Mick Fealty, over on Slugger O’Toole, very rightly asks when Owen Paterson is planning to invite the other Northern Ireland political parties to Hertfordshire to meet the future NI Secretary of State? Why did the talks only involve the DUP and UUP?
And what about Danny Kennedy’s point, made yesterday at Stormont, that the talks were in the interests of the entire “pro-Union” community? Why should the Shadow Secretary of State be organising such narrowly defined talks? Why pander to this level of political blandness?
The initiative was clearly about something Unionisty. There’s something deeply sniffy about the whole initiative. But, worse than that, it jusk looks and feels wrong.
Owen Paterson is a really nice chap. But sometimes he just doesn’t get it. One is judged by the company one keeps and the meetings one organises. His new-found ‘advisers’ are giving him bum steers.
Owen – let’s return to a bit of aloofness from Northern Ireland’s political swamp. The Conservatives should be preparing for government in ways that makes them appear ready to govern. Doing one-sided deals or holding one-sided talks with political dead-wood is all wrong – and no amount of spinning through quasi in-house blogs is going to help.
Well that’s no very civil Jeff! My blog has been going since 2007 and has, for the whole of that time, been completely independent.
Delighted to hear it Owen.
Owen Patterson would probaly like to have had a meeting with the SDLP mps/mlas but their mp’s Mark Durkan, Alisidair McDonnell seem to slavishly follow thw Labour line and they do take the Labour whip though he could have a discussion with their MLA’s as the rest of the SDLP are more intersted in political correctness than being Christians and semi moral!
Your link to quasi-inhouse blogs goes to Slugger. Surely it should go to 3000 Versts. http://threethousandversts.blogspot.com/2010/01/no-conservative-interest-in-dup-pact.html