Northern ireland

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.

Jonathan Powell is a British diplomat who served as Tony Blair's chief of staff from 1997 to 2007. During this period, he was also Britain's chief negotiator for Northern Ireland. These days, Powell runs a charity called Inter Mediate, which works as a go-between among terrorist organizations and governments around the globe. David Cameron appointed him last May as the UK's special envoy to Libya. His book 'Talking to Terrorists' was published this month, a review of which can be found in the October 4 edition of The Spectator. In it, Powell argues the British government has failed to learn lessons from the history of diplomacy with guerrilla groups.

This is an extract from the The Spectator, 13 August 1982: One summer's evening, I went for a stroll by the shores of Lough Erne, just outside the city of Enniskillen, Northern Ireland. Swifts and swallows patrolled separate strands of midge-covered waters as if divided into Catholics and Protestants. Gleaming in the twilight, the Gospel Tent stood in a field beside a full car park. A small poster on a telegraph pole proclaimed a ‘Fundamentalist Convention. Preacher: Dr Ian Paisley’. The event was scarcely publicised, and few people in Enniskillen knew that Paisley was on their doorstep.

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_11_Sept_2014_v4.mp3" title="Fraser Nelson, Tom Holland and Leah McLaren discuss how we can still save the Union" startat=50] Listen [/audioplayer]Once upon a time, a long while ago, I lived in Dublin. It was a time when everything seemed possible and not just because I was younger then. The country was stirring too. When I arrived it was still the case that a visa to work in the United States was just about the most valuable possession any young Irishman or woman could own; within a fistful of years that was no longer the case. Ireland was changing. These were the years in which the Celtic Tiger was born. They were happy years of surprising possibility. Years later I lived in the United States and my perspective changed.

If, like me, you missed Andrew Neil's BBC programme exploring What the Hell Happens to the United Kingdom if Scotland Votes for Independence Next Month you might be interested to know that it remains available on the BBC iPlayer here. Prudently, dear reader, I liked it. It's a film best viewed as a companion piece to James Forsyth's Spectator cover story published last month. A call to arms to England - and Westminster in particular - to ponder the consequences and implications of Scottish independence. There is little sign that much thought has been devoted to these issues.