TUV Leader speaks in Upper Bann

26 September 2009

Extract from a speech by TUV Leader Jim Allister QC to Upper Bann TUV Annual Dinner:-

“Government in Northern Ireland has never been more dysfunctional or inept.

“At the top we have the unworkable office of Joint First Ministers from which the DUP leader emerges from time to time to make idle speeches, not as First Minister because IRA Commander McGuinness has not approved them, in which he speaks as if the bloated, useless Stormont regime was something presided over by others.

“His office has twice the staff of the Prime Minister, some 400 no less and more than when he took over, yet, he talks grandly about cutting waste. He opines about the waste of 11 Departments, 108 MLAs and north/southery, but never pauses to reflect that these are precisely the crazy Belfast Agreement structures which he bought into at St Andrews.

“He talks about proposing change, knowing that it is all mere empty posturing because he accepted the Sinn Fein veto at St Andrews.

“And, then, there is the DUP Finance Minister who for weeks lambasted anyone who dared suggest his budget had a shortfall, but who now urgently needs £370m! Why was he in denial for months? Now, his latest sport is gutting other Ministers, except DUP and Sinn Fein, of course, but if you are Margaret Ritchie or Michael McGimpsey nothing is bad enough to say about you. And, all this from those in the same government.

“Outside of government things get no better for the DUP. You can always rely on Ian Junior for an own goal. How perceptive of Deputy Dodds to discern that Ian Junior is domiciled in some galactic wonderland. Some of us have known that for a long time. But, there is a serious point here. Any Unionist politician who thinks it right to send our police to aid arch-IRA facilitator Gaddafi is not fit to sit on the Policing Board. But, then don’t expect a party to see that, which has so lost sight of the balance between right and wrong that it happily sits in government with the users of Gaddafi’s weapons.

“Herein is one of the self-evident contradictions of the DUP’s stance: they eagerly hijack a compensation case against the suppliers of IRA arms but cozy up in government with the users of those very arms! Little wonder things aren’t going too well for a Party which has so lost its moral compass.

“I look forward to the Westminster election and the verdict on the betrayers of Traditional Unionism. In politics you expect most from those who know the truth and brag of their steadfastness. That is why one of the men who disappointed me the most is the outgoing MP for Upper Bann. He won his seat by opposing the betrayal of Trimble. Now, he deserves to lose it for operating the very Belfast Agreement system which Trimble bequeathed us. I have to say, with a heavy heart, there was as much honesty and maybe less deceit in the politics of those who spawned the Belfast Agreement than in those who having blasted Trimble then gave us Martin McGuinness as our Joint First Minister.”

NI politics