Quote of the day

I can't see any way we're going to avoid an almighty collision with the ECHR on this.

David Davis:

"The Court seems to have forgotten that our Parliament is the ultimate authority.  It can tell Ministers to produce proposals if it likes. What it can't do is give them a timetable to do anything that Parliament won't approve.  And Parliament's made it clear that it won't accept any of the proposals for votes for prisoners that have been put up to date."

Quote of the day

 “The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity”

Introducing Peter King, Hammer of Islam...

King had also said that the IRA did not have a policy of attacking civilians. Stewart (Jon) said "Maybe it wasn't their policy, but it sure seemed to become a hobby."

The ensuing comments are also well worth a read, Mr Stewart's (inherited) religion appears to be also ironically now an *issue* for a certain narrow section of "Irish" America... 

Quote of the day

Oh dear, Kevin....

St Patrick's Day, for all the "sophistication" of the Dublin parade, has thus become the one-day distillation of a ghastly year-long caricature. If the BBC were to offer comparable stereotypes of such paddy-whackery, our embassy in London would be howling about the racist portrayals of the Irish. Indeed, when the mayor of New York made some perfectly accurate observations about Irish behaviour there on St Patrick's Day, the 'Irish Voice' predictably shrieked: "Mayor Bloomberg outrages Irish Americans with 'people that are totally inebriated hanging out windows' comments."


I'm sure lots of people were outraged, indignation/anger/ offendedness being the default mode of the Irish. The point is: was Bloomberg right? If he was, what's the problem? Do Italians or Swedes or Spanish hang drunkenly out of windows on their national days?

Quote of the day

Last one on the Republic's election:

Good day for Sinn Fein. Quite a few people will be rolling over in their unmarked graves #GE11

Damien Owens on Twitter.

Quote of the day

Alex Kane:

But, as George Washington noted over 200 years ago, ‘A government without true opposition and a place for that opposition may be dictatorial, or it may be docile: yet it must always be undemocratic in shape and practice.’

Opposition will be expensive to create and sustain in the assembly, but isn’t it a price worth paying if the end result is better government and the removal of Stephen Nolan from his position as unofficial leader of the opposition?

Quote of the day

From today's Economist:

Kevin Gardiner of Barclays Wealth, who coined the phrase “Celtic Tiger” in 1994, says that Celts have a nasty habit of extrapolating both good and bad times for ever (as a Welshman, he dares to make such generalisations). Just as the Irish suffered a bad bout of irrational exuberance in the boom years, they have now been overcome by excessive pessimism. Or, as Ms Enright puts it, “Ireland is a series of stories it tells itself. None of them are true.”

The rest of the article is an excellent read.

Quote of the day

OK, aimed at SNP activists but other partys' "parvenus" know exactly what he's getting at:

I’d bet that if William Wallace himself presented himself to his local SNP constituency association as a potential candidate, the response might well be: “Well, Mr Wallace, it may well be that you did in fact defeat King Edward I of England at Stirling Bridge and send him homeward to think again, but where were you when we were leafleting for the recent council by-election in Inversnecky?”

Quote of the day

*Clears one's throat*... what do you think of this from (the completely impartial) Mark Steyn?

Insofar as the world functions at all, it’s due to the Britannic inheritance. Three-sevenths of the G7 economies are nations of British descent. Two-fifths of the permanent members of the U.N. Security Council are—and, by the way, it should be three-fifths: The rap against the Security Council is that it’s the Second World War victory parade preserved in aspic, but, if it were, Canada would have a greater claim to be there than either France or China. The reason Canada isn’t is because a third Anglosphere nation and a second realm of King George VI would have made too obvious a truth usually left unstated—that the Anglosphere was the all but lone defender of civilization and of liberty. In broader geopolitical terms, the key regional powers in almost every corner of the globe are British-derived—from Australia to South Africa to India—and, even among the lesser players, as a general rule you’re better off for having been exposed to British rule than not: Why is Haiti Haiti and Barbados Barbados?

Perhaps slightly overegged the pudding there..

Quote of the Day

One in the eye for the Welsh Political Establishment... or is that the Welsh Political Elite? (more on that to follow;)):

We have always been and will remain a group of people who puts its case using only the money of its supporters.”

Len Gibbs fromTrue Wales, on the group's announcement that it did not want lead campaign status and to take 70 grand of taxpayers' money.

Quote of the day

George Galloway:

”It’s my view that too many in Holyrood would regard the term nonentity as an accolade and I think that’s bad for the Scottish parliament, it’s bad for politics in Scotland.

“When I watch Alex Salmond and Iain Gray together it’s the political equivalent of the Krankies, the big guy patronising the half-pint who thinks that Clause 4 is the latest follow-up Christmas movie.”

Bit unfair on the Krankies, in my opinion.

Quote of the day

John Drennan:

Indeed, Mr Gilmore (the Irish Labour Party leader) was so anxious to ditch the SF albatross that he suggested Gerry should consider ringing Biffo and FF. Sadly, while Mr Adams might be prepared to go into coalition with Ian Paisley, he has some standards.

I'm not sure whether Big Ian or Cowen should feel the more insulted about that.

Quote of the day

From a GFA Supporter on Conservative Home:

In fact this (water) crisis is perfectly functional in that it has shown the politicians and the people that populism - "no water charges" - is a highway to nothing and that actually "the Brits" won't bail them out every time (an attitude that is every bit as prevalent on the Unionist side as that of the Nationalists). In short it is the first "real" political event to seen in the North since 1998/1969/1922 (tick your pick).

Quote of the day

Grizzly, in the twisted of twisted tributes to his colleagues in the DUP:

"A unionist leadership which has to manage basically what will end up as the end of the union has a very, very difficult job to do."

Quote of the day

I am in the mood for more quotes today.

This one is from one of my political heroes, the architect of One Nation Conservatism, Benjamin Disraeli:

A Conservative Government is an organised hypocrisy.

Wonder what he would have made of Owen Paterson and Andrew Feldman's performance this week?

"You mean you can't take *less*. It's very easy to take *more* than nothing."

How bizarre is this?

"Alex Salmond urged to drop tax powers opposition"...by the Unionist parties!!!

"No, No, Mr Separatist, as supporters of the Union, we insist you *must* accept this further disengagement from Westminster!!!"

BTW, the quote in the title is from Mad Hatter, replying to Alice's complaint:

"I've had nothing yet", Alice replied in an offended tone: "so I can't take more."

Quote of the day

Why the Prime Minister’s ‘Happiness Index’ is a European plot.

Quite.

Quote of the day

Alex Singleton:

When I claimed that Lord Heseltine was a “fanatical pro-euro surrender-monkey who deserves ridicule after Ireland’s economic collapse”, what I meant to say was that he had always recognised the dangers of the euro.

Yeah, right;)

Quote of the day

Barry McElduff believes economic "Union" would have saved the Republic?

One country. Small island. Six million people. Two states. Two currencies. Makes no sense. Inefficient. Duplication of service provision

With the European Commission, the European Central Bank and the International Monetary Fund all arriving in Dublin yesterday, it's perhaps the opportune time for Baz to push for a "Border" referendum to ask the Northern Irish electorate what they think.

UK comfortably mid-table in the Premier League

According to the Legatum Institute, the UK:

1. has "extremely high levels" of civil liberties in comparison to other countries, we rank "high in terms of perceived tolerance for immigrants".
2. has the fifth-largest market in the world and we rank in the top 10 for people's satisfaction with their standard of living.
3. has "high levels of innovation and a strong infrastructure for entrepreneurship".
4. has an "highly effective and transparent government with low levels of corruption".
5. is overall the 13th most prosperous country in the world.

So, really we are quite lucky to be British aren't we... although Churchill's observation is also probably appropriate here:

"The British nation is unique in this respect. They are the only people who like to be told how bad things are, who like to be told the worst."

Quote of the day

Baz McElduff on Twitter is in sparkling form, one of yesterday's classics:

In Newcastle for North South Parliamentary Forum Conference. Good no. of TDs/ MLAs here already. I think of myself as TD for West Tyrone.

And I suspect he wasn't joking.