Another one for the "What the hell is she thinking?" scrapbook. Everyone's favourite tennis star Caitriona Ruane has finally put forward her proposals for ending academic selection... by not quite ending it? Well not quite, not yet. Maybe.

It seems as if she's done exactly what Basil McCrea predicted she would, i.e. "cobble together a last-minute proposal", when she realised she wasn't going to get her way by shouting louder than her opponents, stamping her feet and quickly burying her head in the sand.

A new type of transfer test will be put together to run over three years from 2008-2001. The test will cover a broader range of topics than the current one and grammar schools may only be allowed to select between 20% and 50% of their pupils.

Nothing has changed. She still hasn't got the power to ban academic selection, and there is no way in hell this half-assed, mish-mash "policy" (using the term in the loosest possible sense) will prevent those grammar schools committed to maintaining their high standards from implementing their own test, rendering the whole exercise a pointless and expensive waste. But who cares about the cost of egalitarian dogma when it's not your cash?

It comes as no surprise to this blogger that our illustrious education minister, one Caitriona Ruane, has once again come under fire this week. Grammar schools have struck another blow against her policy of abolishing academic selection and this morning I hear that primary school headmasters have joined in the criticism and accused the under-fire education minister of reneging on a promise to level out the funding gap between primary and secondary schools.

I was pleased to see that my former school was among the 32 post-primary schools (out of the 229 in the country) that have so far committed to continuing with academic selection via an entrance exam. Lumen Christi has already indicated it will set its own entrance exam and yesterday the Association for Quality Education announced that 31 state grammar schools would be organising a common entrance exam once the Department of Education ends the 11+ test. Incidentally, despite Caitriona Ruane's depiction of the schools as "a minority of a minority", all 4 of the grammar schools I considered attending at age 10 are among the "rebel" schools planning on using the test, which could be bought in from England.

Ruane had a chance to replace the 11+ with a fairer system of testing, perhaps by having more tests spread throughout the year to reduce the pressure from the current big two exams, but without the supervision of the Department of Education there can be no guarantees that the new admissions test will be any fairer or less stressful than the current one (though I must be honest and state that as a 10 year old I could never see what all the fuss was about). In fact, given that the pupils will have to travel to a local assessment centre to take the tests, and parents may have to pay up to £65 to have their children sit it, for all her dogmatic ranting, all supposed socialist Ms Ruane has succeeded in doing is privatising the transfer procedure and increasing the pressure on chldren leaving primary school. Good work.

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I was recently required to do an analysis of an academic research paper. A colleague I was working with chose this one, which I hadn't read before. There are some fascinating things in the responses.

Page 6 of the PDF shows the huge swing in support for the agreement before finally resting where it started. I'm a bit dubious about the unexplained sharp rises towards the end of the campaign, but maybe I'm just forgetting something. Page 8 highlights the fact that the republic had a vote one third larger than in the north, but 10 times more spoilt ballots.

On page 11 we get into the really interesting stuff. Only half of Protestant no voters objected to power sharing. Two thirds of them supported the establishment of an assembly. 86% of catholic nationalists supported NI remaining in the UK, and half supported the removal of articles 2 & 3. Over 80 percent of all protestants felt that the IRA should complete its surrender BEFORE SF were allowed in Government.

Page 13 shows that Trimble had at least 50% approval ratings across the board. 50% of no voters trusted him, compared to 27% of yes voters approval for Paisley. Paisley and Adams had the square root of no cross community support.

History has without doubt shown that Trimble was right in the broad picture. But I wouldn't be surprised of even the man himself now recognises that his timing was very slightly, but critically, wrong.

But we all got there in the end.

You'd scarcely credit it but Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey is fuming with Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and is demanding an apology after the chief of police allegedly claimed the policing board had "gone a bit tribal".

Supposedly Orde accused the elected members of being more interested in political debate than policing issues. Frankly, I suspect describing the debate as "political" was being generous.

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The Assembly Commission, which runs the estate at Stormont, has drawn up new rules that mean events held in the Long Gallery now require "cross-community backing of three MLAs" (I'm guessing this means three from each community?).

This effectively means that Sinn Fein's murderer commemoration day at Stormont will not be allowed to go ahead in the Long Gallery. Sinn Fein are to hold the event in their members' room instead, though the commission has said TV cameras will not be allowed in.

Sinn Fein's Jennifer McCann, organising the event, said the decision was "unfair and undemocratic". What a laugh; the DUP, UUP, Alliance and SDLP all support the decision . That's 74% of voters represented there; I think you'll find that's quite democratic. It's a bit late now for the Sinners to turn round and demand an a la carte approach to the deals they helped devise and endorsed.

If the building at Stormont cannot be a shared space that reflects the history and culture of all the people in society then it must become a neutral space
Jennifer McCann, Sinn Fein MLA

This has nothing to do with history and much less to do with "culture". This is about having a bit of consideration. McCann can't be that much of an idiot (can she?). She knows she's fooling nobody and that everyone is perfectly aware this Farrell event was deliberately provocative. Now she has explained exactly why. I'm not the only one to notice that this whole debacle was nothing more than a smokescreen all along, with Sinn Fein's real aim being the removal of any historic artefacts they might decide to deem 'offensive' from Stormont a la Limavady.

I'm sure this has nothing to do with raising Ms McCann's profile, or giving something back to the basest, most bigoted elements of Sinn Fein's support (sure they've got Martina 'wrong kind of Catholic' Anderson for that), even if nothing appeals to a sectarian moron more than sticking one to the huns/taigs (delete as appropriate). Maybe it's just to distract from the fact that Sinn Fein, in common with the Assembly as a whole really, have achieved exactly diddly squat since the restoration of devolution last May.

The traditional view of Americans participation in the "Peace Process" here is generally seen as "cynical playing to the green Irish vote" by taking the side of nationalists and/or republicans. This was particularly true under the Clinton years.

With the new presidency race I think the best some of us were hoping for was that any new administration would have more important things to worry about than the rather tedious affairs of Northern Ireland, yet still its hard to shake the feeling that the votes of 36 million "Irish Americans" may prove too tempting to ignore.

That's why I was so surprised to read today that President Bush's special envoy to Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, has criticised Tony Blair for giving too much to Sinn Fein/the IRA, who he said became used to the government "doling out benefits" whenever it came time for Sinn Fein/the IRA to do what any democrat should do, i.e. end criminality, endorse the police, decommission illegally held weapons - that sort of thing

Reiss had placed a ban on the provisionals fundraising in the US after he became frustrated at the lack of movement from Sinn Fein on these issues. Later when Gerry Adams wanted to do some fundraising in New York, he contacted Reiss to have request the ban be overturned. Reiss refused to Gerry went to his best mate Tony at Number 10 to get the British government to go over Reiss's head to get the ban lifted by the White House.

Relations with No. 10 got a bit "open and nasty" when Reiss insisted the fundraising ban should stay. The Americans thought the British government was about to fudge the issue of policing (surely not!). Reiss kept the ban in place knowing that, for Paisley and the DUP, support for policing was a pre-condition for power sharing.

Given Sinn Fein's serious, and not at all opportunistic, commitment to creating "neutral working environments" I'm shocked, nay stunned, to find them taking advantage of International Women's Day to celebrate a convicted bomber, Mairead Farrell. Surely the Equality Commission would have something to say on this, no?

"We have a right to hold the celebration there. I would never, ever say to unionists or loyalists that they should or should not be doing something."
Jennifer McCann MLA, organiser of the event

It's lucky then, Jennifer, that Unionist politicians wouldn't be so sick as to arrange an event dedicated to the Shankill Butchers right under your noses (actually I'd be disgusted if they organised one at all, but that's neither here nor there at the moment). There are plenty of places in west Belfast and South Armagh where I'm sure there would have been less fuss, but this is all about Sinn Fein showing how far they can push their luck in sticking two-fingers up at unionists.

The DUP has, co-incidentally I'm sure, decided to hold an event commemorating the role of the SAS in defending Ulster from Farrell and her semtex-happy buddies. The SAS shot dead Farrell and 2 other IRA members who were on "active service" in Gibraltar, attempting to blow up the band at the weekly Changing of the Guard at the Governor's residence.

Hat-tip Big Ulsterman, who points out that stunts like this appear to be the tit-for-tat in the new dispensation.

If I wanted to be as vindictive as McCann I would suggest a ceremony to honour the Parachute Regiment be held at the Guildhall in Londonderry. Thankfully, I'm not.

The Assembly has rejected any suggestion that the IRA's sectarian murder campaign was a war. A good thing, and fairly unsurprising.

I've always liked Danny Kennedy, but his performance since devolution has impressed me, and he is clearly im proving as time goes on. I enjoyed this contribution during the debate:

Mr McCartney: The Member made an intervention and stated that Ireland was only ever united under the British Crown. Is that an acceptance that uniting Ireland is a worthy cause?

Mr Kennedy: Yes — under the British Crown. If the Republic wants to rejoin the British Commonwealth and renegotiate the terms and conditions for the union, I would withhold any objection.

Here here. Unionism should never be afraid to espouse Irish unity, it should probably be Unionism's objective - under the Crown within the devolutionary settlement for the Union. In today's world, Unionists have none of the reasons to fear Irish Home Rule that existed 100 years ago, and we should declare our willingness to enter an all Ireland legislature in Dublin, so long as all of Ireland sends its representatives to the national Parliament in London.

I've stated before on this blog that I don't like the legacy of James Craig. I think that he partly caused the insular, anti-Irish Unionism that is everything Carson stood against. Unionism should roll back the fear of it's Irish identity, and not allow the IRA's attempts to rob us of our British identity, to rob us of our Irish identity.

Well said Danny Kennedy.

Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez recently called for governments to recognise Colombian terrorists (and friends of the IRA) FARC to be recognised as "an army". Sound familiar?

Today Colombians will take to the streets to march in protest against FARC following a call to action which began on Facebook.

No Mas Secuestros / No More Kidnapping
No Mas Mentiras / No More Lies
No Mas Muerte / No More Death
No Mas FARC / No More FARC

I can only wish them well.

It's a busy day on the Caitriona Ruane front today. I'd just like to issue a quick thank you to Jim Allister for confirming that I was right when I said that Ms Ruane was talking out her arse when she said she wanted to change the law to prevent Northern Ireland schools, shockingly, giving preference to children living in Northern Ireland because it "may" breach EU equality rules (and thanks also to Nevin for mentioning it in his comment on this Slugger post).

Jim Allister has contacted the European Commission who have confirmed that this is nonsense. Allister's blog contains the long, wordy response, but in short the child from the Republic would only have a right to equal treatment in terms of admission to the school if she was residing in Northern Ireland. As I tried to explain to one commenter (hi Kensei) previously, the school is perfectly within its rights to use residency as a criterion when admitting pupils; it just can't use nationality.

Is it possible that this has something to do with the fact that Ms Ruane's own children live in County Louth, in the Republic, but attend school in Northern Ireland? Was she lying or is she just incompetent?