He's had his weetabix

Lord - Laird - Liverpool!!!

I guess this feeble attempt at alliteration is my way of sneaking in my best wishes to the mighty reds in Istanbul!!!

Go on the Pool! Make it 5!

You'll never walk alone!

(my prediction, 2 - 0 to liverpool, carragher and garcia to score!!!)

Amazing how the illustrous Lord felt comfortable making his remarks with parliamentary protection. Wonder if he'll have the same to say within his privilege?

Re HoC protection - didn't Douglas Hogg use the same privilege to make insinuations about Pat Finucane and lo and bheold a few weeks later he ended up murdered.....

LD

Pat Finucane was not named by Douglas Hogg.

From BBC site...

A former Tory minister who sparked controversy by linking solicitors in Northern Ireland to the IRA was "compromised" by information fed to him by police officers, a report into paramilitary collusion has found.
Douglas Hogg, a home office minister in 1989, told MPs in the Commons that some of Northern Ireland solicitors were "unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA" just weeks before Belfast lawyer Pat Finucane was murdered.

Sir John Stevens, author of a major report into collaboration between security forces and loyalist paramilitaries, said Mr Hogg's comments had not been justified when he made them during a Commons anti-terrorism legislation debate on 17 January 1989.

I'm inclined to keep the salt cellar at close quarters when I listen to or read Lord Laird's fulminations.

Amazing isn't, it that the only profession not to have some members who were "unduly sympathetic to the cause of the IRA" was the legal profession - why were they so different from the rest of us?

How come Hogg is damned for comments about unnamed solicitors yet it was apparently OK for Martin McGuinness to name a specific civil servant?

Taxi,for Laird
Taxi,for Laird

Coward, he should use article 13 of the defamation act if has proof to support his wild claims.

I don't believe he does but he wouldn't be the first member of the British parliament to hide behind the cloak of PP

Bill...LOL!
Davros: Can you expand on the McGuinness situation, please?

Fair deal:

There was a proximity between the Hogg remarks and the Finucane murder which seemed to be more than coincidental.

There was an outcry following Hogg's comment that his words were putting solicitors lives at risk.

His remarks heightened the profile of all solictors at what was a very dangerous time.

They were at best insensitive and irresponsible.

Now they have been proved unjustifiable.

Jo

I did not defend Hogg's remarks.

I simply made a correction of fact - LD had said Pat Finucane was named by Hogg and he hadn't been.

How come Policemen (including Garda), Judges, not to mention fruit suppliers and gardeners were all fair game for the Ra. Yet, solicitors who helped Ra members seem to be so off limit for loyalism?

Fair_d: fair enough :) The point in both situations is that people need to be careful about what they say.

I find the good Lord enjoys the sound of his own voice too much to actually think about some of the implications of what he says.

He complains about public servants wasting money yet asks questions of such complexity and detail that it takes an inordinate amount of civil service time to respond to them, and distracts them from their main purpose of providing a quality service.

Davros: How come Hogg is damned for comments about unnamed solicitors yet it was apparently OK for Martin McGuinness to name a specific civil servant?

Jo: Davros: Can you expand on the McGuinness situation, please?

Martin Mcguinness named Joe Pilling, a civil servant who was helpful to SF during negotiations over the Belfast agreement and is or has been Permanent secretary at the NIO, as an intelligence agent. That is FAR more damning than a politician grumbling about Solicitors , especially as the Politician in question named no names. The charge against Mr Pilling was repeated several times, endangering his life. Disgraceful.

On the other hand MPs have grumbled in the House about dodgy judges and solicitors NOT linked to NI, so Mr Hogg's comments shouldn't be blown out of proportion.

from the SF website, which quotes Mr McGuinness :

"Joe Pilling, the Chief British intelligence Officer at the NIO said in the United States recently that the worst-case scenario - from the British point of view - would be for Sinn Féin to become the largest party in the North. Well Joe, we are well on our way to giving you your worst nightmare. After the Westminster and Local government elections in May we will be one more step closer to that goal."

So, I'd like to ask the question again...

How come Hogg is damned for comments about unnamed solicitors yet it was apparently OK for Martin McGuinness to name a specific civil servant?

Because one of those lawyers ended up murdered by a loyalist death squad in collusion with elements of the security forces shortly after.

Davros:

Thats a pretty damning statement by SF.

Do they assume that all senior civil servants are Intelligence agents?

Mind you, no-one ever claimed Ken Bloomfield was MI5, but the IRA tried to kill him and his entire family in an elaborate attack on their home...

Davros - 'How come Hogg is damned for comments about unnamed solicitors yet it was apparently OK for Martin McGuinness to name a specific civil servant?

Did the civil servant end up murdered?

So there was nothing wrong with the comments at the time then TAI ? It's retrospective ?

Did the civil servant end up murdered?

That's a shocking attitude La D.

Think on this - If he IS murdered ( God forbid) , should MM and SF be held accountable ?

Had no one been murdered, and murdered in collusion with the elements of the state, no, his comments probably would have garnered as much attention as McGuinness. Likewise if anything were to happen to Mr Pilling, McGuinness comments would take on a similar significance. I am surprised you are unable to work this out yourself.

Jo - it was widely repeated and the implication was that Mr Pilling should be held in part responsible for the december problems. Classic SF scape-goating - but as usual there are double standards.....

This is what The Blanket had to say:

SF - Securocrat Fantasists

"Sinn Fein's make believe world of securocrats undermining the police process is further shown to be ersatz by the party's attacks on Joe Pilling, the NIO permanent secretary, whom it was alleged oversaw a nest of British "securocrats". Pilling was the senior NIO official who at the time of the Good Friday Agreement ensured that prisoners would not be part of a deal that would see them released in exchange for guns. He blocked such a proposal, to the annoyance of many of his colleagues, as a means to facilitate both the peace process and Sinn Fein."

The fact remains - SF and MM directly endangered the life of a civil Servant. That he has not been killed does not alter the fact that he has been endangered and endangered far more directly than anybody was by Hogg's comments!

"Think" - incitement can be a criminal act in itself ........

Davros:

Its savagely ironic that the outrage expressed at Hogg's comments and the publicity that the remarks received as a consequence might have contributed to the Finucane *plan* being moved up the paramilitary agenda.

What he said was, I repeat, irresponsible and deserved media attention, but the indirect impact on those with the capability and desire to *do something* about solictors *sympathetic* to the IRA may never be known, as Nelson and Stobie can't talk.

McGuinness remarks were ill-judged. McGuinness makes many remarks that are ill-judged. Recall his comments to the McCartney sisters. Friendly advice or something more sinister? In pointing out the significant difference in why McGuinness threatening comments have not taken on the historical significance that Hoggs comment did, one is not excusing McGuinness's intimidating and endangering statements. Nor is one excusing McGuinness's past and its implications on his contemporary comments.

However the fact remains that a solicitor was murdered on the heels of Hogg's comments and the murder was facilitated by elements of the state's security forces.

Let us remain hopefully McGuinness's comments will continue to only be the ill-judged utterings of a thug in a suit and not take on the same forbearance that Hogg's did.

Did MmcG make his comments using parliamentary privilege?

Jo - as I recall a lot of the "outrage" was after the murder - which I condemn - and I don't think Mr Finucane would be alive today if Mr Hogg had kept silent. It's also worth remembering that many of those full of righteous indignation at the murder of Mr Finucane are silent about solicitors and Judges killed by the IRA for the opposite "crime" , that of being unduly sympathetic to the Crown.... and that it wouldn't have cost the IRA a thought to have Killed Mr Finucane if they thought he was a danger to them or had betrayed them .....

Let's not forget all those similar comments made by those weeping crocodile tears for Mr Finucane about Policemen, Judges and ordinary working men contracted to do maintenance work on Government buildings.

Mr Finucane shouldn't have been killed. Those involved at every level should be convicted of their crimes. But his death was no worse than any other murder - It really hacks me off that it's deemed that the working classes are deemed fair game but not the elite....

Did MmcG make his comments using parliamentary privilege?

Would Mr Pilling be any less in danger if he had ?

Davros:

I agree with what you say, but I do seem to recall an immediate reaction to Hogg, which, unfortunately, was borne out by the subsequent murder. I don't think there was a direct cause and effect but we will probably never know for sure.

Your comment on the class differential is valid.

I was not far away when Tom Travers' daughter was murdered. Less has been written about her.

Davros, those in the employ of the state are not supposed to be active in the murder of its citizens. That is the distinction that sets the Finucane murder apart from others, although I would agree with your sentiments about a hierarchy of victims.

Jo: I remember that day - I was living in Tate's Avenue at the time. My GF at the time quite often went to mass there :( Luckily not that day.

Of course it could be argued that an attack on the legal profession is an attack on a bulwark of justice :
Others linked to the legal profession who should be remembered

"Think": do you think the comments, especially the advice to the sisters - were MM speaking off the cuff ? I doubt it, I suspect they were discussed and decided in advance.

I think McGuinness tends to lose the run of himself at times. I say this in no way to excuse his statements and the motivations behind them. But I also think you are pursuing a straw man argument at this point. Enjoy the bone you're gnawing on.

Davros:

Thanks for that link. The families of all those victims deserve justice.

I read that Tom Travers saw a hatred in the face of his daughter's murderer which he thought must have come from Hell itself. Unimaginably painful that he also saw that man walk free.

Davros, those in the employ of the state are not supposed to be active in the murder of its citizens.

Ignoring any aspersions cast, that's true. But no more and no less than a citizen NOT in the employ of the state. Murder is completely wrong. It cannot be any more or any less wrong.

Think - my straw man , as you put it, has considerably more substance than vague remarks by Douglas Hogg....

Oooops,

Having re-read my comment about Lord Laird, I hope I am not censored, as I don't have Parliamentary privilege!

(I do know though that one NICS Dept has a specific team just to deal with his questions)

Davros - I asked the question because I didn't know the answer.

My 'attitude' is this:

I don't think anyone should use parliamentary privilege of any kind - (whether it's in Westminster or Stormont etc) to utter statements (considered or throwaway) that endange people's lives and Pat Finucane's death/murder is a prime example of this.

We will have to agree to disagree. That you cannot even bring yourself to concede the disturbing element of state collusion in the murder makes your argument full of straw more than a seeking of some truth. Hogg, intentionally or not, merely reflective of information he was privy to or completely bad timing and ill-luck, set in train a series of events that had horrible consequences, including the cover-up and denial of state involvement that persists to this day.

McGuinness is no saint himself, and without wanting to run the risk of libel on this site, I will say no more about his involvement in the horrific events of the recent past.

However, thankfully, regarding the comments you are using to build your straw man, the jury is still out on and let us hope they never come in. Many politicians here say stupid things that endanger people all the time. You have no shortage of fingers to be pointing on that score.

Now I must go and leave you to the marrow of your bone.

La D - I don't accept that Hogg's comments endangered anybody's life. I would argue they were fair comment about the behaviour of some Lawyers.
IF he had specifically named Mr Finucane it would have been totally different. That WOULD have been outrageous. But I suspect we have reached a point where we shall all have to agree to differ :)

That you cannot even bring yourself to concede the disturbing element of state collusion in the murder

where have I denied collusion ?

Jo

PQ's are an essential tool for accountability. If bureaucrats don't like it tough. I have drafted many a PQ in my time and the lengths civil servants go to not to answer the question means I have little sympathy for them.

fair_d:

I have no problem with accountability (to elected representatives) but have a look at the subject and fragmented nature of most of the questions posed and have a stab at guessing how relevant these are to the daily lives of our good citizens.

He is a classic argument for the dissolution of the irrelevant antiquated structure of which he is a (self-nominated) member.

"how relevant these are to the daily lives of our good citizens."

If it is about an aspect of our governance, a policy the government has or about where public money is going then it is relevant.

Also if there is unacceptable costs involved they can refuse to provide a reply on that basis.

fair:

The good Lord would not see any cost implications as anything other than a masked refusal to answer his questions which are, in my view, for his own personal information and dressed up as a concern for financial accountability.

If he was concerned about how public money is spent, he would travel by train more often.

Lord Laird.

Can anyone remind me what became of the fighting fund to launch a legal challenge to 50/50 recruitment etc etc?

How much money was raised?

What was it spent on?

How is the legal challenge progressing?

fair:

Take a wee search through the Hansard website and see how many of LLs questions are highly repetitious with only one or two words of difference.

He's entitled to ask his questions. I accept that accountabiility is a key aspect of any Parliament. But you must admit his obsession with the evils and failures of everything to do with N/S links of any kind reveals a highly blinkered view of the world.

However what to my mind is even more sad is that in asking the same question 6, 10, 20 times in PQs, in Lords debates and in correspondence to Depts and Ministers, he simply cannot accept an answer that does not fully agree with his own preconceptions.

Just because he believes black is white does not make it so. And just because people (mostly unfotunate NICS staff) politely and repeatedly answer his questions and tell him that "black is black" does not mean they are conspiring with Dublin to undermine NI.

He most recently said on Talkback "one thing I learnt is that my grandfather and my father were right when they said you cannot trust Dublin with the affairs of people in Northern Ireland, with our culture and with our background."

I suspect being gentlemen of their day that they probably made grand and sweeping statements about people with "eyes too close together", and that "you can't trust coloureds / Gypsies / Jews" and so forth. Thankfully most of us have learned to discount those forms of bigotry and preconception which were once bandied around as "good home truths" by the earlier generations of our "tribes".

John Laird should get a life, realise that God gave him a brain to think for himself, and consider what the rest of us have long since learned - That the "Blue skies of Ulster" don't abruptly end just outside Newry.

Apologies to the moderator, was getting a bit carried with earlier posting.

carried away, DOH!

Baldrick:

Excellent. I frequently have cause to trawl through his questions, which seem to be a singlehanded effort to prevent the extinction of the semi-colon! :)

baldrick

If it is the same question does it not receive the same answer? Thus undermining the issue of cost?

Personally, I am not a Laird fan (he handled a number of Ulster-Scots issues cack-handedly) but he is in the House of Lords and is perfectly entitled to ask whatever question he wishes as often as he wishes. Persistence is often essential when dealing with a bureaucracy.

On the issue of North/Southery there are a number of dodgy practices going on with these bodies.

As for your comments about his family, you did not know either man so I do not believe you are in a position to characterise what they did or didn't think.

Maybe if the Shinners had taken up their seats in the British Parliament they could have responded to the attacks, on behalf of their esteemed former member?

Just read on BBC NI that:

' Irish financier Phil Flynn has challenged Ulster Unionist peer Lord Laird to repeat allegations about him outside parliament.'....

It will be interesting to see if Laird takes him up on the challenge.......

La D:

Hold on, Ill see what odds Paddy Power is offering on that one!

for a brief moment when I saw the title of this thread, I wondered if LL read Slugger and what on earth had I said to upset him :0)

The institution is itself a waste of space. [Mod Edit - ball not man]
Laird's claim to fame to date is head of a Mickey Mouse organisation that promotes people who talk in a funny (funnier than normal) Ballymena accent.
He also has expenses costs that would make Peter and Iris blush.

It was all about trying to be relevant and a bit of free publicity. All in all a self publicist. If Alderdice retires from the IMC there is a ready made replacement.

Fair_deal

don't you think that many PQs aren't asked in order to get information, but to bring attention to an issue? MPs and Lords could find out the answers far easier in other ways, if information was what they cared about.

On Lord Laird
I heard the man threaten the Ulster-Scots Agency's sponsor Departments that if they didn't increase the Agency's budget he would make them grind to a halt with PQs. Are PQs now a method of blackmailing the Treasury?

1) Do you think this is a fair way to try to discuss budgets?
2) Would you be happy if your taxes were distributed on this basis?
3) Seeing as LL spent years moaning that the USA's budget was too low, what do you think of his new line of attack where he says that cross border bodies' budgets are too high?
4) How many of his PQs are a smoke screen to hide the expenses row he is at the centre of?
5) If officials didn't have to spend weeks answering repeated and vexatious PQs, how much further ahead could the Agency have got with it's work?

OK some of those are a bit unfair on you!

While the system is there people are entitled to play it as they see fit.

Dunno:
I think he gave the game away there somewhat by that offhand comment.
The answer to 4) is "most" and the answer to 5) is "a lot."