This was initially published a couple of months ago now, so apologies to those who have read it elsewhere, but I think it's definitely worth highlighting Jim Cusack writing in the Irish Independent about how prosperous Northern Ireland, and specifically Northern Irish Poor Oppressed Filthy Rich Catholics, have become in recent years.

I've picked out the highlights below, but I'd really encourage anyone with 5-10 minutes free to read the whole article.

earlier this year, when the Rich List for Northern Ireland was published , there was one little detail that went completely unnoticed -- well over half of those on it were Catholics. Places one, two and three were all filled by Catholics. The richest part of Belfast, the Malone Road -- think Ballsbridge in Dublin 4 -- now has a Catholic majority.

...

Isn't Northern Ireland supposed to be, er, depressed, like, after three decades of terrorist violence? Aren't the Catholics supposed to be "oppressed" like Gerry Adams keeps banging on about and the Southern meeja still seems to believe?

...

Truth is, cross the Ormeau Bridge over the Lagan, up into those nice leafy streets, and the arriviste MCCs would rather be seen wearing shell suits and trainers than vote Sinn Fein. Gerry, baby: Middle Class Catholics define their social position primarily through the distance between themselves and you and your voters. About as many Catholics vote Sinn Fein in south and south west Belfast as in Dun Laoghaire. If you live in a part of Belfast that has a street sign in both Irish and English, any self-respecting MCC would cross the road to avoid you.

I'm not quite sure what to make of it. I am certain that if there is a relative increase in wealth among Catholics vis a vis Protestants then it is of their own making and based in no small part on different attitudes to education. On a brighter note, the accepted wisdom is that with money comes power and influence, so it would be nice to believe that Cusick is right and that it also brings a gulf with Sinn Fein and their brand of victimhood-based ethno-nationalism and a shift in priorities away from simply one-upping the Prods.

Sorry if you already heard this old piece of news but I just spotted it today at the bottom (of page 2) of a NewsLetter article about the Jeffrey Peel's now infamous (and disappeared) entry on the Northern Ireland Conservatives blog where he lambasted the Orange Order.

Its a little snippet about the vote on 42-day detention which the DUP helped the government to push through. To be fair we did already know Iris Robinson just doesn't know when to keep her thoughts to herself.

In the uproar in the chamber after that vote Iris Robinson incensed Conservatives by goading them with a nine-finger salute, inferring that the nine DUP MPs held sway in the House.

Grow up woman!

Seems it's not just the Stormont crew that like to get their snouts in the trough. Welsh Assembly Members are making good use of their £12.5k expenses allowances, with the Lib Dems leading the pack when it comes to spending public money (qu'elle surprise!) on kitting out their Cardiff pads.

1. Lib Dems AMs (6): Total claimed: £55,321. Average claim: £9,220
2. Plaid Cymru AMs (15): Total claim: £129,936. Average claim: £8,662
3. Conservative AMs (12): Total claimed: £93,730. Average claimed: £7,810
4. Labour AMs (26): Total claimed: £121,977. Average claim: £4,691

Having said that, the £12.5k looks paltry compared to the And that's only one of the expenses they're entitled to. They also have office expenses comparable to the £70,000 that Northern Ireland's MLAs can claim.

On a slight aside, our most expensive (d'ya see what I did there?!) MLA was Sean Farren with total allowances (for 2006-7) of £83,869.07.

Now about that devolution cost/benefit analysis...

Over the past few months it's become clear that the DUP won’t take Gerry Kelly and Sinn Fein won't take Jeffrey Donaldson as Justice Minister. This has led to the crazy notion that the Alliance should do it, and utterly predictably they seem amenable to the idea. So much for their principled stand against the "sectarian consensus" (sic)

Liam Clarke in his column on Sunday suggested that this was the "missing piece of the jigsaw" and that the Alliance are the potential answer to a tricky question for the chuckle coalition.

Alliance is a creature so useful that if it didn't exist it would have to be invented. In some ways the party, which is linked to the Progressive Democrats in the republic and the Liberal Democrats in Britain, acts as Northern Ireland's conscience - a coalition of reasonable, middle-of-the-road folk united around an agenda which is liberal, pragmatic and non-sectarian.

It is just me suspects he write this specifically to get name checked on Alliance election literature next time out? This sort of gushing praise doesn't really add anything to the argument. After all, he is simply dressing up a party that stands for nothing more than "we're not them and, we're awfully nice". That isn't an ideology or an agenda; its political activism built on nothing more than middle class snobbery and intellectual cop-out.

Alliance have spent their time in local government, not as Clarke states ensuring power sharing, but selling their pretence of principles for office. I suppose it's only surprising it took them this long to sell themselves for ministerial office. They call themselves an opposition, yet we are now apparently seriously considering taking an executive with 97 of the 108 Assembly members represented, and making that 104. We need LESS of the legislature tied up in the programme for government, not more! The power sharing arrangements were designed to be short to medium term, SF and the DUP spent a little too long trying to fight their way out of their Belfast Agreement boxes, but now that they've accepted them the timer is going again. Progress towards normailising the governmental arrangements here will only be hindered by putting the Alliance into Justice just for the sake of spiting the UUP and SDLP. Look at the figure again, 104 out of 108 MLAs. And when one adds the rest of the Alliance's quasi technical group, it leaves only Dawn Purvis outside the Executive loop.

If the Alliance want ministerial office so badly, give it to them. But if it happens, my Party and the SDLP shouldn't be there. We would have moved from an involuntary coalition, to a voluntary one with Alliance's admittance to the Executive, which is a fundamental change to the situation. Critically for the UUP and SDLP though, the situation with a five party Executive would be utterly untenable, a bizarre elective dictatorship where the wranglings over legislation would take place behind closed doors in the Executive, with the Assembly as a rubber stamping body. Sound famaliar? It should.

This kind of thing really winds me up.

A Tory frontbencher has apologised after using a racist phrase during a House of Lords debate.

Lord Dixon Smith retracted the remark in the chamber, saying: "I apologise, my Lords. I left my brains behind. I apologise to the House."

The 73-year-old said later the phrase "nigger in the woodpile" was in common use when he was younger.

Fair enough. Something which used to be in the lexicon is now deemed unacceptable, he absent mindedly used the phrase, and immediately apologised. The guy had no malintent with his choice of words, just clumsiness.

But Labour MPs called for him to be sacked, with one saying the remark was "deeply offensive".

Keith Vaz, chairman of the home affairs committee, said: "I regard this remark as racist, because it's deeply offensive.

"It shows a lack of understanding and sensitivity to the ethnic community and seems to come from a throwback age when people used that kind of phrase as if it was normal."

NO IT DOESNT! All the charges laid by Vaz may very well be true, but this instance is not evidence in itself. Racism is one of those instances where political correctness was obscured the real meaning of a concept. I once had a lecturer inform me that those who say the likes of "I fancy a chinkie tonight" are quilty of racism. Utter nonsense. There is no intent there, there is no feeling of hatred towards those of a different race, there is simply a clumsy use of the English language.

Keith Vaz - grow up. Collect whatever gong Geoff Hoon has promised you, and clear off. Criticise a Tory for a million and one things, but faux outrage at a genuine mistake, particularly when the it's a charge of racism, is just not on.

It's something politicians, particularly in Northern Ireland, seem to be especially adept at. OK its their job, but some outlays seem to be more worthwhile than others.

A few figures appeared yesterday:

• Policing George Bush's one-day visit: £300k
• 1 prosecution out of 1,100 cold-cases re-opened: £34m
• Bloody Sunday enquiry: £188m (to date)
• Enquiries in the next year: £100m (estimate)
• Subsidy to Citi to create 145 jobs: £2m (£13,793 per job)
• Cuts to ambulance services to save £1.5m: priceless!

Ah well, at least Larne's council aren't paying for red, white an blue bunting.

Will Crawley reckons Iris Robinson missed a meeting of the Health Committee at Stormont (which she chairs), because she was at a Castlereagh Borough Council meeting instead. You do despair sometimes.

It's quite hard to know what to think about David Davis forcing a by election in his own constituency. The Daily Telegraph on Friday suggested that this was at its core a shot across the bows of David Cameron, borne of frustration at his treatment at the hands of the leader. This got Conservative Home quite angry, as they believe that to be totally false.

This morning we hear that an ICM poll for the Mail on Sunday has Davis not only being returned with a larger majority than in 2005, but with large support for his actions amongst his constituents. This makes Tim Montgomerie very happy.

But for me, this is precisely why Davis' actions are a bit pointless. It is true that this has turned a government win in the commons into a story about a principled member of the opposition, it its true that it has caused a headache for the Prime Minister with his own MPs coming out in support of Davis, and it is true that Davis is almost certain of victory, but it is still quite pointless.

The 15 by elections in Northern Ireland in 1986 achieved the sum total of nothing. In fact, all it achieved was the defeat of Jim Nicholson and the further erosion of Enoch Powell's majority. In these by elections the result in most cases was certain, no one was surprised that Paisley, Beggs, Molyneaux et al were returned with massive majorities, of course they were. The electorate being asked to ratify the politician's position were the same electorate that backed them only three years previously at a General Election. And here we are with Davis Davis. If Gwyneth Dunwoody had passed away a few weeks later, and Davis had resigned to contest the Crewe by election, THAT would have been a bold step taking something new to the electorate. Crewe was a solid Labour seat. But Davis is not asking Labour supporters to punch the government in the nose over a specific policy, he is asking people who punched the government in the nose in 2005 and 2001 to do so again at a time of his, perhaps whimsical, choosing, over a specific policy that they were probably likely to agree with him on anyway.

And what's the point in that?

2 pieces of good news greeted me when I arrived home on Friday lunch time. The first was that the voters of the Republic of Ireland had rejected the EU constitution. I'd like to believe the Czech president when he said ratification cannot go ahead following this but the British foreign minister has said we should continue with our process of ratification (when he says 'our' I think he means Labour's, after all today's hiccup shows you can't trust the people to make the right decision) and José Manuel Barroso (EC President) insists the treaty isn't dead. The EU are totally adept at ignoring popular opinion when it suits them, even if it is so bluntly stated.

Brian Cowen, the new leader of the Southern government, blames the no camp for confusing voters and that many people raised objections to issues not covered by the treaty. Then again it was the government's Yes camp who aimed to focus voters attention on the benefits of the EU rather than the Constitution they were actually voting on. And this is the main problem with the EU: the arrogant, 'we know best' attitude to its citizens.

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Sinn Fein have spent the last few days stirring up the idea that they will refuse to nominate McGuinness to serve with Peter Robinson. They may refuse to do so, citing their difficulties with the Irish Language Act and, rather disingenuously, Ruane's problems with academic selection.

If the latter point was really an issue for them, they wouldn't moan about it, they'd take the opportunity to shuffle her out of the Executive. Maybe the Irish Language Act is the problem

But if they do push this to an election in September, they would reset the electoral clock. They may push the SDLP out of the executive if they're lucky, but they would certainly keep well ahead of them but they would defiantly push the next election from March 2011 to September 2012. Is there any particular reason they would want to do that? Who knows.