From the DUP Conference at the weekend:
Time 1. Arlene Foster: ""The DUP is the party for economic policies "made in Northern Ireland""
Time 2. Ian Paisley Jnr: "The DUP are the only party with an agri-food policy made in Northern Ireland and made FOR Northern Ireland"
Time 3. Alex Salmond: "This is a people's manifesto for a free Scotland. It is made in Scotland for Scotland..."
No, on reflection, scrap that last one, not quite the same thing.
Alex actually said that in 2005, when launching the SNP's manifesto for the last Westminster election- someone in the DUP has being doing their soundbyte research.
On a completely unrelated matter, I haven't had the time to research a new "Quote of the day", so you'll have to make do with this one from Hans Georg Gadamer, "Truth and Method":
To acquire a horizon means that one learns to look beyond what is close to hand- not in order to look away from it, but to see it better within a larger whole and in truer proportion.
4 comments:
"Ulster Unionist Ministers will continue to deliver better services for local people depending on local priorities.
There is no question of me seeking to impose ideas from London.
That's not the way I work and it's not the way we do things in Scotland or Wales either."
FD,
You missed the following "but":
"But we can learn from each other.
So I will be asking members of my shadow teams to work with your spokesmen, to see where we can develop common approaches.
Because let's face it.
Many of the social problems we see here are the same as in other parts of the United Kingdom."
Not a whiff of that kind of UK approach in the DUP (or SNP) statements.
Also:
"The semi-detached status of Northern Ireland politics needs to end"
That is a sentiment I have never heard from a DUP politician- we can't be Unionist and semi-detached from the rest of the nation we're supposed to be in Union with.
No I didn't miss it. It is simply a comparable quote. BTW You missed these - SNP doesn't say the following very often
""I believe we should be planning now to lay the foundation for another hundred years in the life of our Province in Union with Britain."
"the task of Unionism is not limited to Stormont – there’s vital work to be done at Westminster too. From the Ulster Covenant we get the cherished principle of equal citizenship but Blair’s constitutional reforms undermine that principle and the Conservative idea of downgrading Scottish and Ulster MPs to second class status is a further assault. The coming reform of the House of Lords will be the largest change to parliament in decades if not centuries. No matter who the next government is, the United Kingdom will have a Bill of Rights. Ulster must make its full contribution to these debates and help shape the future of our national democracy."
The SNP don't neglect the importance of Westminster- the difference with the DUP is that the SNP are (publicly anyway) look forward to the day when it no longer is their sovereign parliament. In the meantime they do as much as they can to limit its role in their part of the UK- and in that they and the DUP are singing from the same hymn-sheet.
Those quotes look at the rights to be gained from equal citizenship. But there is also no recognisation of the economic and social responsibilities that we need to bear with the rest of the UK- as Unionists surely both parts of the equation are equally important?
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