16/06/2011 Hearts and Minds


16/06/2011

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Hello and welcome to the programme. The controversy over the Sinn Fein

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appointment of a convicted killer as a Stormont adviser is the latest

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manifestation of a seemingly intractable question about how we

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should deal with the legacy of the troubles. This week, the first and

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Deputy First Ministers endorse add new initiative to record for

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posterity, the accounts of people who came through violence, to

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become closely involved in the peace process and, in a few minutes,

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I'll be asking Peter Robinson for his views on the long-term

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solutions. First, Julia Paul on the latest efforts to heal the wounds

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of the past. This reconciliation statue stands

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in the grounds of Stormont. It's a copy of statues also erected in the

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ruins of Coventry Cathedral, at hirosh may in Japan and Berlin in

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Germany -- Hiroshima. It links all the places because all have seen

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terrible events which have shaped their histories. Unlike those other

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places, in Northern Ireland, the past is never far from the present

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because no-one can agree on exactly what happened.

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So, maybe the answer is to make sure that everyone's version of

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history is included. May I say to all of you who've come from near

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and far, thank you so much for giving up some time this afternoon.

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At Stormont, the great and good gather to hear about a Newark demic

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study into the peace process. The Layers of Meaning project, led by

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researchers from Queen Mary University of London, will collate

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an online archive, including interviews with 100 key players in

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the peace process. There'll also be a community project to record

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personal stories from people in the border areas. There are so many

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people even that were once household names that are no longer

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household names, people that have long since been forgotten but

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played a key role and there were many other people that were never

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in the public domain. When you get to ground level, there's also

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individuals that are crying out to be heard and feel their stories and

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experiences haven't been represented and perhaps -- in

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perhaps the books that have been written. In that sense, I think

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this is an opportunity to capture, for future generations, that wide

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range of accounts. I honestly think there's a sense of urgency about it.

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Even as we develop this proposal, a number of key witnesses passed away

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and other obituaries follow week- by-week. There is a sense of

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urgency in terms of kp churing that. It has support in Northern Ireland

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as the highest level -- capturing that. History has many voices and

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many of them are in this room. In one way or another, everyone here's

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had some role during the period of the last decades in Northern

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Ireland. Each of us with our own angle and vision has a view on how

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problems arose, how they continued and who was to blame, what might

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have been done better. One of the faders of the peace process and the

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peace process as one of the most successful peace processes in the

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world today, is that they feel they have to deal with the past. We

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spend a lot of time talking about it from the Good Friday Agreement,

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right through to the present day. Those who're critical of a solution

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not being found, they haven't come up with any solutions themselves.

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But the problem is, one person's solution to the past can rub salt

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into the wounds of another. The long-awaited report into how to

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deal with Northern Ireland's history, chaired by Lord Eames and

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Dennis Bradley, was released two years ago and has been garting dust

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since. When launched, one of the proposals the make recognition

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payments to victims was deeply controversial. Just stop it, will

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you! Just stop it! That's the problem with Northern Ireland,

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we've all got to be heard. Sorry. We came to the process, most of us,

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aware of the vast array of opinions that victims have so that not every

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victim wants the same thing. Reverend Lesley Carroll sat on the

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independent consultative group that drew up the report. One thing we

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were counselled about early in the process was to be aware always of

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who wasn't talking to us. We were conscious that there was a swathe

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of victims who were not talking to us at all, who were wanting

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absolutely nothing done, just let it be, let us get on with our lives,

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we don't want to rake this up, and we always have to balance that

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against, I suppose, the two big calls that victims do make, one

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being for justice, I want somebody to pay for this, I want to see

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somebody brought to justice, I want to see this going through the

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courts, and the other call which was, I would like to know why this

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happened, who did this, why did they do it, they're looking for a

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bit of truth. So those were 2t things we were handling around

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victims really. Well, talking about it is one way

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of tealing with the past. But this academic study is not aiming to

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collect paramilitary confessions. Interviewees are warned not to talk

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about illegal activity which has not been dealt with by the courts,

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and some of the interviews will remain unpublished for 40 years.

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One thing we thought specifically with regard to politicians was,

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they're never going to speak to us frankly, they are going to just

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sing from the Hymnsheet when we ask them to speak on the record. There

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are other people - I think it would be fair to say that the peace in

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Northern Ireland is an uneasy peace - it's not a full peace yet. Other

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people who say in the business community very much be hind the

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scenes over the years have made huge contrinyuetions to

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reconciliation between communities and peace initiatives -- huge

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contributions. Unless we give guarantees, these people won't

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spook. Among those attending the event was Richard moofrpblt in 1972,

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he was blinded, aged ten, by a plastic bullet. -- Richard Moore.

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In 1986, he founded the charity, children in crossfire. This project

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here's certainly very worthwhile. Any avenue through which people can

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hear the experiences of other people and also where their story

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can be validated is very important. I'm probably lucky in a sense that

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over the years my story's been told many times or people have asked me

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my story or whatever. But really there are people within the four

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walls of their house and they're still experiencing the terrible

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trauma that maybe happened 30, 35 years ago and they are having to

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deal with that. It's been ten years since this statue was erected at

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Stormont. The reconciliation it celebrates is still far from come

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pleement, but in the last decade, in Northern Ireland, think just how

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much has changed -- still far from complete. The same issues come up

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time and time again, this issue affects so many different layers

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and levels. Do you sen it's probably one of the most important

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issues for you to address in the next term of the assembly -- do you

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accept? It's certainly an important issue, but when you say "address

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it", I'm not sure there is an easy solution to this one. There is no

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consensus as to how we deal with the issues of the past. Certainly,

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there'll never be a common and agreed history as far as the past

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is concerned. It's very clear that the kind of initiative that we

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dealt with during the course of the week allows everybody to tell their

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story from their angle and vision and it's uninterrupted. It's

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unchallenged. Then the academics and historians and others can look

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at what was said and make their own judgments in the future. On a

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purely practical level, we've had criticism this week from the

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Victims' Commission of the OFM saying there is an absence, delay

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releasing funds to people who need money, victims suffering chronic

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pain, a lack of progress on a victim service and what's needed is

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a whole change management strategy. Do you accept all of those or any

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of those criticisms? There's always room for improvement in any system.

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A good start would be to have direct conversation with us, rather

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than grabbing headlines on the issue. Well, he says he wrote twice

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to your office seeking an interview? The issue is dealt with

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by junior ministers and they met them just before the election

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period. We have substantially increased the amount of money that

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we are putting into the victims' issues and, of course, we want to

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ensure it gets directly to people. I have people coming to me with

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issues relating to the Memorial Fund, so we want the smoothest

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possible process. We are somewhat moving, because the weight is now

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more towards trying to get individual victim who is've perhaps

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not got linked in with victims' groups, so there is a movement

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going on within the victims' organisations. On the wider issue,

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you said at the time of the Eames Bradley report, you accused them of

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moral ambivalent and equivalence. The DUP was working in its own

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definitions, you said, have you made any progress on that? We put a

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Bill before the Assembly on the issue. As far as how to deal with

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the victims' issues, we have very much been basing our way forward

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around the story-telling. Indeed, if you look at the kind of pace and

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reconciliation constructive that we are looking at for that, you will

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see there is a story-telling element in that. I think if we get

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into a situation where we are expecting everybody to come to the

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table and tell the complete truth about their role in the past,

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you're not going to get that. Therefore it leaves it very open to

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people trying to rewrite history to propaganda, rather than truth and

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reconciliation through that process. Is it then perhaps better to do

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nothing on a wider scale simply to let the arguments go on, because,

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as you say, agroment will never be reached? -- agreement will never be

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reached? If you are expecting to have a version of the past that

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everybody's going to endorse and put their hand up there, irnever

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going to get there. We have seen over the last number of weeks, any

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reference back to the past on incidents that have occurred causes

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great hurt within the community. I'm not sure this community wants

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to relive all of the events it's gone through. I think there is a

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requirement on the part of victims to be able to express their hurt,

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how they've lost, how unjust it was the way they were treated and the

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story-telling process allows them to do that in a way that doesn't

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get us into a process where it's judicially, where you have QCs

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lined up making more money out of the process having the case argued

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out and orders cross-examination, that's not the way forward.

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said the appointment of Mary McArdle was a mistake, but you

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stopped short of calling for her resignation. Your colleague said

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she should. Why did not not go that step further? I thought I had gone

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that far, by saying she shouldn't have been appointed. But not saying

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she should resign? I have no process to stop that person

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maintaining themselvess in that job. It's silly for any senior

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Government officer to be saying somebody should do something when

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you haven't got the power to do it. It gives you a position of

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principle, doesn't it? I have no reluctance in saying I don't

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believe she should have been in the job. It was insensitive and it's

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turned out to be a major calamity as far as Sinn Fein's concerned.

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But I've done more than simply talk about the issue. I've taken a step

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of asking the Finance Minister to bring forward proposals as to how

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he might look at the issues in the future. Don't forget... Isn't that

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a way of doing nothing in the sense of a particularly controversial

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incident. What will the reports say, we shouldn't have any more

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advisers? What's it likely to come up with? Well, I don't want to,

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because I'm expecting to see nit the next number of day, but I would

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have very surprised if it didn't say, a special adviser is appointed.

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That person is automatically seconded to the Civil Service, they

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therefore are a temporary civil servant. What argument could you

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possibly put forward that says that someone who's brought in at

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probably about grade five of the Civil Service should not meet the

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entry standards of the Civil Service. I think those are the

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kinds of issues that we have to look at. What do you mean, in terms

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of educational achievement? Education, character, background,

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those issues. Would that not be discriminatory? Discriminatory that

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somebody comes in as an AO or AA should have a higher standard than

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somebody who's grade five? Sinn Fein have been saying for example,

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Martin McGuinness said he compared the appointment of Mary McArdle to

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the appointment of Nelson Mandela who didn't have much of an

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education. Is that comparison ludicrous? Anyone will find a

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difficulty in aligning the comparison. Again, there are

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complex issues. With an elected representative, I don't think that

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you have the right to interfere with the people's choice. These are

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positions which are paid positions of Government. In my view, they

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should align with the entry requirements of the Civil Service.

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But those are matters for the executive and ultimately for the

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Assembly to decide. So you could someone who has won a university

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degree in prison where he or she has been for committing a murder

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who'd then be OK to appoint? wouldn't get into the Civil Service

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if you were responsible for a murder. There are entry

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requirements for the Civil Service. I'm saying that if you bring

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somebody in at grade five, at the very least you could expect someone

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at that pay grade and responsibility grade is a that they

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meet the entry standards. Turning to the tribunal in Dublin,

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investigating the border murder of two officers, the Government's said

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they have to produce the final report by November. Do you think

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it's right to have that kind of time limit imposed on any such

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inquiry? No, it's not right. We raised this. I've spoken privately

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to people and the Taoiseach. We discussed it at the council meeting

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and on every occasion, the Government have made it very clear

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that if more time is genuinely needed, it will be given. There was

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some concern about the delay before there were any public hearings held.

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They're now under way. There are some fairly disturbing outcomes of

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the public hearings so far. I think it's important that everybody sees

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that the full story does come out and a proper assessment is made.

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were you encouraged that IRA members gave evidence to that

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tribunal? They didn't give evidence to the tribunal. There was a

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private meeting, as I understand it. With the legal team of the

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tribunal? Well, as I understand it, with very clear demarkation lines

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about what was being said and what could be passed on, it isn't the

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same as coming before the tribunal, making themselves subject to

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questioning from the other side. That just didn't happen. Do you

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think the Secretary of State should Why is there a requirement for that

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particular murder to be investigated? This is a difficulty

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I have because people say to me, are my loved ones not as important?

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You have people who why in the assembly who have been responsible

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for murders and they are in government, are they not just as

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likely to be brought before a tribunal and questioned about these

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issues? To some extent, the range of issues, because people like to

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inquire about what the state has done, start to skew what the queue

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is of the past and start to rewrite the history of the past as if one

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section of the community a loan was the section that was the victims.

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You do not sound like this could be any long-term strategy available in

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the lifetime of this assembly for legacy issues. I think there is

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under criminal we make a start on the issue of storytelling and both

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Gerry Adams and I endorse the initiative this week. Both of us by

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endorsing the kind of programme that we have talked about, the

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peace and reconciliation centre which will allow prison officers,

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army personnel, victims, prisoners or to have their say as to how,

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from their angle of vision, they saw the past number of decades.

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land valuation at Crossnacreevy, valued at �200 million, to enable

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the Department of Finance and Personnel to give subsidies to

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farmers. How could that have happened? A valuation which has now

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been reduced to 2.8 million. It is crazy. You have remember the

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context in which it was done whether valuations of properties

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were going up and up. It is not the role of ministers to be charging

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what we are told by our professionals. Now has dropped in

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the committee yesterday when it was revealed this valuation was arrived

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at by getting a valuation for land with planning permission in Belfast

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and multiply it by the number of acres. There seemed to an absurd

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way of doing it. Yes. The new endorsed that method. I did not

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endorse that method at all. DD not ask how the valuation was arrived

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at? We are given valuations for properties and it is not our

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position to question a professional valuation. But it was not a

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professional valuation it was multiplied by the acting Permanent

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Secretary. We were given it as a professional valuation of the land.

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So you accept it was not a professional evaluation. The only

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valuation at that land, with prices going up almost daily, had begun on

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the basis of what the values were currently up that time. It is

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absurd to think that any planning permission could up the value of

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lamb which did have planning permission. And one year later its

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value was reduced on paper by a teatime. It is a bad deal for the

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taxpayer. There was no deal for the tax payer. They did not lose any

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money. They still have the land. But they have paid out 100 to �2

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million on the basis of its assumed value. They did not spend the money.

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Money was allocated. At this moment in time, �150 million will be quite

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useful. We are not talking about money having been spent on anything.

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We are talking about money being given to the Department of

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Agriculture to be used for public use. I guarantee you that the

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executive would have given the money anyway for that purpose.

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amount? Well, why wouldn't they? Because they had to find his summer

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because they did not have it and that is why the Department of

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Agriculture got this valuation because it was on the how was going

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to justify the money. If there is a requirement for us to find funds,

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we find the funds, whether it is by reducing the assets of a department.

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We ensured that the Health Department, and under our present

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minister I can be certain the Health Department well-conceived

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where the savings they can be made a good be made. I could go into

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some very considerable detail about the way the health department has

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been handled over the last four years where the performance and

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will begin it could not go through the doors, so there we could see

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where savings could be made. efficiency is not a word you would

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associate with this land deal. You're talking about a land dealers

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of land was sold. It was not sold. It is still within the government's

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responsibility. Money was given from one department to another for

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the purpose that would have been agreed by the executive. It is all

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very best minister at Bond level. If it is, it is not this minister.

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We allocate funds on the basis of professional valuation. I am not in

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the position of going out, did King of the land, of measuring it,

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determining what is value it is. did not crush your mind to say hold

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on a minute? Hold on a minute for what? Tom Eliot would have been the

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first person saying that we need the money for the Department of

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Agriculture, as indeed most of the executive would be saying as well.

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The Chancellor is here this week, do you think he is fit to progress

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the issue of lowering corporation tax? Is that the a new way for it?

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I'm not convinced it is the only way forward, I am convinced it

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would be a massive help and would encourage local indigenous business

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to expand. But not at any cost, your finance minister says. In

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other words, if it will cost us too much of what we bought loose from

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the submission. Obviously, a judgment would have been made. We

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have a block grant and we have to look at the amount of money that is

0:22:400:22:42

reduced in that block grant as opposed to the benefits that we

0:22:420:22:47

would get from a lower rate of corporation tax. Ian Paisley Junior

0:22:470:22:52

has been nasty about the assembly saying that the quality of debate

0:22:520:22:56

is pathetic and that it is more like a county council than the

0:22:560:23:01

regional parliament. Do you accept those criticisms? I don't think I

0:23:020:23:05

accept any of them. There are individuals within the assembly who

0:23:050:23:09

have come from the local Cubbon background who, at the early part

0:23:090:23:14

of a turn, still have not come to terms with the new level at which

0:23:140:23:17

they are operating. That is a learning curve, just as those who

0:23:170:23:24

have just entered Westminster had a learning curve. Do you think Ian

0:23:240:23:28

Paisley Junior has just cut a bit above himself with the pick job?

0:23:280:23:35

You think that is the big job? thinks it is! Most people will say

0:23:350:23:39

that the real business of politics is taking place in the assembly and

0:23:390:23:42

that is where those who want to be involved in the cut-and-thrust want

0:23:420:23:50

to be. He says that is where the decisions will be made, not in the

0:23:500:23:56

current county council of December, as he puts it. The reality for all

0:23:560:24:01

of us is that we have the job of work to do in the assembly. I

0:24:010:24:05

regard that as being very important and the regard the level of

0:24:050:24:11

contribution in the assembly to be every good as at Westminster.

0:24:110:24:21
0:24:210:24:22

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over

0:24:220:24:25

again and somehow expecting the results to be different. And here

0:24:250:24:29

we are, a few weeks after yet another election which promised to

0:24:290:24:32

keep us moving forward in a spirit of harmony and stability, and the

0:24:320:24:36

handbags are out already, with the bitching back at full volume. A

0:24:360:24:39

hardly surprising result when you return exactly the same parties,

0:24:390:24:43

with exactly the same attitudes and mostly the same people and then put

0:24:430:24:46

them into exactly the same Executive. But hey, we always knew

0:24:460:24:49

that this was less of an election and more of a one-hour make-over

0:24:490:24:52

programme. Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness made polite,

0:24:520:24:54

albeit giggly noises, about Tom Elliott's game-changing proposals

0:24:540:24:57

for a collectively binding Programme for Government before the

0:24:570:25:00

Executive was formed, only to dump the idea when the ballot boxes

0:25:000:25:02

closed and they could stop pretending that they actually

0:25:020:25:05

respected each other. So prepare yourselves for another four years

0:25:050:25:08

in which so many policies required for creating the new-era Northern

0:25:080:25:11

Ireland will be brushed under so many carpets that ministers will

0:25:110:25:16

eventually have to don hiking boots and then climb a mountain to get

0:25:160:25:18

into their offices. Instead of real politics, therefore, the parties

0:25:180:25:21

will have too much time on their hands for indulging the age-old

0:25:210:25:24

rituals of score-settling and annoying the hell out of each other.

0:25:240:25:27

Shortly after Queen Elizabeth II received a standing ovation in

0:25:270:25:31

Dublin Castle, the new Sinn Fein Lord Mayor of Belfast replaced her

0:25:310:25:35

portrait with the 1916 Proclamation of Irish Freedom. Mind you, this

0:25:350:25:38

piece of calculated pettiness probably had more to do with the

0:25:380:25:41

fact that the DUP's Deputy Lord Mayor is refusing to talk to him,

0:25:410:25:45

because it seems downright churlish to blame the Queen for Sinn Fein's

0:25:450:25:48

singular failure to get rid of the border, let alone deliver A Nation

0:25:480:25:52

Once Again. Over at Limavady it's as though the Good Friday Agreement

0:25:520:25:55

never happened, although it needs to be borne in mind that Limavady

0:25:550:25:59

has long operated within its own time zone. Anyway, it's become a

0:25:590:26:03

battle a day between a small Union Jack and a former IRA bomber,

0:26:030:26:06

accompanied by an approach to community relations which owes more

0:26:060:26:09

to EastEnders than to the Shared Future Strategy. In Castlereagh,

0:26:090:26:12

meanwhile, the DUP and UUP have ganged up on Alliance, which is a

0:26:120:26:17

bit like the Kray Twins taking on Mother Theresa. I know, go figure!

0:26:170:26:20

Up at the Assembly, having already trooped past Carson and Craigavon

0:26:200:26:24

on their way to the day job, Martin McGuinness and the Sinn Fein

0:26:240:26:27

benches had to listen to the unionist David Cameron delivering

0:26:270:26:30

an unashamedly pro-Union speech last week. Their faces said it all.

0:26:300:26:33

Safe houses swapped for Stormont. Prison cells swapped for

0:26:340:26:36

ministerial office. Balaclavas swapped for Specsavers and pension

0:26:360:26:39

plans. The armalite and ballot paper swapped for Republican-lite

0:26:390:26:43

bullet points and a parliamentary order paper. Their eyes rolling

0:26:430:26:48

like people awakening to reality after a very long coma. The fact is

0:26:480:26:52

that Sinn Fein has become an old, tired party, a party of broken

0:26:520:26:55

dreams and dashed hopes. Tiocfaidh ar la has been replaced with

0:26:550:26:58

Tiocfaidh a gaga, in which an elderly leadership is still trying

0:26:580:27:01

to convince the younger members of the republican family that unity is

0:27:010:27:05

just around the corner. But just in case it isn't, they'll keep the

0:27:050:27:07

former troops happy with appointments geared to nothing more

0:27:070:27:11

profound than winding up unionists. So there it is. The same-old, same-

0:27:110:27:16

old: writ large, writ small and writ everywhere. 13 years after the

0:27:160:27:19

1998 referendum and the parties still find it easier to carve-up

0:27:190:27:23

than to share out. And that's probably why so many of you didn't

0:27:230:27:26

bother to vote. The thoughts of Alex Kane. And that

0:27:260:27:30

brings the season to a close for Hearts and Minds, as the organs of

0:27:300:27:33

Government begin to look forward to the summer shut down. Its been

0:27:330:27:37

another eventful year, thank you for staying with us. We'll be back

0:27:370:27:40

in the autumn, batteries fully charged for another session, I hope

0:27:400:27:50
0:27:500:27:51

you have a safe and sunny summer. Goodbye. Congratulations to

0:27:510:27:56

Christine bleakly, I wish her all the best. She is marrying a Premier

0:27:560:28:04

League footballer, what could possibly go wrong? One lawyer said

0:28:040:28:08

David Ford won a yellow pack justice and Benny had to explain

0:28:080:28:14

that you a pack is the stuff that poor people have to buy. Most of us

0:28:140:28:20

would be as happy been as rich as a demoted civil servant. We learn

0:28:200:28:23

this week that it is probably easier to turn gay people straight

0:28:230:28:29

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