It was announced last week that Reg Empey's Ulster Unionist Party is to enter into some sort of a tie-up with David Cameron's revitalised Conservative Party. It was unfortunate for the Unionist PR machine that the announcement came on the day that Mr Cameron's bicycle was stolen from outside a branch of Tesco's, and that this was the story that tickled the fancy of the media. But, for all that, the Ulster Unionists will hope that the news will provide the party with a much-needed shot in the arm.
It is difficult to see what is in this deal for the British Tories. The only explanation seems to be that Mr Cameron is anxious to have his party seen throughout the UK as the party of the Union, although, to be sure, electoral pickings have been meagre in recent years for the Tories in Scotland and in Wales. Grouping with a vague association with the British Conservatives have stood for election in Northern Ireland with a notable lack of success. However, nothing succeeds like success and, as the Cameron bandwagon now appears unstoppable, there is the hope that recent reversals on the Celtic fringe may yet be reversed. The UUP will hope to win back support from many of their traditional supporters who have defected to the DUP in recent elections, given that the Union appears secure for the forseeable future and that the DUP have lost their charismatic founder and leader, Dr Ian Paisley. The UUP will point to the fact that the Assembly seems to have reached deadlock with progress looking unlikely, in the near future at least, on a whole range of important issues.
The UUP also point up the risks taken and the sacrifices endured in the time of Mr Trimble to get the North along the road to a peaceful settlement, and will look for some greater reward from the electorate. They realise that there is little gratitude in the political game, but will bank on the fact that after the next General Election, they will be able to call upon friends in high places.
Relations between Ulster Unionists and the Conservatives have had their ups and downs over the years. At the time of the great campaigns for Home Rule in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Liberal Prime Minister William Gladstone had to encounter entrenched opposition to Irish Home Rule from the Tories in the 1880s; as if he did not have enough of them in the ranks of his own party. The House of Lords, at the time a Tory stronghold, was also fiercely opposed to Home Rule, spurred on by the likes of Lord Randolph Churchill and pro-Union slogans, such as "Ulster will fight and Ulster will be right". At the time of the Third Home Rule Bill in 1912, utterances by the Canadian-born Arthur Bonar Law, later to become a Tory Prime Minister, were little short of treasonous.
It was with a Liberal government that the Irish delegation negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, an agreement deemed by Tories and Unionists, such as Edward Carson, as a step too far. For half a century after that, the dozen or so Unionist MPs returned to Westminster invariably voted with the Tories in government and in opposition. Under a parliamentary convention, no matters pertaining to Northern Ireland affairs could be raised on the floor of the House of Commons, and when Nationalists MPs attempted to bring up an issue of local interest they were referred to the subordinate regional parliament at Stormont. This suited the Unionists of the day very well. The Tory Prime Minister, Sir Alec Douglas-Home was photographed wearing an Ulster Unionist necktie, in earnest of the close relations that obtained between the two groupings. The ban on 'Ulster' affairs being raised in the House was broken by the West Belfast Republican Labour MP, Gerry Fitt, in 1964, during the first ministry of the Labour premier Harold Wilson. The early agitation of the Civil Rights movement prompted The Sunday Times to run a special supplement under the title, "John Bull's Political Slum".
It was about this time that relations became strained between the Ulster Unionists and the Tories. It was Tory Prime Minister Edward Heath who closed down the old Stormont in 1972 and presided over the subsequent Sunningdale Agreement which brought about the first power-sharing experiment which lasted from January to May 1974. Eleven years later, another Tory PM, Margaret Thatcher, put her signature to the Anglo-Irish Agreement along with Taoiseach Garret FitzGerald, and in 1991 another Tory Prime Minister, John Major, agreed the Downing Street Declaration, with Taoiseach Albert Reynolds. All of these developments were viewed with suspicion and hostility by the various factions in unionism.
Much water has flowed under the bridge in the past 35 years: the Tory party has changed (or so it says), and the UUP has severed its formal link with the Orange Order, and markets itself as being open to all men and women of goodwill who favour the Union. So, what does the future hold for both of them? As the Liberal PM Herbert Asquith used to say, "We will wait and we will see."
In evidence the court heard that police had to be sent for after a contretemps developed in the breakfast room of a local hotel. One of the patrons, described as a professional actor, complained that the rolls served were hard and stale and demanded that they be replaced. He was informed that the K-hotel prided itself on the crispness of its bread and that there was no alternative available. He refused to be mollified and created what the management described as "quite a scene," much to the distress of other patrons. "As an actor," said the RM, "he no doubt wanted a roll that he could get his teeth into."
At the launch of a recent compilation of humorous anecdotes involving Irish politicians, the Ceann Comhairle of the Daíl, John O'Donoghue, recounted the story of a Cork councillor who was critical of the maternity services available at a hospital in his constituency. One expectant mother, he claimed, had been on the waiting list for more than 12 months.
A New Zealand judge has attacked the trend for giving strange names to their children. He ruled that a child called Talula Does the Hula from Hawaii become a ward of court in a custody battle. Some names such as Fish and Chips, Yeah Detroit and Keenan Got Lucky, the judge said, had been blocked by registration officials. Among the names which had been permitted were Number 16 Bus Station, Chardonnay and Violence.
Inflation in Zimbabwe is galloping at such a rate that the price of a bottle of beer went up from Zim $100 million to Zim $150 million within an hour. That was a month ago.
Zimbabwe has now run out of paper to print money on and the German firm which supplies the paper will supply no more until it is paid.
A driver has been fined in a British court for smoking in his van, described in court as his place of work. He told the court that as a painter, he decorated rooms, not vans, but all to no avail.
