The Green Anorak

In Politics, one thing is constant. Cheating on your spouse.

And as Professor Neil Ferguson, a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) has shown, it’s not just MPs who love it.

Yet I have to say – aren’t we all getting a wee bit bored of this now? The public scandal, the moral outrage, the humble apology – it’s a predictable routine, and doesn’t interest me much at the moment.

Growing up with the internet as a constant presence in my life, I’m all too aware that someday it may be me who is making a public apology at my front door, my sullen spouse by my side, looking as though they’d rather be attending my funeral.

So with my future indiscretions in mind, I implore you all to give Professor Ferguson a break.

For a while there, from 2017, the DUP were (kind of) in Government. When Theresa May announced the confidence and supply agreement, I’d guess that Google searches for “Who are the DUP?” went up by at least 1000%.

And this demand for knowledge was almost instantly met by a flurry of articles, written by journalists who were mostly English, mostly based in London, and mostly just finished from googling the very same questions themselves.

These journalists always stressed the same things – the hard-line unionist stance of the party, their Protestant Christian background, and their opposition to equal marriage and abortion – and they’re completely right.

However, the DUP is a far more complex beast than this. What the English journalists have failed to capture is that DUP politicians aren’t just Protestant, the party itself was born from the Free Presbyterian Church. The man who created the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster, Reverend Ian Paisley, also founded the DUP. Both institutions have his blood running through their veins.

When I heard one journalist refer to the DUP as ‘right-wing’ I had to laugh. Yes, it’s easy to assume this, since they propped up a Conservative government, and mostly voted the same way as the Tories anyway. Yet it’s just so fundamentally wrong because there is no right wing in Northern Ireland – nor, for the most part, is there a left wing. Parties exist upon a spectrum with Unionist (wants NI to stay in the UK) at one end, and Nationalist (wants a United Ireland) at the other. Even this is a gross simplification.

If one tried to impose a left-right spectrum on the Politics of Northern Ireland, as exists in England, they would find that parties danced up and down it over time, and that members, MLAs, and even MPs would be found dotted randomly along it.

At this time of year many final year university students like myself are worrying about what they’ll be doing after graduation – or applying for a Masters because they don’t want to think about that yet. Luckily for us all, Boris Johnson’s key strategist and architect of the 2016 Vote Leave campaign, Dominic Cummings, has announced on his own personal blog that Downing Street are hiring.

In the job advert, Cummings states that he is looking for “data scientists, project managers, policy experts,” as well as “misfits with odd skills” and “super-talented weirdos” to work alongside him at Number 10. Rather like an Oxford reading list, Cummings includes a list of academic papers (mostly in the sciences) which each candidate should be able to understand, discuss and perhaps even implement.

The most interesting thing about Dominic Cummings is that, despite being a former humanities student, having studied History at Exeter college Oxford in the 90s, Cummings places a level of emphasis on mathematics and computer science that has never before been seen in the British governing establishment. In a 2014 essay he wrote on education, Cummings created an “Odyessean” reading list which covered the subjects he believed should be taught in all schools. The reading list featured first and foremost mathematics, along with computer science and programming, physics and economics. It’s surprising that despite working in politics for most of his career, there is a notable lack books on politics. The few which do feature on the reading list focus on winning elections, and – somewhat worryingly – war.  

But one thing is clear, Cummings wants to bring the cutting edge of technology right into the heart of government at number 10. It’s unlikely that the old guard of historians, classicists and PPEists who constitute a large proportion the civil service will welcome this change immediately.

Similarly, throughout Cummings’ blog there is a distinct lack of traditional, ideological policy content. Instead, he ferociously attacks the establishment – both the people and the institutions, and sometimes literally the buildings themselves – for being outdated and ineffective. In one post he criticises cabinet office as a room due to its unsuitability for productive decision making.

Cummings seems to have left most positions on policy in the hands of partly leader, Boris Johnson. At the constituency level, therefore, it seems as though little will change. In all likelihood, the vast majority of the nation will be unaware of the fundamental reforms our government will see in the coming months, since they are all contained within the walls on Number 10.

If you’re reading this and keen to join the workforce of “weirdos” at Number 10 – be warned: The advert states that there will be no time for “weekday date nights”, workers will have to give up their weekends, and that “it will hard having a boy/girlfriend at all.”

It seems that Cummings has about as much respect for work-life balance as Oxford does.

The political situation in Northern Ireland: 5 things you need to know.

1. We’re record holders! As of the 17^th of December 2018, Northern Ireland has gone 690 days without a functioning government, beating the previous record holders Belgium. However, we won’t get a Guinness World Record, as technically Northern Ireland is not an independent country, but part of the UK.
2. We’re fine. Apart from the fact that our Primark just burned down, things in NI are going okay. I don’t know why or how, but the bins are still being collected, and the leisure centre is still open. The NI secretary, Conservative MP Karen Bradley, seems to be in charge, and the day to day running of government is carried out by civil servants.
3. Things have been going badly in NI for ages. The two largest parties, the DUP (28/90 seats)^* and Sinn Fein (27/90 seats)^* have been bickering for years over, well, everything. Firstly, Sinn Fein want an Irish Language Act, giving official status to Irish language in NI, but the DUP will not agree to this demand. DUP leader Arlene Foster was responsible for wasting 480 million pounds of taxpayer money on a renewable energy scheme which didn’t work. (Search for “the RHI scandal” for more info). Sinn Fein (and other parties) have called for Foster to resign, but so far, she has refused. The DUP and Sinn Fein also disagree on issues such as LGBTQ+ rights, abortion laws, grammar schools, Brexit, and of course, whether NI should be in the UK or Ireland. Under the NI power-sharing system, both parties are entitled to be in government. However, these major disagreements between the two parties eventually led their government (and the Stormont legislature) to collapse, as both refused to compromise or work with the other.
4. Politicians are still being paid. However, they have just received a pay cut – from £49,500 to £35,888. Despite the cut, MLAs (the law makers in Stormont) have collectively been paid over 9 million pounds since the suspension of Stormont, even though they have passed zero laws.
5. Not much is happening. It doesn’t look like the power sharing government or the Stormont Assembly (our devolved legislature) will be up and running any time soon. Recently there has been a campaign, #WeDeserveBetter, which called for Northern Irish politicians to return to work. However, despite gaining a large social media following, it seems to have had no impact.

*2017 NI Assembly Election Results

I’ve deleted all my old articles from this site, since they felt a bit out of date.

New content coming soon!