Cavan: southernmost of the Three Counties (red)

Our illustrious First Minister has come in for some heavy criticism over his cosy relationship with the leader of the Republic Bertie Ahern, but the preacher has proven his doubters wrong again. The DUP like to talk of all the concessions they've won for unionism, which makes it all the more curious that they've stayed quiet on this major coup: it seems the DUP have won back County Cavan.

Last Tuesday in the Dail Ahern lambasted TD Seymour Crawford during a discussion that was supposed to be about broadband in the Republic. "We'll talk about Cavan another day, we're talking about the Republic of Ireland if you could keep it to that." [Video below the fold]

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There's plenty wrong with copyright laws in this country. Instead of fixing those things though, the government want ISPs to do their dirty work, monitor everything you download and ban users from the internet if they download copyrighted material. There are so many things wrong with this I don't know where to start!

1. It's an invasion of privacy. This is the most immediately obvious problem. That's fair enough if you're one of those downloading illegal content, but it's essentially treating everyone as guilty (by stripping them of their right to privacy) until proven innocent. There isn't even a "reasonable grounds for suspicion" protection.

2. It's not technologically feasible. Discussing this very issue, one ISP that monitors the types of traffic on their network quite closely reports that 40% of BitTorrent (a popular filesharing application) is now encrypted. What this means is that the technology already exists, and is quite widely used, to prevent interception and examination of data. It's not the first time the politicians have gone riding in half-cocked without understanding what they're talking about when it comes to the series of tubes known in technical circles as "the internet" though. Did they really think 22 MPs signing an Early Day Motion "demanding" faster broadband speeds in the countryside would alter the laws of physics?

3. It would be expensive. The government keeps talking about its priority to improve broadband access (there's even a minister responsible for it!). How is that objective going to be affected when ISPs have to jack up their prices to pay for the development and/or purchase of this monitoring software which will probably prove ineffective in the longrun anyway?

There's a few issues to start with anyway (and I've not even touched on the many ways in which piracy actually benefits consumers by forcing big companies to reform their monopoly-abusing habits, that's for another day). As I've said before, there are bigger issues with UK copyright law as it stands than spotty teenagers downloading music or films in their darkened bedrooms and the government are coming at this, as government is inclined to do, from completely the wrong side of the argument.

Caution: Massive vent ahead!

Sorry, this is not going to be an in-depth political analysis like some of Michael's posts (though in-depth it will be - be warned), but I had to laugh at this. Peter Robinson has announced that the Northern Ireland administration "are introducing a single number for accessing government services in Northern Ireland" to "make it easier for the public to contact government and obtain a better service".

Don't get me wrong, I'm all for the idea of making government services accessible. It's just that sticking an automated operator ("Press 1 for DoE" etc.) won't do much. You see, the main thing preventing easy access to government services is not having to look up a phone number in the phone book or online, it's the fact that the places are never bloody open!

Let me explain: I recently bought a car to replace the 12-year old one generously donated to be 3 or 4 years ago by my mum, while I was still a student. Obviously I'd need to get it taxed before I can drive it. Sadly, the DVA insisted on making this as painful an experience as possible. I wanted to blog it on Saturday but earlier in the day I was far too angry and by Saturday night I'd taken ill. I'd thought I'd let it slide but Robinson's announcement today was just too good an opportunity to pass up.

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Carol Black has won the by-election in Dromore. Deserved terrible result for the DUP, good result for TUV.

There should never have been a by election in the first place - the DUP have questions to answer on wasting ratepayers money.

The comments on Slugger are playing this as the end of Paisley's career. The failure to win North Down in 1995 was ultimately the straw that broke Molyneaux's back, could this be Paisley's demise?

UPDATE: Any analysis I have to offer is here.

Sorry I haven't had a chance to post too much; over the weekend I've been dosed with a severe bout of Manflu and as such, have been fending off the reaper with a combination of max-strength lemsip-like concoctions, hot soup, a duvet, and umpteen hankies.

Glad to say I'm feeling better now though and should be back to 100% soon. Sadly, having wished to no avail that I could only find the energy to open my laptop over the weekend to blog some things, now that I'm feeling up to it there's nothing that interesting to talk about.

There is one thing I should remark upon though. I've been looking to add a bit of variety to the contributions to this site for a while now and to that end, as the more observant of you will have noticed, Michael Shilliday (of Slugger and formerly Young Unionists blog fame) is now blogging here at Everything Ulster so I can now formally bid him welcome. I'm sure his more detailed knowledge of the nuances of political life here will be no small help in continuing to highlight some of the more interesting issues that may fly under the radar of the mainstream media.

I've been having an argument with Seamus here over legislators and who is qualified to be a lawmaker. I firmly believe that the salary of a legislator must be sufficient to attract those with sufficient expertise to be in a position to make good laws. Jim Allister, no matter that I disagree with him fundamentally on many key issues, is a good legislator, and the fact that he is probably taking a substantial pay cut to be in politics is not inconsequential. Many of his erstwhile colleagues in the DUP, are not doing my argument any favours.

One of the most effective and most civicly useful Acts on the statute book is the Freedom of Information Act 2000. I love it, I use it from time to time, and found it particularly useful during a dispute I had with a public body (who insisted they weren't a public body until I complained and the Information Commissioner corrected their awful legal opinion).

It was always worrying that the First Minister doesn't like us knowing what the state is up to. While the Government has ruled out curtailing the current legislation, Northern Ireland has its own remit over FOI, and could diverge from the UK scheme.

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A review of Northern Ireland's MLA's pay is expected to recommend a 16% pay-rise, taking the MLA's basic salary to £52,000. MLAs will themselves then vote on whether or not to accept the recommendation.

That's clearly not going to do much to help reduce the cost of Stormont, and is completely unjustifiable in the current economic conditions and comes at a time when the Prime Minister is urging MPs to show restraint on their own pay.

A Sinn Fein MLA has already said her party will oppose the pay-rise as out-of-line with both inflation and the pay-awards other public-sector workers are being asked and/or forced to accept. Well done them. Let's see if anyone else follows suit (all the parties' websites seem silent on the issue).

The Patten Commission was not a pleasant experience for Unionists. The abandonment of the historic name and symbols of the RUC GC was needless, insensitive, and damaging to Unionist confidence in the political process of the time. While this was not the only negative experience to come out of Patten, what we can say is a great many of the recommendations (PDF) in the report were good ones that have improved the already high standard of policing in Northern Ireland. One of these proposals, detailed at pages 62 and 63 of the Patten report, was the civilianisation of many tasks that were being undertaken by fully trained Police Officers. Police Officers are expensive to train and retain, this training is extensive and produces an excellent public servant for the betterment of the community. It is therefore demeaning to the officers, as well as a massive waste of public resources to have uniformed police officers manning reception desks of stations, and other such basic administrative tasks.

Despite the poor way in which the report was handled, the handful of appalling recommendations which were insensitively implemented, and the bad taste left by it in Northern Ireland, it has had a positive net effect on day to day policing. Therefore it is of note that the former Chief Constable of the RUC GC, who himself was "hurt" by the Patten report, has used his experience to implement Patten best practise across forces in England and Wales. The DPPs, the Ombudsman’s Office (which I think may have predated Patten slightly, but the point nevertheless stands), as well as civilianisation of administrative functions are positive developments in the policing of Northern Ireland, and the rest of the country can learn from our positive, if in places painful, example.

Seems a novel (to say the least) way of recruiting electoral candidates, but the Northern Ireland Conservatives have a message on their blog requesting that:

"people - from all backgrounds - who might like to put themselves forward for the next Westminster election... Please, please contact us if you have the time, aptitude and interest to take on a campaign for a seat in Westminster"
Seeking Candidates - ConservativesNI.com

I can't decide if this is a bit desperate or a good way of taking advantage of new technology to reach out to like-minded individuals. Maybe it's both.

After a period away from regular blogging of the style I don't like putting on Slugger, I'm glad to now be contributing to Everything Ulster. I'm looking forward to getting back into the habit of regular blogging.

When I met up with Beano, we were chatting about a few things, and the conversation came around to the common habit of utterly misrepresented Sir James Craig on one specific matter. I have to say I'm not his biggest fan, indeed I think that he caused a lot of the problems Unionism was subsequently to have, but his decision in 1922 to abolish PR for Stormont Elections from the 1929 election was not one that was intended to screw the nationalists as it is commonly believed, and commonly reported. (Graham Walker's history of the UUP gives a little detail on pages 56, 57 and 71). Indeed this details that the combined Nationalist seat tally dropped by a total of one seat, a situation that largely prevailed in subsequent years. As Nick Whyte details here, the loss of a seat to Nationalism wasn't expected, and was a miscalculation on the part of the draftsmen rather than malicious intent. Local Government is another matter, which I may well return to later in the week, but at Stormont, there was no gerrymandering, and no attempt to reduce the size of the Nationalist caucus.

The simple fact is, the only reason there wasn't an effective opposition at Stormont, was the Nationalists refused to provide one.