Constitutional Reform is afoot. In the upper house, recent reports suggest Michael's longing for an elected Lords or UK senate may eventually be satisfied . Meanwhile, Michael himself has flagged up rumours that elections to the House of Commons may be shifting towards an Alternative Vote system (think STV for single-seat constituencies).

Elected Lords and Commons Legitimacy

I think I've come round to the idea of an elected Upper House as a 'least worst' option, despite the prospect of the extension of party politics, career politicians and the associated traits that tend to go along with these being an extremely strong counter-argument. Unfortunately I can't see those self-same parties and career politicians who will ultimately be making the decision being put off by my fears so lets assume it's a goer. The debate then moves on to how the upper chamber would be elected. While the obvious option is to elect all the senators, another option on the table is an 80% elected chamber. Where the other 20% of senators would come from I don't know (I hope we're past the idea of government/party appointees).

One of the problems with an elected senate (aside from my personal distaste for party politics), especially if it is to be elected using Proportional Representation, is that it could lead to a challenge to the primacy of the House of Commons, since PR could make the senate more accurately reflective of the wishes of voters. Why then, should it not have more power commensurate with that fact?

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It seems to be a constant theme that when people are surveyed about the news they complain there's not enough positive news reported, so here goes.
Belfast is one of the top 10 safest cities in the United Kingdom (also in the Tele) in which to live according to a survey from Endsleigh insurance. It landed in at number 7th safest for household accident claims and 10th safest from claims arising from theft.

That list in full (courtesy of the Daily Record):

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Jonathan Powell, advisor to Tony Blair in the Good Friday Agreement era and a man attracting a lot of press on Slugger lately regarding his new book on that time, was on Simon Mayo's show on Radio 5 at lunch time today talking about his book and the events leading up to the Good Friday Agreement. He said something that got me thinking.

That was that the deal Tony Blair had been trying to strike originally was a deal between the 'moderate' and dominant parties in Northern Ireland: the Ulster Unionists and the SDLP. When the SDLP said they couldn't come along without Sinn Fein, Powell claims that it then became a case of ensuring that a deal could be done between the Ulster Unionists and Sinn Fein.

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O'Connell Street, Dublin's main (and "most dangerous") street, was the scene for a vicious attack on St Patrick's night. A 17-year old English lad was confronted by a group of youths at 8pm who asked him where he was from and then attacked him when they didn't like the answer. The attack saw the victim, a pianist, lose a finger which police were unable to recover (until later see comments).

After almost 90 years of independence most folk in the Republic seem to have dropped the old grudges. Some, it seems, still can't get over the xenophobic hatred. So just what is it that fosters this naked hatred among a minority in a country that is developed, prosperous, and supposedly self-confident?

Is the desire to "reclaim" that fourth green field so strong that it warrants an attack on a kid enjoying St Patrick's day, just because he's a Brit? Is the irony that lost on these morons?

It wouldn't be the first time I've been accused of taking a short term or simplistic view of a situation, but I can't help but think there might be a silver lining to today's reports that the co-ownership scheme, which helps first-time buyers get on the property ladder by allowing them to buy part of their home and rent the rest, is to stop taking applications after committing to help 500 people next year, and thereby using up their budget.

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Nearly two years ago I wrote a piece outlining why I believe that the House of Lords is undemocratic and untenable in a modern democracy. I'd be interested to hear what EU's readers think. Rather unfortunately, Charter88's Elect the Lords campaign seems to have stalled last August.

11 "Super Councils" - the changing face of local government in Northern Ireland

Things have been a bit slow at EU here over the last couple of days. It's awful when real life gets in the way of blogging. Anyway, apparently a "deal" has been done on the councils. We've been spared the silly idea of a reduction to 7 super councils (which Sinn Fein alone wanted) and instead we're getting 11 councils which, as far as I can tell, nobody wanted (except maybe the DUP).

It seems like the areas proposed under the deal would see Newtownabbey and Carrick spared the indignity of joining up with Lisburn (as well as the massive potential expense of funding Lagan Valley's white elephant), although they look like being split from each other too, which is odd considering it's nearly impossible to spot the boundary. Of course there's no shift in Belfast because any expansion would probably bring in a net increase in the number of Prods in Belfast, and that would never do, not matter how much it makes sense in terms of planning, transport etc.

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Compare and contrast:

"The four British associations will not lose the rights and privileges acquired back in 1947. They will play with one team but it is up to them how they do it. It can be a mixed team, it can be from just one of the home nations, whatever they want to do."
Sepp Blatter, FIFA President, 1st September 2005

"They should enter only a team composed of players from England. This will then not provoke a long and endless discussion of the four British associations."
Sepp Blatter, FIFA President, 9th March 2008

Err... What?

I, like many, had only accepted a combined GB & NI team for the Olympics based on Blatter's original promise. Many fans warned at the time that this wasn't worth the paper it was written on and it turns out they were right.

There should be no British team at the Olympics at all.

Hat tip to O'Neill.

Remember that letter that wasn't a letter and didn't exist that was never written and never shown to Ian Paisley which didn't make clear to him that he was to stand down? The number 33 hangs in the air when signatures are mentioned. Have a ponder on that number.

Whatever it was or wasn't, and no matter who did and didn't sign it, it worked, and now Peter Robinson has quite a job on his hands. He has a balancing act to perform to an extent that Paisley never did. As Jim Allister has articulated Robinson isn't Paisley and wont be able to carry party opinion so readily and so dogmatically. What we know or can very safely assume is Robinson as First Minister, Dodds to Finance, Foster where she is and Poots is likely toast. So who gets DETI, DECAL and the junior ministers bag?

Robinson will have to keep the religious wing happy beyond just Dodds. Gregory Campbell is probably key to that given his attitude over the past year, leading to the strong chance that he will be offered DECAL or DETI. Which is a very different proposition to him accepting such an offer. Will he stomach sitting around the Executive table with McGuinness? If not, who else from his 'side' of the DUP would accept to help Robinson balance his appointments?

And then what of Donaldson? There have been suggestions that he is being kept warm for Policing and Justice, but will he be happy remaining as a junior minister waiting for something he himself says isn't happening anytime soon? If not Simon Hamilton will probably take the junior seat. But even if he is happy to stay where he is, there is a suggestion that he has been fishing in very much the wrong pond the past few weeks.

There is a bit of wreckage for Robinson to clear up in May. The chopping and changing of Ministers, junior and senior, together with appointments to the policing board and chairmanships of committees recently has been messy, and will be more so when Peter does it again to put his stamp on it. It's not at all likely that there will be a night of the long knives, but what happens if Gregory is belligerent? What if he, McCrea (x2), Simpson, Storey, Wells, in short the 12 disciples and their successors, aren't convinced? A lot of them are vulnerable to defection. And then the TUV become a serious party much quicker than they might.

We certainly live in interesting times.

I was glad when Michael posted the news of Paisley's stepping down/being pushed from the positions of First Minister and leader of the DUP. OK, it was sidetracked more or less from the start into the history of Ulster Unionist leaders/NI Prime Ministers, but I really couldn't be arsed commenting.

I'd come home from work and turned on Newsline when I first heard. I then heard nothing else for the remainder of the show but different people's rehashing of the news, their speculation and their commentary. Within 15 minutes or so I was sick hearing about it. Was there nobody prepared to say "No comment"? IIRC there was no sports coverage at all that night either. Surely something else must have happened that day.

The worst of it all was listening to Martin McGuinness and Gerry Adams make nice with pathetic platitudes. Today I came across a few more realistic assessments, apparently taken originally from the Irish Times.

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