Statement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on the resignation of the First Minister
Statement by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland on the resignation of the First Minister
From: Northern Ireland Office Published 3 February 2022
The decision by the DUP to withdraw the First Minister from the Northern Ireland Executive is extremely disappointing. I urge them to reinstate the First Minister immediately to ensure the necessary delivery of public services for the citizens of Northern Ireland.
The UK Government’s priority is to see a strong functioning Northern Ireland Executive delivering a better, more prosperous, shared future for all the people of Northern Ireland.
We want to continue to build on the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement’s promise of a stable, cooperative and respectful power sharing Executive.
The last two years since the New Decade, New Approach Agreement was reached has demonstrated the potential that can be unlocked when the Northern Ireland parties work together. We must not return to a state of political deadlock and inertia.
I recognise the impact the Northern Ireland Protocol is having on the ground. The UK Government has been clear for some time that the Protocol has been causing serious problems, unbalancing the delicate and hard-won political stability in Northern Ireland.
We remain fully committed to fixing the problems with the Protocol and to protect the Belfast (Good Friday) Agreement in all its dimensions. We will continue our intensive talks with the EU in order to resolve these.
I will be speaking to the leaders of the five parties of the Northern Ireland Executive, and the Irish Government, to encourage a return to stable devolved government in Northern Irelan
Can someone explain this from the NI point of view.
The Tories had long been committed to some policy of de-nationalisation. In response to the prolonged crisis of the 1970s, in which the Tories had struggled to maintain their parliamentary dominance, the Ridley report devised for the Thatcher shadow cabinet recommended a policy of breaking up the public sector and dismembering unions. Privatisation was at first subordinate to other policy themes, above all wage suppression to control inflation. But the first Thatcher administration did successfully introduce a degree of privatisation in some large public sector companies, above all British Aerospace and Cable & Wireless. At this stage, however, the focus was on privatising already profitable entities to raise revenues and thus reduce public-sector borrowing.
Amid the early 80s recession, the Tories had begun to propose privatisation as a potential panacea. Conservative MP Geoffrey Howe extolled the "discipline" of the marketplace. The emerging doctrine was that privatisation would make the large utilities more efficient and productive, and thus make British capitalism competitive relative to its continental rivals. In this period, the government sold off Jaguar, British Telecom, the remainder of Cable & Wireless and British Aerospace, Britoil and British Gas. The focus had shifted to privatising core utilities.
This policy did not emerge out of nowhere; it was fully embedded in the Hayekian ideas that had guided Thatcher and her cohort in opposition. But it did develop in relation to specific policy objectives. It was not just a question of stimulating private sector investment, but also of culture war intended to re-engineer the electorate along the lines of the "popular capitalism" vaunted by Thatcher, and announced in the infamous "Tell Sid" campaign.
Following the Tories' third election victory, they were sufficiently confident to roll out their most aggressive privatisation programme yet. British Steel, British Petroleum, Rolls Royce, British Airways, water and electricity were among the major utilities for sale. These privatisations provoked serious opposition, perhaps sufficient to curb any tendency toward privatisation in the NHS. Nonetheless, market-driven measures continued to be imposed in the public sector, from the "internal market" in the health service to Major's ill-fated citizen's charter.
The fourth consecutive Tory administration was weak, and quickly divided over a range of policies, above all European monetary union. But the neoliberal premises of policy embedded by Thatcher remained intact, and the government continued to push privatisations in those areas where it felt able to. Inflicting a second defeat on the miners, the government proceeded with the final sell-off of British Coal, as well as electricity generating companies Powergen and National Power, and British Rail. Michael Heseltine's attempt to privatise the Post Office was abandoned, however, due to public opposition and resistance from a backbench fearful of electoral wipeout.
That's why the utility prices went through the roof.
Faint heart never won fair lady, so they say. You have taken them for granted, let's face it you have a tough audience on CS Ali, in my opinion, you should reassure them you don't think of them as chattels or possessions, but intelligent sentient beings, some who may be more intelligent than you. who want recognition as people in their own right. No disrespect to you Ali.
Caroline Louise Bevan Johnson (née Symonds; born 17 March 1988) is the wife of British Prime Mi Cherylnister Boris Johnson. Before her marriage to the Prime ... Nickname Carrie Cheryl Johnson
The New York TimesThe New York Times COVID's New Divide: Risk Takers vs. the Risk Averse Jason Horowitz Mon, 31 January 2022, 7:21 pm A vaccination center in the northern city of Brunico, Italy, on Dec. 10, 2021. (Alessandro Grassani/The New York Times)
ROME — The entire family is vaccinated, even the relatives, and all abide by masking requirements and respect Italy’s tough coronavirus restrictions. They are also all over the place in how they are living their lives.
Mariagiovanna Togna is willing to accompany her children to outdoor play dates after school. But her husband, more anxious by nature, is still wearing rubber gloves, wiping down groceries and turning away visitors. One of her sisters in Rome is more laid back and goes to yoga class and to work, and her 15-year-old daughter had a birthday party indoors. Her brother, in the northern region of Trento, who finally agreed to get vaccinated, she said, to keep going out to bars, recently vacationed along the Amalfi Coast. But when Christmas vacation rolled around, their parents, in their 70s, asked him to stay in a bed-and-breakfast.
Everyone who went home to Benevento had to take a rapid test, including another sister, who depends on their mother for babysitting. Even though the government shot down the efforts in the Campania Region, where she lives, to delay in-person school, she prefers to keep her child out of nursery school.
Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times
“We are all vaccinated, many with the third dose already; we all have a civic sense about being careful for ourselves and for others,” she said. “But we have different styles of life.”
As the omicron variant of the coronavirus personally touches or swirls around so many individuals, vaccinated and largely protected families are strained by varying comfort levels. It is much the same the world over, especially where significant portions of the population have been vaccinated, like Italy, which now has one of the highest rates in the world.
Initially slammed by the virus, Italy today holds the promise of a near future where the schism in society is no longer between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated, or the socially responsible and the scofflaws, but between the risk takers and the risk averse.
For many with booster shots, life has become a constant negotiation between those who want to resume dining in restaurants, those still reluctant to accept deliveries and those who just want to get the virus already and get their mandatory quarantines over with.
For many vaccinated families, the recent holiday season and New Year’s celebrations hammered those variations home, as teenagers stumbled in after parties to take a swab test and reunite with shut-in uncles petrified of the virus, or grandparents unsure just how protected their booster shots left them. In Italy, where generations of families often see one another, and frequently live together, navigating the vagaries of omicron decorum is a constant exercise.
“In my world, there are no no-vax,” said Giuseppe Cavallone, 73, who walked in the Villa Doria Pamphili park in Rome with his wife.
But that did not mean they lived carefree. They had given up on going to the movies, in part because of the discomfort of wearing a mask for three straight hours, and had abandoned their annual travel to Paris and London. But their son, also fully vaccinated, was less cautious, flying to Patagonia for vacation.
“The young feel much more free,” said Cavallone’s wife, Maria Teresa Pucciano, 74.
She added that they recently went to a wedding, but a friend of theirs stayed outside in the cold the whole time. Do you hide or have the vac.
tomcatty Forum Posts (6,885)
Northern Ireland Government
I don't see how a border running down the Irish Sea helps