Politico swine

What I am about to write here should not come as a surprise to any member of the UK public.

Now for the painful part, it’s the same public who are to blame for the state we find the government, parliament and the politicos in. As we have let them get away with it for far too long.

We have lost our ability to protest and hold our MP’s and government to account. We should not have a blind dedication to a party and we need to redraw the contract with our politicos and remind them they are here to act in our best interests neither their party’s nor their party leaders.

For the fist time in thirty years I did not vote at the recent euro elections, this you may think is nothing unusual. In not voting I knew along with many other thousands of Unionists that we were letting a Sinn Fein/IRA MEP top the poll here. This speaks volumes for how disaffected the Unionist electorate are here in Northern Ireland with the DUP.

This disaffection I feel needs to gather hold in the rest of the UK and we need to protest long and loud so the politicos get the message and start to realize that they (MP’s) will not be in the job if they don’t do as we require. It’s the only way we will guarantee we get the politicos and government to give us the change we require.

Brown has a seriously flawed personality and it appears to be driven by a Machiavellian trait, this affects his judgment, to the extent that he surrounds himself with people with a similar trait. Brown is typical of every PM and MP, they are driven by personal ambition and egotistic self-interest they put their own and their parties interests before that of the public’s plight or national good.

Contrast Brown’s Machiavellian trait, with the brave D-Day veterans at the 65th D-Day commemorations. The brave men and women veterans put national interest before their personnel interest or safety but our politicos always put their own and their discredited political party’s interests first, before that of the publics. Bravery and honour are traits you will find in short supply in the current crop of MP’s in the main political party’s in the UK today. What you will find in abundance is copious amounts of egotistic self-interest and megalomania. I also note that Brown and his side kick Ainsworth the now secretary of state for defence have not one medal between them. These two should remember if it were not for the bravery of these veterans they would not be around today lording it over us.

What we have seen over the last few weeks is that now that our politicos have been found out with their snouts in the trough and their hands in the expenses till. They have started their propaganda offensive fight back with “we are listening” and “the public want us to clean up the system”, yet nothing has changed and if they do change the system we must ensure it’s not to their benefit.

We must ensure that they do change and change the system to our satisfaction.

However almost every media report on TV and radio involving the public has demanded that MP’s stand down now, not at the next election with a huge payoff. Now with the local and euro elections results coming in loud and clear the people are demanding change. Yet the politicos are putting their deaf ear to the public and carrying on as if nothing has happened. Why are we letting them get away with it? Get down to your MP’s office and tell them shut up and listen to you and what you think.

This is not just a Labour thing it extends to the Conservatives too. Only one or two MP’s have had the whip removed and a few told not to stand at the next election, which permits them to clean up again at the Taxpayers expense. They are blaging there way out of this situation like common criminals.

I can’t wait to see a time when someone challenges the taxman or VAT man in court for non payment of tax or VAT, citing the Nuremberg defence much loved of MP’s. Saying “I thought it was within the rules or I did not know” and I will pay it back without interest. This is exactly what MP’s have done? Neither government nor parliamentarian can come on the media and condemn them, as they have done exactly the same thing, the government and parliament has lost its authority.

Zanu-Labour Exposed

PSNI Spin

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7416781.stm

Now we all know where our Tax pounds are going within the PSNI.

The words Police Service in the badge above is being removed and replaced with Public Relations Service of Northern ireland.

The PSNI are a totally inept so called police service, not only are they inept but they spend more
of our money trying to convince us they are a professional modern police service.

Latest Perverted Service of Northern Ireland News
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3797671.ece

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/article3797652.ece

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7377389.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7205280.stm

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/opinion/article3328922.ece

http://www.newsletter.co.uk/news/Drinkdrivingcomments-leadto-controversy.3663013.jp

Orwellian Big Brother State

In a free society it is the right and the freedom of the individual to vote or not as they see fit.

However, here in Northern Ireland the chief electoral officer has the legislative power to prosecute people who do not register to vote.

In a so called democracy the requirement to register to vote should not be made an offence but a freedom that you chose to take up or not!

The act of prosecuting an individual for not registering to vote is an abuse of the right of the individual to express their individual freedom. Freedoms that over hundreds of years have been hard fought for and much blood has been spilt for these rights and freedoms.

One of the last freedoms and acts we have left is the consensus decision to take part or not in the electoral process.

If by not registering to vote and therefore not take part in the voting process and this freedom and consensus decision is to be criminalised then the state and government is forgetting who they work for!!!

For me the most disturbing factor here is that the chief electoral officer can use all the mechanisms of the state to track you down and take you to court.

Now you tell me if this is not the Orwellian, Big Brother state that we were all warned about in 1984!!!

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/politics/article3734161.ece

Perverse British Society

If you are in any doubt how perverse British society has become under a Nu-Labour government and against the British Armed Forces, then read the story from the links below.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1021653/Fury-injured-soldiers-families-sex-change-Para-captain-wins-250-000-Army.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/frontline/2026067/Sex-change-Paratrooper-wins-andpound250%2C000-for-%27hurt-feelings%27.html

I know it's an era of self fulfilment and discovery of your inner-self however, it is perverse in the extreme that the government and MOD can give a sex change ex-Para £250k to go and find themselves yet the most seriously injured soldier to come out of Afghanistan, was only originally given £125k. It took a campaign by his family and media to embarrass the government and MOD to ensure that brave Lance Bombardier Ben Parkinson, was given an increase in his compensation.

It speaks volumes of the government and the MOD that they think a sex change captain deserves more than a lowly Lance Bombardier who was one of the most seriously injured service personnel to come out of Afghanistan.

If anyone was in any doubt that the UK has sunk to new lows of depravity then here it is in all is gory detail.

United Kingdom Peoples Party

The United Kingdom Peoples Party

A manifesto for government.

I would like to start with TAX.

The current tax take is a restriction to investment and personal choice so to free up investment and personal choice:

We will remove child benefit form immigrants.
We will remove give child benefit to under 21 year old UK residents.
No child benefit will be given to any more than 3 children for basic rate tax payers
No child benefit will be given to any higher rate income tax payers

Immigrants will need to be resident in the UK for a minimum of 3 years and have contributed into the Income tax system for a continuous 36 months before being eligible for child benefit and that will only be for 3 dependent children living in the UK. No benefit will be paid to any non UK resident children eception will be made for children of the armed forces. All other subsequent children will not be given child benefit.

No child benefit will be paid to any parent under the age of 21.

Basic Rate Tax payers will be restricted to child benefit for 3 dependent children only resident in the UK. All other subsequent children will not be given child benefit.

Higher Tax income payers will not receive child benefit

Benefit claimants: child benefit will only be given for the first 3 dependent children only resident in the UK. All other subsequent children will not be given child benefit.

The new rate will be £25 per child per week.

Immigrants will need to be resident in the UK for a minimum of 3 years and have contributed into the Income tax system for a continuous 36 months before being eligible for:
Job Seekers Allowance

Job seekers allowance will not be paid after 24 months continuous payments.

No benefits to any resident of the UK will be paid unless they have contributed into the Income tax system for a continuous 36 months.
This includes:
Job Seekers Allowance
Housing benefit
Disability allowance (exception children under 18) at 18 a new assessment and only the very deserving will receive this benefit.

Job seekers allowance and Housing benefit will not be paid to any resident of the UK after 24 months continuous payments.


No claimant on Job seekers allowance after 24 months will be moved to another benefit they will receive vouchers that can be exchanged for food after the 24 months.

Housing benefit will not be given to immigrants.
Housing benefit will not be given to UK residents after 24 months.

Basic Rate Tax payers will pay 10p on the first £5,000 and then 15p for the next £10,000 then 20p there after

Higher Rate Tax payers will pay 10p on the first £5,000 and then 20p for the next £35,000 then 40p there after.

Carers who leave work to care will get a 75% of their average wage over a 36 month period that will be indexed linked for the duration of their care time.

Pensions will be linked with wages.

Pensioners with savings of under £100,000 will not pay tax.

Pensioners with savings over £100,000 If they are working their will pay tax at 10p the first £20,000 after the £100,000 threshold and then 15p on all other thereafter, their pension will not be taxed.

Corporation tax will be set commensurate with other countries within our region. It will be set at +or- 2% of the commensurate countries.

The tax take from highest earners will be as for High income earners all residents and non residents of the UK will pay no exceptions.

Stamp duty will start to be paid on homes priced at average house prices + 20%.

Inheritance Tax will be paid on estates on house sales plus savings of £400k or savings over £400k.

Your National Insurance contributions will be ring fenced for your State Pension. If you have not paid National Insurance contributions for more than 30 years you will receive vouchers that can be exchanged for food. They will be on a sliding scale depending on your years of National Insurance contributions.

We will remove stealth Taxes on green or eco issues until there is a world agreement on green or eco issues.

A full review of VAT will be undertaken.

VAT will be removed from domestic heating oil

EU:

We will remove the UK as a full membership of the EU and only remain as a trading partner.

Defence:

We will withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan within 6 months. We will only send troops to conflicts that are in our National interest.

We will invest a 5% proportion of our GDP on the armed services.

Police:

We will remove police bureaucracy.
We will put more police on the streets.
Police emphasise will be on crime not just speeding motorists and issuing fixed penalties.

Justice:

We will introduce categories for Murder:

Category 1: Full Life Term.
Category 2: 25-35years after 25years there will be a review and possible parole.
Category 3: 15-35 years after 15years there will be a review and possible parole.

Paedophiles, Rapists and Drug Dealers will be given a full term Category 2.

There will be a 3 strikes rule for recurrent criminals of low level crime. After the 3rd conviction you will automatically go to Category 2.

3 strikes rule example:
If you get a conviction strike 1 get another conviction strike 2 the next time you are convicted strike 3 and you get a minimum of Category 2: 25-35 years

There will be prison gardens and farms were the prisoners will be required to grow their own produce for the prison kitchen.

All visits will be behind a floor to ceiling reinforced glass screen. There will be no physical contact between prisoners or visitors.

Any prisoner found with drugs or other contraband will be given an extra 5 years without parole. For each item of contraband and each time a new search is conducted. There will be a minimum of 12 searches in any 12 month period.

Nu-Labour Commissars

Nu-Labour in all its guises have lied and spun its way through 11 years of power, they are by far the most deceitful and inept government and group of politicos this nation has had the misfortune to be governed by.

When Nu-Labour’s Polit Bureau commissars were found to be wanting in office they did not have the decency to resign from office they had to be dragged from office by the media. Nu-Labour by their actions set the tone for the decline in public standards that is now so prevalent in the chav and chavette culture on our streets today.

The Nu-Labour Polit Bureau, commissars and apparatchiks have put their political correctness, dogma, social engineering and ideologies before the best interests of low and middle income earners and our nation’s best interests. They have put the people and the nation behind the EC’s Polit Bureau's unelected commissioners in Brussels. They are using the twin track of deceit and propaganda on immigration, health, education, the economy, the police, terrorism and stealth green or eco taxes, to remove more hard earned cash from the low and middle income earners, to proliferate the state dependency of the indigenous undeserving and the migrant undeserving.

We must not forget that Nu-Labours Polit Bureau used all their commissars and apparatchiks and went into deceit and propaganda overdrive to sex up the dodgy dossier to take us to war with Iraq which lead to the death of Dr Kelly. After a few whitewash inquiries Nu-Labour had thrown Dr Kelly to the wolves and as a result it was reported that Dr Kelly suicide was in very dubious circumstances. Nu-labour Polit Bureau, commissars and apparatchiks were unapologetic over the death of Dr Kelly.

The actions of Nu-labours Polit Bureau commissars and apparatchiks show the lengths that they will go to deceive the UK public.

Nu-labours Polit Bureau, commissars and apparatchiks are using the threat of terror in a cynical attempt to control the UK populous. The Nu-labour Polit Bureau is using the threat of terror to cynically create more draconian laws to centralise more power in the Nu-labour Polit Bureau.

Let's not forget that the terror laws that were brought in 2000 The Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act have been used by:

• Derby City Council, Bolton, Gateshead, and Hartlepool used surveillance to investigate dog fouling.
• Bolton Council also used the act to investigate littering.
• The London borough of Kensington and Chelsea conducted surveillance on the misuse of a disabled parking pass.
• Liverpool City Council used Ripa to identify a false claim for damages.
• Conwy Council used the law to spy on a person who was working while off sick.

So don't forget to keep your bil lid closed as Nu-Labour might send round the bin police?
Don’t forget the micro chip in your bin informing the local Nu-labour commissars and apparatchiks what type and how much rubbish you are throwing out!

The controlling aspect of this authoritarian government can be seen with their rush to install CCTV systems in town and city centres, issue ID cards and the requirement to give your DNA, it is the stuff of nightmares.

This range of control would not be out of place in a third world authoritarian dictatorial fascist or communist state. However, this is Nu-Labours Orwellian big brother UK society today.

After years of being watched and bugged the police have stated that CCTV systems have not prevented crime in the UK. The UK has the largest DNA database in the world with 4.5million samples with 150,000 children under 16 and over a million innocent people. With 4.5million on the database you would consider that many numbers of crimes would be solved however, only 1 crime for every 800 DNA files held are solved. Then we have the ID cards! What a total irrelevance and waste of money. Nu-Labours Polit Bureau have stated that the ID cards will only hold finger print and iris recognition informatin, your national insurance number and date of and place of birth, the cards will cost the owner approximately £200 this in Nu-Labours Polit Bureau seem good value for money.

ID cards are anther step towards Nu-Labour’s Orwellian control of the UK populous.
The ultimate goal of ID cards is to hold all the relevant information, on you the individual. It will not be long after the issuing of the ID cards that there will be a compulsory mass DNA screening.
Then more of your personnel information will find its way on the ID card. Income Tax and National Insurance details, your smoking and drinking habits, your sexual orientation and any countries you have visited and any illnesses you have contracted. So when you find you need NHS treatment you will need to produce your ID card before you are treated, so your ID cards DNA information can be analyzed and then the treatment denied to you. Then banking and insurance companies will demand your ID card DNA information before taking you on as a risk or loading your premiums.

This country has been sold the mother of all lies with Nu-Labour, and their commissars The responsibility of this situation can be set no were other than in the hands of the Nu-Labour voters and the non voting conservative populous of the UK.

We most galvanize ourselves and march in every town, village and city in this United Kingdom to demand that the Tax burden be reduced and that immigration, health, education and the police be made to work of us the people and the offensive stealth green or eco taxes be remove form the hard working and hard pressed people of this land.


http://tpa.typepad.com/home/files/the_great_british_taxpayer_ripoff.pdf

Nu-Labour just don't get it!!!

The politicos in Nu-labour just don’t get it.

Labour is taxing every part of modern life they seem to be wedded to tax.

They are raking in extra billions in tax from fuel as the forecourt price goes up; this is before their duty price rise! They sneak in by the back door so called eco tax on vehicle excess duty on family cars. Council tax is going into orbit yet Nu-Labour plan to tax us even more for using your bin and cut other services?

They sneaked tax on insurance and flights, they have put up capital gains tax, national insurance, and did not keep stamp duty in line with the spiralling house prices.

If you are working or middle class and worked all your days and had the audacity to buy a house, save, get a personnel pension and retire, Nu-labour made sure that when you were refused treatment in the health service and you died they took a large amount of your estate for the tax man.

Nu-Labour brought in more and more bureaucracy in an attempt to micro-manage our lives. Pension, working and child Tax credits what is the point of all this bureaucracy? Why in this age of the government knowing all aspects of our lives do they not cut the bureaucracy and the tax burden?

http://www.abd.org.uk/fuel_tax_calculator.htm

If the conservatives want to get into power cut the eco tax shenanigans, stop taxing the motorist, the homeowner, the low paid. Then make the police courts and prisons, NHS, education, immigration and government work for us the people!!!

Here is a list of New Labour's first 90 Stealth Taxes with the date of introduction where known.Tax & Waste Rules, UK!


July 1997
1, Mortgage Interest Tax Relief At Source (MIRAS) reduced from 15% to 10%
2, Dividend Tax Credits for pension schemes abolished
3, Income tax relief on health insurance abolished
4, Insurance Premium Tax extended to some health insurance
5, Road Fuel Tax escalator increased to 6%
6, Vehicle Excise Duty increased
7, Tobacco duty escalator increased to 5%
8, Stamp Duty raised to 2%
9, Carry back of Corporation Tax losses limited to 1 year
10, Windfall tax on utilities

March 1998
11, Tax relief for the married couple's allowance (MCA) cut to 10%
12, Top rate of Insurance Premium Tax extended to travel insurance
13, Exceptional increase in tobacco and alcohol duties
14, Duties on casinos and gaming machines raised
15, Road Fuel Tax escalator increase brought forward
16, Tax on company cars increased
17,Tax relief on foreign earnings abolished
18, Tax concessions for certain professions abolished
19, Capital gains tax imposed on certain non-residents
20, Restriction of Capital Gains Tax relief on reinvestment
21, Corporation tax payments on account brought forward
22,Stamp duty increased again
23, Certain hydrocarbon duties increased
24, Additional diesel duties introduced
25, Landfill Tax increased
26, Double tax credits on certain dividends restricted

March 1999
27, National Insurance Contributions earning limit raised
28, NI Contributions for self-employed increased
29, Tax relief of Married Couple's Allowance abolished
30,MIRAS abolished
31, Self-employed contractors to pay NI and income tax as if employees
32, Company car business mileage discount limited
33,Double escalator on tobacco duties
34, Insurance Premium Tax increased to 5%
35, Vocational training relief abolished
36, Employer NI Contribution base broadened to include all benefits in kind
37, VAT on some banking services increased
38, Tax on reverse premiums paid to tenants by landlords introduced
39, Duty on domestic fuel oils up
40, Vehicle Excise Duty for lorries increased
41, Landfill tax escalator introduced
42, Stamp Duty rates raised again to 2.5/3.5%

March 2000
43, Tobacco duties increased above inflation
44, Stamp duty raised for 4th time, scope of duty extended
45, Extra taxation of life assurance companies
46, Rules on tax havens tightened up
47, Company car taxes raised

2001 The Chancellor gives the exhausted nation a year off – no new stealth taxes!

April 2002
48, Personal tax allowances frozen
49, National Insurance threshold frozen
50, NI Contributions for employers raised
51, NI Contributions for employees raised [Class 1 up 1%]
52, NI Contributions for self-employed raised
53, North Sea taxation increased
54, Duty on some alcoholic drinks raised
55, Stamp duty thresholds frozen
56, Tax relief on investment in film industy restricted
57, Rules on corporate debt tightened
58, Nil-rate threshold for inheritance tax raised by less than the rate of inflation

April 2003
59, VAT imposed on electronically supplied services
60, Domestic staff on £89/week to pay NI & income tax, employers to pay NI
61, Betting duty increases
62, Tax on red diesel and fuel oil increased
63, Anti-tax haven rules tightened to cover more UK firms with Irish subsidiaries
64, Vehicle excise duty raised
65, Personal tax allowances frozen again

July, 2003
66, £35 added to all fines and 66, £3 added to the cost of a home insurance policy

September, 2003
67, Price of petrol raised 7p per gallon (with the VAT)

October, 2003
68, Up to 8 times increase in the stamp duty on leases for retail premises
69, Airport Tax doubled

December, 2003
70, 40% extra Council Tax on second homes was sneaked in while the Westminster Wonders were breaking up for their hols a whole week before Xmas.Additional info : It has been pointed out that a number of councils gave an even bigger discount for second homes and the increase for some people can be 80%. Plus the usual 6-18% annual rise, depending on how bloated the council's operations have become.
Exemptions may be granted if the second home owner (1) has to live somewhere because of his/her employment, (2) the dwelling comes with the job, or (3) there are special threat/security reasons involved. All of which excuses apply to 10, Downing Street, the home of a certain Mr. Anthony B. Liar. (Thanks to M.K.)

January, 2004
71, £60 per day fine for late submission of self-assessment income tax forms
72, Traffic wardens to receive powers to impose fines for a whole bunch of offences to keep poor people off the roads. The offences will include parking more than 19 inches from the kerb (£100) and dithering by people who are lost over, and who don't know whether to make a turn or keep straight on
73, A 'Victims Fund' surcharge fine on everyone who passes through the courts. £5 for speeding up to £30 for murder.
74, Legal Aid for the middle classes abolished

February, 2004
75, £40 per week charge to middle-class parents for formerly free nursery places
76, £200 per year charge to middle-class parents for places on formerly free school buses
77, £250 per hour charge from the fire brigade for non-fire-related call-outs, e.g. clearing up after road accidents and rescuing pussy cats from trees

March, 2004
78, £550 tax rise (at standard rate) for people using a company van or people-carrier out of work time
79, Council Tax will rise at least 7.4% next year (according to the Budget)
80, The tax incentive for owner-operator small businesses to become companies abolished
81, Tax on cross-border payments for goods and services between multi-divisional companies extended to transactions within the UK
82, Tax on trusts up from 34% to 40%
83, Duty on red diesel up 1p/litre above inflation (57% rise)
84, Duty on liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) used as fuel up 1p/litre above inflation (45% rise)
85, Personal allowances for taxpayers under 65 frozen

April 2004
86, PEPs and ISAs containing shares lose their tax break on dividends and the annual ISA allowance cut by £2,000 to £5,000
87, The 100% tax allowance for small businesses & self-employed on new computer/advanced telephone equipment cut to 50% for 2004/5
88, tax yearPassports – in addition to costing twice as much as the present price of £42, the new 'biometric data' passports will be valid for half as long. They will have to be renewed every 5 years instead of every 10 years, which doubles the cost yet again.
89, £100 per year 'lighthouse tax' on small boats over 8 metres long. Commerial shipping lines think they should pay £2.6 million per year towards the annual £73 million cost of maintaining lig
hthouses and navigational equipment.

May 2004
90, Council Tax bills to rise a further £110 in the affected areas to pay for 'Two Jags' Prescott's regional assemblies

Morally Corrupt Nu-Labour, Lefty Media and civil service

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=560640&in_page_id=1770

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/19/narmy419.xml

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/04/19/narmy119.xml

Here are a few stories that show the dichotomy of how Gordon Brown says he wants us to celebrate our armed services, yet his government tried to deny them justice not satisfied with that they give a victim of the armed services £2 million, yet our service personnel returning injured from active service (and lets not forget it was his government that sent them there) are denied proper compensation for their injuries.

Do they not understand the vast majority do support our armed services,

It’s the bastards in Nu-Labour, the lefty media and the morally corrupt civil service that don’t respect our armed services.

The Judiciary and anal govenment

Just a short line to say in the age of the internet do the assholes in the judiciary and the government think they can stop information from other countries finding its way to here.

The junior royal involved in the gay blackmail shenanigans may not be named here however, from the reports in the news and from foreign web sites he can be identified!!!

Don’t you just detest the way the judiciary and the government treat the people of the UK with utter contempt!!!

Click below to see what they think on the other side of the world.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10473131

Their anal attempt to censer information is like a Robert Mugabe free and open election!!!

Human Rights

Isn’t it great to hear that the Armed Services can now get the Human Rights that they deserve and have been denied for years?

If this Nu-Labour government can give all the rights under the sun to murders, rapists, paedophiles, terrorists, illegal immigrants and any other undeserving group then it is only just that our soldiers get the protection that they require.

The government have only taken delivery of an Armoured Personnel Carrier that can deflect the effects of an Improvised Explosive Device and improve survivability of the occupants by 90%. The APC has been used by the Americans for years yet our soldiers in Afghanistan are using an ill-equipped semi armoured personnel carrier that if it drives over an IED is almost guaranteed to kill or maim 100% the occupants.

If the government can take soldiers to court for alleged breaches of the Human Rights of their prisoners of war then is it not right that the soldiers deserve the same rights as their prisoners.

The Armed Services have been underfunded and young soldiers under paid for years.

This goes back as far as the last Conservative government, however it has been exacerbated by Tony B,liar, deceiver tight Brown and his incompetent part time sidekick Browne.

These 3 Nu-Labour politicos have raped the Armed Services and shafted the Armed Services at every opportunity and their lefty friends in Nu-Labour endorsed every cut.

Brown with his 10p income tax hike has taken more tax from the youngest soldiers in the Armed Services how is that for inspiring morale in the soldier on the frontline by making them poorer.

The American soldier on the frontline gets over £500k spent on them in equipment and welfare, however this bunch of Nu-Labour swine spend less than £100k on our soldiers that is lower than the other NATO soldiers in Afghanistan.

Do not question the dedication of the soldier on the frontline they will do their duty with bravery and dedication. They are there for their mates and will do what it takes to protect their mates no matter what the consequences.

I just wish the Nu-Labour politicos had 1% of the bravery and dedication that our soldiers show. By the way how many of the Nu-Labour politico’s sons and daughters are out there serving their country, non I suspect!

Get rid of Brown and Nu-Labour and all the lefty swine that infect our lives with their lies and deception.

I look forward to the day when a soldier or a dependent sees the prime minister, the defence secretary or some faceless MOD self serving civil servant in the courts, being taken to pieces for denying the soldier the proper equipment or backup that could have saved their life or limbs.

If you don't think our soldiers deserve Human Rights then see how the system sees a civil servant and a Soldier!!
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2008/03/17/nsoldier117.xml

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=542731&in_page_id=1770


Now you tell me what is right and just?


Never again shall the Lion of a British Soldier be lead by donkeys and governed by jackals!!!

Totalitarian Government

Below is a story from the Daily Mail on how Brown and his Totalitarian government treat our Brave young Men and Woman.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=542731&in_page_id=1770

A Royal Marine who lost both legs and his right arm after stepping on a Taliban landmine in Afghanistan has been told he is not entitled to a full compensation package.
Mark Ormrod, 24, was blown up on patrol in Helmand province on Christmas Eve. He has spent the last three months in intensive care and rehabilitation.
He was offered £214,000 in compensation by the Ministry of Defence rather than the maximum £285,000.


I hope all those greedy politico swine at Westminster from whatever party can sleep easy tonight and every night, knowing that this brave young man faces a life of hardship. This is thanks to the pittance of a compensation payout awarded to him from the Nu-labour controlled MOD and this disgusting Nu-Labour government.

This young man and all his injured colleagues should be getting 4 or 5 times the compensation they have been offered by this Nu-Labour government!

This disgusting Nu-Labour government sent these brave men and women there. However as long as it’s not this Nu-Labour governments sons or daughters, what do they care, and what do they care if these brave men and women come back dead or seriously disabled.

The greedy politico swine at Westminster can clam thousands a year in expenses without a receipt and the most dangerous thing they will do is chose what colour they want their shredder for shredding their John Lewis receipts.

I hope Nu-Labour Labour never gets into power again! Every time they have had power in this country they have contrived to make the poor poorer and destroy our Armed Services. Gordon Brown I will pay your one way ticket to Moscow, because you and your Nu-Labour politicos have done more to destroy our Armed Services than the Russians ever did!

The cry form the Armed Services is go Gordon go and take your numpty dippy Des with you.

We are watching you DUP & UUP

I have been reading the Belfast Telegraph today 16th February and there is another story on the blaring of the lines between Seymour Sweeney and Ian Paisley junior, over the ownership of a constituency office in Ballymena and the issue of rent being paid or not as the case maybe and to who?

Not only can MLA's clam thousands in expenses but they also get subsidised meals up at Stormont!

The Honourable Members at Stormont can enjoy meals in the Members Dining Room. Sumptuous three-course meals are available for under £20 per head to MLA’s according to the Telegraph. These meals are subsidized by the hard pressed Northern Ireland Tax payer to the tune of £850 per day or £211,241 form May to December 07.

I would expect the nose in the trough old Unionists et al to be happy about this subsidy. It's now time the DUP and UUP have a root and branch review of the perks and expenses of the assembly.

I don’t get a free or subsidized meal from the government and I work for them. I pay for my own Christmas lunch the government don’t pay a single penny or provide a single mince pie to my Christmas meal, so why should I subsidise meals and drinks for people who earn a lot more than I do!

I also use my own car to do my job. I receive motor mileage however, that figure was set 4 years ago by the Inland Revenue, this was to cover the cost of fuel, depreciation. Since then there has been a 25% increase in fuel, I also have to put business use on my insurance, I then have the buy new tyres and service my car more often. So all in all the government are getting a dam good deal out of my car, and I take all the risk. Here is another issue the government have a budget every year and as sure as night follows day they put the fuel duty up, then there is the barrel price going up at a horrendous rate and then in this years buget 2008 the swine in 11 Downing Street put the cost of road TAX up again however, the only thing that doesn’t go up are my expenses to run my car to do the work of government.

Some of these bottom feeders in Stormont who are members of parliament get more in expenses £40k, for a second home that they allegedly need in London. They use this house/flat to stay in when they are going to parliament. £40k, is more than I get in salary a year!!!

When it comes to selling these houses they can usurp the rules to avoid paying capital gains tax so another nice little earner. In Northern Ireland these same bottom feeders pay rent on a portacabin on their own land to their wives so in these days of equality I want the same perks that these berks get?

The politicos also pay rent to their wife for a constituency office that their wife allegedly owns, not only that the wife works there and gets paid form the Tax payer as a constituency office worker!

As every week goes by we are being more and more disillusioned by the perks, expenses and the goings on up with the folks on the hill.

From the age of eighteen when I was eligible to vote, I have voted Unionist at every election. I seen it as my duty as a Unionist, and when the DUP have been on the ticket I have voted for them. However the day is fast approaching when I will be abstaining form voting. I am starting to get very disillusioned with Unionism and with the DUP and the UUP, as are my family and friends. We feel we have been used by the Unionist parties as a meal ticket

To be a good Unionist I was taught that one must look after and maintain the Union. However it does not permit the elected Unionist representatives to forgo the working class Unionists, and to line their own pockets at the Unionist Tax payer’s expense.

In light of the By-election defeat at Banbridge, here are a few thoughts form family, friends and myself to the DUP.

We are increasingly unhappy with the way the DUP are holding the hand of Sinn Fein/IRA.

We are also increasingly disturbed with the machinations of both Paisley 's. Both Paisley ’s are now being seen as a major hurdle to the future success of the DUP by family, friends and me. I personally can’t stand that pompous off spring Ian junior. I have never met this man but his manor is both condescending and arrogant. What does this man know about what its like to be brought up in a poverty filled low education attaining housing estate, were the people live from hand to mouth; on a day to day basis were mental and physical sickness, despair and an early grave are your daily companions!

The Seymour Sweeney debacle and the way young Paisley is strutting around denying a close business relationship with Seymour his arrogance knows no bounds and is alienating us as voters.

We are not happy with the way Jeffrey Donaldson seems to be trotted out by the DUP like some sort of Chawawa Rottweiler type spin doctor.

Poots, and the National stadium or not as the case maybe, and the raft of other decisions that seem to be put on the long finger, however quick decisions on traffic/parking attendants are seen as indicative of an administration that can't take controversial decisions yet can bring in traffic/parking attendants who are seen as issuing another stealth tax on hard pressed motorists.

We see the money generated by double and triple hated MP's, MLA's and Councillors as avarice at its most vile. The sums of money in salaries and expenses are 5 or 6 times my government wage. This is feeding the impression of, typical old Unionist party. The view is that the MP's, MLA's and Councillors are not in it for the Unionist people but lining their own pockets.

Peter and Iris Robinson are not setting a great example with their 40k expenses for their London home, that’s more than I earn a year!

Nine of your team at Stormont are double hated earning huge sums of money and then there is the question of relatives and friends working for MP’s, MLA’s. The sums of money being bandied about most of your working class electorate can only dream about, or is only attainable through a lottery win; this is feeding the impression of avarice and nepotism.

The other factor is how can one person do two full time jobs and give of their best to the Unionist electorate?

We don’t care for the PSNI they don’t care about the Unionist population and they are not the ‘B’ Specials, we don’t care for the 11+ it is seen as a middle class attempt to keep working class Unionist people in their place, we don’t care for money for the UDA, they are drug dealers and killers of Unionists within the Unionist community.

What we do care about is proper policing, better education for working class Unionist areas, well paid jobs, no more stealth taxes, the NHS and proper housing for Unionist low income earners.

We read the news and blogger sites on the Internet, the quality London papers, local press and listen to the local phone-in radio shows.

Turning into the old Unionist party of the past will not be tolerated and trying to hide from the Unionist electorate will not be as easy as it used to be in the bad old days of the old Unionist party. In the bad old days the only time you seen a Unionist politician was when they were banging the big drum, looking to get elected and after being elected they did nothing for the poor and the working class Unionist population!

The DUP appear to be moving away from the working class Unionist population who put the party were it is today.

What is being discussed is not voting at all at the next election. This is not based on a few conversations but almost all of the people I have spoken too.

So be warned, if the DUP are not seen as whiter than white and don't get their act together you may find that the working class electorate will vote with their feet and stay at home!

Sinn Fein/IRA and the worst story ever told

Sinn Fein/IRA are turning into a pseudo religion.

You have God, Adams, himself.

Jesus is the wee star form the North West Wee Martin.

The virgin Mary is Ms Ruane, She who give birth to eco terrorists.

Joseph would be Pat Doherty. Because he always looks as if he is sleeping

Trouble now I need to find the 3 wise men? Sean O'Callaghan, Martin McGartland and Freddie Scappaticci, all 3 had the sense to leave the republican movement.

Herod the Great would be Gerry form the Old Bailey.

Mary Magdalene has to be our Bairbre de Brún, she always looks at Wee Martin like she would like to have his children.

John the Baptist is I will wash you of your non-crime away Mitchel McLaughlin

The Twelve Apostles

Judas Iscariot: has to be Denis Donaldson
Simon also known as Peter: Francis Molloy as he denounced a policy 3 times
Simon the Zealot: Alex Maskey
Doubting Thomas: Martin Ferris I doubt I was on the Army Council
James the Younger: Conner Murphy just as he is young
Thaddaeus
Andrew
James
John.
Philip
Bartholomew
Matthew

I will let the rest of you fill in your favourite in the spaces.

Now we come to the last supper held at casement Park GAA ground
Only 10 turned up so there was plenty to go around and they all got plates with their faces on. The meal was a chicken supper supplied by 10 8 nothing
Telephone 80 808080



Some of their miracles:

Making people believe they had decommissioned

Fooling their electorate into thinking, they will get a united Ireland.

Hugging everything green and trying to cast out the Orange for Ireland.

Making people believe they are not in it for themselves.

Their greatest Miracle: Turning terrorist into peace loving para-politicians.

Questions for the Next Election?

I would like to tell the politicos that have power over us:

That we are not best pleased with so called Eco Taxes (Tax on Fuel, be that fuel for vehicles or the home and a possible Congestion Charge for Belfast).

I feel they are punitive taxes on the poor and middle income earners and will stifle inward investment. The government and Belfast City Council is cynically using the environment as an excuse to raise taxes.

We are being forced to endure these Eco Taxes before we have a global agreement on environmental issues, the UK alone will not save the planet. I as a UK car user knows that the car user in America, China and India are not paying Eco stealth taxes on their fuel. These Taxes confirm to us the voter that this is a cynical stealth tax. This applies to all Eco stealth taxes.

Do the peoples in the countries named above have to use by decree of government, Eco light bulbs?

The nanny state has arrived in your living room and is going in to overdrive in London. How many politicians does it take to change a light bulb?

Politicians don’t need light bulbs as they can light up a room with the sun shine emanating from their backsides!
Or
We don’t know because we have never seen a politician do anything useful!

Other Stealth Taxes (Tax on Insurance and flights) again are a punitive tax on the poor and middle income earners and again stifle investment. The Irish Republic is a shinning example of a low Tax economy and look how the standard of living and investment has boomed in the Irish Republic in recent years with high paying quality jobs.

We need our politicos to reform the Tax take and make it more equitable. The burden of tax should not be on the middle income earners or the elderly who have saved all their working lives for their retirement. The tax burden needs to be more equitability spread over the full range of incomes.

On the Belfast Congestion Charge, we have a multi million-pound new shopping centre in Belfast nearing completion and several new multi million pound developments at the Holywood Exchange site and in the Titanic Quarter Shipyard site and another multi million pound proposed development at the old Sarrco Works site. What eejit in the City Hall suggested that we should have the congestion charge for Belfast City Centre? It will obviously affect the business of the new multi million pound shopping centres, if shoppers have to pay to get to the shopping centre and then pay again to park, people will vote with their shopping basket and go to Lisburn or the Abbey Centre. The mindset of City Hall takes some thinking through. This will be a classic example of how not to get investment into the centre of Belfast. Well done City Hall.

The average wage in Northern Ireland is below the national average and just like corporation Tax on business any Eco or Stealth tax will discourage inward investment. Let’s not forget we in Northern Ireland pay more for every day products and services so Eco and Stealth Taxes have an even greater and disproportionately larger impact on our pockets.

I would like to ask the political parties here, will they vote against any more or any increases in existing Eco or Stealth Taxes. This goes for the Water Charges and Rates.

I would like to bring up the taxing question of ID cards. What an unnecessary burden on the UK Tax payer.

The introduction of ID cards to the UK is another covert attempt by the Labour government to invade our lives at a level never experienced in the history of the UK.

Firstly my main concern is over the anticipated cost of this ID card debacle.

Can we trust the government with the amount of information that will be stored on these cards and the security of the information contained on the cards? I thank not!

The government say that no Medical, Tax, Ethnic or Religious details will be contained on the cards. Personally I don’t believe them, and the temptation to add this information and misuse this information will be too overwhelming for the government.

I can see the forward planning and future strategy of the National Health Service being dependent on the personnel information held on these cards.

Interestingly the government did not mention that the ID cards will not hold DNA information. In not mentioning DNA information, it can therfore be used as a backdoor for the government to abuse the system and ask for DNA information in the guise of National Security.

I would like to remind everyone that Police forces across the UK have DNA data bases and would like to expand this to cover everyone, add this to the governments desire to have a UK DNA data base and it only takes the stroke of a pen form a minister of state to make DNA part of the ID cards.

I also have a degree of discomfort that the government wish to have my fingerprint details and the fingerprint details of my children on any card. We are sleepwalking into a mix of an Orwellian society and Huxley’s A Brave New World!

The UK governments record on honesty to the UK people has always been questionable therefore the opportunity and the temptation for the government to sell the information contained on the ID cards to foreign governments and banking and insurance interests will be insatiable. The personnel information about our DNA and health details could result in a refusal of NHS treatment or insurance maybe not today but tomorrow.

The control of emigrants and terrorists is being used as an excuse for the introduction of ID cards by the government. This will necessitate a huge government bureaucracy to administrate.
Instead of government getting smaller and the Tax burden getting smaller Labour are getting government into areas that government has never been before, and that invades the pocket as well.

The UK has huge numbers of transient workers from inside and outside the EU some who stay for short periods and others who stay for longer periods, add to this the numbers of UK residents who change address, the potential for system meltdown is inevitable. Any well financed terrorist organisation that wish to bomb the UK will not take long to have better fake ID cards than the cards the government can issue.

One just has to look at the existing NHS, Tax Credit and Child Support Agency computer systems are evidence that the government’s record on computer systems is not premiere league and the ID card computer system will inevitability be the same. The system just won’t work effectively.

One must ask the question if all the information that the card is going to contain is name, address, DoB, place of birth, immigration status, finger print details, iris pattern and photo. What is the point of the ID card, the criminals won’t care a jot for ID cards, they will make a fortune making fake ID cards and selling them on the black market. So I suppose it’s good to see the government encourage the economy, even if it’s the black economy.
International Forgers will have better ID cards than the government will produce within days of the first card being produced.

The cost of this ID scheme would be better spent in Schools, the NHS on Pensioners or on care for the elderly.

Can any politician tell me how an ID card is going to stop a bomb?

If Nu-Labour spent the money on police officers on the beat and not on CCTV and ID cards it would be money well spent.

CCTVand ID cards if they do catch a terrorist then it will be after the act, not like an officer on the beat who can intervene during the act. More police on the streets and less government intrusions in our lives would be a better idea.

The whole issue around ID cards is like a bad comb over on a semi bald man, it’s a stupid idea and it doesn’t work!

The government are trying to socially manipulate us into bottle water drinking; five fruit and vegetable portions a day super fit ID card carrying clones. However, and this may come as a surprise to the government we are all unique.

The elderly who have the need for treatment should not be denied that treatment, just because they have worked all their adult lives and now they don’t fit into some government targeted age range.

Then there is the lady who is denied cancer drug treatment because the government say it’s too expensive. However the government can pay themselves huge expenses on second homes, pensions and pay rises without the electorate having a say.

Then there is the gentleman who is denied treatments because he comes from an era were smoking was socially acceptable and he has paid tax to the government for the pleasure to smoke and is denied treatment.

The government need to be reminded that this is not their money to make these decisions with it is our money.

Gordon Brown and his predecessor Tony B,liar have spent billons of our pounds on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that will have no satisfactory conclusion. Gordon Brown is continuing to spend millions of our pounds a day on these failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. I suggest these acts are the acts of a perversely corrupt government.

A government that will fund wars yet the same government won’t properly compensate or fund proper treatment for our returning service personnel or fund treatment for the rest of the populace that they say they represent, is a sick government.

A government that can send men and women to war but can’t treat them when they come home injured because of NHS cutbacks is a perverse and corrupt government!

Our Assembly need to focus on:

Education: The 11+, funding for third level education, and pay and conditions for education workers.

The Health Service: The provision of drugs and treatment for everyone. The cost and issue of Hospital Cleaning and Infections (MRSA).

Provision for the Elderly at home and in Hospital.

Planning, Social Housing, Water Charging and Rates (why are landlords exempt rates)

Crime and the causes of crime and the sentencing of the convicted (end 50% remission).

The mundane: Quangos, and Non Elected and Non Accountable Boards, The National Stadium, Tourism, Transport, Investment.

There is a dragging off collective political feet, with review after review on mundane issues delays in implementing important day to day decisions on issues in Northern Ireland that are stifling our economy.

Years of indecision must stop and a collective political finger must be pulled out. The politicos in the big house make positive decisions to move Northern Ireland into the 21st Century!

We need more action and less jaw jaw.

Inept PSNI

The general view is that the PSNI are so badly managed and the morale of the officer on the beat is so poor it seems as if the PSNI are making it up as they drive along. The PSNI are at best amateur or at worse totally inept.

Let’s not lose sight of the fact that the PSNI’s clear up rate for domestic burglaries
Is a pathetic 10%

I feel that the PSNI are a totally inept police service if it can be described as a service.

I would also like to ask why in this era of peace and a new police beginning, PSNI officers can drive around without seatbelts, drive around with driver or passenger doors ajar, park illegally, visit vehicle insurance companies to arrange their personal insurance, hide behind walls and street furniture, or hide in gardens or just into an area that has a reduced speed to conduct speed traps.

Why does it takes two officers to visit chip shops, sandwich bars, coffee shops and other types of take-a-way establishments when all we hear is that the PSNI are busy and need to prioritize their response to emergency calls?

Call for them to attend an incident and it takes hours if not days. I suppose it depends on the queue in the take-a-way as to the PSNI response?

Why when we have crimes taking place under the PSNI’s noses, crimes like drug dealing, burglary, car crime, crime against property, general anti social behavior, fighting on the streets, drinking in the streets, and the most insidious crime of violence against the elderly, resulting in the elderly being beaten in their homes or murdered protecting their property, this inevitability results in the elderly feel like prisoners in their own homes. Why do we have PSNI officers at midnight on a Friday, operating a speed trap on the Lisburn Road Belfast. It seems the PSNI are putting the gathering of a Tax before protecting the elderly the public, property and before proper road safety! Have these officers nothing better to do.

We all know of the need for speeders to be fined however, how relevant is it to catch a driver doing 4 or 5 miles over the speed limit at midnight on an all most deserted road, is there not a better time and place for this activity. It comes as no surprise that we see the PSNI conducting a speed trap at this time of the night. It can only be seen as an easy option and confirms our view that the PSNI would rather take the easy option rather than protect the vulnerable and terrified in the own homes.

Can I draw this comparison; we have areas of Belfast and Northern Ireland that are well known race tracks for the car thieves and we can all see the tyre marks on the road to prove it and we have well known roads that are race tracts. Yet we find the PSNI on one of Belfast’s most popular thoroughfares conducting a covert speed trap.

This speed trap would not help reduce the speed of the passing traffic. The speed trap was conducted covertly therefore this exposes the PSNI’s propaganda on reducing speeding as a lie. It seems the PSNI are more interested in a Tax Revenue gathering exercise than being actively visible and reducing speeding motorists.

This particular speed trap on the Lisburn Road was conducted by two officers sitting in their marked patrol car facing city bound out side a well known restaurant that sells finger lick-n-chicken. The officer in the driver’s seat was holding the speed camera out the window of the patrol car at traffic travelling city bound. So he was trying to take the speed of vehicles travelling toward him form behind. How can this officer gain prior opinion that a vehicle is exceeding the speed limit and get a proper fix on the vehicle with the camera to obtain a correct speed reading.

I quote form the Chief Police Officers Approved Codes of Practice for hand held speed cameras “Hand-held radar guns should only be operated by an officer on foot“.

I would like to refer you to the Chief Police Officers Approved Codes of Practice

http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/RPET%20Manual%20version%202-3.pdf

The PSNI should be catching speeding motorists however conducting speed traps at this time in this manor and at this time only leads to the perception that the PSNI are only interested on the easy option and that they are Tax Revenue collectors for the government and making irrelevant quotas.

It seems the correct interpretation of how the PSNI operate is crime is an inconvenience to the police officers duty however, motor crime a nice little earner.

The PSNI would be better concentrating on putting real criminals behind bars or setting up speed traps in country roads catching the speeders, rather racking up fines from drives doing 34 in a 30 zone at midnight!

Questions for the PSNI:
Who is on the Speed Camera Scheme-Partnership and when and where do they meet.
Was there any public consultation on the makeup or operation of this Scheme-partnership?
Can members of the public join this Scheme-partnership?
How much revenue do the speed cameras accumulate, and how much and were does the money go?
Does the money get reinvested in reengineering roads to make them safer?
Does the money get invested into programs for the young on educating them about the dangers of speeding?
Is the money divided between the members of the speed camera scheme-partnership and what are the amounts?
Does the money go directly too central government?
We have a police force that seem to have only one function, that of covertly catching speeding motorists doing a few miles over the speed limit.
Not only that, the PSNI and the Courts bring the whole weight of the police and the judicial system to bear on the motorist for doing 35 in a 30 zone at midnight.
The perception people have of the PSNI is that they don’t want to catch the scum that murder, rape, shoot, stab, rob, steal and destroy the lives of ordinary decent folk.
The PSNI’s double standards, selective sight and inaction is infecting all aspects of PSNI life!

The Crime Statistics in the Chief Constables report is a litany of failure.
The general view is that the PSNI are so badly managed and the morale of the officer on the beat is so poor it seems at times as if the PSNI are making it up as they drive along. The PSNI are at best amateur or at worst totally inept.
Why does it take two officers to visit chip shops, sandwich bars, coffee shops and other types of take-a-way establishments when all we hear is that the PSNI are busy. However make a call for them to attend an incident and it takes hours if not days. I suppose it depends on the queue in the take-a-way as to the PSNI response?
The PSNI need to get out of the Chippies and catch criminals rather than catching Battered Cods!

If they were serious about vehicle crime why don’t the have a purge against people who put everyone at danger in untaxed and uninsured cars and the locally named run-arounds.
However this type of operation would require effort and thought, both of which seem to be lacking in the PSNI.

The PSNI’s clear up rate for crime is akin to that of a third world country. This is not what we expect from an allegedly highly trained highly skilled police force. Its time the PSNI had a good hard look at themselves from the highest ranking officer to the officer on the beat and assess were the priorities are and why the public has no confidence on the PSNI.
At this point I would like to refer you to the PSNI’s Chief Constables Annual Report. It makes some shocking reading!
http://www.psni.police.uk/psni_cc_report_06-07.pdf

PSNI have significantly changed the way they detect speeding motorists. The PSNI have gone from Overt speed traps to Covert speed traps so the motorist can only draw the conclusion that the PSNI are acting as Tax Collectors and are acting in contravention of their own handbook?
The covert speed trap is in contravention of Health and Safety Guidelines and the PSNI’s own Safety Camera Scheme Handbook and the ACPO Code of practice for the operational Use of Road Policing Enforcement Technology.

http://www.acpo.police.uk/asp/policies/Data/RPET%20Manual%20version%202-3.pdf

http://www.psni.police.uk/index/safetycameras/pg_scheme_handbook.htm

Here are several quotes from the handbook the first is from the forward, the second is from section 4 and section 4rule 2 of the PSNI’s Safety Camera Scheme:
Northern Ireland Safety Camera Scheme.3/10/07
#As part of a programme to deliver The Northern Ireland Road Safety Strategy 2002 – 2012, a Safety Camera Scheme is being operated in Northern Ireland. Its underlying principles are that:
Safety cameras (which include speed and red light cameras) are used only on those roads where there is a history of road traffic collisions that result in death or serious injury. This means that safety camera resources are targeted where they are most likely to have an impact.
The cameras, both fixed and mobile, are clearly visible, and their locations are signed and put on the Police Service of Northern Ireland web site. The intention of the Scheme is to change driver behaviour at camera locations by reducing speed and thereby reducing the number and severity of collisions.
In order to finance the Scheme, monies collected by way of Conditional Offer Fixed Penalty Notice fines are credited back into the Scheme by Government funding. This provides coverage of running costs, thus making the Scheme self-funding.
Section 4:
Scheme Rules
In the 1998 Public Expenditure Survey, HM Treasury identified certain conditions that would allow fines and penalties to be ‘netted off’ Departmental Expenditure Limits, namely where:
Performance against policy objectives is likely to be improved
Arrangements are in place to ensure that the activity will not lead to the abuse of fines and penalty collection as a method of revenue raising, and that operational priorities remain undistorted
Revenues will always be sufficient to meet future costs, with any excess revenues over costs being surrendered
Costs of enforcement will be readily identified and apportioned without undue bureaucracy, and with interdepartmental and inter-agency agreement, where necessary
Savings can be achieved through change and there are adequate efficiency regimes in place to control costs, including regular efficiency reviews.
This chapter sets out seven rules that govern the operation of the Northern Ireland Safety Camera Scheme to ensure that the above HMT criteria are met (and thus to allow cost recovery). These rules and guidelines do not constitute a legal requirement. Therefore compliance with these rules and guidelines bears no significance on the detection and enforcement of offences so detected by safety camera operations. To this end, non-compliance does not provide for any mitigation in defence for an offence committed by a driver in breach of current legislation.

4.2 Rule 2: Visibility and conspicuity
The aim of the scheme is to reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured on the roads through:
Targeting speed enforcement at those locations where there is a proven injury collision history and evidence of speeding
Telling drivers where speed enforcement will take place, for example through the media, road signs and painting fixed cameras bright yellow.
This will give motorists the opportunity to slow down and observe the speed limits at these locations. If they do not, then they could be caught speeding and prosecuted. Thus the message to motorists is “we don’t want to catch you speeding, we want to stop you speeding”. Specific requirements on visibility of camera sites and camera conspicuity are as follows:

All fixed site camera housings must be backed by high visibility yellow paint or self-adhesive retro-reflective material
All fixed site camera housings should be visible to road users and not hidden behind bridges, signs, trees, bushes or any other type of obstacle that would reduce the site’s visibility. The minimum visibility distance should be 60 metres where the speed limit is 40 mph or less and 100 metres for all other limits
For mobile enforcement, camera operatives must abide by all Health and Safety requirements and wear fluorescent clothing except where the local security situation makes this inappropriate
For mobile enforcement, safety camera vehicles should be clearly marked, identifying them as safety camera enforcement vehicles, except where the local security situation makes this inappropriate. Vehicles should not be hidden behind obstructions. The minimum visibility distance should be 60 metres where the speed limit is 40 mph or less and 100 metres for all other limits
Camera warning signs must be placed in advance of fixed, mobile or digital speed enforcement taking place
For fixed sites, signs must be placed between 500m and 1km in advance of camera housings. Signs cannot be placed over 1km away from a fixed site camera
For mobile and digital enforcement sites, fixed signs must be placed at the beginning of a targeted route. As guidance, repeater signs are also encouraged along these routes, particularly close to stated enforcement sites
For red-light camera sites, signs should be placed between 500m and 1km away from the camera
Signs must only be placed in areas where camera housings are present or along routes where mobile enforcement will be targeted
Signs must comply with those specified in the relevant Road Traffic Regulation (Northern Ireland) Order 1997. Further information on signing can be found in the Director Of Engineering Memorandum - 56/03, as listed in Appendix C.
Where, because of the local security situation, safety cameras are not conspicuous a record must be made of this. Further, each site should be reviewed on a six-monthly basis to ensure that conditions on conspicuity, visibility, marking and signing have not changed or do not require alteration or maintenance. It may be necessary to increase the number of site visits in conjunction with the time of year e.g. during spring and summer when foliage growth is prolific.

It can only be seen as an easy option and confirms our view that the PSNI would rather take the easy option rather than protect the vulnerable terrified in the own homes.

We need the PSNI to do more Kojak and less Kodak!

The perception rightly or wrongly (I think rightly) is that the PSNI are more interested in a Tax Revenue gathering exercise than being visibly and actively reducing the killer speeding motorists on the road.
I would like to refer you to the Chief Police Officers Approved Codes of Practice and the PSNI’s safety cameras scheme handbook.

I would like to know if the Chief Constable or the Head of the Traffic Branch could inform the Northern Ireland motorist if their officers conform to the Chief Police Officers Approved Codes of Practice and the PSNI’s safety cameras scheme handbook for conducting speed traps.
In addition, what measures are taken by the PSNI to ensure the Chief Police Officers Approved Codes of Practice and the PSNI’s safety cameras scheme handbook are followed!

So how about this as a novel idea, government and police of the people for the people by the people! There again too much to ask for I know.


Killer roads: Government campaign highlights hidden dangers of speeding on rural roads You are three times more likely to be killed on a rural road than an urban one while in a car warns a Government educational campaign launched today. The Department for Transport's THINK! Rural Speed Campaign, warning drivers not to go faster than the conditions allow, can be heard on radio stations around the country this month. Rural areas can tempt motorists into driving too fast for the conditions they are facing. Long straights and demanding bends, as well as less traffic and fewer pedestrians can make drivers believe it is 'safe' to go faster than they normally would. But the stark reality is actually the opposite - the risk of fatally injuring yourself or your passengers increases three-fold on a rural road. This is backed by the evidence that there is often only one car involved in rural accidents, making it likely that drivers have been tempted to push themselves or their car beyond their limits. Road Safety Minister Jim Fitzpatrick said: "Driving on rural roads can be deceiving. It is important that motorists drive with as much care on a rural road as they would in a more built-up area. The 'national' 60mph speed limit is a maximum, not an expectation, and drivers must match their speed to the road characteristics and weather conditions they are experiencing as well as factoring in unpredictable hazards - like sharp bends, limited visibility or even animals - which can require a quick reaction." Figures for 2006 show that nationally 325 car users were killed on rural roads when speeding or driving too fast for the conditions. All too often it is the Fire and Rescue Services who have to attend these incidents and deal with the consequences of speed related rural accidents. The campaign also has the backing of Fire and Rescue Services. Claire Tovey, head of prevention at Northamptonshire Fire and Rescue Service said: "As with fires, we would always rather help to prevent road traffic incidents than attend the aftermath. All too often we have to try and free people from horrific wreckages. Myself and colleagues at the community safety teams work closely with road safety experts to try and educate drivers that rural roads have to be driven at a speed appropriate to the road characteristics and weather conditions." ---- There's still a bit of "speeding" spin but the message seems to be much more sensible than what we've heard in the past...

Dear Shankill Voter

Dear Shankill People,

If like me you have been reading or listening to local media, you will have not been surprised to read or hear that the current defenders of the Union and the Unionist working class are doing what the old Unionist politicos used to do best?

That is to line their own pockets at the expense of the Unionist working class and the less fortunate Unionist electorate.

Now let’s be clear here, strictly speaking they have done nothing illegal or wrong! However, it is a bit on the questionable side and a tad immoral, and lets not forget most of these Unionist politicos are alleged God fearing men and women?

The bad smell of nepotism and avarice is rife at Stormont and the Commons.

Let me set out again what our Unionist colleagues have been up to.

1. Employ your wife, son, daughter or in-law.
2. Rent an office from your wife or in-law.
3. Get two full time jobs and if you’re lucky you could also pick up a third, a ministerial or junior ministerial job too.
4. If you have a second house in London you can claim tens of thousands of pounds in expenses.

Now let’s set out some of the sums we are talking about.

MP’s pay £60,000 plus
MLA’s pay £43,000 and if you’re a minister or junior minister add on up to another £30,000
MP’s office expenses no set sum however each MP can claim over £100,000 add to this travel and the generous rent expenses and you can claim another £50,000 or £60,000+.
MLA’s office expenses no set sum however each MLA can claim over £60,000 add to this travel and the generous rent expenses and you can claim another £50,000 or £60,000+.
Wages for wives, sons, daughters, girl friends or boy friends or in-laws up to £20,000+
And let’s not forget about that nice pension and special pension.
Then there is a resettlement grant on leaving office.

At this point if any of our elected Unionist politicians wish to dispute the sums mentioned above and they wish to do it in this forum. I’m sure we would all be grateful to be put straight on this matter!

However you look at these figures they are mouth watering sums, some of these amounts we can only dream about or get if the six numbers come up on a lottery ticket.

But these are the sums our elected representatives get and they make us feel grateful that they are representing us up there with the rest of the folks (berks) on the hill.

There is also the Members Dining Room where sumptuous three-course meals are available for under £20 per head to MLA’s. Again these are subsidized by the hard pressed Northern Ireland Tax payer to the tune of £850 per day or £211,241 form May to December 2007.

I hope they enjoy every mouthful of their subsidized smoked salmon and wheaten bread starters followed by a thick rump steak with potatoes and vegetables, followed by black forest gateau and tea or coffee.

I will remind them that while they tuck into their subsidized meals, some families and pensioners on the Shankill have little more than £20 a week to feed their families and themselves after they pay out everything that they owe from their pension, minimum wage pay packet or from their social security benefits.

By the way I work for the government and I don’t get a free or subsidized meal from the government. I have to pay for my own Christmas lunch the government don’t pay a single penny or provide a single mince pie to my Christmas meal or any meal for that matter, so why should I subsidise meals and drinks for people who earn more than I do!

These bottom feeders at Stormont and Parliament get more in expenses than I earn a year. Some claim £40,000 for a second home in a posh part of London.

In Northern Ireland some of these same bottom feeders claim for rent on a portacabin on their own land that allegedly belongs to their wife. Or pay rent for an office that their wife owns, as well as paying her a wage to work in the same office, another few nice little earners, nice if you can get it.

So in these days of equality I want the same perks that these berks on the hill get?

As every week goes by I am becoming more and more disillusioned by the perks, expenses and the goings on with the berks on the hill.

From the age of eighteen, when I was eligible to vote, I have voted Unionist at every election. I seen it as my duty as a Unionist, and when the DUP have been on the ticket I have voted for them. However the day is fast approaching when I will be abstaining form voting. I am starting to get very disillusioned with the DUP and the UUP as are my family and friends.

To be a good Unionist one must look after and maintain the Union. However it does not permit the elected Unionist representatives to forgo the working class Unionists, and to line their own pockets at the Unionist Tax payer’s expense.

I am also increasingly despondent with the way the DUP and UUP are holding the hand of Sinn Fein/IRA, and their phoney war in Stormont and in the committee rooms.

I would like to question what these Unionist politicos know about what its like to be brought up in a poverty filled low education attaining housing estate. Were the people live from hand to mouth on a day to day basis? Were mental and physical sickness, despair and an early grave are your daily companions!

We see the money generated by double and triple hated MP's and MLA's as avarice at its most contemptible. The sums of money in salaries and expenses are 5 or 6 times my government wage. This is feeding my impression of, typical old Unionist party. The view is that the MP's and MLA's are not in it for the Unionist working class people or the Union but lining their own pockets.

If Northern Ireland were to succumb and be absorbed into a United Ireland, then all this money our Unionist politicos are generating will make a nice nest egg for them to set up home across in the Home Counties. I can just see them scrambling to the air and sea ports just as the balloon goes up leaving the working class Unionist, up the road without an 11/1.

The DUP’s Peter and Iris Robinson are a classic example with their 40k expenses for their London home, that’s more than I earn a year! They supposedly need this London home to stay in when they go to parliament. And when it comes to selling this house they can usurp the rules to avoid paying capital gains tax. This is another nice little earner. By not paying capital gains tax they are getting the tax payer to subsidize payments on this second house and as it increases in value, then when they come to sell this second house they pocket all the profit from the sale all at the tax payer’s expense!

An extremely nice way to do business?

Let’s not forget 9 of the current DUP team at Stormont are double hated earning huge sums of money and then there are the 19 DUP MLA’s employing 27 relatives and in-laws and the UUP have 11 relatives and in-laws employed by MLA’s.

I can only draw the impression of nepotism and avarice from our MP’s and MLA’s.

How can one person do two or three full time jobs and give of their best to the Unionist electorate?

What the Unionist politicos need to remember is that, we listen and read the news and log on to blogger sites on the Internet and listen and participate on local phone-in radio shows.

So here is the warning to our Unionist politicos, turning into the old Unionist party of the past will not be tolerated. Trying to hide from the Unionist electorate is not as easy as it used to be in the bad old days of the old Unionist party. Remember in the bad old days when the only time you seen a Unionist politician was when they were banging the big drum looking to get elected. Then after getting elected they did nothing for the poor and the working class Unionist population. Well those days are long gone and we are watching you and if you appear to be moving away from the working class Unionist population the same Unionist population who put the Unionist parties were they are today we will not vote for you.

What is being discussed is not voting at all at any elections. This is not based on a few conversations but everyone I have spoken too.

So again be warned if you the Unionist politicians are not seen as whiter than white and don’t get you’re act together and fight the good fight for the working class Unionist population you may find that the working class electorate will vote with their feet and stay at home (I know this was a mixed metaphor but it suits the state of the Unionist parties)!

Yours
Ranger
Disgruntled Unionist Voter Shankill Road
Belfast.

More Action and Less Talk for The people of The Shankill

Now that we are going to have a new man at the helm of the good ship DUP, what will it take for the Unionist Politicians of the DUP and the UUP to rekindle support from the People of the Shankill Road?

What I think they need to focus on:

Jobs:
Not just any job! But well paying permanent long term jobs. Not short contract jobs in some other part of Belfast or Northern Ireland but well paying permanent long term jobs here in North and West Belfast so the people of the Shankill can easily make there way to work and not have to pay a fortune in transport costs.

The Health Service:
The need for proper provision of health care and drugs treatment for everyone but greater emphases on the elderly health care at home and in hospital, also the issue of Hospital Cleaning and Infections (MRSA) Clostridium Difficile (C-Difficile) need to be addressed.

Education:
Funding of third level education for low income homes and the pay and conditions for education workers and there support staff.
On the question of the 11+, for me it’s surly not to get rid of the grammar schools, but to properly invest in and improve our secondary and primary schools.
We know that grammar schools have far better facilities than secondary schools.

We need to have this anomaly of lack of facilities in secondary schools address. What is needed is proper investment in secondary schools and primary schools and leave the grammar schools to get on with what they do best.

There also needs to be proper investment in vocational opportunities. Not all children want to go down the academic route, however McGuinness and Ruane have gone down the road of one size education fits all. We know that is not the best case for the children, all we need to do is look across the water to England and look at the comprehensive education system in melt down they have there.

Why not get children to continue with the 11+ and at the age of 14 any who are achieving at school and in an academic atmosphere let them continue to grow and flourish. Those who show little academic flair can then go into a vocational school, where from the age of 14 they can learn to become hairdressers, plumbers, beauticians, electricians, IT engineers, mechanical engineers and builders etc.

To get entry into these schools they must spend a minimum of 3 hours a day on the core subjects of English and math’s. The rest of the day can be spent learning their vocational skills. They don’t need to get involved with other subjects just the core of English and math’s and gain a recognized qualification in their vocation and in the 2 core subjects.My understanding is that this model of education has been used in Germany since WWII and their economy and society seems to be in a better state than ours.

We also need to break the cycle of no or little interest in their children’s education from poor income families. This change in attitude to education from low income homes; would go a long way to improve the education outlook of their children. This change should include an improvement in helping the parents of poor income homes to go back to education to improve their life chances and helping their children’s, and a destigmatization of the low education attainment of low income homes.

This improvement in children’s and their parent’s education could be incentivized through the tax credits and benefits system.
At the moment you get your tax credits and benefits as a matter of course. However, why not give more to those who improve their education and their children’s education?

This would have a secondary benefit as it would filter down into the hole of society by making the country better educated and therefore more likely to be wealthier, reduce benefit claimants, reduce crime and reduce the pressure on the Health system?
I know this sounds and smacks of that dreaded social engineering. However, if we do nothing we could be condemning millions of children form poorer families to a poorer adulthood with the likely outcome of going back to the bad old days of larger and larger families relying on the benefits system.

Planning, Social Housing, Water Charging and Rates:
We want suitable affordable housing in well planed out streets and proper housing infrastructure, we require a guarantee that low income homes do not subsidise the well off in Water Charging and Rates.

The Rape of the Shankill has been by and largely halted however, a new breed of leeches has descended on the Shankill and again the planers and developers are playing with peoples lives on the Shankill. And again the planers, developers and the politicos have not taken into account of the needs of the Shankill people? The healing will be slow from the wounds inflected by bulldozers, planers, (there is a contradiction in terms) politicos who fained interest and form government departments who treat the Shankill as some type of irrelevant back water.

The question again has to be asked why did the planers and the council permit the developers to build a block of flats (I refuse to call them the non entity of apartments) with shops. We need more flats like the MLS’s need more expenses.

We need proper 2, 3 and 4 bedroom well laid out social housing with properly planed and laid out streets.

Crime:
We want the causes of crime to be addressed (No Jobs and education under achievement) and the sentencing of the convicted to reflect the crime. An immediate end to 50% remission, and drug dealers need to be removed from circulation for a very long time.

The National Stadium debate! Tourism, Transport and Investment.
We have two events in 2012 that if the political will was there could give us a great National Stadium along side two excellent tourist attractions in museums to both the Titanic and Shipbuilding and our Great Sporting Personalities.

All this on the shores of Belfast Lough and located in North Belfast at the old Belfast land fill site at Dargan Road, the now named Giant’s Park Belfast. One complex along with Lough side bars and restaurants and a landscaped Eco park, incorporating old Shipyard Cobbled Roads with Tramlines, Gas Lighting (taken from the land fill site) and wind turbines, with the added advantage of Belfast city centre restaurants, bars and shops all within walking distance.

I would like you to imagine visitors to our city sailing up Belfast Lough or flying into George Best Belfast City Airport. One of the visitor’s first views of Belfast would be our new innovative and impressive sports stadium and landscaped Titanic and shipyard themed Eco Park with museums.The events we need to be setting our sites on are the centenary of the sinking of the Belfast made RMS Titanic, and the UK/London Olympics.

The Government has stated that all the regions of the UK will not miss out on the befits of the Olympic experience, and only Belfast can claim to be the birth place and original home for the largest man made moving object in the world at the time, RMS Titanic. Here is my out of the box thinking that may not be obvious to the politicians of this land.

With the suggestion of central Government money being made available for new regional Olympic venues, add to this Belfast City Councils money for a rival National Stadium, and the redevelopment of Giant’s Park by Belfast City Council and any national lottery money being made available for the Titanic commemorations put all this money together and make a facility that we all can be proud of and what will be a national and international tourist attraction.
A National Stadium with museums to the Titanic and shipbuilding and our Great Sports Personalities, all at the one location in an Eco Giant’s Park on the shores of Belfast Lough.

The advantages are a National Stadium and Museums near to Belfast City centre. With improved bus links and a possible new rail stop at Fort William, the tourist’s form the increasing number of cruse ships can easily see our new Stadium, as they sail up Belfast Lough and the visitor flying into George Best Airport can view the Stadium as they fly into Belfast, and all the visitors to our country can easily make their way to the Stadium and Museums, as there is a good road infrastructure already in place. We could incorporate the use of the last remaining link to the Titanic, the Nomadic as a visitor attraction. Samson and Goliath the two existing landmark cranes of the Shipyard can be used as a backdrop to the Stadium and Museums.

The Museum to the Titanic and Shipbuilding could feature all the great things from the shipyard that were involved in the building of the Titanic. We could inform the visitor that the Titanic was built in the largest shipyard in the world at that time. Belfast had the world’s largest rope works to service the world’s largest ships. We can incorporate the last of the steam derricks that helped build the Titanic and many of the other great ships from the yard, the dry-docks the tramlines the cobbled roads the gaslights and most importantly of all the thousands of statistics on the building of the Titanic and the stories and yarns form the men and women who help to build the Titanic and the other great ships. Everything Belfast needs to a museum of shipbuilding all in the right place.

We could also show the visitor the innovation of the people of Northern Ireland by using Wind Turbines and the Methane Gas from the landfill site to heat and light the Giant’s Park making it an Eco Friendly Facility.The museum to our Sporting greats could feature the late greats, of our one and only George Best, our Golf Open Champion Fred Daly, our Greatest Biker the one and only Joey Dunlop, our World Class Rally Driver Bertie Fisher, our Boxing greats and World Champions of Rinty Monaghan and Barry McGuigan, Rugby Heroes of Willy John McBride and Mike Gibson, Olympian Gold Medallist Mary Peters, and our golden booted footballer Northern Ireland’s David Healy and all the other sporting greats that we have past and present, too many to mention. The proposal I have made would mean that when the stadium was not in use by any of the sporting codes, the museums could pull in the revenue from home grown and foreign tourists to the museums.

In my view the issue of building a stadium at the Maze located 4 miles from the nearest city, Lisburn and 22 miles from Belfast. The transport and roads infrastructure costs associated with that stadium it would be better invested in a package that would be more sustainable over a longer period, and the facility would be more efficiently used as a combined Stadium and Museum than just a sport Stadium and with Belfast’s shop’s bars and restraints with in walking distance.

To me it makes the business case for the stadium in Belfast and not the Maze?

The Giant’s park site is owned by Belfast City Council so costs for the land are nil. We therefore need to only find the building costs, add to this the Eco aspect in an industrial area within walking distance of Belfast City Centre and you seem to cover all the bases? A Sports Stadium, Museum’s, Re-use of a Landfill Site with Eco potential and a national and International Tourist attraction promoting Northern Ireland and Northern Irelands sporting personalities and historic landmarks?

The Mundane:
Stop Quangos, and Non Elected and Non Accountable Boards.

There is a dragging off collective political feet, with review after review on the major issues and the mundane issues. Delays in implementing important day to day decisions on issues here in Northern Ireland that are stifling our economy and the growth of our children,
year’s of indecision must stop and a collective political finger must be pulled out. The politicos in the big house make positive decisions to move Northern Ireland into the 21st Century!

We need more involvement of the Shankill people and more action and less talk.

Sinn Fein/IRA Voter Beware

Paul Quinn lourd and

Beaten to death by an IRA gang

with iron bars.

Robert Mccartney

Beaten and Murdered by an IRA gang

inside and outside a Belfast Bar.

After the beating the IRA gang took him

outside and disembowelled Robert McCartney

I wonder how all this will play out in the Irish republic.

Sinn Fein went into reverse after the parties dear leader was found to have little grasp of even basic economics and he also refused to take questions on a £25 Million withdrawal form the Northern Bank, the people of the republic don’t want these murdering Fascists of Paul Quinn and Robert McCartney any were near power in the republic.

If Sinn Fein think the Irish republics electorate are going to troop to the ballot box with the tune of “the bohys behind the wire” ringing in their ears, then once again Sinn Fein have got it wrong very wrong.It seems that Sinn Fein have again spoken more hollow words today not only to the McCartney sisters, the Quinn family, the families of the disappeared and to the rest of their community.

They have exulted the life a dead bomber and given well paid community jobs to the bohys who have information that could help in the Robert McCartney murder case and insist in calling Paul Quinn a criminal in an attempt to blacken his name even when they know who murdered him and they still have not given up the locations of all the disappeared!

On International Woman’s Day why did Sinn Fein not give praise to the McCartney sisters, the mother of Paul Quinn and the mothers, daughters and sisters of the disappeared for their continuing brave fight in trying to expose a bunch of murdering terrorist Fascists, in their fight for justice?I’m surprise Sinn Fein have not jumped in this band wagon, after all the McCartney’s and the Quinn’s are fighting to get justice for their loved ones?All Sinn Fein voters be under no illusion if it happened to the McCartney’s and the Quinn’s then it could happen to a family member close to you! I have mentioned on this forum before, the only people the Sinners are interested in are the Sinners and their mates who Gerry has stated “haven’t gone away ya know”!

When are the Sinn Fein electorate going to see through these people for what they are? Sinn Fein are a collection of non entities, who if it was not for a terrorist campaign waged against all the people of Ireland. Then these people would not have well paid jobs messing with people’s lives. However it is disturbing to know the influence they have over our day to day lives. The Sinners have swish holiday homes and foreign holidays when most of their electorate can’t afford nether a holiday or holiday home.However most of their electorate need to watch where the next utility bill is going to get paid from.

Sinn Fein/IRA voters beware as you get what you vote for?

"Sinn Fein has been quietly reinstating figures who were in the bar that night and who it claimed to have expelled. Several now hold well-paid 'community' jobs in organisations controlled by Sinn Fein in working-class Catholic areas of Belfast". The key suspect recently given a 'development' job in the community sector is barely literate and has no qualifications, despite the fact, Catherine said, that the job requires development analysis and report writing skills.

The appointment has also angered local people whose children have gone through university and are unable to get such jobs. Despite the fact that the IRA-man has no qualifications and left school early with limited reading and writing skills, he is now earning a higher public salary than a school teacher. The man, who served a prison sentence for IRA firearms offences, was "officer commanding" of the IRA in the Markets area where the McCartney's lived.

According to witnesses he had a dispute with Robert McCartney's friend Brendan Devine and as he walked away he signalled to other IRA-men in the bar that the two were to be taken out and stabbed".


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/07/international/europe/07ireland.html


The Muder of Robert McCartney
In the Roman Catholic neighbourhoods of Belfast, the Irish Republican Army has long served as judge, jury and, in some cases, executioner, meting out its own brand of vigilante justice. Catholics who defy the I.R.A.'s dictates end up with broken kneecaps. Those who betray the I.R.A. wind up dead.But now five sisters are turning that tradition upside down, spurred by the extraordinarily brutal killing on Jan. 30 2005 of their brother, Robert McCartney, and what is widely seen as a subsequent I.R.A. cover-up.

Mr. McCartney was attacked in a crowded Belfast bar, then taken outside and beaten with iron bars. His throat was slit and his torso was slashed open with a knife. The attackers left him to bleed while they went back to the bar, scrubbed it of evidence and warned customers that the fight had been an internal I.R.A. matter.So far, the witnesses have heeded the warning from the I.R.A. men, and none have come forward.The McCartney sisters, working on instinct and grief, are demanding that the I.R.A. stop protecting the attackers - as many as 15 men, whose identities are widely known - and allow witnesses to tell the police their stories so that justice can be done.

The sisters' boldness has galvanized the community. For perhaps the first time, the I.R.A. is facing broad and vocal dissent among its own supporters.The killing and the sisters' response are creating a crisis for Sinn Fein, the I.R.A.'s political party, as well as for the I.R.A.'s rank and file and its leadership, coming as it does just weeks after the group was weakened by accusations that it was behind a Belfast bank robbery that netted $50 million.

The events have added to a disillusionment with the I.R.A. that has slowly built since the 1998 peace accords. Its members, once considered heroes in Catholic neighbourhoods for their role in the struggle against British rule, are increasingly seen as turning to Mafia-like crime and common thuggery and preying on the very community that formed the group's core of support.

The I.R.A., long nicknamed Ra, is now sometimes called the Rafia.

The firestorm over Mr. McCartney's killing has forced the I.R.A. and Sinn Fein into a corner, people in Belfast say. And pressure is building from long-time backers in Ireland and the United States. To some, the furore threatens to strip away the old veneer of "constructive ambiguity" that allowed the I.R.A and Sinn Fein to claim that their leaders had no true ties.

On Thursday, one day before the start of Sinn Fein's annual political conference, Gerry Adams, the party leader, announced that he had suspended seven party members over accusations that they were involved in the killing. A week earlier, the I.R.A. announced that it had expelled three men it believed were involved.Startlingly, Mr. Adams also said he had given the names of the seven men to a police ombudsman.

The I.R.A. and Sinn Fein had always refused relations with the police service, out of deep suspicion from the time of the Troubles, as the civil strife is known.And on Saturday, at a party conference in Dublin, Mr. Adams, appearing with the McCartney sisters, ratcheted up the pressure and urged the men to come forward. "Those responsible for the brutal killing of Robert McCartney should admit to what they did in a court of law," Mr. Adams said. "I am not letting this issue go until those who have sullied the name of the republican cause are made to account for their actions."The Irish government of Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, which had strongly supported Mr. Adams through the peace effort, has now publicly challenged Mr. Adams to admit that he is a member of the I.R.A. leadership and has said that the top leadership of Sinn Fein must have known about the Belfast robbery and probably approved it.

Sinn Fein has also lost whatever good will it had mustered with Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, a sponsor of the peace effort, as well as some of its backing from Irish in the United States. Mr. Adams has cancelled fund-raising efforts in the United States, and his deputy, Martin McGuinness, will not travel to the United States this month as expected.

For its part, the White House cancelled St. Patrick's Day invitations to the leaders of Northern Ireland's political parties to avoid the embarrassment of having Sinn Fein represented. Instead, the McCartney sisters are planning a trip to the United States for St. Patrick's Day, possibly to New York and Washington.

The sisters have bluntly pressed for justice. "All of Ireland knows who the men are," Catherine McCartney, 36, a teacher, said of the attackers in an interview last week inside her sister Paula's home in Belfast. "But people know what the I.R.A. are capable of.

They butchered a man and slit his throat. I would be afraid, too.""Republicanism is not what happened to Robert," she said. "They can't call themselves republican if they did that. Certainly not murdering innocent people."Many Catholics in the McCartney’s' neighbourhood, a battle-scarred area called the Short Strand, have responded with surprising solidarity.

On the day of the funeral for Mr. McCartney, a popular 33-year-old fork lift operator with two young sons, a thousand people turned up. Graffiti denouncing the I.R.A. popped up on walls, a first in a republican neighbourhood; the markings were quickly erased, but quickly reappeared.

Small photocopied posters with Mr. McCartney's photograph appeared on shop windows. "No More Lies," one said. "Shame on Them," said another.

Last Sunday, the women held a rally in the neighbourhood. Hundreds showed up, including politicians, and several speakers expressed outrage. The sisters held placards that read, "Murdered - Who's Next?""If these men walk free from this, then everyone in Ireland should fear the consequences," Paula McCartney, 40, a Queen's University student, told the crowd, according to news reports. "Justice must be done."The police said Friday that 10 people had been arrested so far but had refused to cooperate and were released. "We need witnesses, and those witnesses need to be able to return to their own communities," said the Northern Ireland police detective superintendent, George Hamilton.The plea was indicative of the more troubled relationship that has developed between the I.R.A. and Catholics in Belfast's nationalist area since the Troubles wound down after the 1998 Good Friday peace agreement.

Many people interviewed here say they feel indebted to the I.R.A., a private army, for fighting for Catholic rights and protecting them from Protestant loyalists, like the Shankill Butchers, who tortured and killed Catholics with butchers' knives.They acknowledge being increasingly disturbed by the I.R.A.'s criminal undertakings, acts of intimidation and extortion, and punishment beatings.

Once mostly excused as necessary tools of war during the Troubles, such acts are now far harder to accept."There is a cynicism within the community," said Anthony McIntyre, who served 18 years in prison for I.R.A. activity and is now a dissident. "One reason the I.R.A. existed was to protect people from the Shankill Butchers. Now I.R.A. members are ploughing their violence in their own community."Everyone knows what happened on Jan. 30.

Witnesses have talked on the street, and people have told these stories to the sisters.Mr.

McCartney stopped for a drink with a friend at Magennis's bar in the Markets section of Belfast on that Sunday night. An I.R.A. man thought he saw Mr. McCartney make a rude gesture toward a woman in his own group in the crowded bar.

A brawl broke out, then spilled into the streets.A short while later, Mr. McCartney lay dying. His friend's throat was sliced, as well, but he survived.The attackers walked a couple of blocks back to the bar, locked it and warned the 70 people inside to keep quiet, the sisters added. "This is I.R.A. business," the sisters were told the men said. The men wiped down the bar, washing away fingerprints and blood.The next day some of them were seen in the neighbourhood, chatting with friends on street corners, as if Jan. 30 had been no different from Jan. 29, the sisters said.The message was plain. "They can murder you, clean it up, cover it up and walk away," Catherine McCartney said.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brutal-murder-revives-paramilitary-fears-in-border-bandit-country-395433.html

Brutal paramilitary murder Of Paul Quinn.A savage murder at a remote Irish border farm last week shook Northern Ireland's fledgling administration.

The family of 21-year-old Paul Quinn, battered to death, pointed the finger at the IRA, saying he had fallen foul of members of the organization after having clashes with two republicans.

Security sources say the brutal but carefully planned killing, involving at least nine men, was the work of former IRA members acting without the organization's sanction.The family's allegation of IRA responsibility was daring. After decades of IRA domination of the south Armagh-Monaghan border, most in conflict with the IRA there keep prudently silent.The accusation from the Quinn family endangered the very existence of the Stormont administration jointly headed by the Rev Ian Paisley and Martin McGuinness of Sinn Fein.

Mr Paisley and his Democratic Unionist Party went into government with republicans on the strict understanding that the IRA had ended all activities. He has since publicly placed much trust in Sinn Fein.When the news of the killing broke, Mr Paisley made contact with London, Dublin and Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde. The Irish Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, also moved rapidly since the incident took place in his jurisdiction on the southern side of the border.

Both police forces were quick to say that they had no evidence that the killing had been sanctioned by the IRA. But police in the Irish Republic, in particular, made no secret of their intelligence that formerly prominent IRA personnel had killed Paul Quinn.Mr McGuinness and Gerry Adams of Sinn Fein issued strong statements condemning the killing and calling on anyone with information to help police on both sides of the border.

Their statements seemed to carry political force despite the widespread belief that in the past republicans have not told the truth about IRA violence.According to locals and security sources, Quinn had two recent brushes with republicans around the Cullyhanna area where he lived, and had been ordered to leave the district. A local teacher described him as "a bit of a wide boy, a hard man". Another described him as "a hard man, very headstrong", though his family is regarded as moderate and very respectable.Neighbours and others, however, believe that Paul Quinn was involved in illegality as a member of a gang smuggling diesel fuel across the border.

The belief is that former IRA figures in this hardline area set out last weekend to demonstrate that, while the IRA may be inactive as an organization, republicans will not tolerate "disrespect".A week last Saturday, Quinn was lured to a farm shed by a telephone call.

When he arrived he was seized by a large group of men who methodically used iron bars to beat him to a pulp. The conclusion of the post-mortem examination was that he died of "blunt force trauma", suffering a broken arm and leg with internal injuries to his brain and lungs.The gang did not kill him at the scene, and when police arrived he was both conscious and lucid. The south Armagh tradition of "omerta" is so strong that he refused to tell police who had assaulted him.

He died later that evening in hospital. While opinions vary locally on whether the gang intended to kill him or not, the scale of his multiple injuries suggests they did not particularly care whether he lived or died.Mr Adams said: "The people involved are criminals. They need to be brought to justice and it is fairly obvious to me that this is linked to fuel smuggling and to criminal activity. There's no republican involvement whatsoever in this man's murder.

"The killing is a disturbing development when paramilitary activities had fast been declining in south Armagh, an area that a British minister once christened "bandit country". Recent violent events demonstrate that the bandits have not gone away.


http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/this-britain/the-execution-how-an-ira-man-turned-british-spy-met-his-brutal-end-472848.html


The Execution:

How an IRA man turned British spy met his brutal end

The long arm of republican vengeance reached inside a remote Irish mountain cottage yesterday and took the life of Denis Donaldson, the former IRA and Sinn Fein member who was recently unmasked as a police agent.

One or more assassins cornered the 56-year-old republican, gunning him down in the primitive ramshackle cottage where he had hidden himself away from the world. There were unconfirmed reports last night that his body had been mutilated.The cottage is in the Blue Stack Mountains near the Donegal village of Glenties, a rugged and sparsely populated area.

It seemed he felt safe there, even though last month his presence was publicised. But the republican tradition of carrying out what are called "executions" of known informers has evidently not faded with the general rundown of the IRA campaign.

There is no mystery about why he was killed, since the IRA makes no secret of its hatred and contempt for informers and agents in its ranks. Republican organisations have killed many over the centuries, including scores in recent decades. But the question is exactly who killed him and

whether his assassination was sanctioned by the IRA leadership.

The answer will determine the immediate political future of Northern Ireland.The killing sent major tremors coursing through the Irish peace process, since if the IRA is judged to have been responsible this phase of the process will come to a halt. The IRA declared last night that it had "no involvement whatsoever" in the killing, an assertion which will now be thoroughly tested by police on both sides of the border.Tony Blair and the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, are due in Armagh in Northern Ireland tomorrow to launch a new initiative aimed at restoring the Northern Ireland Assembly and eventually putting together a coalition to include Sinn Fein and Unionists.

But, if the IRA is shown to be responsible, the ambition of the British and Irish governments to put together a new cross-community government will be in ruins, as Unionists will refuse to share power with Sinn Fein.Certainly the Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionists, will be making no conciliatory move until the question of the Donaldson killing has been answered. He expressed scepticism at the IRA denial and said the killing could hinder progress.

"This has put a dark cloud over those talks," he said. "If this man has been murdered because of his connection with IRA/Sinn Fein and because of the past happenings, then it strikes a blow at what the two governments are trying to do - to say that the IRA has forsaken these ways and they are seeking peace."Donaldson, who was 56, was found by Irish police who broke down the door and found his body at about 5pm yesterday.

He had gone into hiding in December after being exposed as a security force agent, admitting he had worked for Special Branch for 20 years. He was interrogated by Sinn Fein activists and then apparently told he was free to go. The Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, who said at the time that Donaldson had not been under threat from the republican movement, condemned the killing.Last month Donaldson was tracked down by the Sunday World to a Donegal cottage.

The cottage, which was described as being barely habitable, with no electricity or running water, was pictured in its issue of 19 March. Donaldson, who looked thin and dishevelled, told the paper in an interview: "How did you find this place? You don't see much of anyone here, not even the gardai. They've been up and down past there but they never came in.

I'm not hiding, I just want to be left alone. I don't go anywhere. I don't want to be in touch with anyone. As you can see, I'm in the middle of nowhere."As months have gone by since his unmasking, the assumption has grown that the IRA had decided not to move against him.

Many in its ranks harboured feelings of betrayal and hatred but everyone knew that his assassination would set back, probably for years, Sinn Fein's hopes of getting back into government.The possibilities also exist that he was killed by individual members or ex-members of the IRA, or by a breakaway republican dissident group.In recent years Donaldson had been an important apparatchik within Sinn Fein, but he was previously a senior member of the IRA in Belfast for many years.

Some of those he served with in the IRA may hold him personally responsible for the jailing of IRA members or even for the deaths of people at the hands of the security forces.The journalist Hugh Jordan, who found Donaldson in Donegal, said last night that he did not think the informer believed his life was in danger.

He said: "He looked like a hunted animal. He was extremely depressed. The nerves in his eyes were trembling. He seemed like a man who didn't think he would come to any harm. He did not see his life to be in any danger, but felt the only future he had was where he was, living in that dreadfully squalid situation. It's desperate that something like this happened. He was alone and threatened no one. He was no harm to anybody.

"Three years ago another security forces agent, Freddie Scappaticci, was unmasked within the IRA in Belfast but he was allowed to go free. He is thought to have moved to Italy.Donaldson appears to have felt that he too could escape death at the hands of the IRA or individual republicans. Certainly he stayed on at his cottage even after its location became public knowledge, a sign that he judged himself safe.

But it was a misjudgement, and one that cost him his life.A dangerous life4 October 2002 Ex-IRA volunteer Denis Donaldson, Sinn Fein's head of administration at Stormont, and two others arrested and accused of spying for Sinn Fein.

Unionists threaten to withdraw from executive, forcing British to suspend devolution.8 December 2005 Charges of spying against the three dropped "in the public interest".16 December 2005 Donaldson expelled from Sinn Fein after admitting he has been a paid British agent for two decades, though he denies spying at Stormont.

He flees Belfast. Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams denies he is under threat from republicans.19 March 2006 Donaldson tracked down by Sunday World journalist Hugh Jordan to a rundown cottage near Glenties, Co Donegal. He says he was sacrificed in a failed attempt by the security services to preserve the career of the Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble.4 April 2006 Donaldson found shot dead at his cottage, with police sources saying his hand has been severed. IRA denies involvement, but political furore erupts.

The Cost of a United Ireland or Not!

I would like to run a few observations past the readers of this board that may strike a debate on the possibility and likely viability of a united Ireland?

Firstly I would like to make an observation. If a united Ireland was the panacea that nationalists and republicans, here in Northern Ireland make it out to be why has the Irish state and southern Irish people never fought harder for Irish unification since 1922 or from 1969?
Why have the Irish political elite and every Irish government always kept the unification of Ireland as an aspiration, never more than an aspiration, why have they never made it a demand?

The Irish government know it’s a simple question of who is going too, or how is, the unification of Ireland going to be paid for? It’s quite a simple equation, how much will it cost? In the old days it was punts over unification now it’s Euros over unification! The reason for keeping it an aspiration rather than make it a demand, is the Irish state now or ever could never take on the burden of 1.6 million extra in population. Never mind the political implications it’s a simple question of economics. To take on 1.6 million people would wreck the now tottering Irish economy, as it would the British economy if they had to take on an extra 1.6 million population.

That is why all but a few British passport holders in the old colonies in Africa and the Far East were granted access to the UK after independence from their domicile countries.What would be the perceived or practical advantage for the Irish republic’s population to having a united Ireland? None!

In fact it would lead to an increase in taxes for every Irish tax payer and cuts in the Irish benefits system. The burden to the Irish exchequer would be devastating. For a start both the health service and education system would require massive amounts of money just to keep going. This would obviously lead to personal taxes and indirect taxes needing to increase. No doubt massive payments would be required to pay back the British exchequer for the infrastructure in buildings and equipment within both sectors, and then there are the wages for the personnel working in both sectors they would obviously need to be met by the Irish exchequer.
Now we can move on to the roads, water, agriculture, environment, housing and rates who is going to pay for these, and who is going to pay back money to the British exchequer for the investment they have made over the years in these areas.
Pension rights and social security would need to be addressed. How you square that one, it would probably take the mind of Stephen Hawking to sort out?
The obvious way for all this to be paid would be for the Irish wealthy to pay more, the Irish
middle income worker to pay more, and the poorest in Irish society would need to pay more. The Irish poor could pay by cutting their social security handouts, thus burdening even more the poorest in Irish society for the misguided utopian vision of a united Ireland.And this would not be a short term hit on personal income or higher taxes it would need to be paid for, for at lest two, if not three or more generations. The question of compensation for business and investors would need to be addressed and complex tax issues would need to be resolved. All the financial institutions with there vast sums invested in Northern Ireland these financial institutions are not going to walk away from their investments? Complex tax issues, income tax, VAT, and thousands of mortgages (do we not need to pay our mortgages if we are dragged in to a united Ireland?). All these issues will put more pressure on the Irish exchequer.

There may be limited help from the British exchequer, and the EU and America. However, with the growing pressures on the British exchequer and the ever expanding EU and Americas growing pressures with a possible recession and an open ended check book for two unwinnable wars in Iraq and Afghanistan they have little in the way of spare cash. So money to help the unification of Ireland will be small in the big scheme of things and over a very limited period.
On the political front here are some issues I feel need to be addressed if the Irish unification question is to be addressed fully?

Will any Irish government of any persuasion wish to be burdened with Sinn Fein/IRA (whose ideology is Marxist) in there government. The Irish government know full well that Sinn Fein/IRA will demand power in any united Ireland government. Sinn Fein/IRA will determine that they have fought the British for over 80 years and they will therefore demand a disproportionate amount of power in any united Irish government and the threat of another Irish civil war will be the likely outcome.

No self-promoting career politician in southern Ireland will want to share power with people they are at this moment trying to distance themselves form in Irish politics?

So who should be most concerned about a united Ireland should it be the Irish political elite, the Irish wealthy, the Irish middle classed or the Irish poor, all sections of Irish society should be concerned that’s who?

Another question, will the political will be there in Ireland to send the Garda and the Irish army on to the streets of Belfast, and Londonderry, or any other city or town to patrol a hostile population. Not only of disaffected Unionists, but a hostile republican population. Republicans who for over 30 years of conflict have become conditioned against, and hostile to any form of rule of law?

There would need to be guarantees that the Unionist minority had a voice in any unified Irish parliament and guarantees that on vital issues there was a Unionist veto or at lest cross community support. I wonder how that would sit with the armed republican parties of the north.

If a referendum were to be held on a united Ireland, in the north only or north and south I think you would find that a large majority would keep the status quo as it stands!

So all in all the aspiration of a united Ireland will always remain just that an aspiration for the Irish government and the people of the Irish republic!

Only the fantasists of the armed republican movement in the north think unification is ether practicable or inevitable.

So my final thought is that we will now and forever be British; No Surrender!

The Holly Cross Debacle

The whole holly cross debacle was nothing to do with the children going to or returning from school. However, it was with the groups of known Sinn Fein/IRA personnel accessing the Upper Ardoyne road, on the ruse of picking up their children from the holly cross school. when they were travelling to and from the school, the Sinn Fein/IRA personnel were terrorising the local Unionist/Protestant children and adult population?

However, the nationalist/republican friendly media ignored the real issue and focused in on the holly cross children. There was never a mention of the Unionist/Protestant children, terrorised by the republican thugs on their way to and from their school!

The stones from nationalist/republican Ardoyne have broken the bones of the Unionist/Protestant children! So the protest was with the Sinn Fein/IRA personnel terrorising Unionists/Protestants and NOT WITH THE CHILDREN. But again the pious nationalist/republican community have rewritten history!

I would like the answer to this question?
What right minded parent, would have put their children in the front line, and put them through the terrible situation that devoleped on the road up to the holly cross school?

Who, the same parents who would not take their children on the non contentious way to their school via the Crumlin road, and try and defuse, not inflame the situation? This situation was added and supported by the local presthood and Sinn Fein/IRA

The Unionist/Protestant area of the Upper Ardoyne road were the holly cross school is situated are starting to galvanise their community in the face of unprecedented nationalist/republican hatred and violence.

Now you will ask what caused this violence to be vented on this peaceful Unionist/Protestant population. Well, it all comes down to housing! Sinn Fein/IRA has for years tried to ethnically cleanse this area of anything Unionist or Protestant! But now the Unionist/Protestant community have started to get the new housing they have been demanded before this whole holly cross debacle.

There are now new young families moving into the Upper Ardoyne road from the Unionist/Protestant tradition, into the new housing being built in the Upper Ardoyne road! So if you visit the Ardoyne remember that Unionists/Protestants live there too!

Just a quick Question? What of the Unionist/Protestant people ethnically cleansed from Torrens? Or do we not speak or deal with Unionist/Protestants being ethnically cleansed?

There we go again nationalist/republicans trying to rewrite history and deleting the suffering of the Unionist/Protestant people and playing the same old worn out rhetoric, that they were the only victims!

I ask again the wisdom of the perent's of the children of holly cross children in putting their children in the front line of this debacle.

Sinn Fein/IRA can not deny the facts of the acts visited on the Unionist/Protestant population of this area?

I do not deny the facts, that the holly cross children did suffer form an unacceptable level of aggression. However questions must be asked of the roll the perent's local presthood and Sinn Fein/IRA took in this debacle I was however, putting into the arena of public knowledge some of the facts that the nationalist/republican media did not cover.

Why would the nationalist/republican media, let the truth or facts get in the way of a good story!By the way you forgot to mention the ethnic cleansing in Torrens form Sinn Fein/IRA and that is a fact!

National Stadium

Please find below a proposal for a National Stadium, Museums to the Titanic and Shipbuilding, and our Sporting greats, all located in an Eco Park.

We have two events in 2012 that if the political will was there could give us a great National Stadium along side three excellent tourist attractions in museums to both the Titanic and Shipbuilding and our Great Sporting Personalities and a Titanic and Shipbuilding Eco Park.

All this on the shores of Belfast Lough and located in North Belfast at the old Belfast land fill site at Dargan Road, the now named Giant’s Park Belfast. One complex along with Lough side bars and restaurants and a landscaped Eco park, incorporating old Shipyard Cobbled Roads with Tramlines, Gas Lighting (taken from the land fill site) and wind turbines, with the added advantage of Belfast city centre restaurants, bars and shops all within walking distance.
I would like you to imagine visitors to our city sailing up Belfast Lough or flying into George Best Belfast City Airport. One of the visitor’s first views of Belfast would be our new innovative and impressive sports stadium and landscaped Titanic and shipyard themed Eco Park with museums.The events we need to be setting our sites on are the centenary of the sinking of the Belfast made RMS Titanic, and the UK/London Olympics.The Government has stated that all the regions of the UK will not miss out on the befits of the Olympic experience, and only Belfast can claim to be the birth place and original home for the largest man made moving object in the world at the time, RMS Titanic. Here is my out of the box thinking that may not be obvious.With the suggestion of central Government money being made available for new regional Olympic venues, add to this Belfast City Councils money for a rival National Stadium, and the redevelopment of Giant’s Park by Belfast City Council and any national lottery money being made available for the Titanic commemorations put all this money together and make a facility that we all can be proud of and what will be a national and international tourist attraction.
A National Stadium with museums to the Titanic and shipbuilding and our Great Sports Personalities, all at the one location in an Eco Park on the shores of Belfast Lough.The advantages are a National Stadium and Museums near to Belfast City centre. With improved bus links and a possible new rail stop at Fort William, the tourist’s form the increasing number of cruse ships can easily see our new Stadium, as they sail up Belfast Lough and the visitor flying into George Best Airport can view the Stadium as they fly into Belfast, and all the visitors to our country can easily make their way to the Stadium and Museums, as there is a good road infrastructure already in place. We could incorporate the use of the last remaining link to the Titanic, the Nomadic as a visitor attraction. Samson and Goliath the two existing landmark cranes of the Shipyard can be used as a backdrop to the Stadium and Museums.
The Museum to the Titanic and Shipbuilding could feature all the great things from the shipyard that were involved in the building of the Titanic. We could inform the visitor that the Titanic was built in the largest shipyard in the world at that time. Belfast had the world’s largest rope works to service the world’s largest ships. We can incorporate the last of the steam derricks that helped build the Titanic and many of the other great ships from the yard, the dry-docks the tramlines the cobbled roads the gaslights and most importantly of all the thousands of statistics on the building of the Titanic and the stories and yarns form the men and women who help to build the Titanic and the other great ships. Everything Belfast needs to a museum of shipbuilding all in the right place. We could also show the visitor the innovation of the people of Northern Ireland by using Wind Turbines and the Methane Gas from the landfill site to heat and light the Giant’s Park making it an Eco Friendly Facility.The museum to our Sporting greats could feature the late greats, of our one and only George Best, our Golf Open Champion Fred Daly, our Greatest Biker the one and only Joey Dunlop, our World Class Rally Driver Bertie Fisher, our Boxing greats and World Champions of Rinty Monaghan and Barry McGuigan, Rugby Heroes of Willy John McBride and Mike Gibson, Olympian Gold Medallist Mary Peters, and our golden booted footballer Northern Ireland’s David Healy and all the other sporting greats that we have past and present, too many to mention. The proposal I have made would mean that when the stadium was not in use by any of the sporting codes, the museums could pull in the revenue from home grown and foreign tourists to the museums.In my view the issue of building a stadium at the Maze located 4 miles from the nearest city, Lisburn, and 22 miles from Belfast. Makes the transport and roads infrastructure costs associated with that stadium better invested in a package that would be more sustainable over a longer period, and the facility that would be more efficiently used as a combined Stadium and Museum than just a sport Stadium. With Belfast’s shops, bars and restaurants within walking distance, to me it makes the business case for the stadium in Belfast and not the Maze?

Use the Maze site to build affordable homes for the people of Northern Ireland this would be a better use of this land.
The Giant’s park site is owned by Belfast City Council so costs for the land are nil, therefore we need to only find the building costs for the Stadium. The site is on the edge of an industrial area and is within walking distance of Belfast City centre so little disturbance from parking for local residents. The transport infrastructure can be improved to the Stadium by improved bus links from Belfast and the rest of the country, a possible new rail stop at Fort William could help elevate any traffic congestion. The site is also serviced by the M2 motorway and with the new link to the M1 motorway with the new improved west link, traffic congestion should again be kept to a minimum.

So little investment will be required for any roads infrastructure, and just a small investment in a new rail stop at Fort William would be required.

In Conclusion;
An innovative new Sports Stadium, Museum’s, Re-use of a Landfill Site with Eco potential, National and International Tourist attractions promoting Northern Irelands place in the worlds shipbuilding history, and use of our historic existing landmark shipyard cranes. Not forgetting Northern Irelands our world class sporting personalities. A Stadium within walking distance of Belfast City Centre, with an already existing roads infrastructure and a rail line only metres away with possible new rail stop and we seem to have covered all the bases?


Common Sense
Northern Ireland
Supporter and
Non Maze Fan!

GAA republican and sectarian ethos

This is a call to all Unionists to get off our collective backsides and take government bodies, councils and all the local broadcasters BBC, UTV and radio stations, to task and make them accountable for what they say and do or not as the case may be.

If the Unionist population has an issue with any government body, council or broadcaster, then it is no good whining to your family or friends you need to lift the phone, type a letter or e-mail. We need to contact the offending body or broadcaster and register our complaint.

If we continue to sit back on our collective backsides, we will see a greater erosion of Unionist principals and values and a gradual slide into a united Ireland. We can see it now that we are being conditioned to think and act more and more Irish. Not that we should not enjoy our unique British Irishness, but that does not mean we need to be card-carrying top O’the mornin speakers.

We are starting here with the BBC, UTV and the GAA, and we are requesting the broadcasters to stop broadcasting all GAA matches and programs. Firstly, we all recognize the GAA has large numbers of participants and fans and we do not question this, it is quite obviously a unique popular nationalist organization. What we are questioning is the underlying sectarianism, politicization and Anti Unionist ethos within the GAA.

The principal point of this Blog is not with the participants or the fans but with the institutionalized sectarianism and republican political ethos of the GAA. And the issues around the political stance the GAA has taken over the events of recent times, on the use of GAA facilities for hunger strike and political rallies.

The GAA in all its forms is an institutionalized sectarian and a political organization on many levels. From its founding in 1884, to it’s members forming part of the volunteers or citizens army of 1916, the commemoration of bloody Sunday at Casement Park, on November 21 1920, also how serving members of the PSNI must register their membership of the GAA. Moreover, the way this republican organization names its grounds, pitches and competitions in honour of dead Irish republican terrorists.

The GAA by it's acts or inactions has shown to be giving tacit support for the sectarian and political events that have taken place on or at their grounds.

At this point, I would like to make you aware of the GAA’s rules 7 and 44. You can get this information at the GAA web site.

Rule 7 & 44 states:

Rule 7
Non-Party Political/Non-Sectarian

(a) The Association shall be non-party political. Party
Political questions shall not be discussed at its
Meetings, and no Committee, Club, Council or
representative thereof shall take part, as such, in any
party political movement. A penalty of up to twenty
four weeks suspension may be imposed for
infringement.(b)
The Association shall be non-sectarian.

Rule 44
CONTROL OF ASSOCIATION PROPERTY

Uses of Property
(a) All property including grounds, Club Houses, Halls,
Dressing Rooms and Handball Alleys owned or
controlled by units of the Association shall be used
only for the purpose of or in connection with the
playing of the Games controlled by the Association,
and for such other purposes not in conflict with the
Aims and Objects of the Association, that may be
sanctioned from time to time by the Central Council.
(b) Grounds controlled by Association units shall not be
used or permitted to be used, for Horse Racing,
Greyhound Racing, or for Field Games other than
those sanctioned by Central Council.
(Note: Central Council shall have the power to authorise
the use of Croke Park for games, other than those
controlled by the Association, during a temporary period
when Lansdowne Road Football Ground is closed for the
proposed development.
Congress has approved that Rules 3, 4, 5, 44, 46, 47, 76(e)
and 146(a) shall allow for this for a temporary period, at
the end of which all these Rules stated shall revert to their
pre-Congress 2005 position.)




GAA Rules 7 and 44 are both being blatantly ignored both north and south of the border, again with the tacit support and knowledge of the GAA central Council.

Both Finna Fail and Finna Gale Irish republican political parties use GAA facilities for party political purposes in the Irish republic, and the GAA in Northern Ireland have shown over the years that they are an overtly sectarian, overtly political and an Anti Unionist organization

IRA terrorist Mairead Farrell, killed by the SAS in Gibraltar 1988, has a GAA Camogie Tournament named after her.

The GAA in recent times, have permitied the naming of a girls camogie competition in honour of dead IRA terrorist Mairead Farrell. A book launch and GAA pitch naming in honor of dead INLA hunger striker Kevin Lynch in Dungiven. And permitted the use of Casement Park for a hunger strike and political rally on Sunday 13th August 2006.

These acts are not the acts of an organization that is non-sectarian or non-political.


Martin McGuinness Sinn Fein/IRA



Nickey Brennan, GAA President

Taking that prominent role at the book launch and pitch naming was Sinn Fein/IRA's Martin McGuinness and GAA President Nickey Brennan, who officially opened the new GAA pitch in honour of the dead INLA terrorist and hunger striker Kevin Lynch.

The attendance of GAA President Nickey Brennan at the ground naming can only be seen as a full endorsement from the GAA's governing council to the glorifying of a dead Irish republican terrorist!
Is this the acts of a non-sectarian and non-political, alleged sporting organization?


Kevin Lynch INLA hunger striker

The Antrim County GAA board fully endorsed the permission, for Sinn Fein/IRA to hold a hunger strike and political rally at Casement Park on August 13 2006. Dr John McSparran chairman of the Antrim County GAA board defended his position and the position taken by the Antrim County GAA board on this matter. He stated that Casement park was paid for and built by the local nationalist population, and he fully endorced its used by the nationalist population for this hunger strike and political rally.

What he did not state was that the events of the 13th of August was in direct contravention of the GAA’s rules. Another thing he did not say was that, Government and National Lottery money paid for a refurbishment of the facilities at Casement Park?

Dr McSparran went on to condemned Unionist political parties for politicizing this issue at the expense of the GAA, over the use of Casement Park by Sinn Fein/IRA. However, Dr McSparran needs to be reminded that it was his council’s decision to permit the use of Casement Park for the hunger strike and political rally. It was the GAA’s decision that made this a sectarian and political issue, not the Unionists. Dr McSparran made his defence of his decision on BBC Radio Ulster’s Good Morning Ulster program. This is more evidence the GAA is taking a sectarian stance and moving into the political arena.


Dr John McSparran Chairman of Antrim County GAA Board

We would like to remind everyone at the BBC and UTV that the hunger strike of 1981, was an attempt by republican terrorists both IRA and INLA to force the Government to grant political status to terrorist prisoners. This is more evidence of the sectarian and political nature of the hunger strike rally at Casement Park. We would also like to refresh the memory of BBC and UTV executives and especially the Championship producers. That during the hunger strike in 1981 the GAA central council endorsed the 5 aims of the terrorist hunger strike prisoners, further evidence of the sectarianism and politicization of the GAA, this time not from the Antrim Council but from the GAA’s central council.

We would also like to remind everyone at the BBC and UTV that the GAA has rearranged a game between New York and Antrim GAA teams. The GAA are changing the venue of this game from Casement Park Belfast to Boston Massachusetts. This is because of the anticipated visa problems with the travelling New York team, and the likelihood members of the travelling team who entered the USA illegally, would be refused re-entry back into the USA.

Therefore, to facilitate the illegal emigrants in the New York GAA team the GAA are moving the venue to Boston Massachusetts. The changing of the venue of this game has only one aim and that is to assist; the illegal emigrants in the New York GAA team evade USA immigration officials. All this takes place with the approval of the GAA central governing body.



So one can only conclude that the GAA’s governing committee is complicit in assisting their members to evade USA immigration officials and effectively the law. Therefore, I ask again what type of sporting organization is the GAA, and what type of game is the GAA involved in. Again, they are indulging in the political arena instead of the sporting arena.

Now no one cannot fail to see that the GAA at all levels is complicit in sectarian, political, Anti Unionist bias and complicit in helping illegal emigrants evade the law

Notwithstanding the issues above, how individual GAA members vote and what political party they belong to is not our concern, but the GAA as an organization leave a lot ot be desired!

However, UTV and the BBC as a public service broadcaster, which we as license payers have all stake in. We feel that UTV and the BBC must now address all of these issues of the GAA’s political stance, sectarianism, involvement in the Irish republics party politics and their duplicity in helping illegal emigrants evade the authorities in the USA.

The GAA’s stance and involvement in Irish party politics north and south, and their involvement in sectarianism, politics and duplicity in assisting illegal emigrants evade the authorities in the USA, in our view contravenes the principals of both UTV and the BBC.

The purpose of the BBC is: The BBC exists to enrich people’s lives with great programmes and services that inform, educate and entertain. Its vision is to be the most creative, trusted organization in the world. It provides a wide range of distinctive programmes and services for everyone, free of commercial interests and POLITICAL BIASE. They include television, radio, national, local, children’s’, educational, language and other services for key interest groups.
UTV have a similar set of principals.

How can UTV and the BBC be called trusted broadcasters if they continue to broadcast programs of an organization such as the GAA, and by broadcasting these programs they are condoning the GAA’s overt political and sectarian stance.

May we ask the BBC to bring the producers of the Championship program, the GAA president and the GAA Ulster county boards, on to the investigative Spotlight Program? We can then hear the views of the producers and the GAA in an open and verifiable platform.

We have shown in this Blog that the GAA, UTV and BBC have fallen short of their rules and principles. The issue now for UTV and the BBC is how can they continue to condone the GAA’s actions, and continue to broadcast GAA programs with these issues still surrounding, the politicization and sectarianism within the GAA.

We have been watching the Championship program form the time we contacted the BBC and they have not address any of the issues mentioned in this Blog. The events at Casement Park was the major news item of the GAA that week and the Championship program ignored all these issues and did not discuss any of the points raised in this Blog. This after Dr John McSparran defended the events of the hunger strike and political rally on Sunday 13 August. Is the BBC NI’s Championship program its presenters and producers, also complicit in ignoring the facts and presenting a sanitized version of GAA events and issues?

In light of the overwhelming evidence set out above, of the sectarianism in the GAA and politicization, of the GAA. We find it inconceivable that the BBC still broadcasts GAA programs! The broadcasting of these programs is in contravention of the BBC’s own Policy of No Political Bias!

We now feel UTV and the BBC should stop the broadcasting of all GAA programs, all GAA radio programs and close the BBC Championship message board until the GAA has addressed all the issues, we have raised in relation to rules 7 and 44, and until they meet the principals of UTV and the BBC.

We would like to challenge any UTV or BBC executive, producer or UTV or BBC GAA commentator to an open debate. As we would like to hear them defend the naming of a competition or ground after a dead terrorist and the use by Sinn Fein/IRA, for a hunger strike and political rally at Casement Park as anything other than sectarian and political?

Therefore, the basis of our Blog to UTV and the BBC still stands. That is, the overt political stance and sectarian nature of the GAA however implicit or not.

We would be delighted to meet with any of the senior management team or the producers to discuses the issues we have raised.



We will give examples of the GAA’s sectarianism and politicization:

Mairead Farrell (IRA, killed by SAS in Gibraltar 1988) has a Camogie Tournament named after her.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4789097.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4790255.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/5235220.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4797367.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/5244582.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/low/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/5244582.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/low/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/5055840.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/low/northern_ireland/gaelic_games/5007626.stm

http://www.flickr.com/photos/slainte/sets/72157594240466879/show/

http://saoirse32.blogsome.com/2006/07/31/biography-of-kevin-lynch-is-launched/

http://saoirse32.blogsome.com/2006/08/18/republican-hits-out-at-gaa-probe-into-rally/

Cokehttp://cgi.ebay.com/GAA-Ireland-Jersey-Signed-by-Gerry-Adams-of-Sinn-Fein_W0QQitemZ280018697390QQihZ018QQcategoryZ52QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem

http://www.sinnfeinbookshop.com/en-us/dept_93.html


Below are excerpts from various sources but all on one subject of the sectarianism and republican ethos of the GAA.



Irish PM Berty Ahern

Excerpts form a Speech given by Berty Ahern at a book GAA launch of the history of The Gaelic Athletic Association in Dublin 1884-2000
300 Dublin GAA personnel were identified as forming part of the Volunteers or Citizen Army in 1916. Equally, some of the most enthusiastic and committed proponents of GAA in Dublin were also key revolutionary figures - Michael Collins, Harry Boland, Eamon deValera, Dan Breen, Seán McKeown and Eamonn Ceannt amongst them. Michael Collins’ rousing speech to the Kilkenny team in 1921 reflects the strong interlinks between sport, culture and politics at the time.

But just as much as this book focuses on the Dublin GAA’s role in the political development of the State.

The three pillar institutions of the new State – the Army, the Garda Siochána and the Civil Service – played a significant role in the development of the Association. In fact, we are told that the Garda team of the 1920s may have been the greatest hurling team of all time.


Paul Butler Sinn Fein/IRA Councillor

Paul Butler of Sinn Féin on the proposed new stadium at the Maze.
"No GAA player would play on the rubble of H-Blocks and in particular the hospital wing where 10 republicans died on hunger strike"
Paul Butler, Sinn Féin


Senator Brian Hayes Fina Gael

Friday, 4 August 2006
Hunger Strike event should not proceed at Casement Park – Hayes
Fine Gael Seanad Leader, Senator Brian Hayes, today (Friday) has condemned plans to hold a Hunger Strike commemoration event at the GAA West Belfast Stadium, Casement Park.
“I believe it would be deeply regrettable if an event like this went ahead at a GAA ground when the GAA has always prided itself as being apolitical as is clear from its own rules. This commemoration will be viewed as a sectarian event and it should not be held in a public stadium. Imagine what people would say if the UVF was allowed to hold a similar event in Windsor Park. It is important that the GAA, a major recipient of Government funding, is kept above politics.

“It is also the case that this event will be an affront to many people. I am thinking especially of the many members of the Gardaí and the defence forces who were strong GAA supporters and who were killed by members of the provisional movement like Limerick Garda Jerry McCabe and Mayo Garda John Morley, who was shot in pursuit of armed robbers in 1980. For this commemoration to proceed at Casement Park would be a grave offence to the families of those murdered Gardaí and to GAA members and many others all over the country.

“The essence of the peace process requires people to move on. Moving on is not helped by high profile commemorations of some of the worst parts of our recent history. Instead it only helps to fuel suspicion and tension, particularly within the other community in Northern Ireland.”


Pat Darcy, Tyrone County GAA Board Chairman.
"Gaelic clubs were founded in Irish traditions. Both cultures have names that are associated with their traditions. That's the reality and we should all get on with it. We should accept it and stop making an issue of it.



Eddie Carmody Commemoration Saturday 18th November at 8.30pm Ballylonford, Co. Kerry A commemoration for IRA Volunteer Eddie Carmody will take place on Saturday 18th November at 8.30pm, in Ballylongford, Co. Kerry. Starting at the Eddie Carmody GAA hall a march will take place to his monument in Ballylongford village. Two speakers will give orations on the night, Paddy White (Craobh Gal Gréine) and Gerry Mc Geough (Hibernian). Volunteer Eddie Carmody was born in Moyvane, Co. Kerry and at a very young age moved to Ballylongford to work on a local farm. He was an outstanding Gaelic footballer and an all round athlete. He was a man of great courage, honesty and innate chivalry. He was one of the first local men to join Óglaigh na hÉireann becoming at first the Quarter Master of his local company and then a Lieutenant within the IRA. While on his way to an arms dump outside Ballylongford on the 22nd November 1920, he was ambushed by a patrol of Black and Tans. He was severily wounded after being fired upon several times, but still managed to struggle away a few hundred yards. The Saxons following his trail of blood found him after a brief search and dragged him onto the roadway, where he was kicked and beaten with rifle butts. After being stabbed by the soldiers bayonets in a frenzied attack he was shot several times in the face resulting in his death. His body was then put onto a cart and dragged through the village to the local barrack's, where he was left outside in a turf shed till his father collected his body the following day. Eddie Carmody was unarmed at the time of the ambushed and had he being in possession of a weapon would have fought bravely for the freedom of his country in attacking the occupying Crown forces. Eddie Carmody has been honoured every year without fail since 1920, a fitting tribute to a brave soldier of the Gaelic nation. All are welcome to attend his commemoration. Organised by Craobh Gal Gréine Irish Cultural Society

I haven't laughed so hard in a long time. Courtesy of www.upmj.co.uk - an 'ulster-scots' yankee doodle dandy website. just one of the gems on offer. some of ye fellas might get umbridge from some of the shinner bashin, nay baiting, that goes on in the forum. I love this one it starts off as a real happy, optimistic piece of american journalism and descends into the reality of living on the island in which men with horns, baseball bats and shillelaghs roam the streets. classic stuff, i'm calling for sean kelly's resigination as uachtaran of the GAA! Everyone agrees that sport is exhilarating, healthy lots of fun and more than anything its inclusive. Boxing, Basketball, Tennis, Ice hockey, Soccer, Rugby, Surfing, yes all of these and many others are healthy, exhilarating, healthy lots of fun and very much inclusive, which makes them richer by being so. They include people of all colors, religious persuasions, nationalities and capabilities. Sport really has moved on since those early days in Greece, or so one thought. Sadly Ireland as usual is more interested in Irishness than fairness, equality and tolerance, bring on the GAA in Ireland. It has moved backwards over the last few years. The GAA is the sporting dinosaur of the world, Still living in the dark ages as regards inclusiveness and tolerance. It is a sport that is religiously controlled and held back by the evil divisive politics of the Irsih Terrorist and sympathizer, namely SinnFein/IRA and its supporters. The GAA, with its strongly Irish nationalist/republican ethos, has down the years alienated itself from every other community in Ireland and, with its "one nation" historical and cultural baggage, it does not sit easily with other sports, which, in the view of Gaels, are intrinsically British in orientation. The controlling body of the GAA is 100% Roman Catholic and extremely sectarian. Border county clubs are controlled by hard line Irish Terrorists and are holding their ruling council in Dublin to ransom by abusing rules and flouting regulations, unfortunately the powers that be in the ROI seem happy to support this sectarianism in Northern Ireland. For years the GAA have and indeed are the leading opponents in denying anyone who does not conform to the Ultra Irish Nationalist agenda, such citizens are methodically and unashamedly banned and outcast. They close out these people because of their political beliefs religion, where else in the world is this done in the name of sport? They not only promote these rules and practice them, but they also threaten young Catholic sports enthusiasts that if they play soccer that they will never play for their county, or Country. It is a sport that's infested and in many cases controlled by anti British and Protestant feelings coupled with Ultra Irish views. These views are re-enforced by the many clubs that have been named or re-named after IRA terrorists by this republican infestation. Their insistence upon such names, is offensive, provocative and designed as barrier to Protestants who might wish to play Gaelic. The Sports Council that has the responsibility of allocating public funds should enforce the GAA to amend its rules and take steps to end sectarianism with in its ranks. Meaningful steps should have been taken when the UUP was in control of funding sport. This would not be a move to terminate the game but one to help move it away from this SinnFein/IRA agenda and into the arena of all the people in Northern Ireland. Today SinnFein IRA supporters wear GAA shirts as a political statement, gangs of violent thugs roam many streets and sporting venues attacking Protestants, the evidence is overwhelming, assault after assault. The stage has now come when Protestants are afraid to attend sporting venues all over Ulster. In Northern Ireland today any shirt which is not a GAA shirt is prime target for attack, with this in mind we now call on Leisure Centers and other sporting venues to ban GAA tops as they are clearly being used to identify violent republicans and non Catholics. The GAA and sporting venues can no longer be allowed to simply hope this goes away, if anything it getting worse and so those in charge of venues and indeed the GAA have a responsibility to stop this very public form of sectarianism from growing. Protestant Children as young as 7 have been attacked outside leisure complexes for simply wearing an England football shirt, young men have been beaten up returning from football practice, simply for wearing a Manchester United shirt, which to a GAA fan means British in orientation. One 14 year old girl was knocked to the ground and urinated on for wearing a Northern Ireland baseball cap. You can understand why so may Protestants parents are unwilling to let their attend leisure centers when a dozen thugs in GAA tops are hanging around the front door, the management of these venues have a duty to ensure that their complex is free from all forms of intimidation, a good start would be the banning of GAA tops. At every Irish Nationalist riot, Sinn FeinIRA disturbance and terrorist supporting gathering GAA tops are and have been in evidence, THEY DON'T EVEN TRY TO HIDE THEIR HATE. T-shirts supporting the NF or KKK could not be worn virtually anywhere so why should GAA top be any different, the GAA are ultra political, they are sectarian, they are 100% Catholic, they have terrorist members and supporters assaulting, intimidating and insulting INNOCENT people on a daily bases. Worst of all is that the GAA governing body, the media especially UTV and Catholic politicians in general turn a blind eye to it all and simply pretends that it doesn't happen. If the GAA is to drag its self into the century and continue to grow with the support of all the citizens of Northern Ireland then it must NOW take steps to cut out sectarianism. Football thugs all over Europe are identified and banned from attending games and functions, the GAA must now move to identify those within its ranks who are clearly more interested in hate than sport. All citizens of Northern Ireland deserve and demand the right to participate in sport without intimidation or attack, so the GAA and the management of sporting venues need to stop being apologetic about these violent thugs, they simply must act and act NOW. 91% of people who voted in the last election voted for democratic party's with no armed wing, so if sport is for all and democracy is the will of the people what are the GAA and those in power waiting for, ban sectarian GAA tops now and remove the thugs, maybe then we can all get on with life free from intimidation. Its also worth noting here that Sinn Fein IRA do not represent Northern Ireland, they are a very small minority who's view are so left wing that they had to resort to terrorism to be heard. Total population of Northern Ireland is 1,685,267 and in the last election Adams and co could only scrape 144,54, now you can see just how small they really are. Having said that the squeaky wheel gets the oil, and they also have a fully operation terrorist organization behind them. Sponsors also need to wake up, bank with us, buy our petrol, our cars, drink our beer, but don't ask for any pity or support when your child has be hospitalized by members or supporters of an organization that we support and give money to. Some people may think this is harsh but if say the Ford Motor Company sponsored a Skin Head Gig the world would be in uproar and Ford would have to back track very quickly indeed, it wouldn't matter that not all Skin Heads are associated with racism. Many firms sponsor the GAA in Northern Ireland but we firmly believe that until the blatant hatred of Protestants is removed from the organization that these businesses do not deserve one penny from our pockets. As long as the GAA stay silent and do not move to stamp out sectarianism then we must presume that it and its sponsors don't mind how many Protestant kids are attacked, intimidated or left needing 22 stitches for head wounds such as happened recently. Genuine quote from a concerned GAA fan, "I have children of my own who play Gaelic football at under age. They have asked me why would anybody be banned from playing Gaelic games. Now if I was a bigot I would fill their innocent minds with my own hatred and slanted views, but no, I tell them that some day the GAA will realize it’s a sporting organization and no-one will be banned from playing and taking part." The one time President of the GAA , Pat Fanning stated "the GAA position is clear. Its historical role is not a myth. Our charter proclaims the determination of the GAA to work for a 32 county Ireland. The allegiance of the GAA is to Ireland. That allegiance is unequivocal. "(Irish Times). Croke Park and the GAA appears content to speak to only one tradition on this island. Its refusal even to contemplate sharing its sporting facilities with soccer, is symptomatic of this inward looking approach" (Irish Times). In Northern Ireland the singing of Republican songs and waving of flags at GAA events is a clear sectarian statement to all Protestants, stay away, the singing of the Soldiers song and flying of the tricolor should only be flown when hosting a South of Ireland team or in the Republic of Ireland. Now from the GAA, news that it will support the concept of a new national multi-sports stadium in Northern Ireland is somewhat of a surprise considering the perceived " ourselves alone" policy of that organization. Very likely, the GAA's expressed support for a new stadium may force the Government into going ahead with the development, particularly as soccer and rugby authorities are broadly in favor. However, it would appear that a political game is being played behind the scenes with the GAA up for some of its matches at the new location, sharing the space with the Irish Football Association and the Ulster Rugby Union. From views expressed by the Ulster GAA Council representative it is clear the GAA is not abandoning its ambitious plan to significantly increase capacity at existing grounds: Casement Park, Belfast (to 35,000), Athletic Grounds, Armagh (25,000), Healy Park, Omagh (20,000) and Brewster Park, Enniskillen (20,000). These enlargements will cost an estimated £43 million and, for sure, the GAA will unashamedly be looking to the British Government for substantial grant aid. In view of the GAA giving "green light" endorsement to a new national stadium, will the Government respond quid pro quo by the lifting of the recent freeze on public funding for upgrading of ground facilities, particularly GAA-owned? Of course, the Irish Football Association, if the new stadium takes root, would have to satisfactorily settle affairs with Linfield Football Club over a 99-year lease for internationals of Windsor Park, which incidentally marks its centenary next year. The Ulster Rugby Union would also have to vacate Ravenhill grounds for its games. This would effectively mean that both soccer and rugby's ruling bodies would be concentrating on the staging of all of its major games at the new facility. Not so the GAA which remains determined to hold on to and enlarge its main county venues! As is the case with their supporters the Gaa is Playing A Sectarian Game For Political Goals.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/4492870.stm



I just had to put this on the main board, to see if others had any comment. TrojanHorse started a little blog 2 days ago, which condemned the use of Casement Park for the Hunger Striker Rally at the weekend. It's being discussed on a different thread. However, when I pointed out a little hypocrisy in her response, she said "very different", and closed the blog, allowing no more discussion. So I start again here. People can debate the rights and wrongs of whether or not the rally was a party political event, and therefore in breach of GAA rules. SF claim it wasn't, and I have no doubt if an investigation is held by Central Council, no more action will be taken. However, GAA property is being specifically used for party political purposes by other parties, notably TH's own love, Fianna Fail. In fact, believe it or not, the FF Laois/Offaly selection convention this year, which TH most likely attended, was held guess where ? (looking for the link) In a GAA centre. Directly flouting the "no party political events on GAA property" rule. Did you make any complaint at the time TH ? Here are a few further examples... http://www.fiannafail.ie/person.php4?show=Minister&pid=5&bid=318 Should Tony Killeen continue to hold clinics in GAA centres in Whitegate and Kilkishen ? http://www.ireland.com/focus/election_2002/mediawatch/mediawatch0504.htm Looks like there 2002 convention was held in the GAA centre in Portarlington as well ... I believe that the GAA should be perfectly entitled to rent out their facilities to any group that pays up ... But does anyone smell a hint of hypocrisy here ?