03/11/2011 Hearts and Minds

Hello and welcome to the programme. Coming up this week.

The SDLP prepares to choose a new leader, which of these four men has

what it takes to breathe new life into the party?

What have the Presidential elections taught us about the state

of Irish Nationalism in the run-up to 2016?

What has Sinn Fein learnt from Martin's venture into the Republic

of Chinatown? And busy doing nothing. The

Assembly takes a break from passing The four candidates for the SDLP

leadership declined our invitation for a joint debate on Hearts and

Minds this week, but we're going to talk about them anyway, so there!

Martin Morgan, you were once the Bill would boy of the SDLP. You

have now become a member of Fianna Fail. How do you look at this race

that will take place this weekend? I don't know if one was ever the

Kuwait boy because I had as many enemies as I have supporters in the

SDLP -- blue wide boy. That is the problem of the SDLP. One other

candidates is not a runner. I suspect patsy will be leader

because he is a safe pair of hands. I am not convinced he is leadership

material because it is not about who you know, I think leadership

brings more with it than any of the candidates can offer. Two of the

candidates, you like them or you don't. That is not be credentials

of leadership. They are the most established people. One of the

candidates, everyone I have spoken to has said, why is he in the race

for leadership of the SDLP? You are still not naming names.

Alastair and Alex are the most experienced. They fled their time

at the Assembly and Belfast City Council. Patsy, a well-respected

local MLA, he takes a lot of boxes. He is in touch with the real

community. In another time and another place, possibly a candidate

for MEP elections. Alastair is a grafter. He is the MP in Belfast.

Alex Attwood, on the streets when it mattered. He was there before

there was ceasefires in very difficult times, as Patsy was...

so you wonder why about Colin? was only elected this year into

politics and he was seconde it into the Assembly. He is a very good PR

person, former press are bits of the SDLP, but he is a more recent

traveller to politics. I am not sure if he carries the experience.

It is one of the things I feel that is required, it is not about a

popularity contest, it has to be about the Cup -- credentials that

people can put on the table to say, I have the formula to move the SDLP

forward, a party that has been in decline for 28 -- 15 years.

Fionnuala O'Conor, who has those credentials? We are in uncharted

waters but it is not a job you would wish on your worst their

enemy. It is interesting to see an ex-member talks so accurately and

caustically. The heat that has been generated by the squabbles over

leadership and the idea of leadership and the pledge that

effectively enforced Mark Durkan out and the other one of the kind

that enforced Margaret Ritchie out is all testament to the fact that

sometimes when parties are going down the tubes, there is more

animosity unleashed than at other times. Maybe it is because people

are at a loss. What is the road for the SDLP? The Sinn Fein rise to

prominence has dropped them off for the vendor of the match. I don't

know what they do from here. I can find it in my heart to feel sorry

for whoever wins this thing and also to wonder and worry at the

plenty of candidates. Each of the candidate is saying, I am the man,

and they are all men, to put the SDLP back at the centre of Irish

political life. Is anyone in a position to do that? No and that is

the fundamental mistake that each other candidates is making. The

SDLP has failed to acknowledge the fact that they are never going to

get back to the position they once enjoyed. They have got to cut their

suit to match their cloth. Suggesting that they can get back

to where they were 15 years ago is implausible. They will still be at

the Venter of political life if you a small? Exactly but none of the

candidates are saying that. They are talking in terms of restoring

the SDLP to prominence, instead of saying, we have to play to our

strengths. That is one of the reasons for a certain amount of

animosity in the campaign because there of three based in Belfast but

Belfast has always been one of the weakest part of the SDLP. Marmite

is three candidates from Belfast -- there is three candidates from

Belfast and one from south of Derry and people in more rural areas are

thing, why are there so many people from Belfast? If you are going to

be a party leader, you need somebody to top the polls. Alex

Attwood comes in fifth if he is lucky in West Belfast. Colin that

Devitt got in on the coat-tails of Alastair Macdonald and a couple of

others. There is no big electoral hitter in the running at all,

except... He has written his own boat over the years although the

party's vote. Patsy is a good constituency worker and so is

Alastair, but the fact of the matter is what Alastair to stand is

an error of judgment. With Margaret Ritchie winning, people voted for

anyone that Alastair and the fact that he doesn't realise that and he

has do It again is an error of judgment. He couldn't stop himself

from going forward. Martin, all the candidates talk about reorganising

the party. How disorganised is it? When I go back to my time in the

council in the latter months, a comment made by a constituent

summed up a lot apart with the SDLP was that. The woman said to me that

she could identify with individuals within the SDLP in terms of what

she aspired to and that wasn't just about the broader nationalist

question, it was about social and economic issues, it wasn't a real

economic deprivation, but she said she could not identify with the

SDLP any more, just a small group of individuals. The difficulty is

the the years, and from my own experience as a councillor I found

I was there on my and frequently when other people were on holidays,

people were disinterested, and I am not saying this was the wrong way

to find yourself but you were left to your own devices. You had to

think in front of a camera on the spur of the moment, nobody was

giving you the party line. When I compare that to the way Sinn Fein

are organised and other parties in the UK, it is a much more cohesive

unit. I don't like the were disorganised, but I don't think it

properly ever really organised on a fixed counties basis with a clear

message that people were clearly accountable to central party. We

were a group of individuals who belonged to a broad church. More

recently, I have heard people say that is a fundamental weakness. I

wasn't always convinced of that because I think there will always

tensions in the SDLP, between those who see themselves as social

Democrats, those to a more socialists, the small group who did

to call themselves republicans and a significant group of Irish

nationalists, and the leadership then were at the to clear singles -

- symbols of that, the Social Democrat and the Irish republican

and you belonged to one or the other camp, but there was no clear

message transcending doubt the constituencies. Some people even

today are grafters, and that clearly reflects in the voters, but

others that do not represent their constituents. His organisation

crucial to any future the SDLP has? It can't be a red herring. Any

political party has to have organisation but it is a bit

misleading to compare them unfavourably with the Sinn Fein

because almost any party can be compared unfavourably to Sinn Fein,

who have a different attitude and come from a different tradition,

but what we are dealing with is a new situation that the SDLP were

not formed to deal with. They carried a section of Irish

nationalist opinion through the Troubles to show that there was

another way of being nationalist wing Sinn Fein were the small voice

of the IRA. Now Sinn Fein is the big boys, the IRA has gone away and

what the SDLP is to become is part of the larger question of what is

Irish nationalism now and where do northern nationalists it, if at all.

We will come on to that in a moment. None of the potential leaders has

espoused opposition as the way forward. They have all given a

caveat, we want to make sure the government works, but none has said,

we are going into opposition. of them played a round with the

idea but they will not go into opposition. Opposition is not in

the design of the Good Friday Agreement and the Stormont Assembly.

It is designed to be all-inclusive. There is no role for this British

adversarial alternating stuff, it will not happen. In the wake of the

presidential contest, Gerry Adams has been claiming that Martin

McGuinness's can deceive has considerably closed the political

gap between Ireland, north and south -- candidacy. Other

commentators would beg to differ asserting that if anything, the

election showed the border to be a yawning chasm. The Irish Times

political correspondent Harry McGee joins our discussion. Where do you

think Irish nationalisms dans? election in my opinion cheroot two

different dynamics. The first one was the southern version of what

nationalism and republicanism is at the second is Sinn Fein's

positioning in the south and it's very clear targeting of Fianna Fail,

as it did in the north of Ireland when it went in as a coup clue to

the nest of the SDLP, it is now targeting the nest of Fianna Fail

and I will mix my metaphors here. Fianna Fail is a bigger and

slightly more difficult egg to crack the Sinn Fein. Back to the

issue of nationalism. The Martin McGuinness candidacy told us a lot

about what the Southern brand and nationalism is and it is far more

abstract and aspirational and in a way, far less real than the

republicanism and nationalism that we have seen in the north. The

other thing I thought was very evident during the presidential

campaign down here was the emergence of a partitionist

attitude amongst southern voters and very much a political snobbery

in evidence that what goes for the North might be OK for the North but

it is not acceptable down here, and you can see that in the rhetoric of

Sinn Fein during the election campaign. It is a republican

message, and it is considerably toned down here and people

associate inflamed as a party of protest here, -- people associate

Sinn Fein. Not in terms of the nationalist question but a question

of economics and it is positioning itself in a very different way

south of the border. Peter Robinson has been talking about the state of

North Pythons a political relations been better than ever before. Can

he say that with a smile after what happened in the elections? No, at

the elite level it is better than it ever has been before and people

in the DUP are not worried that they will suddenly be taken over by

an Irish government. It is not on the horizon. Harry Mickey is one of

the better commentators from the Republic. I listen to him after the

presidential debate and he produced a level-headed response. A lot of

the commentators have displayed an enormous amount of ignorance, fear,

hypocrisy and they did not know what the North was about or what

northerners were about and the fear is really because the most powerful

and coherent political force in this island is northern nationalism.

They are terrified for some reason and they believe that Martin

McGuinness was possibly going to win. There was never a chance that

Martin McGuinness would win. Sinn Fein were trying to fill a gap in

the political market that Fianna Fail had left open for them and

they had to move into that. So is partition stronger than ever

before? No, this has been a gradual process of two estates growing in

different ways and people in those states getting unhappy with them

and people saying the northern nationalists feel they are in the

wrong place and never feeling this would last but it has, they have

grown up in it. I remember one of the first arguments I got into in

the south in the 70s was ways -- was with a Dublin working-class

woman who became my closest friend and she said, you with your free

British education and your big words. I resent your free education.

I can remember the gist! Not much has changed in 40 years! There is

more of a difference in some ways and yet in other ways, now there

has been this economic collapse that has hit the South harder and

shop and faster because they had a bigger boom then we have had, and

that is distracting people again. She voiced my working-class friend

this dislike of nationalism which she had seen of keeping the poor

down and we see Sinn Fein and would have seen Sinn Fein as a force for

the poor and dispossessed. They haven't found there place in the

We are at a stage now where we don't need leadership contests to

be about keeping Northern Ireland British, the priorities have to be

about the people of Belfast and the North. The priority, I feel, has

slipped. We have not lost sight. People have their aspirations but

we are living in a world where aspirations are not as important as

holding a job. Harry, is that true in the Republic? Very much so. That

is Sinn Fein's message in the Republic. It is all about society

and deprivation, rather than about the national question. You have to

look at their strategy and they are targeting Fianna Fail. That is why

Martin McGuinness went in so hard on Sean Gallagher in the last

debate in Dublin last week. Sinn Fein always play along strategy. He

was talking about 201215 years ago, when they would have seats in

double digits. People thought it was inconceivable but it has

happened. Their strategy is very much long term. Sinn Fein increased

their vote by 8%. You will see them become more mainstream party with

less message -- fewer messages of insurrection and more mainstream

messages. It sees Fianna Fail as the party it wants to replace.

Thank you for your insights. After this, Martin McGuinness will

be looking for political asylum up North. That is what a mutual friend

predicted at the height of the presidential campaign. Like Dick

Whittington going to London, Martin set off to the South to make his

fortune and hopefully to run the place. He carried very little

baggage, most of it attractive, or so he thought. The peace process,

working with the DUP and his international contacts were to be

the keynote of the campaign. The sun was shining and the endorsement

of the Reverend David Latimer, who called him one of the great, true

leaders of modern times, was ringing in his ears. Then, suddenly,

the sky darkened, and he found himself in Chinatown. The image was

of Roman Polanski's stylish movie in which Jack Nicholson, playing

Martin McGuinness, finds himself adrift in the Chinese area of 1930s

Los Angeles. It was recognisable as part of his native city but

strangely unfamiliar. The men were wearing pigtails and the people

spoke different it. Locals saw whole wagon trains of baggage. It

was not like Donegal back in the 70s. The IRA question was not

overlooked, as it often is instalment. In the North, even

Unionists accept that he could not deal with events after 1974 without

recrimination. In the South, they wanted the balaclavas taken out of

the cupboard and accounted for. They would not cut in some slack

like the Unionists. Commentators and relatives of victims said he

spoke with a forked tongue and called him a liar to his face. He

was even accused on live TV of being responsible for murder,

though he has always denied that. When he foreground it is

international connections some people even sniggered. "Nelson

Mandela's best mate", Vincent Browne called him, claiming he had

been in the Oval Office more times than Monica Lewinsky. He learned

enough Kong food to survive and throw sheet -- dramatically threw

Sean Gallagher out of the rain in the final debate of the campaign.

It is a sound base on which to build, even if it is not quite as

secure as expected. It was also wake up call. An unexplained IRA

record is not a good thing South of the border. You need clean hands

and a past that is an open book. That is why the elected Michael D

Higgins. The thoughts of Liam Clarke.

After eight weeks of hard graft, MLAs are taking a little brick this

week. You had not not his? Are perhaps that is because they have

not managed to settle anything of note since their summer holiday

ended. We still do not even have a programme for government.

It is increasingly difficult for political journalists to justify

being at Stormont because there is so little happening. We have not

seen, in the basic sense, a business plan, a programme for

government five months after an election. They have come up with a

system that has brought them together, but when it comes to

working it is stagnating. Well, during the Hallowe'en break,

Stormont is indeed a ghost town. Even when MLAs are here, not much

seems to be happening. It is two months since the summer recess, six

months since the election, but the Assembly still has not agreed a

programme for government or passed any new legislation. The next item

of business is the motion on inadequate weed control.

Instead, we have had debates like this, up on weeds. It is a great

concern and it is definitely a grassroots issue! I would not want

to let the grass grow beneath my feet! I would want to get to the

root of the problem! There were some MLAs did not see

the funny side. For we are back from the summer break six weeks and

we have not had a single piece of legislation brought before this

house. We have a draft programme for government that does not make

one commitment to one piece of legislation. With the greatest of

respect to the minister, do you not think this debate is about covering

up the inadequacies in this house rather than addressing problems in

society? The Alliance Party boycotted the

debate in protest. We call ourselves MLAs - members of a

legislative Assembly - and yet it's the only legislation which we have

discussed since I came to this house is on matters such as ledgers

of consent motions where we are consenting to Westminster, quite

properly, doing it for us. It does raise the question, Mr Speaker,

what is this house all about? Some critics have been accused of

having their own axe to grind. It is certainly true that work is

going on in the individual ministries. When it comes to

reporting on the bigger political picture, it is hard to see what is

being achieved. In the first four years, people gave the politicians

a break because they realised it was very difficult. Four years have

passed and we have been told that those four years were about making

relationships happen and that the next four years will be about

delivery. The real problem is that we have not seen any delivery of

note. We have not seen a basic business plan, a programme for

government, nearly five months after an election. Anything that is

serious happens in the Executive, behind closed doors, between the

parties. It is a long-term problem which some of the politicians have

not really picked up on because each election that comes round

there are fewer and fewer people and we seem to be further and

further away from the political process. The decisions being made

at Stormont are important but people feel, I think, increasingly

deaf -- distant from what is happening there.

These protesters in Belfast certainly feel very distant from

what is happening at Stormont. This is the Occupy Belfast campus. It

may not be as big as the ones in London and New York, but the fact

that it is here he shows that people do not have faith in

business and government. What does that mean for stomach? In Stormont

at the moment, they make promises that they are not keeping. They are

closing hospitals, even though that is not what they stood for. There

is lots of money pumped into it while two parties cannot agree on

the most simple of things. I voted for some of these parties. I voted

my whole life for my party from where I am from. We were willing to

walk a note of commissions. They are not willing to walk out of

government when the British government makes this country even

more poverty-stricken than it already was.

The occupying movement may not have clear goals. What needs to change?

At Stormont, our politicians are hampered by the system, where all

the parties have to agree before anything can be done. It is catch

22. We're stuck with a system that is not going to change in the

short-term. Political historian Henry Bell says

an opposition at Stormont could make a difference. Parties could

opt out and form into an opposition. The parties are not willing to do

that because I think they are frightened to or of being seen as

not being at the heart of things -- frightened to an extent. It is the

attraction of government that is so powerful.

In the meantime, Stormont will come back to life, or at least live as

we know it, on Monday, when MLAs return from their break.