Nationalism has no Jim Allister, or Micheal Martin

I have been busy on a number of fronts recently so the blog has had to take something of a back seat.  If you know me though, you will have been able to guess that I was keenly observing last week's elections in Ireland, North and South, as well as in Britain and indeed Colombia (it was a fun weekend, though not so much for my partner).

An opinion piece I read today by Suzanne Breen caught by eye, since it chimed with my initial reflections after the conclusion of the local elections in Northern Ireland.

@PJM2010 @mickfealty If I were Doc Al I'd be on the phone to Mícheal Martin this afternoon. #SDLP
— Chris Connolly (@Cripipper) May 26, 2014

Breen's argument is that Irish nationalism in Northern Ireland is 'lacking a Jim Allister".  This is partially true, but glides over the unfortunate reality that someone who is to Sinn Féin as Allister is to the DUP would be big on the armalite and low on the ballot box.  However, the headline was almost certainly written by a sub and would not have been the one Breen wrote for herself.

Colombian President pisses away poll lead

I'll freely admit, this is puerile, childish, base and beneath me, but I could not resist the headline once I had come up with it in my head.

And then again it's not every day that a world leader, up for re-election in 8 weeks' time, pees himself in public.

Juncker is EPP's candidate but still may not get the job

EPP elects Juncker as candidate for EC presidency - Political News | Irish & International Politics | The Irish Times - Fri, Mar 07, 2014

 

A funny sort of election took place in Dublin yesterday, when the luminaries and MEPs of the European People's Party gathered to select the man (for the candidates were all men) they want to put forward for President of the European Commission and who will be the face of the EPP's Europe-wide campaign in the European Parliament elections in a few months' time.


The EPP is the Christian Democrat (and largest) grouping in the European Parliament, and includes many several governing parties, such as Ireland's Fine Gael party, Angela Merkel's Christian Democratic Union, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk's Civil Platform, and Greece's New Democracy.  (It doesn't include, of course, David Cameron's Conservative Party, who took the Tories out of the EPP's grouping and set up a more Eurosceptic grouping - European Conservatives and Reformists, which is basically the Tories with a smattering of of other odds and sods of European elections sitting like sprinkles atop the Tory Eurosceptic cake).  They selected former Luxembourgish Prime Minister and Eurogroup President, Jean-Claude Juncker as the man for the job meaning, in the normal run of things, that one could expect Juncker to be the new President should the EPP emerge as the dominant force in the European Parliament after May's elections.


The choice of Juncker has, interestingly, given rise to a certain amount of commentary about his smoking and drinking habits, about which I had previously been unaware.

Consider this:

Now they're talking... So Juncker drank? What a surprise: http://t.co/VdsyUnA5VD via @WSJ
— Pierre Briançon (@pierrebri) January 8, 2014

And then this gem from a Brussels gossipy twitter account:

AAahaha. Twitter timing at its absolute very best from @spiritsEUROPE . *hat-doff*. #EPPDublin #Juncker. pic.twitter.com/Je2WCnDKsK
— Berlaymonster (@Berlaymonster) March 7, 2014

It should be noted that Juncker's Eurozone successor belongs to the Party of European Socialists whose candidate Martin Schultz is Juncker's main opponent for the job of Commission President. Still...