:00:24. > :00:30.Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up this week, disarray and
:00:30. > :00:34.the UUP. How long until Tom Elliott sex David McNarry? Peter Robinson
:00:34. > :00:40.reaches out to the GAA but in the backwoods it is a very different
:00:40. > :00:45.story. And how money is changing the course of American politics.
:00:45. > :00:48.Oh dear, oh dear, hell hath no fury it seems like a politician score.
:00:48. > :00:53.So wounded was David McNarry when Tom Elliott demoted him instalment,
:00:53. > :00:56.they left the Assembly party had launched a broadside at his leader,
:00:56. > :00:59.accusing him of being a ditherer was a personality unsuited for
:00:59. > :01:05.leadership. The party has rallied around Mr Elliott and condemned
:01:05. > :01:09.what some politely called Mr McNarry's over-reaction. It leaves
:01:09. > :01:12.a bad taste and the UUP mouse. My guests are some up to pride from
:01:12. > :01:15.the newsletter. David McNarry seems to believe he did nothing wrong but
:01:15. > :01:20.he told the Belfast Telegraph but the Ulster Unionist Party was
:01:20. > :01:25.always going to be second string to the DUP. Surely no politician
:01:25. > :01:28.should do something like that? it is not the first time he has
:01:28. > :01:32.said that in some ways I suppose, which is possibly why he feels he
:01:32. > :01:36.has been hard done by. He said these things many times over the
:01:36. > :01:40.last number of years. He has been a thorn in the flesh of some ways in
:01:41. > :01:45.the party who would like to taking a more oppositional stance to the
:01:45. > :01:50.DUP, to put clear blue water between themselves and the DUP. He
:01:50. > :01:54.sees the future as uniting and subtly with the DUP maybe not that
:01:54. > :01:58.TV but bringing the two big parties together. To say you are going to
:01:58. > :02:02.be the junior minister, you can't go to an election saying, well,
:02:02. > :02:04.vote for us, we will be the junior partner. Which is why it is not
:02:05. > :02:10.terribly popular with his colleagues, or the members of the
:02:10. > :02:13.party. But he would say it is popular on the doorsteps and it is
:02:13. > :02:18.something which he has articulated since that interview several times,
:02:18. > :02:22.most notably yesterday, both writing in the newsletter and on
:02:22. > :02:25.the Nolan show at length and in quite a lot of detail, he sees the
:02:25. > :02:29.situation where both parties would fight elections separately but on
:02:29. > :02:34.the understanding that as soon as the elections were over they would
:02:34. > :02:39.join forces at Stormont. It is unpopular with some people.
:02:39. > :02:42.Remember the Lib Dems saying go and prepare for government, however
:02:42. > :02:46.unlikely your electoral chances are you have to beat them up all the
:02:46. > :02:50.time. Weld the extraordinary thing was the Ulster Unionist Party in
:02:50. > :02:54.general is just when you think they can't find another banana-skin,
:02:54. > :03:00.they look for one. They managed to get what should have been at 24
:03:00. > :03:03.hour story entered the third week. The problem with this, I have some
:03:03. > :03:07.sense of what David McNarry as saying, he is looking for closer
:03:07. > :03:11.co-operation. I don't think it was a merger, he wants in terms of the
:03:11. > :03:15.Boundary Commission where they're going to be cutting constituencies,
:03:15. > :03:17.he wants closer co-operation and a Heathwick -- and they think he
:03:17. > :03:24.feels he was instructed to talk about these possibilities but then
:03:24. > :03:27.it ended up the reality is he is a loose cannon, a maverick, he
:03:27. > :03:32.overstepped the mark but the reality is this is a story which
:03:32. > :03:37.should have been killed off on the first day. It is there would have,
:03:37. > :03:42.should have moment, it should have been, and here we are now, they are
:03:42. > :03:46.still dragging it out. Martina, our own political correspondent, why
:03:46. > :03:50.were there five days between the first article and the demotion from
:03:50. > :03:54.the education committee? Well, in part I think it was as Alex said,
:03:54. > :03:58.this should have been a 24 hour wonder and it turned into a crisis
:03:58. > :04:03.because I think Tom Elliott underestimated the reaction in his
:04:03. > :04:06.Assembly team to the article and it really has been mismanaged because
:04:06. > :04:10.the article appeared on Monday, the interview had been done the
:04:10. > :04:15.previous Thursday, now David McNarry did speak to his leader
:04:15. > :04:19.both before and after the interview and he said that the leader was
:04:19. > :04:24.happy enough. Tom Elliott says he was irritated after hearing some of
:04:24. > :04:29.the things that David McNarry had said in the interview because he
:04:29. > :04:32.said he strayed off lines that had been given to him. The officer team
:04:32. > :04:35.was informed after the interview but the Assembly team was not a
:04:35. > :04:40.surely a blind man on a galloping horse would have seen that this
:04:40. > :04:43.would have unsettled those who were in favour of a more oppositional
:04:43. > :04:47.role and again, a think David McNarry is right when he says the
:04:47. > :04:50.leader is caught between competing agendas, those who want to move
:04:50. > :04:53.closer to the DUP in terms of electoral co-operation and who want
:04:54. > :04:58.to stay in the Executive and those who see the party being rebuilt
:04:58. > :05:01.through a very staunch opposition will brought and if Tom Elliott had
:05:01. > :05:04.gone to his Assembly team, or ensured that someone had briefed
:05:04. > :05:09.them, this would not have happened in my view. There would have been
:05:09. > :05:12.some problems but David McNarry has been treated unfairly in my view in
:05:12. > :05:15.this sense, he may have gone too far and the article but the reason
:05:15. > :05:19.given for his punishment is fairly flimsy, that one line in her
:05:19. > :05:24.article, which actually vindicates him in the sense he was not talking
:05:24. > :05:29.about unity between the two parties, or mergers. Does the five day gap
:05:29. > :05:33.add to the picture of the leader as a ditherer? Of course it does and
:05:33. > :05:36.up a heart of this is a lack of communication. We still don't have
:05:36. > :05:40.a statement from the party saying David Begg Nouri has been removed
:05:40. > :05:45.from his role, this is why, this is what he did, this is why he stepped
:05:45. > :05:49.out of line -- David McNarry. I think at every stage the party has
:05:49. > :05:53.either said nothing for people have said things privately to
:05:53. > :05:57.journalists from the various camps and that has led to a situation
:05:57. > :06:03.where the leader seems to have no control and perhaps he has limited
:06:03. > :06:07.control over his MLAs and the wider membership. Alex could tell us
:06:07. > :06:12.about the two camps, who is in them, be indiscreet. The difficulty with
:06:12. > :06:16.the Unionist Party, there is a Dad's Army quality to it. The
:06:16. > :06:20.Corporal Jones saying don't panic, no matter what happens, don't panic,
:06:20. > :06:25.and the other side, we are all doomed. That is the problem. There
:06:25. > :06:32.is a gap. It is of Grand Canyon proportions. I am not sure it can
:06:32. > :06:38.be bridged. Sam and Martin are right. Some of them do want to go
:06:38. > :06:41.into opposition, someone to carve out a separate role. Fair enough to
:06:41. > :06:46.say John McAllister, people like that, then there is another side,
:06:46. > :06:51.the Danny Kennedy, the David McNarry side, who think they should
:06:51. > :06:55.be closer co-operation, Unionist should stand together and even if
:06:55. > :06:59.Tom was... If someone had said two weeks ago, if someone had said is
:06:59. > :07:03.Tom safe, I would have said probably, but not so much today.
:07:03. > :07:06.That person is stuck with exactly the same problem because it is not
:07:06. > :07:10.just a matter of warring factions because there are maybe seven or
:07:10. > :07:15.eight factions but there are two Biggs fights. There is no one
:07:15. > :07:19.person who can take the two side sad sorted out. We had Martina, Das
:07:19. > :07:25.Olmert -- but on a CRAE standing side-by-side in the Great Hall at
:07:25. > :07:30.Stormont saying we support the leader. Is that a good omen?
:07:30. > :07:35.think it is a sign of the party trying to fix the damage and it is
:07:35. > :07:39.damage limitation and I suppose the leader had, the -- someone had to
:07:39. > :07:45.respond to what David McNarry had been saying but the leader could
:07:45. > :07:49.not go out, so they tend two lieutenant. From opposing factions.
:07:49. > :07:54.The optics are good but behind the scenes it does not hide the fact
:07:54. > :07:59.that there are two opposing factions and as Alex Kane said, how
:07:59. > :08:02.do you reconcile it? I am not sure they can be reconciled because if
:08:02. > :08:06.those who want opposition are willing to accept the settled will,
:08:06. > :08:09.if there is a majority in favour of closer co-operation, then you are
:08:09. > :08:13.heading for another split and I think they are heading for another
:08:13. > :08:19.split. They are down to 15, they had 16 last year, is anyone going
:08:19. > :08:23.to take money that there will be still 15 at the end of this term? I
:08:23. > :08:29.think it is a party that is, you know, chronically divided and as
:08:29. > :08:33.one listener to Talkback said the other day, it is a kamikaze party,
:08:33. > :08:36.I find it hard to disagree with that description. David McNarry
:08:36. > :08:40.spoke of his lifelong devotion to the cause but he has damaged the
:08:40. > :08:46.party not just by his departure, but the knock-on effect is they
:08:46. > :08:49.lose committee seats. The influence diminishes more and more? Well, it
:08:49. > :08:53.is a knock-on effect but in reality the party should have known that.
:08:53. > :08:55.They should know enough about the mechanics of the business of how
:08:55. > :08:59.Committees are formed and what happens when there is a movement
:08:59. > :09:03.between parties, they should have known that was going to happen and
:09:03. > :09:07.going back to what you said, this whole issue, they have waited two
:09:07. > :09:09.weeks to talk about a discipline in committee. It will not wait for a
:09:09. > :09:13.couple of weeks and then there will be more weeks. They should have
:09:13. > :09:15.done it at the beginning, curtail this, call the disciplinary
:09:15. > :09:20.committee with immediate effect which would have closed everything
:09:20. > :09:25.down. McNarry would not have had to go, there were a number of ways
:09:25. > :09:28.they could have dealt with this, they could have suspended him from
:09:28. > :09:32.the Assembly group, that would have solved the problem and there would
:09:32. > :09:37.not have been a problem with Committees. But they have left it.
:09:37. > :09:40.The committee takes four, five, six weeks to make a decision, you will
:09:40. > :09:45.have all sorts of rumours and counter rumours that worse than
:09:45. > :09:49.that come and lavatories in a position that he has to defend his
:09:49. > :09:52.-- and that Mary is in a position where he has to defend his position
:09:52. > :09:55.and he will have to put every piece of information and the knock-on
:09:55. > :09:59.damage caused by that could dwarf what has happened in the past two
:09:59. > :10:03.weeks -- David McNarry. What do you think the future holds for David
:10:04. > :10:10.McNarry? I think it is difficult to say her -- to see him stay as an
:10:10. > :10:13.independent. We saw was David McLarty, the other man who left he
:10:13. > :10:18.went to the independent benches, he really has been forgotten in some
:10:18. > :10:22.ways. I'm sure he is doing work in his constituency but in terms of
:10:22. > :10:26.the bid -- the bigger political picture, and David McNarry it sees
:10:26. > :10:30.himself as playing an influential role within Unionism and he is not
:10:30. > :10:33.part of the party it is difficult to see what he can be at this stage,
:10:33. > :10:38.given how difficult things have become between the two sides. I
:10:38. > :10:41.think of the DUP will take him that is the obvious place for him to go.
:10:42. > :10:46.Was at that is going to happen, I am not sure, but it is difficult to
:10:46. > :10:51.see him stay. Has he got enough following to get re-elected? I am
:10:51. > :10:55.not sure if he will stand again. He is 65. The election is a long way
:10:55. > :10:58.off. I'm not sure that is the forefront of his mind. In a
:10:58. > :11:03.statement about the disciplinary committee, it seems to talk about
:11:03. > :11:06.other people as well. What do we think is going on there? It is hard
:11:06. > :11:10.to know because immediately we have got a statement, we are making
:11:10. > :11:16.phone calls to the party, party sources, and they are -- and
:11:16. > :11:22.they're all kinds of rumours and speculation they put this thing out
:11:22. > :11:25.and think no one will not have leaks but it maybe that they are
:11:25. > :11:29.going after David McNarry but they don't want to appear it is just him
:11:29. > :11:32.so they will widen it out and say if anybody else has grievances,
:11:32. > :11:38.people around David McNarry, other names in the frame, perhaps
:11:38. > :11:42.speaking over to over the last week. -- so perhaps speaking out over the
:11:42. > :11:45.last week. The new Conservative Party were supposed to be launched
:11:45. > :11:49.in two months time but they have brought it forward. Either
:11:49. > :11:53.prescience, good luck, is this a good time to be a new Conservative
:11:53. > :11:59.Party? If you are going to launch something new that Lordship when
:11:59. > :12:02.your primary opponent is at its lowest ebb for a very long time --
:12:02. > :12:06.then launch it. The problem for the new Conservatives, whatever they
:12:06. > :12:10.call themselves, I think it is Conservatives and Unionists, which
:12:10. > :12:14.is a hark back, they have to be careful. If they are looking at an
:12:14. > :12:17.Ulster Unionist Party which is imploding, but is the sort of
:12:17. > :12:21.people they want to bring over, and also members and representatives
:12:21. > :12:25.from that, you bring in a lot of baggage. And in an entirely new
:12:25. > :12:29.organisation it needs new people, new thinking, new mechanisms. It
:12:29. > :12:33.should not see itself as a refugee camp for people who are unhappy
:12:33. > :12:43.with Tom Elliott or David McNarry or anybody else. Thank you for your
:12:43. > :12:44.
:12:44. > :12:47.David McNarry is offering unionists the same choice as Henry Ford
:12:47. > :12:51.offered motorists. "You can have a car painted any colour you want -
:12:51. > :12:55.just as long as it is black" - or perhaps Orange in this case. It
:12:55. > :13:00.worked for Ford but it may not be so good for the UUP. Tom Elliott
:13:00. > :13:03.road tested this particular motor before the last Assembly election.
:13:03. > :13:06.He suggested that the UUP and DUP could stand as separate parties and
:13:06. > :13:13.then come together afterwards in a single block to prevent any
:13:13. > :13:16.possibility of a Sinn Fein First Minister being elected. So, a bit
:13:16. > :13:21.like the three card trick, voters would have a choice, but it
:13:21. > :13:25.wouldn't really matter who they voted for. The outcome would be the
:13:25. > :13:31.same. At the time the idea was shot down by Peter Robinson, the DUP
:13:31. > :13:36.leader. He insisted that unionists had to back the DUP to defeat bogey
:13:36. > :13:39.man McGuinness in second place. Anything else was a diversion. Some
:13:39. > :13:42.critics called Mr Elliott "Uncle Tom" for suggesting a future which
:13:42. > :13:49.they saw as subservience to the DUP, who would own the plantation up at
:13:49. > :13:51.Stormont. We now know that, after the election, the old idea was
:13:51. > :13:56.dusted off again, with Mr McNarry fronting it in negotiations.
:13:56. > :14:00.Members were shocked when the details came out. McNarry told me
:14:00. > :14:05.in an interview that he would like to see the day when there was a DUP
:14:05. > :14:08.First Minister with a UUP junior minister helping him. That got
:14:08. > :14:11.people's backs up. "A flight of fancy" said Tom Elliott, who
:14:11. > :14:17.administered the lash until Mr McNarry resigned the whip. But is
:14:17. > :14:23.it really so fanciful? In the last Assembly, UUP figures like Michael
:14:23. > :14:27.McGimpsey slugged it out with the DUP. After the election, they only
:14:27. > :14:29.fought amongst themselves. Now Danny Kennedy, the only remaining
:14:29. > :14:36.UUP minister, attends the DUP ministerial group where his
:14:36. > :14:39.constructive contribution is praised by Peter Robinson. This is
:14:39. > :14:45.one possible future and it would lead inevitably to UUP absorption
:14:46. > :14:48.by the DUP. Another is to go back, cloth cap in hand, to the Tories
:14:48. > :14:54.and ask politely for the merger which they offered before Christmas
:14:54. > :14:58.but which was turned down. That is what the once mighty UUP is reduced
:14:58. > :15:03.to. It still has talented members like Mike Nesbitt, Basil McCrea,
:15:03. > :15:07.Danny Kennedy and John McCallister. It still has a considerable branch
:15:07. > :15:10.structure. Even though many members have not renewed this year, there
:15:10. > :15:15.could be enough there to attract asset strippers who might still pay
:15:15. > :15:18.a good price. The party might even continue as an independent force if
:15:18. > :15:28.it could muster a same collective direction and purpose. Otherwise
:15:28. > :15:31.
:15:31. > :15:34.the only battles it can fight are The socks of Liam Clarke.
:15:34. > :15:39.Peter Robinson enjoyed his first taste of Gaelic football at the
:15:39. > :15:42.weekend, and hardly had the final whistle gone than McGuinness was
:15:43. > :15:48.straining to attend a match at Windsor Park. Q back-slapping about
:15:48. > :15:54.how far we have come. But further down the political fitting,
:15:54. > :16:00.reconciliation has some way to go. -- political food chain.
:16:00. > :16:07.It was a sight to make headlines. The DUP First Minister attending a
:16:07. > :16:12.GAA match in Armagh. I think of it is left to some people, there is
:16:12. > :16:15.never a right time to do anything. I think the GAA have shown they are
:16:15. > :16:21.moving forward and had been positive and responsible. I think
:16:21. > :16:26.it is right to do it. I argued we have to move away from them and us
:16:26. > :16:30.attitudes in Northern Ireland. is not the first time politicians
:16:30. > :16:38.have visited sporting events at to demonstrate commitment to community
:16:38. > :16:45.relations. In January 2008, when he was the sports minister, this DUP
:16:45. > :16:47.Minister attended at she -- a GAA match. Last year, the current sport
:16:47. > :16:51.minister watched an international soccer match between Northern
:16:51. > :16:56.Ireland and the fear violence. While the First Minister may want
:16:56. > :17:00.to move away from a them and Us attitude, in some areas of Northern
:17:00. > :17:06.Ireland, it seems that process is likely to take members of his party
:17:06. > :17:11.a little longer. Cook's tone is one of the largest towns in County
:17:11. > :17:15.Tyrone, and in the middle of an Ulster constituency. It is famous
:17:15. > :17:19.for its high street, one of the widest and longest in Ireland.
:17:19. > :17:25.Recently, it has been hitting the headlines for a less positive
:17:25. > :17:29.reasons. Here, at the district council, DUP councillors have
:17:29. > :17:36.refused to stand for a minute's silence in memory of relatives of
:17:36. > :17:40.the Sinn Fein councillor John Mack money. DUP councillors refused --
:17:40. > :17:45.also refused to be photographed alongside Sinn Fein. When that
:17:45. > :17:50.matter was read, one DUP councillor said she would rather die than be
:17:50. > :17:55.photographed with Sinn Fein. think it sends the wrong message.
:17:55. > :17:59.Whenever you see Peter Robinson going to add GAA match it is
:17:59. > :18:05.positive and then people look for leadership and this certainly does
:18:05. > :18:10.not show good relations to anyone. When hearts and minds contacted to
:18:10. > :18:16.a councillor, she said she did not want to make a comment. Her
:18:16. > :18:22.colleague was unavailable. We were unable to contact any of these
:18:22. > :18:28.councillors. In an earlier statement, at DUP said, all of its
:18:28. > :18:31.representatives supported party policy to represent -- to deliver a
:18:31. > :18:36.stable Northern Ireland. The Mid Ulster male in Cook's time has been
:18:37. > :18:40.following the story. The party leaders and people at the top seem
:18:40. > :18:47.to be setting an agenda that they are working together and moving
:18:47. > :18:51.forward together. It is possibly at ground to its level there is still
:18:51. > :18:55.a little catching up to be done. I was say the reaction is that there
:18:55. > :19:01.are bigger issues out there to be concerned about rather than whether
:19:01. > :19:07.someone stands for a minute silence at a council meeting. I know we
:19:07. > :19:13.have got issues with the hospital and the roads and I think people of
:19:13. > :19:18.this town want to see action being done about these things. As the
:19:18. > :19:23.pensioners luncheon club run by Age Concern, they know all about bread
:19:23. > :19:28.and butter issues. Today, as well as feeding these visitors, 52 hot
:19:28. > :19:33.meals have gone out to those who cannot make it a long. We end this
:19:33. > :19:38.club work on a shoestring. We try to do our best for senior citizens.
:19:38. > :19:44.A senior citizen comes through that door, we do not ask him if he is a
:19:44. > :19:53.Muslim or at what, as lorries he is not in the Taliban, I do not worry.
:19:53. > :19:59.That is our policy. We do not want to go back to the dark days. I hate
:19:59. > :20:08.this. It does not get you anywhere. It gets people's backs up. I like
:20:08. > :20:16.everything in harmony. Are you leaving yourself? With pensioners
:20:16. > :20:20.being in the position they are, they have to support each other.
:20:20. > :20:24.Councillors are in that -- are voted into the position they are in
:20:25. > :20:28.and have to set an example. Many of these pensioners lived through that
:20:28. > :20:32.it -- the worst of the Troubles and to now we are living in an
:20:32. > :20:37.uncertain economic time. For them, arguing about the past is no longer
:20:37. > :20:43.on the menu. As the US presidential elections
:20:44. > :20:48.come closer, the challenge for the Republican candidate has been a
:20:48. > :20:55.bloody battle between Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich. The Super backs
:20:55. > :21:02.have -- packs have been changing that the face of American politics.
:21:02. > :21:10.Since 2010, parties are allowed to take a limited contributions. This
:21:10. > :21:18.funded Mitt Romney's $15 million TV campaign against Newt Gingrich.
:21:18. > :21:24.A story of greed. Plying the system for a quick buck. Mitt Romney, more
:21:24. > :21:31.ruthless than Wall Street. For tens of thousands of Americans are
:21:31. > :21:36.suffering began when Mitt Romney came to town. Well Florida families
:21:36. > :21:41.lost everything in the housing crisis, Newt Gingrich cashed in.
:21:41. > :21:48.Gingrich was paid more than $1.6 million by the same agency that
:21:48. > :21:53.helped create the crisis. He censure and -- he was censured --
:21:53. > :22:00.sanction for ethics violations. He then cashed in. If Newt Gingrich
:22:00. > :22:03.wins, this guy would be very happy. Joining now is Professor Catherine
:22:03. > :22:07.Clinton from Queen's University. Political parties have always
:22:07. > :22:13.relied on private money on both sides of the Atlantic, why are
:22:13. > :22:19.people so concerned about these super packs? I think because media
:22:19. > :22:24.has paid a larger and larger role. We may talk about the 19th century
:22:24. > :22:28.cider campaigns, we are now in an even rougher are buying television
:22:28. > :22:31.ads is really controlling primaries and primaries control the next
:22:31. > :22:34.primaries so here we are in February in making our way up to
:22:34. > :22:40.Super Tuesday and Americans are watching who is winning, who is
:22:40. > :22:45.losing. Therefore, they are influenced by the adverts they seek
:22:45. > :22:50.and at the last Republican debate before Florida, you actually got
:22:50. > :22:55.their candidates scrapping over who was behind which at. Many Americans
:22:55. > :23:03.are not will wear of the way in which these machines are funded --
:23:03. > :23:09.or we have the way these machines are funded by donors. It is said
:23:09. > :23:14.that Mitt Romney spent $15 million in Florida and had 60 adverts to
:23:14. > :23:19.everyone that Newt Gingrich had. There were 50 votes in Florida. You
:23:19. > :23:22.might have heard about New Hampshire and people looked at the
:23:22. > :23:27.New Hampshire primary and there are just seven votes you can escape
:23:27. > :23:32.with. It is important to see that the Della can count -- delicate
:23:32. > :23:36.count is something republicans are fighting over. I think the tone of
:23:36. > :23:40.some of the adverts are going to come back and haunt them because if
:23:41. > :23:47.candidates keep slicing and Spacey each other, they are doing Barack
:23:47. > :23:53.Obama's job. -- slicing and dicing. The say that was the candidate is
:23:53. > :24:00.chosen, everyone gets behind them. We must remember that Barack Obama
:24:00. > :24:08.and Hillary Clinton at battle before. Absolutely. The way that
:24:08. > :24:13.one can bring up their rivals end... As has happened end earlier
:24:13. > :24:19.governments, but I do think some of the Republican stalwarts are
:24:19. > :24:25.concerned about having someone attack capitalism, someone attacked
:24:25. > :24:31.the right to spend freely and to spend one's own money. We have a
:24:31. > :24:35.very wealthy candidate who earns his own money and his money is now
:24:35. > :24:39.looked at suspiciously. It is quite interesting to have had a campaign
:24:39. > :24:44.with two Mormons running and they have the role of religion being
:24:45. > :24:51.raised so strongly in American politics. It is probably the first
:24:52. > :24:54.time that has been so reminiscent of Kennedy's election. The money
:24:54. > :24:59.issue tied up with politics and religion seems to be something that
:24:59. > :25:02.is making this a very different election. We should also remember
:25:03. > :25:07.that the Barack Obama campaign has raised far more than the Mitt
:25:07. > :25:11.Romney campaign. It has been raised from millions of small, --
:25:11. > :25:15.contributions. He was someone that hat into the internet with his
:25:15. > :25:19.campaigning and someone that was really at grassroots organiser in
:25:19. > :25:24.his youth and came up with a different kind of legal interest in
:25:24. > :25:28.spreading the word. I think he tapped into that and has kept a
:25:29. > :25:33.hold of that. We have to recognise that Barack Obama has had many
:25:33. > :25:40.millions of dollars of donations. It is perhaps because people like
:25:40. > :25:44.what he is doing but it is also perhaps because they look at as
:25:44. > :25:47.they were called in the press, the Snow White And the seven dwarfs
:25:47. > :25:52.other Republican candidates and they do not want to end up with a
:25:52. > :25:56.bad outcome. Do you think there is a possibility that the voting it --
:25:56. > :26:00.voting public will react against this kind of full-scale funding?
:26:00. > :26:05.That they will recognise the way it is skewing politics? There has been
:26:05. > :26:11.a revolt. We know that at the it tea-party people are interested in
:26:11. > :26:15.getting back to the people. As you said, the ruling in 2010 had to do
:26:15. > :26:19.-- to do with campaign financing is still a problem. In our last
:26:19. > :26:25.election, John McCain who tried to go out there and talk about
:26:25. > :26:28.spending was caught in a boomerang. In the 21st century, Media, energy
:26:28. > :26:33.and money are going to be controlling our political
:26:33. > :26:38.leadership. Do you think there is any possibility that Newt Gingrich
:26:38. > :26:43.could make back the ground he has lost and may be be the front-
:26:43. > :26:47.runner? The amazing thing about American politics is that you
:26:47. > :26:51.should never say never. I think he has lost so much ground that it
:26:51. > :26:57.will be difficult and the battle over who is the bigger capitalist,
:26:57. > :27:03.who wasted more American's money, who is the more wicked politician
:27:03. > :27:07.who does not care from -- care about poor people is something that
:27:07. > :27:12.the press will be taking up, but this is something that is being
:27:12. > :27:17.played at -- played out in images. Newt Gingrich is canny and he has
:27:17. > :27:22.won the South Carolina primary. He is playing on his image, playing on
:27:22. > :27:27.coming from behind, the dark horse can often when. You mentioned the
:27:27. > :27:32.tea-party there. Sarah Palin was at one stage seen as the great hope.
:27:32. > :27:35.She pulled out last autumn. People thought that she was going to be
:27:35. > :27:40.quite a player in the choosing of the candidates. She has just
:27:40. > :27:46.disappeared. She will be appear in television in a major TV movie
:27:46. > :27:53.because we are so interested in what is going on in the election.
:27:53. > :27:57.HBO is putting out a tell a film looking at the last election. We
:27:57. > :27:59.hope that all the candidates will be watching this to think about to
:27:59. > :28:05.the are picking for their vice- president -- vice-president
:28:05. > :28:15.candidate. Thank you very much. That is where we leave that. We
:28:15. > :28:15.
:28:15. > :28:24.will be back next week at the usual time. Goodbye.
:28:24. > :28:29.Where did you get your licence? taxi can now take a family of five
:28:29. > :28:35.or up the entire Ulster Unionist Assembly team. They are using seats
:28:35. > :28:39.as fast as bankers are you -- bankers are losing their bonuses.
:28:39. > :28:46.No one wants to win because they might have to end up going to a
:28:46. > :28:51.football match. Martin McGuinness says he is prepared -- prepared to