Northern ireland

Hats off to John McDonnell. We've all been fretting about how the Corbyn gang would cope against the media slick Tories. We all think that, despite the appeal of conviction politics, a shadow chancellor such as McDonnell will be eaten alive by the Tory front bench. John McDonnell's performance on BBC Question Time last night suggested otherwise. Question Time is a good test for politicians: they have to look and sound passionate while saying nothing much at all. McDonnell did exactly that, and with gusto. He masterfully shrugged off his 'joke' about killing Margaret Thatcher. When asked about his support for the IRA, he managed almost simultaneously to apologise and to take credit for bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

Northern Ireland is in crisis - one anyone familiar with politics here will find eerily familiar. The same faces that dominated news bulletins in the 1980s and 1990s are still in place, albeit slightly more wrinkled and weary.  But one striking difference is the response, or lack thereof, from David Cameron.  Northern Irish politicians are used to British Prime Ministers immediately flying into Belfast for crisis talks, to stage joint press conferences side by side and attend photo calls with furrowed brows and concerned looks. Yet Cameron has so far dodged any particular involvement in the talks and bluntly refused to concede to the DUP’s demands to suspend Stormont.

The political crisis in Northern Ireland has just become much more serious. Peter Robinson has stepped down as first minister and pulled all but one DUP Minister out of the executive. This means that there is now just one Unionist as part of the government there. Robinson’s aim is to make the UK government suspend Stormont. This crisis has been caused by the IRA’s continuing activities. Last month, the Police Service of Northern Ireland declared that the Provisional IRA was involved in the murder of Kevin McGuigan. This week, Sinn Fein’s northern chairman Bobby Storey was one of three republicans arrested for questioning in connection with the matter. Now, Sinn Fein denies that the IRA exists anymore.

Lately, I've been thinking about Willie Horton and Michael Dukakis. That's what Jeremy Corbyn's rise to prominence will do to a fellow. Horton, you will remember, was the convicted murderer who never returned from a weekend furlough granted to him while Dukakis was governor of Massachusetts, and subsequently kidnapped a couple in Maryland, stabbing the husband and repeatedly raping the wife. He became the star of George Bush's 1988 presidential election campaign. Lee Atwater, Bush's most pugnacious strategist, had vowed to "strip the bark" from Dukakis and promised that "by the time we're finished they're going to wonder whether Willie Horton is Dukakis' running-mate".

Jeremy Corbyn just can't help making friends wherever he goes. He previously described Hamas operatives as 'friends' and now he has found time out of his Labour leadership campaign to meet up with his old 'comrade' Gerry Adams in Portcullis House. The Sinn Féin president has tweeted a picture of their meet up, which Martin McGuinness also attended: https://twitter.com/GerryAdamsSF/status/623530633055313920 Of course the pair go way back. Corbyn, who supported ending British status for Northern Ireland, was heavily crtiticised after he invited Adams -- along with other Sinn Féin members -- to the House of Commons shortly after the Brighton bombing in 1984.

If you want to see our grievance-ridden, huckster-driven future, looks to Northern Ireland, which has always been a world leader in the fevered politics of religious victimhood and aggression. Just as the Tories and much of the politically-correct liberal centre think they can force us to be nice by allowing the cops to arrest those who 'spread hate but do not break laws' (in George Osborne’s sinister words) so Northern Ireland has all kinds of restrictions of 'hate speech' to police its rich and diverse tradition of religious bigotry. I suppose it was inevitable that they would catch 78-year-old Pastor James McConnell of the Whitewell Metropolitan Tabernacle in North Belfast. The pastor is a protestant of the fundamentalist kind.

Nigel Dodds, the Democratic Unionist Party leader at Westminster, is reflecting drolly on his party’s recent popularity: ‘I certainly think that the last year or two has been remarkable in the number of new friends we have encountered, people who are very keen to have a cup of tea or chat to you or whatever. I don’t put it all down to our natural charm.’ As pre-election talk of political pacts thickens — with both Conservatives and Labour angling for support — former House of Commons wallflowers have found their dance cards increasingly full. Which of the main parties might feel like a more natural ally? I ask.

Imagine a party that’s a cross between the SNP, Syriza and Ukip - one that is anti-establishment and combines the self-regard of the plucky outsider with an intermittent lead in the opinion polls. Imagine that and you’re getting close to the character of Sinn Féin, as manifest in its party conference this weekend. The last you may have heard of Sinn Féin was as a purely Northern Irish outfit, getting on just dandy with the DUP if intermittently embarrassed by reminders of its past during the Troubles. Well, think again. The party regularly outpolls the major party of government in the Republic, Fine Gael, and seems likely to do just fine in the election in Northern Ireland.

Jonathan Powell seems to be unavoidable at the moment. Having read his first two books a couple of times I felt a weary sense of resignation on news of the third. It wasn’t until I saw and heard him on channel 4 news that I felt serious irritation. We, whoever 'we' may be, should talk with everyone, everywhere, at any time, because we always do anyway - pretty much summed it up. Words are important - the more so when they are delivered by Tony Blair’s former chief of staff, who is much credited  with making a serious contribution to the Belfast Agreement. Jonathan Powell is a serious man, although one would be hard pushed to recognise that if you tuned into his Channel 4 performance.