to dinner not even the cat will die of hunger not matter what he may tell you.

Although, that said, I am making this post a little bit earlier then usual so I'm clearly not that popular at the moment.

Luge Death Update.

Although at the last Winter Olympics I vaguely remember saying something like how I was impressed by Lugists and the ever more inventive ways they try an kill themselves I don't actually know that much about the sport. Having done some research though I am now 100% convinced that Georgian Lugist, Nodar Kumaritashvili was killed as part of British operation. They used the Commonwealth link to get the Canadian Olympic hosts to build a dangerous course. They also used re-construction funding following the South Ossetian war to buy the co-operation of the Georgian government and recruit a Georgian athlete to stage a crash. The poor sod probably didn't even know that the intention was for him to die.

Apart from being the diplomatic equivalent of creeping up behind someone and shouting "BOO!" in order to make them jump and stress them out the objective of the operation was to assess what level of international support exists for Britain's operations against me. The British entry into the same event is Adam Rosen so a lesser element of the operation was to whip up a level of anti-semitism.

In the UK on Saturday (13/02) a group of charities signed an open letter to the leaders of the three main British political parties calling for a consensus on how to provide free care at home for the elderly. This has prompted the Labour health minister to, today, call for a cross party summit on the issue. So in order to save everyone some time may I just point out that in order for the Crown to meet it's debt to my grandmother it will need to provide top-grade, private, residential care in a location of her choosing. That is because while simply forcing someone to live in Croydon isn't considered a war crime it probably should be.

Mayfair Riot.

Although riot is quite a strong word for what happened.

In the course of the last month a group of spoilt, middle class students decided to play at being anarchists by squatting a vacant mansion at the junction of Park Lane and Dunraven street in central London. Last week a judge issued an eviction order prompting the squatters to hold an eviction party. They organised part of this party through Facebook. As a result some 2000 people turned up to the party which isn't actually that excessive for a seven story building. It was enough though to give the Metropolitan police an excuse to turn up mob handed at around 23:00 on the night of February 11th. This provoked three hours of minor disturbance in which bottles were thrown at the police. No arrests were made and no injuries have been reported.

On the plus side though this disturbance meant that the police helicopter was forced to break off from its plan for the evening of hovering low over by grandmothers house. I suppose that was meant to be the story wasn't it; Baby Eating Anarchists plot Revenge Attacks for noble British Operation to Help the Aged and Save the Children!

Elsewhere a Georgian lugist has been killed in a practice session at the winter Olympics. Given how much I p****d off the Georgians during the South Ossestia war I dread to think what that's about.

Right Then

Who thought it was bright idea to have a major NATO operation in Afghanistan, a major EU conference on the economic future of Greece and the winter Olympics all in the same week?

I only ask because there was a little bit of rioting in London last night. I don't know what happened but I've got a funny feeling I'll be taking the blame for it.

For the Record.

No power of attorney for my grandmother has been registered and therefore does not officially, legally exist. When I said it had I made a mistake because I was trying to read letters through their envelopes during the heat of the Copenhagen Summit and the argument about the power of attorney.

What actually happened was that the lawyer heard words like "Office of Public Guardians", "the Law Society" and "Long prison sentence" before deciding to add me as a "named person" who needs to give their consent before the power of attorney can be registered.

As I have not yet given this consent this means that if either the council or my father want to spend my grandmothers money on her behalf they first need to go through me. Obviously I don't want to give either of them any clue on how best to do that.


Edited to add@ 23:25: Thinking about it that means I actually taken de facto power of attorney and stolen a bit of British law in the process which you've got to admit is a pretty good bit of thieving.

McQueen Is Dead!

The silly old poof did himself in yesterday evening. That's really all I've got unless you really want to hear about how the effort of destroying my old chip&pin card and then making a difficult trip to Tescos left me far too lazy to go chase the local police.

That Meeting.

Yesterday (09/02) my grandmother's care manager from the Queens road team to discuss my grandmother's care needs. She brought with her two women from London Telecare, a private contractor who provides care services. Of course these women incorrectly described themselves as Council employees. Although I was not party to the discussion it seems to have just been a sales event. The three of them recommended that my grandmother requires;

Three days a week at a daycare centre at a cost of £45 per day.

Up to 21 hours a week of home care at £16 per hour.

Her home needs to be fitted with an electronic surveillance system consisting of CCTV cameras, motion sensors and panic buttons plus smoke and carbon monoxide detectors all of which will be monitored remotely. This system will need to be specially designed but the cost is in the region of £10,000 plus running costs.

Apart from the initial outlay for the surveillance system the ongoing costs are around £25,000 per year which is completely unsustainable on an income below £10,000 per year. The council will contribute £320 per year.

Therefore the course these discussions will take over the coming weeks and months will have absolutely nothing to do with health and social care policy. Instead they will a relatively simple financial negotiation with the council delegation trying to extract as much money as possible from my grandmother's delegation with a long term view to induce bankruptcy so the land can be brought by a local housing association at below market rate. In a redeveloped form this land will be worth in the region of £2-3 million per year to a housing association. My father is at a disadvantage in these negotiations because he is still under the misguided impression that these people are here to help. The meeting though did remind him that he hasn't actually got the ability to make financial decisions on my grandmother's behalf because this power of attorney business is legally still quite a vague and grey area. In turn this reminded me to catch up on my correspondence because, surely, 56 days is a reasonable amount of time for the police to decide if they are going to investigate what looks like an incident of serious political corruption of a much higher financial value then the entire MP's expenses scandal.

I apologise for the delay in bringing this up but it was quite difficult to discuss it at dinner last night. This is because apart from being under some council offices and some police offices the pub I get dragged to on a Tuesday is also between the local train station and the local football ground. This means that on match days it is packed with drunk soccer fans and quite a few police to keep an eye on the soccer fans. Normally my father and I don't go on match days and last week when we broke that routine it caused quite a bit of needless tension. Last night Swansea city were visiting and their fans, apart from being Welsh, are one of those teams that have a bit of a reputation for trouble. Therefore I was a little more concerned with avoiding accidentally starting a riot. Plus my brother was there so we spent a lot of time talking about his news.

Sorry I Should Explain,

should really be the title of my autobigoraphy but until then this morning;

A good few hours before I normally wake up we were alerted to a knock on the door with a nice neighbour informing us that my grandmother had just been seen wandering off. A short while later I was awoken to a good 15 minutes of hammering and ringing on my front door. At this point my grandmother was confronted with a man who was roughly my height and looked a lot like me but I assure you it was not me

A few hazy moments after this very nice man had made sure that my grandmother was in a place of safety and then gone back to bed a lot of people (4) from the local council and associated charities and private, for profit, organisations turned up to discuss the treatment options available to my grandmother. I was not party to this summit but as soon as I work out what was discussed and how much it will cost I will try and inform you of what went on.

Apart from that the numbers I've heard for the current NATO operation is 12,000 USA, 4,000 UK, 2,000 Various Estonia etc and 2,000 Afghan adding up to a total of around 20,000 plus Taliban.

Further more I only suggest Bill Clinton for the Haitian job because he's the easiest name for me to spell. Apart from that really any former US President along with Condelezza Rice, Christine Lagarde, Luiz Da Silva or Tony Blair (if it's unpaid) will do at a pinch.

So yeah drunk. So very, very drunk.

Helping Or Hurting ?

Almost a month after it was struck by an earthquake the relief effort in Haiti is continuing. Although in a situation like that you can never have enough food, water and medicine the multiple agencies involved are now able to meet the absolute basic needs of the survivors. This allows them to concentrate on more medium term needs like providing emergency shelter in time for the rainy season and providing the most seriously injured with more advanced medical care. While there are around 3 million people who need emergency shelter the task of providing medical care is in itself massive. There are hundreds of thousands of people with complex fractures and dislocations along with associated bone and soft tissue infections. All of these people require specialist surgery and those who don't get it will have to have limbs amputated. All those amputees will then need to be fitted with prosthetics and have months of aftercare to be taught how to use them because you do not want to be disabled in Haiti where there is no social safety net.

Amid these hundreds of thousands of cases the reporting of the relief effort has focused in on the case of Landina Seigon. Although she was completely alone when she was pulled from the rubble rescuers believe that Landina is about three months old and both her parents were killed in the earthquake. Because it took so long to dig her from the ruins doctors were forced to amputate her arm. Since then they have discovered that she is suffering from a bone disease which has killed part of her skull leaving it to press dangerously onto her brain. In order to stop this killing her she needs brain surgery to remove the diseased bone and plastic surgery to replace it with a titanium plate. At the moment her primary physician is Dr David Nott, a British doctor working for Medicins Sans Frontieres (MSF)* and her case has been taken up by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office (FCO).

The way the FCO have gone about helping Landina is more then a little bit suspicious. The obvious thing to do would be to ask the US Navy if she could be treated aboard the USNS Comfort, a hospital ship that is equipped to handle the surgery and could have specialist surgeons on deck within 24 hours. Instead the FCO and it must be said MSF are insisting that she must be flown to either Britain or France for treatment. As Landina is an orphan this has meant that the British government, the French government and sadly some elements of Unicef have spent the last four days bombarding the already overstretched Haitian government with incredibly detailed questions about the circumstances that people will be allowed to take orphans out of Haiti. The interrogation has got so idiotic the Haitian government have perhaps understandably got paranoid over how serious the girls condition is and how complicated the brain surgery she requires really is.

It would be nice to pretend that all the foreigners are doing this out of a genuine desire to stop Haitian children being trafficked out of the country but this is quite frankly ridiculous. Both the British and French governments can be trusted to take a small number of injured children out of Haiti for treatment and then bring them back after a few weeks of positive media coverage. Even if they weren't there are no doubt millions of trustworthy Haitian adults who would jump at the chance to travel abroad with the children to act as guardians.

Instead this is all being done to fish for information about the US Missionaries who were recently arrested for child trafficking. Specifically what they're trying to find out is;

1. Was the whole thing staged by the Americans to provoke debate over the risk of child trafficking.

2. If it was a stunt how did the Americans go about organising it and carrying out.

3. If it was a stunt to what extent was the Haitian government involved.

4. What are the power structures within the Haitian government and how do they operate.

5. What will happen to the missionary's and in what conditions are they being held.

Of course absolutely none of this has anything whatsoever to do with helping the Haitians and is probably making the situation much worse. It does though highlight why it would be a very good idea, in the exceptional situation that is Haiti, for the UN to set up a parallel authority to handle relief and reconstruction. This authority could be led by a statesmen like Bill Clinton who is well practiced in the evils and idiocies of international diplomacy meaning that the difficult things get done more efficiently while the Haitian government, and by extension the Haitian people, are better protected from the wolves in sheep's clothing.

In slightly better news Simon Cowell and lots of musicians have recorded a charity single for Haiti. It sold a million copies before it was released and is expected to sell a million more before it goes straight to number 1 in the charts. This should help to bring in some much needed cash to the relief effort.




*I should point out that despite being French dominated MSF are a truly international charity. Therefore they need to maintain good relations with lots of governments in order to be able to operate.

OMG, So Thick!

At some point this week NATO forces will be launching a large offensive against Taliban positions in Helmand province Afghanistan. Unusually for a military operation the British Army have exceptionally open about the operation telling everyone where they plan to attack, how they intend to carry out the attack and how they expect the enemy to respond. The fact the army are being so open about it means that the story's been all over the British news for the last three days and probably four out of the five main news stories yesterday were all about this attack.

The Croydon network got all a bit confused by this and decided that the coverage was all about me and was a signal to re-start their operations against me. As a result the usual suspects were up to their usual tricks last night slamming doors, rattling locks on their own sheds and drumming on plastic wheelie bins.

Obviously with 20,000 troops about to go into battle it would probably be best if I didn't explain what this was all about. However I think it is safe to say that it was not fully intended to be a signal to the Croydon network and the people planning the operation know exactly what they were doing. If the operation does go badly then I suppose at least the Croydon network have given everybody a good laugh.

I Should Clear One Thing Up.

In my earlier post I said that the amount of control the Crown has over the Northern Irish Assembly is a very contentious issue. Another very contentious issue is whether it is called an "Assembly" or a "Parliament." I should explain that I refer to it as a Parliament for the simple reason that is the easiest way to give the most number of people a general idea of how it functions. The correct term is of course "Assembly" but only the most technically minded political nerds will understand the difference.

Now I've cleared that up it's time to confuse everyone again by making a cryptic reference to something I will try and explain in more detail tomorrow time and a pub full of Swansea soccer permitting; They're fishing. If possible appoint a guardian but allow to travel.

It's Back Again

In the UK the MP's Expenses Scandal has once again reared its ugly head. The latest development came on Friday (05/02) when the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) announced that it is going to prosecute three Labour MP's and one Conservative Peer for various offences under the 1967 Theft Act. As major criminality has never been much of a bar to sitting in the House of Lords the Conservative Peer has remained largely silent on the issue. The Labour MP's though, probably with little choice, have announced that they intend to use the defence of "Parliamentary Privilege" to fight the charges.

Unusually in law but pretty typically in British constitutional matters Parliamentary Privilege is not a clearly defined set of rules. Instead it is more of a vague principle that MP's are answerable to Parliament first and the Crown Courts second. The idea of the principle is to prevent the Crown, the Police or, in the case of libel, a private citizen from interfering with the business of Parliament. For example if a voter had been writing to their MP to complain about their local hospital doing something illegal Parliamentary Privilege would prevent the hospital getting a friendly local judge to issue a warrant forcing the MP to hand over the letters from the voter and the details of any possible action that was going to be taken against the hospital. Likewise if Parliament was voting on a law that would cut the police's pay by 90% Parliamentary Privilege would stop the police arresting MP's on false charges in order to stop them voting for the bill.

Although Parliamentary Privilege in no way exempts MP's from the law of the land and was never intended to help them escape legitimate prosecution in this case I think the MP's have a point. That is Parliament should have been allowed to vote on whether to allow the prosecutions long before any judge was able to issue an indictment.

Quite apart from dragging the reputations of Britain's MP's even further into disrepute this new twist in the expenses scandal creates a whole new set of problems for the Northern Irish Devolution/Peace process. The idea of Parliamentary Privilege was invented at the end of England's last civil war. Its purpose was to reassure the Republicans in the House of Commons that the Crown and its Loyalists in the House of Lords would no longer be able to control the activites of the House of Commons by jailing, murdering and generally harassing its members.

The amount of control that the Crown will have over Northern Ireland's devolved Parliament is a massively inflammatory issue. The Loyalists obviously want the Crown to have as much control as possible because they'd rather not have any sort of devolved Parliament. However if there is too much control by the Crown it would stop it being a devolved Parliament and just be another form of direct rule by the Crown putting the Republicans back where they were at the start of the Troubles. To make matters even worse Parliamentary Privilege is outlined in the English Bill of Rights which was introduced under the reign of King William of Orange. Apparently he's considered quite an important figure by Orange Order of Northern Irish parading fame.

In case you haven't worked it out by now the first court hearings in the expenses case are scheduled for the first week in March. That means that amid much argument a court will be ruling on Parliamentary Privilege* days before voters in Northern Ireland go to the polls in the devolution referendum.






*In itself that's insane because if a court is able to rule on Parliamentary Privilege then clearly Parliamentary Privilege doesn't exist.

Agreement at Hillsborough Castle

After 12 days of intense negotiation talks at Hillsborough Castle over the devolution of powers to the Northern Irish Assembly finally reached an agreement on Friday (05/02). Compared to the high drama of the talks the agreement itself is actually very dull and can be read in full here;

http://www.nidirect.gov.uk/agreement

While it includes some of the usual bureaucratic matters such unfinished business and suggestions of how tweak the political process to avoid further delays and future unfinished business the agreement concentrates on two main topics. The devolution of policing and justice powers and the controversial issue of parades.

On the issue of devolution both parties agreed to set up a Northern Irish Department of Justice (DoJ). As is the case in pretty much every democratic country the DoJ will have responsibility for criminals. This includes the running of prisons, non-custodial punishments like community service and offender management programs like probation, bail hostels and the sex offenders register. It will also serve to protect the rights of victims of crime through victim support and criminal injury compensation services. The DoJ though does not have any direct responsibility for either the judiciary or the police. This independence for the police and courts is again pretty much standard in modern democracies as it is important to prevent politicians from only appointing judges and police chiefs who are too scared to prosecute politicians who break the law.

The DoJ itself will be headed by a Minister of Justice (MoJ) who will have full operational control over the department and sole discretion on quasi-judicial decisions like sentencing guidelines. On more general items of assembly business the MoJ will have equal status and say as other ministers. The big difference is that unlike in other parliaments where ministerial jobs are appointed by the leader of the largest party normally to members of that same party the Northern Irish MoJ will be chosen by a cross-community vote in the assembly. This means that any member of the assembly who wants the job can apply and the one who gets the most votes from the other members of the assembly gets the job. Of course this means that the largest party still has the most say in who will be the MoJ but that is just a problem of parliamentary democracy. Putting the matter to a free vote though is certainly more fair then having the leader of a Loyalist of Republican party simply appointing a MoJ.

As with all aspects of devolution this arrangement still needs to be endorsed by a public referendum that will take place on March 9th, 2010. As there have been no major changes to suggested model of devolved powers and the agreement seems to have broad support this is highly likely to happen and the new DoJ will come into being on April 12th, 2010.

On the issue of parades both parties have agreed to replace the Parades Commission. Instead they will set up a co-chaired, 6 member working group to produce a mechanism to resolve disputes that arise from these parades. The new mechanism will concentrate on bringing the members of the group that wants to parade together with residents of the area that is going to be paraded through in order to mediate a compromise. If no such local resolution can be found the mechanism will include an independent and transparent adjudication board made up of local and legal experts who will have final say how and if a parade can take place. The working group will report back to the assembly in three weeks and it's proposals will become a bill before hopefully becoming law by December 2010.

As the mechanism for dealing with parades has yet to be written it is a little difficult to tell how effective it will be. However as it is based on local resolution it looks very promising. This is because although parades are a contentious and symbolic issue there are actually only about half a dozen parades that cause problems and those problems only directly a few thousand. Therefore allowing these people to solve these problems amongst themselves is far more likely to succeed then having those problems blown out of all proportion by national and international politicians.

All things considered the Hillsborough agreement represents a compromise over some very technical issues in which nobody won and nobody lost making it very difficult to get excited about. It is though a very sensible compromise that keeps the devolution process on track and marks another important step towards a future where Northern Irish politics is dominated by pedestrian issues like the economy and health-care spending.

I've Just Had Dinner With my Mother

I think it was a pleasant evening however the memory has been erased by an unpleasant taxi driver who seemed to think that I didn't know my way around the town where I've lived for twenty something years. After a short discussion I paid him a reasonable fare and he wasn't even told to f**k off once.

I suppose it would be nice to have a night out in Croydon that didn't end in a fight but then I suppose it wouldn't be a proper night out in Croydon.

Northern Ireland Devolution Talks STILL Ongoing.

After a marathon 10 day session negotiations are continuing over the devolution of policing and justice powers to the Northern Ireland Assembly. A widely anticipated breakthrough on Monday (01/02) failed to materialise after Unionist Assembly members rejected a deal that had been agreed by Democratic Unionist Party negotiators on their behalf.

Although my access to the negotiations is poor to none and the Unionist rejection was done by secret ballot I think it is fair to say that an agreement is being held up by other Unionist factions like the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) and the United Unionist Assembly Party (UUAP). Rather then being done because of any legitimate problem with the agreement this seems to be an attempt to stall the process in order to allow the Unionists to play for time. The hope is that if devolution can be delayed long enough it will allow the Unionist parties time to re-organise into a uniform Unionist block and force an assembly election that this Unionist block will dominate and use to secure a majority in the assembly. Coupled with an expected Conservative government in Westminster come June a Unionist majority in the Assembly is more then likely to permanently block the devolution of police and justice powers and roll back other aspects of devolution. This is made more likely by the fact that in the event of a hung Parliament in Westminster Unionist MP's would be the second choice kingmakers in a coalition government.

With the Unionist parties behaving like that if I was Sinn Fein I would let the Orange Order have their silly little marches in order to get a deal done. However as with everything else in Northern Irish politics it's sadly not going to be that simple.