Steve James | ukwatch.net

Alex Salmond pleads for Scottish finance

Alex Doherty — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 09:17:36 +0000

The Lloyds TSB takeover of Halifax Bank of Scotland (HBOS), forced by the collapse of the HBOS share price, has triggered an air of national crisis in Scottish political and financial circles.

While 140,000 HBOS and Lloyds bank workers across the UK and internationally face huge uncertainties as to whether they will have a job in a few months’ time, the sole concern exhibited by the Scottish political parties has been to prop up the financial services industry while extracting the best terms for the clique of Scottish financiers and businesses closely linked to HBOS and its predecessor, the Bank of Scotland.

Under the deal, which is already considered extremely shaky, Lloyds TSB was to pay £12 billion for HBOS, under terms that had been under discussion for months. But nothing has been finalised as yet. The new bank will be Britain’s biggest, with 39 million account holders, 30 percent of UK mortgages and deposits of some £300 billion.

Because of its exposure to the mortgage market, and dependence inherited from HBOS on wholesale money markets, even with these huge resources, industry analysts reckon that the new Lloyds TSB/HBOS combine can only remain afloat through making cost savings of around £1 billion a year. The new company will be saddled with a debt to deposit ratio of £1 debt for every £0.37 in deposits and can only survive through implementing tens of thousands of job losses across the UK. Initial estimates ran as high as 40,000.

Lloyds TSB are reported to have contacted property consultants over plans to close up to 700 of the 3,000 high street units the new merged group would control. There are also proposals to merge data and network services and outsource IT support. Analysts quoted in the Financial Times complained that £1 billion of prospective savings, 10 percent of operating costs, compared badly with 31 percent savings when Lloyds took over the former Trustees Savings Bank (TSB) in 1995.

HBOS itself emerged in 2001 from a merger of the Halifax Building Society and the Bank of Scotland. Both institutions had long histories. The Bank of Scotland was formed in 1695, while the Halifax was set up in 1852 as a credit union. The new company gobbled up a number of smaller banks, former building societies and insurance companies. An attempt to buy up the National Westminster bank was in the end trumped by Edinburgh-based rival the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS).

When HBOS was formed, the Halifax was the wealthier and larger group. Nevertheless, HBOS corporate headquarters was based in Edinburgh, while the retail banking division remained based in Halifax. The merger cost at least 2,000 jobs. The intention, in addition to cost savings, was to allow the Halifax to enter bank markets and the Bank of Scotland to start selling mortgages. Both companies have subsequently become highly integrated into one outfit, while the former Bank of Scotland HQ on the Mound in Edinburgh has become a museum.

HBOS is thus a typical product of the rapid, and hugely profitable, consolidation in all areas of the global banking financial services industry over the last two decades.

None of this stopped Scottish first minister and leader of the Scottish National Party (SNP), Alex Salmond, from hypocritically denouncing the HBOS collapse as the work of “spivs and speculators.” Salmond warned that the Scottish economy could be plunged into “turmoil.”

His comment implied that HBOS was an essentially healthy, respectable and thoroughly Scottish outfit brought low by external, and rather immoral, gambling unconnected to its own operations. This is nonsense.

As Salmond well knew, HBOS’s demise was brought about by its attempt to expand rapidly into the mortgage market using market-based finance instead of customer deposits. This has also brought down Northern Rock and now Bradford and Bingley, another former building society.

Moreover, it rapidly emerged that some of the “spivs and speculators” were supporters of the SNP. Sir George Mathewson, former chair of RBS and a supporter of Scottish independence, was revealed as being a chair of Toscafund Asset Management—a £3.5 billion hedge fund specialising in short-selling on the financial markets. Mathewson is also chair of the Scottish government’s SNP-appointed Council of Economic Advisers. A number of other leading SNP figures also appeared to be playing leading roles in asset management funds of various types.

Nevertheless, Salmond has attempted to use the crisis to promote his case for Scottish independence, presenting the HBOS collapse as a blow to national prestige.

He told the press, “The position we are in at the present moment is a position that has been arrived at within the Union [referring to the 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland], within the limited powers that we have. Would we have a Bank of Scotland if Scotland was independent? I think the answer is undoubtedly yes.”

Salmond claimed that an independent Scotland would have offered billions of pounds in credit to HBOS to allow it to survive as an independent bank. His position was ridiculed by the Labour Party, when Labour pointed out that £100 billion, double the entire Scottish budget, would have been necessary to save HBOS. But Salmond’s position is entirely consistent with his repeated call for Scotland to have the power to vary corporation tax in line with investment requirements. It expresses correctly the attitude that the SNP takes to social spending—that it should be entirely subordinate to the needs of the finance industry.

Financiers around the SNP were reported to be considering a counter-bid to the Lloyds TSB proposal. The names of merchant banker Angus Grossart, of Noble Grossart, recently appointed head of the Scottish Futures Trust, and Jim Spowart of Intelligent Finance, among others, were raised in the context of a £6 billion notion to carve out the Bank of Scotland operation from HBOS.

The Economist noted that Scottish businessmen, such as transport magnate Brian Souter of Stagecoach, also an SNP supporter, viewed the bank’s corporate lending policy, and its longstanding ties to thousands of smaller Scottish companies, as central to their success.

A petition appeared on the SNP web site calling for support for “the Scottish Government in its efforts to save Scottish jobs and ensure a strong future for the Bank of Scotland.”

A City of London broker told the Scotsman that a buyout could address political sensitivities in Scotland, while noting that the “quantum of cost savings and pricing power that Lloyds-HBOS would command would be far larger outside Scotland, so the deal strategy would remain relevant.”

In other words, Lloyds-HBOS could sell off Bank of Scotland in return for a free hand against its larger workforce in England.

In reality, any rump Bank of Scotland would be even more vulnerable than HBOS, since part of the attraction of the 2001 merger was the huge pool of depositor savings accrued by the Halifax. It would be even more dependent on collapsing global money markets.

Aware of this, Salmond has also lobbied Lloyds TSB, in the form of its chair Victor Blank, to encourage the company to leave at least part of its corporate HQ in Edinburgh. Salmond has also lobbied the chief executive of the Scottish Widows division of Lloyds TSB, Archie Kane. Kane told the press, “We have two organisations we are trying to put together which have a long, strong Scottish heritage.”

The Council of Economic Advisers plans to meet in secret, according to the Times, to “develop a business case to retain head-quarter functions and jobs in Edinburgh.” An HBOS communications manager insisted that the outcome of the deal would be “good for Scotland.” In addition to Mathewson, the council involves a number of leading academic economists and businessmen, including Professor Andrew Hughes Hallet, a former Federal Reserve consultant; Robert Smith, the chair of Scottish and Southern Energy; and Jim McColl, the chair of Clyde Blowers—a medium sized industrial process combine.

Salmond was offered all-party support in dealing with the consequences of the HBOS takeover. Newly elected Labour leader in Scotland, Iain Gray, called for the Scottish government’s Financial Sector Advisory Board, also comprised of industry figures, to incorporate all the political parties and council leaders from Edinburgh and Glasgow. Liberal Democrat leader Tavish Scott, also newly elected, agreed, insisting that the political parties “make crystal clear that there is a cross party effort for Edinburgh to remain a centre of gravity in the financial world.”

To the extent Labour has differed from the SNP, it is in pointing out that the Lloyds HBOS takeover was reportedly engineered by UK Prime Minister Gordon Brown, seeking to avoid a Northern Rock-style nationalisation of HBOS. Labour has presented this as a benefit of remaining within the UK.

Labour are hoping to avoid another by-election defeat to the SNP in the Fife constituency of Glenrothes by presenting Brown as a stable man in a crisis, and Labour locally as best placed to defend Scottish interests. Both the SNP and Labour will suppress the implications of the takeover for bank workers, particularly those in areas less immediately favoured by the financial aristocracy, such as Halifax, Yorkshire, where some 6,500 workers are currently employed by HBOS.

Alex Salmond and Thatcherism

Alex Doherty — Mon, 22 Sep 2008 13:00:19 +0000

Sir Angus Grossart is to head the Scottish Futures Trust (SFT), which will be responsible for attracting private capital bids for public infrastructure projects. His appointment reveals a great deal about the social and political character of the Scottish National Party (SNP) administration in Edinburgh.

Grossart is the founder, chairman and majority shareholder of investment bank Noble Grossart, the former vice chair of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and the director of numerous companies in the UK, US and Canada. Described by the Times as the “doyen of Edinburgh’s financial community,” he is an owner of a sixteenth century castle and holds a place on the Sunday Times rich list. His nephew, Hamish, is the deputy chair of Scottish-based oil and gas exploration group Cairn Energy.

While in opposition, the SNP under Alex Salmond made great play of being opposed to the Public Private Partnerships/Public Finance Initiatives (PPP/PFI)—a means of backdoor privatisation used by successive Conservative and Labour governments to transform social and infrastructure spending into lucrative and long-term revenue streams for private capital.

However, the Scottish Futures Trust is simply a repackaging of PPP/PFI in line with the needs of the financial sector in Scotland. The Scottish government is unable to issue its own bonds, the SNP’s preference, but the SFT will seek to create consortia of local authorities, private operators and the SFT to sell bonds for specific projects along with other means of finance.

An example of the sort of return being generated by PFIs can be seen in the scheme to rebuild Hairmyres Hospital, near Glasgow. For an outlay of £8.4 million, building company Kier and PPP investment specialist Innisfree expect a return of £145.2 million over 30 years. Innisfree has £715 million worth of investments in more than £8 billion worth of PFI deals in 18 hospitals, 17 education projects, and 5 prison and court projects in the UK.

By contrast, the local health authority, NHS Lanarkshire, made a loss of £15.6 million last year, and was forced to sell £20 million of land to clear its debts.

Grossart’s appointment, hailed in the media as a “coup,” represents a seal of approval from the Scottish financial elite for both the SFT and the SNP administration.

Numerous finance houses and banks are headquartered in Edinburgh. Grossart’s job will be to fix deals with the big operators such as RBS, one of the world’s largest banks. RBS has its own PPP arm, Royal Bank Project Investments Ltd. Douglas Fraser, political editor of the Glasgow Herald, noted approvingly that “the challenge is now for Sir Angus to make the anti-profiteering rhetoric into an attractive package for profit-seeking financiers.”

The SNP’s subservience to the financial establishment is not exactly new. Salmond was an oil economist at RBS for years before becoming SNP leader. The SFT deal comes only a few months after the SNP government attempted to push through a £1 billion golf resort for magnate Donald Trump in defiance of local planning laws and public opposition. The SNP’s central demand is that an independent Scotland should be able to emulate Ireland as a low-tax investment platform.

Yet for many years, the SNP has sought to dress this pro-business agenda up in social democratic garb—a presentation that was only possible due to the right-wing lurch of Labour and the services rendered to the nationalists by the middle class radical groups such as the Scottish Socialist Party, Tommy Sheridan’s Solidarity Movement and the Scottish Greens. All these groups have claimed that an independent Scotland is the means through which socialism can be realised long-term and that an independent capitalist Scotland under the SNP is a first step in that direction that must be supported without precondition.

With the Labour government imploding, Salmond believes that the SNP will be the main beneficiary in Scotland. Consequently, he has become more open in speaking about the real aims of the Scottish administration.

In a recent interview with the Total Politics magazine, Iain Dale asked Salmond, “Ten years ago, the Conservatives were seen as a terrible enemy by the SNP, and they saw you as very left-wing. It seems to me that you have tried to change that and create a very big tent for the SNP.”

Salmond replied, “I suppose I have tried to bring the SNP into the mainstream of Scotland. We have a very competitive economic agenda. Many business people have warmed towards the SNP. We need a competitive edge, a competitive advantage—get on with it, get things done, speed up decision making, reduce bureaucracy. The SNP has a strong social conscience, which is very Scottish in itself. One of the reasons Scotland didn’t take to Lady Thatcher was because of that. We didn’t mind the economic side so much. But we didn’t like the social side at all.”

The SNP—along with much of the political establishment in Scotland—has always sought to distance itself from Thatcherism and its perspective of unbridled free market capitalism and assaults on workers’ social gains.

“Thatcherism” has been portrayed as a peculiarly “English” affair, at odds with what is routinely portrayed as the more just, socially aware “Scottish” national consensus.

Salmond’s incautious admission that he “didn’t mind the economic side” of Thatcherism “so much” blew the gaffe on such claims. Notwithstanding his absurd attempt to separate Tory economic policy from its social consequences, his statement exposed the degree to which the fundamentals of Thatcherism—the gutting of social provision for the personal enrichment of a fabulously wealthy elite—has been embraced across the entire official political spectrum. That is why the next morning, Salmond took the unprecedented step for a First Minister of phoning a radio talk show to claim that he had been misinterpreted.

Salmond has attempted to recover political ground by unveiling the SNP’s proposals for a local income tax to replace the current council tax. Levied by local authorities, the council tax is based on property values. The housing price bubble over the last years—coupled with cuts on social spending—has meant that this tax falls disproportionately harshest on working people.

The SNP has said it intends to abolish the council tax entirely and replace it with an income tax levied at three pence in the pound. It argues that this will save the average family between £350 and £535 a year and has challenged the other parties to veto the measure.

The proposal has to be seen in the context of the growing moves in all the major parties and the business establishment towards some form of greater financial independence for Scotland, so-called fiscal autonomy.

The intended income tax is not a local tax as such. It is a tax set centrally in Edinburgh, which is then parcelled out locally, reducing local authorities to mere conduits for state funding. More fundamentally, the SNP has made clear that the purpose of the new tax is to further ratchet up tensions between Edinburgh and London, in order to serve its strategic goal of independence.

Some £2.5 billion is currently raised under the present council tax, but the SNP’s proposal will bring in just £1.6 billion—a £900 million shortfall. Almost half of this is to be recouped through unspecified savings. But the SNP is also demanding that Scotland continue to receive some £400 million from UK central government that is currently paid in benefits to those too poor to finance the council tax in full—even though the tax will be abolished.

In other words, the SNP’s “redistributive” tax is dependent to a great extent on the UK government and taxes raised on working people in England and Wales. Salmond calculates that this is a win-win situation for his administration. If London agrees, the SNP will reap the benefits in terms of strengthening its popularity. And should London refuse, the SNP believes it will lend credibility to its demands for complete independence in Scotland and even help stoke up anti-Scottish sentiment south of the border.

In the same Total Politics interview, Salmond made clear his preference for a bonfire of national vanities. Asked if he agreed that there “is a resurgence of an acceptable form of English nationalism,” he replied, “I have huge sympathy with the political argument. As you know, by choice, SNP MPs have abstained from every vote on English legislation that does not have an immediate Scottish consequence. If you’re asking me should people in England be able to run their own health service or education system, my answer is yes. They should be able to do it without the bossy interference of Scots Labour MPs…. Because I believe in independence for Scotland, I also believe in independence for England.”

Over the recent period, the Conservative Party—still concentrated predominantly in southern England—has begun to flirt with English nationalism. Sure enough, the right-wing press in England made hay with allegations that with the income tax reform, Scotland was again being subsidised by English taxpayers. In response, Prime Minister Gordon Brown signalled that the Labour government is prepared to concede greater fiscal autonomy to Scotland. In a speech to Scottish business leaders earlier this month, he said there was a “problem” with the fact that the Scottish parliament was not more accountable for its spending.

Passport and ID controls between UK and Ireland?

Alex Doherty — Wed, 10 Sep 2008 11:07:41 +0000

Proposals to introduce passport and identity checks for air and sea travellers between Britain and Ireland are being circulated by the British and Irish governments. Should they be enacted, controls on movement around the little known Common Travel Area (CTA), incorporating the United Kingdom, the Irish Republic, the Channel Isles and the Isle of Man, will be strengthened to levels unseen since World War II.

In a joint statement July 24, British Home Office Minister Jacqui Smith and her Irish counterpart Dermot Ahern pledged to use “state of the art border technology, joint sea and port operations and the continued exchange of intelligence … to identity those people who may be of interest to our law enforcement authorities.” The announcement attracted little press attention, no commentary and would seem to be, at this stage, a testing of the water for measures that are certain to be hugely unpopular.

The proposal is part of the British government’s drive to implement a host of antidemocratic measures under the guise of the “war on terror” and a clampdown on immigration. Over the last months, Labour has introduced fingerprinting for all visa applicants, on-the-spot fines for employers who do not check workers’ immigration status and an immigration points system. In the immediate future, the government intends to check all air passengers against “watch lists” of undesirables, and introduce ID cards for all foreign nationals in the UK.

The new measures are being overseen by the recently created UK Border Agency, set up by the government last year to integrate Customs, the Border and Immigration Agency, and UK Visas. The agency employs 25,000 staff and has a £2 billion budget.

The government clearly views the longstanding and open travel arrangements between Britain and Ireland, and the “Crown dependencies,” as a weakness within the surveillance apparatus it is constructing. Some 15.6 million passenger journeys are currently made between Britain, Ireland and the Crown dependencies. The vast majority of these are between Britain and Ireland.

In a consultation paper published last month, Home Office Minister Liam Byrne suggested that full immigration controls should be faced by “non-CTA” nationals moving between the UK, Ireland and the dependencies by 2014.

At the same time, “measures to verify the identities of UK, Irish and Crown dependency nationals” would be introduced. All air and sea travel between the UK and Ireland would be monitored against the government’s e-Borders watch lists. Carrier liability would be introduced on these routes to enforce travel companies to adhere to the new requirements.

The government also announced that while the border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland would not be policed by “fixed immigration controls,” “increasing ad hoc immigration checks on vehicles” would be considered.

The measures do not cover travel between Northern Ireland and the rest of the UK. But the Irish Times reported that powers could be implemented before the end of 2008, allowing British police to demand information about travellers from the UK to Belfast and Derry airports and ports in Larne and Stranraer. This can be done under Section 14 of the Police and Justice Act 2006 and requires only ministerial approval.

Liam Byrne gave a written parliamentary answer stating, “It is expected that this police power will only apply to air and sea routes between Great Britain and Northern Ireland. Passengers will not be required to use passports, but may be required to produce one of several types of documentation, including passports, when travelling, to enable the carrier to meet the requirements of a police request.”

The British and Irish governments have also apparently agreed that vehicles being carried on car ferries can be searched to ensure they have proper documentation, with ferry companies again facing a carrier liability fine.

The proposal has been condemned by pro-British Ulster Unionists, who complain that the controls will contradict Northern Ireland’s status as an integral part of the UK. The British government has responded that many carriers already impose document checks. And, in a letter to then Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) leader Ian Paisley, Prime Minister Gordon Brown denied that British citizens would be required to produce documents to travel within their own country.

That, however, alongside the measures between Britain and the Irish republic, is exactly what is being considered.

The CTA itself dates back to the earliest days of the partition of Ireland. Following the 1916-21 War of Independence and the establishment of the Irish Free State, Britain agreed to forgo passport controls between the UK and its former colony in return for the new Irish state’s agreement to control “aliens” in general and “Bolshevists” in particular.

Free movement arrangements were suspended during World War II, when Ireland maintained neutral status and was perceived by British imperialism as a potential haven for agents of Nazi Germany. For their part, the Irish authorities wanted to keep refugees out. The British government only allowed entrance to those with employment and with approval both governments, while the Irish government enforced police returns from hoteliers and barred access to all other than British and Irish nationals.

In the aftermath of the war, with demand for cheap Irish labour, free movement was reinstated. Visa requirements for entry to Ireland and the UK were henceforth closely integrated, although not identical.

No formal checks were imposed during the “Troubles,” when Republicans conducted an armed campaign against British rule, including several bombings. Although a series of draconian Prevention of Terrorism Acts were passed, this did not extend to compulsory ID checks. Documentation was not even required on the then contested and highly militarised border between the Irish Republic and Northern Ireland, overseen with army watchtowers and helicopters.

In 1997, around the time of the Good Friday Agreement that paved the way for Sinn Fein to enter government with the Unionists, the UK and Ireland negotiated an exception for the CTA from the EU’s Amsterdam Treaty, which concretised the 1991 Schengen Agreement “Fortress Europe” immigration policy and information sharing system.

Today, security relations between the UK and Ireland are amicable. The British and Irish governments are closer politically than ever. Sinn Fein sits more or less comfortably in the British government in Northern Ireland, along with the DUP. The Irish Republican Army (IRA) has disbanded. The Northern Irish border is open and un-militarised and increasingly economically irrelevant, save to those exploiting tax and currency differences.

Why then the proposals for such controls? In a report no doubt intended to back the government proposals, MI5 recently claimed that the most serious security threat currently faced by the UK was not from Islamic terrorists, but from some 80 “hardcore” Republican dissidents such as the Continuity IRA.

No media commentator saw fit to point out the massive contradictions between the scale of the measures being proposed and the small numbers identified as a threat. Nor did they ask why the British government feel obliged to propose measures not deemed necessary throughout the entire period of the Northern Ireland dirty war.

Still less was there any comment that this latest claim flatly contradicts the entire thrust of the government’s “war on terror,” which is supposedly directed against Islamic groups considered to be a mortal threat to UK security.

The truth is that whether under the guise of Islamic terror, a dissident Republican threat, or under the more general heading of a clampdown on immigration, the Labour government is assembling measures more akin to a police state.

Scotland's health failing

tim — Tue, 26 Aug 2008 19:16:42 +0000

It has now been established that some 3,145 people contracted Clostridium difficile associated disease (CDAD) in Scottish hospitals in the six months between December 2007 and May 2008. Of these 285 died, with CDAD being cited as the underlying cause of death in 86 cases and a contributory factor in 199, a fatality rate of 9 percent.

The extent of CDAD emerged from reports commissioned by the Scottish government following a public outcry over CDAD-related deaths in one hospital, the Vale of Leven Hospital, in Alexandria, near Glasgow.

The reports make clear that the danger of CDAD is by no means restricted to the Vale of Leven, and that its source lies in the systematic undermining of public health by successive UK and Scottish governments.

Clostridium difficile is a known quantity, first discovered in 1935. Along with the anti-biotic resistant strain of staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), the bacteria is one of the so-called “superbugs” which have emerged in recent decades as resistant to many commonly used antibiotics. Present naturally in around three percent of human intestines, the bacteria become dangerous if anti-biotic, or other treatment or medical conditions, has destroyed rival intestinal microbes. Under these conditions, the bacteria can rapidly spread, causing diarrhoea, colonic ulceration and perforation, fatigue, severe dehydration and blood poisoning. CDAD can be particularly dangerous for elderly people or weakened patients.

While there are a range of treatments available for CDAD, the most important medical response is to control the spread of bacterial spores to prevent infection being transmitted to other vulnerable patients. Spores, which are broadcast from infected faeces, are resistant to ordinary disinfectants, and have been shown to be able to survive in the open air for up to two years. Preventing transmission of the disease, therefore, depends on a rigorous, long-term infection control regime.

But the reports make clear such a regime was absent in many hospitals.

At the Vale of Leven Hospital, a team of public health academics and a microbiologist were tasked with identifying why death rates from CDAD at the hospital (18 people died out of 55 who were infected) were significantly higher than the average. The fatalities were mostly older people recovering from a range of conditions, but who were sufficiently weakened to be unable to combat CDAD.Their report found that the threat of closure which had been hanging over the hospital for more than 10 years had meant it had not been sufficiently upgraded and maintained.

The Vale of Leven had been a popular local hospital. However, Labour’s spending cuts—under the guise of “re-organisation”—saw a host of proposals brought forward, including its eventual closure, which led to continuous uncertainty as to its future.

The consequence of this, the report notes, was “...the capacity of the hospital to effectively isolate CDAD patients was limited due to lack of suitable facilities for effective infection control practices such as appropriate bed spacing, single rooms and hand wash basins.”

Based on evidence, including testimony from family members of those affected and hospital staff, the report outlined a catalogue of basic practical deficiencies:

* Family members, who took soiled laundry home to wash for patients, were given no instructions on the dangers associated with CDAD. Few patients were given hospital nightwear. Visitors were given unclear advice on contact with patients.

* Different approaches to infection were taken on different wards. Some staff appeared to be unaware that that soap and water was needed to combat infection, instead of the readily available alcohol gel.

* Beds of infected patients were packed together in badly ventilated and over-heated wards. There was also a lack of hand wash basins, ward cleanliness was inconsistent and the hospital was in a generally dilapidated state.

In addition, the integration of the disbanded Argyll and Clyde Health Board into the Greater Glasgow and Clyde Health Board, revealed “a lack of clarity and leadership in several key roles and responsibilities, committee structures and lines of reporting.”

The Argyll and Clyde Health Board had been responsible for health care over a hugely dispersed area of nearly 3,000 square miles and a population of over 400,000—during the course of which it ran up a debt of some £80 million.

In 2005, the response of the Scottish Executive, then controlled by the Labour Party, was to close down the board and split its debt and responsibilities between two successor authorities, including the expanded Greater Glasgow and Clyde authority.

Commenting on the report, leading bacteriologist and commentator on infectious diseases, Professor Hugh Pennington noted “I have no doubt that initially people were infected because of the conditions there. Dirty toilets, patient areas not having wash hand basins, these are fundamental conditions which allow C.diff to spread.”

“We learned all this in the 19th century and it’s crazy these things are still going on. All these deaths in a small hospital—you can only explain that as there being something seriously wrong with the place.”

Ample warning

The second report, by Health Protection Scotland (HPS), made clear that conditions at the Vale of Leven were replicated in other areas. Aberdeen Royal Infirmary, Kirkcaldy, Wishaw, the Victoria Infirmary in Glasgow, and Woodend in the Grampian region were also reported as having higher-than-average infection or fatality rates.

It also noted general weaknesses in reporting CDAD cases and deaths. Remarkably, the report suggested that there were local inconsistencies in reporting the cause of death on death certificates. While each health board had its own methods of reporting levels of infection, these were not consistent across regions. Other than through death certificates, there was no reliable means of monitoring CDAD instances.

Ample warnings were available of the dangers of CDAD. There had been a drastic increase in CDAD infections in England, from around 1,000 annually in the early 1990s to 44,488 in 2004, largely due to similar circumstances to those outlined in the Vale of Leven report. In Kent alone 90 people died as a result.

In 2005 Paul Grime, a member of the British Medical Association’s occupational health committee, noted: “If we are successfully going to tackle hospital-acquired infections, we need a co-ordinated approach across the whole hospital community—doctors, nurses, cleaners, managers, patients and their visitors all taking action on hygiene…”

Despite this caution, a July 2007 report prepared by HPS, disclosed that almost 10 percent of hospital patients were acquiring some form of infection, including CDAD, in hospital, in addition to whatever condition had brought them to hospital in the first place. In one hospital, Stobhill in Glasgow, infection rates were closer to 20 percent.

In February 2008, eight months later, an internal document from HPS complained of a “lack of guidance” over how Scottish health authorities should respond to the warnings from England. Scotland on Sunday acquired the document which showed that an HPS official attended a meeting in London on the scale of the problem. The official communicated his concerns on his return.

Yet in June 2008, sources close to Scottish National Party Health Minister Nicola Sturgeon said neither she, nor health department officials, had any knowledge of new guidelines for combating CDAD which were being implemented in England, in the aftermath of the 2004 deaths. The guidelines appear to have resulted in some reduction in CDAD deaths

Clearly frustrated at official indifference, Pennington at the time noted “Bugs don’t stop at Gretna [a town on the border between Scotland and England]. But the Department for Health in Scotland appears to have been far more laid-back than their counterparts in England.”

Pennington continued, “The seriousness of the problem would have been much less and the number of deaths would have been much less,” he said.

Yet a few weeks later in July, Sturgeon claimed that “Scotland has one of the most comprehensive sets of policies and procedures to manage hospital-acquired infections in Europe.”

With the publication of the reports, the SNP is attempting to circumvent calls for a full public inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the deaths at the Vale of Leven.

Sturgeon has passed the reports over to the Lord Advocate—Scotland’s chief legal official and a political appointee—to see whether Glasgow and Clyde Health Board should be prosecuted.

While Glasgow and Clyde Health Board may bear some responsibility, Sturgeon’s move is nevertheless a blatant attempt to pass the buck. By seeking to attribute the Vale of Leven outbreak to health board failings, the SNP hopes to obscure the broader and more fundamental issues raised by the gutting of health care in the service of the market.

The consequences of this were shown in the announcement earlier this week that a hospital ward at Queen Margaret in Dunfermline, Fife has been closed following an outbreak of C.diff.

Court decides to electronically tag dementia sufferer

JamieSW — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 16:32:34 +0000

A Scottish judge has ordered a dementia sufferer to be electronically tagged. Lord Matthews ruled that Edward Flaherty, who killed his wife in an incident of which he has no recollection, be confined to his tower block flat in Glasgow’s east-end.

The case exposes the brutality and callousness with which the Scottish legal authorities treat vulnerable people.

Flaherty, a pensioner and retired scaffolding worker, was convicted of strangling his wife Ina with a tie in April last year, after she refused to give him money to go back to the local public house where they had both been drinking.

The 74-year-old Flaherty, the Glasgow High Court was told, had developed an alcohol problem since retiring and was also seriously mentally ill due to his degenerative mental condition.

A medical report prepared for the court noted that at one point, Flaherty claimed he had killed his sister because she was being cheeky. On another occasion, he took a train to Bristol, 385 miles away, arrived not knowing where he was and had to have money forwarded to pay for his return. He thought the current US president was Richard Nixon. He has had three heart attacks and will ultimately require 24-hour-a-day care.

When he gave evidence, Flaherty accepted that he must have killed Ina. He told the court, “It must have been me. There are no ghosts running about the house who would have done that.” He denied a suggestion from the prosecution that he “blocked” memories of the killing.

Members of the jury wept when Flaherty told the court that his 52-year marriage with Ina had been “strong and firm.” They had never once struck each other. Medical reports on Ina explained that even slight pressure on her neck could have caused death because the 69-year-old woman’s arteries were badly furred.

The jury found Flaherty guilty of culpable homicide, a charge to which, according to the defence, he was always willing to plead guilty. The Crown, however, had sought a murder conviction and the ordeal of a trial.

Flaherty’s terrible circumstances are an expression of the routine, widespread and deliberate neglect of vulnerable older people, particularly those struggling to cope with appalling consequences of dementia. There are estimated to be between 5,776 and 6,475 people with senile dementia in Glasgow City alone, the vast majority over 65. Some 700,000 sufferers are estimated across the UK, with numbers expected to rise as the population ages.

In addition to memory loss and confusion, the complicated condition, mostly Alzheimer’s disease, which is associated with a progressive loss of neurons, can dramatically affect behaviour. Each sufferer of dementia is affected in a unique way, as skills and abilities taken for granted become compromised and inhibitions can disappear, for example.

To the extent that an individually tailored and comprehensive support regime is not available for sufferers and their families, which is frequently the case, the disease can place a huge burden on those closest to the patient. This is in addition to the emotional strain on all concerned of seeing a loved one decline.

Flaherty’s drinking is also part of a far broader trend of endemic alcohol abuse. Some 789 people died from alcohol-related causes in the Greater Glasgow and Clyde area in 2005. Across the UK, the figure was 8,758 in 2006. Figures between 1998 and 2004 suggested that 15 of the top 20 greatest concentrations of alcohol-related deaths were in Scotland.

All this was lost on Lord Matthews, whose sole concern was to punish the retired and ailing worker in a manner that did not place any burdens on the prison system.

Lord Matthews informed the court that in normal circumstances “this would attract a prison sentence in double figures.”

He went on, “It is plain to me that…you would be released in a very short time because prison would not be able to cope with your condition. Sentencing you would just be a token gesture. I am anxious to impose a sentence that restricts your liberty.”

The judge concluded that a “more meaningful” punishment would be to electronically tag Flaherty, and to ban him from leaving home between the hours of 11 a.m. and 11 p.m. This would prevent Flaherty from attending the local pub.

Having deprived Flaherty of what is likely one of the few sources of social contact available, Lord Matthews made no attempt at all to ensure that Flaherty received the care he so desperately needs. Instead, Flaherty has effectively been curfewed to his isolated flat in one of the poorest areas in Britain.

Tommy Sheridan pitches to the Scottish National Party

tim — Sat, 02 Aug 2008 11:30:53 +0000

One question posed by the recent by-election in Glasgow East is just how long it will be before Tommy Sheridan joins the Scottish Nationalist Party?

Sheridan is the former leader the Scottish Socialist Party (SSP) and now heads the breakaway Solidarity, Scotland’s Socialist Movement. The two parties split in September 2006, after Sheridan took out an ultimately successful defamation case against Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World, over allegations that he attended a swingers club, which the SSP leadership refused to back. Both parties stood candidates in Glasgow East, which saw a humiliating defeat for Labour by the SNP with a 26.1 percent swing in what was Labour’s 26th safest seat.

Solidarity was formed by Sheridan’s closest allies within the SSP and backed by Scottish members of the Socialist Workers Party and the rival Committee for a Workers’ International (CWI). With no programmatic differences between the two parties, support for Sheridan was based largely on the belief that his high profile would provide the best means of maintaining the influence won under his leadership by the SSP in the Scottish Parliament at Holyrood, where it had six MSPs. In the event, neither party won enough votes in the 2007 May elections to gain a seat, and most of their support collapsed and went over to the SNP.

Sheridan even then made clear that he was in favour of an SNP victory. But the most striking feature of the Glasgow East by-election campaign waged by Sheridan is how he took every opportunity to make what amounted to a sales pitch on his own behalf, to the SNP.

During a BBC “Newsnight Scotland” roundtable interview of representatives of the smaller parties in the early stages of the campaign, Sheridan, speaking for Solidarity, opened his remarks by stating baldly, “If I am being absolutely honest, I hope the SNP would win rather than Labour. If we are honest, we are fighting for third place….”

Later, he returned to his theme, stating, “We’re not going to win the election, we want to take third…but if you put me on the spot and say who would you rather win, I would rather Gordon Brown got a political kicking….”

Sheridan made no mention of his party’s candidate, Tricia McLeish. While he made references to “big business parties,” at no time did he make any explicit criticism of the SNP.

Sheridan’s proposal that voters could give Gordon Brown “a kicking” by voting SNP dovetailed with the campaign of the SNP, which played down its demand for Scottish independence due to the unpopularity of the idea of independence with the working class.

Solidarity literature distributed during the campaign portrayed the party as left advisers to the SNP. A two-page article, “SNP in Power—One Year On,” took up half of its free news sheet.

In this article, Phil Stott and Steve Arnott pledged that “Solidarity will continue to welcome positive reforms from the SNP and say why and when we don’t think they go far enough; we will criticise the SNP when they put the interest of business and the wealthy before the interests of the majority of society, and we will point out consistently that it is the left leaning measures of the SNP that have so far also proved the most popular.”

Arnott and Stott explicitly aim to build Solidarity as a left cover to the SNP, but Sheridan’s uncritical praise for the SNP seems to be generating tensions within Solidarity.

At a Solidarity eve of poll meeting, in response to a question posed by myself, Sheridan made clear just how far removed he is from socialist politics.

In his speech, Sheridan noted that “the SNP is now the party of protest. SNP is to the left of Labour, so is Glasgow East.”

Voters, Sheridan went on, should seek to pressure the SNP. They should ask the SNP, “...are you supporting public ownership of oil?”

Speaking from the audience, this writer noted that Sheridan had “highlighted bad social conditions in Glasgow. The same conditions hold in London, Liverpool, Sheffield, Newcastle, and Hartlepool. A unified struggle by working class in Britain against poverty, inequality, the consequences of war in Iraq, the attack on democratic rights, and all the policies of the social elite for whom Labour and the Tories speak, is needed. In what sense does your proposal of Scottish independence advance this?”

Sheridan replied with a forthright call for Scottish “nationhood” on the basis of capitalism. Echoing the SNP’s long-standing perspective of “an independent Scotland in Europe,” he stated that the European Union “has recently expanded to incorporate 10 new nations with a lower population than Scotland. Scotland has the economic strength to survive.”

“Internationalism,” he added, “is ‘inter’ and ‘nationalism’...a collective of nationalisms”.

Thus, rather than expressing the strivings of the working class to overcome national divisions and to take forward a world struggle for the replacement of the profit system, Sheridan’s conception of “internationalism” is simply an alliance between the bourgeoisie of smaller regions and powers. This outlook defines his indifference towards the working class in the rest of Britain. His outlook is entirely nationalist. He concluded his reply by declaring, “I don’t feel British or part of British imperialism…. Labour is a British party.”

Sheridan has no similar reservations when identifying with a smaller imperialist nation, Scotland, and with the governing Scottish party, the SNP.

Commenting on the result in Glasgow East, Sheridan proclaimed, “This is a historic victory in Glasgow East for the SNP and I congratulate John Mason. Let us be clear it is a victory for a left of centre party which carries on Glasgow’s radical tradition….”

Sheridan is a man with an eye on the main chance. He is someone who won the admiration of sections of the Scottish establishment during his years in the Scottish parliament for his tireless promotion of Holyrood. He clearly has aspirations to revive his parliamentary career. Initially, he is attempting to do that by aligning Solidarity as close as possible with the SNP and, should circumstances allow, by joining it and acting as its left face.

Sheridan is still facing perjury charges as part of the fallout from the libel case he pursued against Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World. A major legal and police operation has subsequently been mounted against him for his humiliating defeat of the media giant for securing $200,000 compensation. Sheridan’s insistence on fighting the case, against his own party’s advice, split the SSP in two and saw SSP members giving evidence against him.

Defending the good name of “family man” Sheridan from lurid allegations was, clearly, more important to him than the very existence of his own party. For this was a question of maintaining “Brand Sheridan” and safeguarding his own future career.

The SSP, however, still has no differences of principle with Sheridan and Solidarity. Like Solidarity, the SSP proposes a “Scottish socialist republic” as a means to provide a platform for the social reforms once proposed by the Labour Party. Both parties support Scottish independence as proposed by the SNP as a necessary stage towards this goal.

Like Solidarity, the SSP bears full responsibility for the ability of the SNP to benefit from the collapse of the Labour Party, as expressed most dramatically in Labour’s latest by-election disaster. They always refer to the split with him as “a tragedy,” which prevented a more effective struggle for their own nationalist and reformist politics. Their struggle is reduced to which is the bigger and more viable vehicle for championing independence.

The SSP’s analysis of the campaign, authored by Richie Venton, focused heavily on the fact that its candidate and former MSP Frances Curran polled a few more votes than Solidarity in Glasgow East—555 compared to 512. This was most important for them in reversing the relative position of the two parties last year.

However, their line was exactly the same as that of Solidarity. Venton sought to misrepresent the huge swing against the Labour Party as representing support for independence. He admitted that “There was not widespread, overt, explicit talk on the streets of this being a vote on independence.” But then, echoing Sheridan and the SNP, he went on to assert that “it clearly is a clash of contrasting opinions on the Westminster Labour government compared to the Holyrood SNP government—and is a massive impetus towards independence.”

The SSP will continue to make its occasional denunciations of Sheridan and decry the SNP as a capitalist party. But it cannot distance itself from that fact that he was the party’s leader and public face for close to two decades. And it is within the opportunist and saltire waving milieu of the SSP that Sheridan’s politics germinated and bore fruit. As to his current allies in the SWP, they will find their alliance with the “best known and greatly respected” Sheridan to be a perhaps greater political embarrassment than their disastrous relationship with George Galloway.

Paisley’s Resignation and Adams’s Regret

Ellie Keen — Sat, 05 Apr 2008 11:28:42 +0000

Ian Paisley’s decision to resign in May this year from his office as First Minister of Northern Ireland has been greeted with great regret by those he has spent his entire political career denouncing.

Gerry Adams, president of Sinn Fein, described Paisley as a “fascinating, gracious man.” Paisley, according to Adams, was motivated by “genuine endeavour to make things better for the people who live here.” Adams was looking forward to getting to know Paisley better when he retires to the back benches.

Sinn Fein’s Martin McGuinness, the deputy first minister, was just as effusive: “I think that [Paisley] will be fondly remembered by the people of Ireland—north and south—for the very courageous leadership that he showed.”

In contrast, when Paisley steps down next month, his own party, whose leadership he is resigning, will be glad to see the back of him. He will likely be replaced by his longstanding deputy and Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) hard man, Peter Robinson.

Paisley has been steadily undermined since he took over the First Minister position. He has faced increasing criticism from Unionists within and outside the DUP, which he founded, for his amiable working relations with McGuinness.

A property scandal involving his son, Ian Paisley junior, who himself resigned as a junior minister, removed his last prop of support within the DUP.

Yet, Paisley has never renounced or expressed the slightest regret for his decades spent in anti-Catholic and anti-Republican incitement.

More so perhaps than any other one individual, he is associated with the sectarian hatred and killing in Northern Ireland that characterised much of the “Troubles.” For almost a half century, he functioned as the loudest ideologue and agitator. Many of those recruited into loyalist terror gangs cited Paisley’s incendiary demagogy as central to their political development.

In 1986, at the head of a loyalist demonstration, he famously insisted that Ulster would “never, never, never” surrender.

The kind words from Adams and McGuinness express the degree to which Sinn Fein has been integrated into the apparatus of British rule in Northern Ireland, over which Ulster Unionists have less influence than hitherto. This, in turn, can only be understood as the product of the impact of globalised capitalist production on all political and social relations and which gave rise to the “peace process,” the Good Friday Agreement, the 2006 St. Andrews Agreement between Adams and Paisley, and the revival of the Stormont Assembly with Sinn Fein in power alongside the DUP.

When Northern Ireland was partitioned off from the rest of Ireland in 1921 following the Anglo-Irish war, the six-county state dominated by the rich and powerful Protestant bourgeoisie was an important and highly integrated part of British imperialism’s industrial and political power. Belfast was a major industrial location, with the vast majority of its considerable production exported to Britain and its imperial holdings. The continual threat from a powerful working class was countered by state-organised religious sectarianism, Orange mobs, and systematic anti-Catholic discrimination and hysteria.

By the 1960s, however, the industrial importance of the north was in rapid decline. The military spending of World War II had propped up the economy, but this came to a sudden end. Considerable industry remained, but this was no longer cutting edge. Northern Ireland was increasingly dependent on Britain. At the same time, the Catholic minority population’s determined demands for civil rights were gaining a hearing amongst Protestant workers.

The response from the Unionist bourgeoisie was brutal repression, enflamed by Paisley’s incessant religious ranting. British troops were sent in large numbers in 1969 to stabilise a political situation, which the British government saw as a threat not only to Protestant Ulster but to the stability of capitalist rule across Ireland and in Britain itself.

Over the course of the decades of “the Troubles” and the dirty war against the IRA, British imperialism expanded a vast amount of effort in maintaining its rule over Northern Ireland, which became one of the most militarised areas on the planet. For the Unionist bourgeoisie, the large military and related high levels of social spending, maintained for decades, became a new source of wealth and privilege, while the large military apparatus provided work for significant numbers of Protestants.

This regime of perpetual crisis obscured the underlying loss of competitiveness and increasingly isolation and backwardness of Northern Ireland industry. At the same time, the Irish republic, long an economic backwater, emerged rather suddenly through low tax policies and European funding as one of the most favourable investment locations in the world. American companies poured in, finding cheap labour and access to European markets. By the 1990s, the “Celtic Tiger” economy was among the fastest expanding in the world, while Ireland had one of highest per capita standards of living, and was eyed enviously from across the border.

Northern Ireland, by contrast, was still in a war that, by their own admission, neither side could win. Civil conflict, politically and economically, was increasingly an obstacle to economic development. Who would invest in divided Belfast, trapped behind a militarised border, when Dublin was a safer, more fashionable and lower tax option—one, moreover, with better transport links to the UK and Europe? In the end, British imperialism concluded that the high levels of military and social spending in Northern Ireland could not be sustained and an agreement had to be reached with Sinn Fein and the IRA.

As for Sinn Fein, with its traditional American links, the investment wave drew it closer to the orbit of US imperialism from whence most of the investment originated.

These circumstances formed the underpinning of the IRA ceasefire in 1994 and the Good Friday Agreement of 1998. Sinn Fein, in return for accepting British rule, was allowed into a power-sharing arrangement with the Unionists. Sectarian division would remain an essential instrument of rule because every level of government, including ministerial positions, would be allocated based on a “community” designation.

The Irish republic also agreed to remove any constitutional claim on the North.

In return for the removal of the IRA, the British military effort would be drastically scaled down, releasing forces for more pressing foreign wars. Sinn Fein would cease its paramilitary policing of nationalist areas and support, oversee, and encourage Catholics to join a reformed Royal Ulster Constabulary—the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Cross-border links and institutions would be developed specifically to allow greater collaboration at all levels of government. In this way, Sinn Fein, and the aspiring layer of increasingly wealthy Catholics for whom it speaks, would become integrated into, and responsible for, capitalist rule in the North. Its members would take up comfortable positions in the state apparatus and develop their own business interests alongside their Unionist counterparts.

For the Unionists, the terms meant that Ulster would indefinitely remain part of the UK, while the IRA would be neutralised. Without the war, the investment and tourism opportunities available to the Celtic Tiger would be available to the North. One “strand” of the Good Friday Agreement offered a British-Irish council to deepen Unionist ties to the rest of Britain.

This is to a large extent what has happened, with the initial establishment of the Assembly, with the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) led by David Trimble as the major party and Sinn Fein playing second republican fiddle to the then larger Social Democratic Labour Party (SDLP).

Prime Minister Tony Blair’s former chief-of-staff Jonathan Powell’s recently published book on the background to the Agreement, Great Hatred Little Room, makes clear how important it was for Sinn Fein that any deal was presented in terms that would appear to be a move towards a united Ireland. Adams was desperate to avoid a split within the republican movement, such as gave rise to the Provisional IRA when it split from the Official IRA.

However, in 2003, Adams announced that “The IRA is never going to disband in response to ultimatums from the British government or David Trimble [then leader of the UUP]. But I do believe the logic of the peace process puts us in a different place. So if you ask me do I envisage a future without an IRA? The answer is obvious. The answer is yes.”

These words were in fact penned by Powell himself in his role as adviser and Northern Ireland fixer for the Blair government between 1998 and 2007. [1]

For the more hard-line Unionists, however, it was politically necessary to appear to have conceded nothing at all. Historically, privileges offered exclusively to Protestants generated mass support for Unionism amongst Protestants, and were justified in the rantings of a succession of religious demagogues, epitomised by Paisley himself. Concessions to Dublin, dilution of Protestant hegemony, or undermining its security apparatus were all presented as an attack on the rights and heritage of the “Protestant people.”

At every point over the extended decay of Northern Ireland’s economic influence, hard-line Unionism attempted to mobilise on the streets and politically to block any and all threats to rule from Britain. This accounts for the continual tensions within Ulster Unionism, caught between those attempting to open the way for the expansion of corporate profit in Northern Ireland, and those whose interests lie in maintaining the traditional apparatus and British subsidies.

Trimble, the former deputy-leader of the far-right Vanguard Progressive Unionist Party whose loyalist strike brought down a previous power-sharing agreement in 1973, was elected as leader of the UUP in 1995. He came to public prominence in Portadown during a succession of loyalist protests outside Drumcree Church, when he did a jig in front of TV cameras with Paisley.

But it was under Trimble that the UUP was finally cajoled into the Good Friday Agreement by the British and US governments. Paisley’s DUP and some hardliners within the UUP opposed signing the agreement and furiously denounced the disbandment of the Protestant-dominated Ulster Defence Regiment, and the reform of the RUC.

After 1998, the DUP denounced every move towards implementing the Agreement as a concession to terrorism and insisted that IRA disarmament and weapons decommissioning was speeded up and independently confirmed.

The Northern Ireland assembly was repeatedly suspended to prevent First Minister Trimble from losing support to the DUP. Nevertheless, the polarisation of political opinion was expressed by Sinn Fein becoming the largest Republican Party and the DUP finally replacing the UUP in 2005 as the largest Unionist party.

Once he came to office, however, “Dr. No” also ended up agreeing to power sharing with Sinn Fein.

He was assisted in this by the effective disbandment of the IRA. US support for the IRA all but dissipated since the September 11, 2001, attack on the Twin Towers. Under intense pressure from Washington and London, and after a complicated process of arms destruction, monitoring and international verification, the IRA agreed to end its military campaign and Sinn Fein have joined the PSNI policing boards and accepted MI5 being in charge of national security.

Underpinning the final agreement between Sinn Fein and the DUP, and the revival of Stormont in 2007, was also a growing unease that the protracted delays in reviving the Assembly were impacting on economic prospects.

In the end, the DUP and Paisley were presented with a “Plan B,” under which more influence over affairs in the North would be transferred to Dublin with the weakened Unionists further excluded. Faced with this, and a healthy short-term subsidy from Britain, the DUP signed up to power sharing.

Sharing office with the arch-Unionist villain Paisley was in many ways a political coup for Sinn Fein. His acquiescence was proof that the fruits of office were now secure. However, while the DUP leadership around Peter Robinson and Nigel Dodds are every bit as concerned as Sinn Fein to draw in new investment and prepare the way for privatisations, the longstanding conflicts remain and have increasingly focused on the 81-year-old Paisley.

Paisley and McGuinness became known disparagingly in hard-line Unionist circles as the “Chuckle brothers.” Shortly after taking office in 2007, Paisley was removed from his position at the head of the Free Presbyterian Church he formed in 1951 for consorting with the “monstrous and ungodly” Sinn Fein. Free Presbyterians took out adverts protesting “power-sharing with murderers.”

The DUP has also seen a string of resignations. In March 2007, Jim Allister, who replaced Paisley as the DUP’s member of the European Parliament (MEP), resigned. Allister, a former lawyer, established a new group, Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), which opposes the Good Friday and St. Andrew’s Agreements, calls for direct rule in a simple majority Assembly, which would be controlled by Unionists, and describes Sinn Fein as “unrepentant terrorists.” TUV equates Paisley with Trimble and describes his attitude to the IRA as “hopelessly naïve.”

A TUV candidate in a recent council by-election at Dromore, a commuter village near Belfast, polled 739 first preference votes, against 1069 for the DUP and 912 for the UUP. The Protestant-dominated seat was finally won by the UUP through second preference allocations.

Paisley’s fate was sealed following the revelation that Ian Paisley junior had utilised the St. Andrew’s negotiations, at which he served as the closest adviser to his father, to extract concessions for a tourist project at the Giant’s Causeway, in which a DUP supporter and personal ally of Paisley junior had interests.

Deprived of his closest ally, Paisley quietly retired. This leaves the Sinn Fein leadership facing an increasingly fractious and disunited DUP, prompting Adams to state, “My only concern…is that those within the DUP who are against power-sharing, and there are some, would use any instability in the leadership or any question around the leadership to set back the progress we have made thus far.”

Notes:

1. Jonathan Powell. Great Hatred Little Room, Making Peace in Northern Ireland. Bodley Head, 2008 (p. 213).

Billy Wright Inquiry

Tim Holmes — Tue, 26 Jun 2007 17:02:30 +0000

John Kenneway was found dead in his Northern Ireland prison cell on June 8. Shortly after his death in Maghaberry Prison, the Northern Ireland Prison Service announced its regrets. The Northern Ireland Prison Ombudsman launched an investigation, in line with normal procedures.

Kenneway’s death was reportedly suicide, but by an unusual means. According to press reports based on prison sources, prisoner A2544 tied a ligature around his neck and leant back, gradually tightening the noose around his neck, “which is more an act of choking than hanging.” A post-mortem concluded that 45-year-old Kenneway, a father of five, had indeed died by his own hand.

There are reasons enough for circumspection.

Kenneway was one of three members of the Irish National Liberation Army (INLA) responsible for the 1997 assassination in Northern Ireland’s Maze prison of Billy Wright, the loyalist killer and leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF). Kenneway’s death, almost completely ignored by the media, occurred within days of the long-awaited full hearings in the public inquiry into Wright’s murder, in which long-standing allegations of state collusion in the killing are to be examined.

Kenneway was released under licence in 2000 as part of a scheme agreed under the Good Friday Agreement in 1998, through which those convicted of terrorist offences were freed. He was rearrested in February 2007 by order of Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain, who suspended his licence for “alleged offending behaviour.”

Kenneway’s family have requested a second post-mortem. Their solicitor also noted that the family is also “concerned about the circumstances in which he was held on a special unit inside the prison.”

In a statement to the republican Andersontown News, the family accuses the Northern Ireland Prison Service of “breaking” Kenneway by targeted abuse.

Kenneway, who apparently broke relations with the INLA in 2000, was locked up 23 hours a day, for 18 weeks. He was constantly strip-searched, kept awake and not allowed to wash for three-and-a-half weeks. He was denied medication for 10 weeks; family visits and phone calls were disrupted. Early reports of his death suggested it was triggered by the authorities’ refusal to allow him to attend a grandchild’s christening.

The Ulster edition of the Mirror also reported that computer hard drives and video footage had been seized, and prison officers’ lockers forced open, in what was described by a prison source as “the most thorough police investigation ever staged inside a prison in Northern Ireland.”

Kenneway’s death is not the first associated with the Wright inquiry in Maghaberry Prison. LVF leader Mark Fulton, a close confidant of Wright, died in similar circumstances in 2002. Fulton also strangled himself, while lying on a bed. The death was also attributed to suicide at an inquest, but the inquest verdict was critical of prison warders’ failure to record previous attempts by Fulton to take his life.

Jane Winters of British/Irish Rights Watch noted, “There are grounds for concern that two of the potentially most important witnesses who could have given evidence at the Wright inquiry were found dead in very similar circumstances inside Maghaberry prison.”

At the time of his death, Kenneway had apparently not spoken to members of the Wright inquiry team, whose head, Lord Maclean, was reported as being keen to interview Kenneway as to how he knew of Wright’s movements on the day he was killed.

Concerns around the two deaths have to be seen in the context of the protracted investigations of “collusion” by British security agents and informants into paramilitary murders, on both sides, in Northern Ireland.

Over many years, the British authorities and security forces have resorted to desperate measures to disrupt the exposure of collusion and limit its political fallout. At root, “collusion” is a euphemism for the political assassination of British citizens by agents of their own government.

Who was Billy Wright?

Billy Wright was assassinated in December 1997 in the Maze prison, a few miles outside Belfast. His murder remains one of the most controversial to take place during the British government’s dirty war in Northern Ireland.

Wright was a born-again Christian and leader of the LVF. Formerly a brigade commander in the informant-infested Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF), he was suspected of organising scores of sectarian killings, mostly of Catholic civilians. He was widely assumed to be operating with the approval of the British authorities, and was able to carry on his murderous activities with impunity for years.

Wright was expelled from the UVF following the killing of a Catholic taxi driver during the 1996 loyalist Drumcree protests. He had been critical of the UVF for not organising a wave of attacks around the protests. He and around 250 supporters formed the LVF, in opposition to the 1994 loyalist ceasefire, and peace talks that ultimately resulted in the Good Friday Agreement. The UVF threatened to execute him. He was finally jailed in 1997 following threats made against a Catholic woman. Wright requested that bail he had been granted be revoked to offer him greater security in jail.

On December 27, 1997, Wright was shot at least six times and killed by INLA members Christopher McWilliams, John Kenneway and John Glennon, who did not resist arrest and were subsequently convicted of the murder.

The series of security failures and oversights that ultimately led to Wright’s death have given rise to the strong suspicion that the British security forces played a role in allowing the INLA hit to take place. A 1998 official report offered no explanation of how the weapons used in the killing were smuggled into the Maze, ostensibly one of the most secure in Europe. Other “lapses” included housing INLA and LVF prisoners in adjacent areas of the same “H Block,” the “standing down” of a prison officer placed in a watchtower overlooking the prison on the morning Wright was killed, the INLA’s ability to cut a wire fence allowing them access to Wright, and the fact that a strategically located CCTV camera was switched off.

A 2004 report into collusion by Canadian Judge Peter Cory found that the prison authorities knew Wright had already been the target of an INLA murder attempt in Maghaberry Prison earlier in 1997. The authorities were also accused by Cory of turning a “blind eye” to warnings from prison officers that housing the INLA and LVF in proximity would lead to trouble. Cory considered this to be collusion and demanded a full inquiry.

For the British government, Wright’s death removed a political obstacle to their ultimately successful efforts to find new working arrangements between Sinn Fein and the pro-British Northern Ireland establishment. In 1997, the Daily Telegraph reported Northern Ireland’s former chief constable Sir Hugh Annesley saying of Wright, “It’s just a question of who gets to the bastard first, us, the IRA or the UVF. You can take your pick.”

In the intervening years, both the UVF and the Ulster Defence Association have been torn apart by murderous internal feuds, usually drug related, but in which opponents of the agreement have been ostracised, their operations disrupted and many killed. The LVF, following a campaign by the UVF that killed several people and forced dozens of families to leave East Belfast, finally publicly destroyed their weapons in 2005.

Wright’s death is the subject of one of four inquiries into high-profile killings in which British collusion is strongly suspected. Cory also called for inquiries into the loyalist murders of human rights lawyers Pat Finucane and Rosemary Nelson, and the Catholic worker Robert Hamill. These inquiries are progressing extremely slowly.

The inquiries must also be seen alongside recent revelations over the extent of state foreknowledge of the 1999 Omagh bomb, through the activities of the suspected British agent Patrick Joseph Blair; the exposure of Mark Haddock, a UVF chief and loyalist serial killer, as a police informant; and the exposure of Provisional IRA deputy chief of security Freddie Scappaticci and the organisation’s head of international relations, Denis Donaldson, as British agents.

Record destructions and document shredding

The British authorities were forced to accept some level of public inquiry into the most notorious killings of the war as a concession to Sinn Fein. But the danger is that the exposure of the methods and participants in Northern Ireland’s dirty war might go too far.

In addition to the suspicious deaths in Maghaberry prison, numerous previous deaths and attempts to restrict the inquiries through an Inquiries Act, it appears that the security forces have been engaged in systematic efforts to destroy the documentary record.

Preliminary hearings in 2006 for the Wright inquiry, devoted solely to problems associated with the recovery of relevant documents, heard that both intelligence and prison records had been destroyed. According to two Maghaberry staff, security and prison files on 800 prisoners, including Wright, were destroyed in 2001. The destruction was said to have been ordered by the then Maghaberry governor and former British Army intelligence officer, Martin Mogg. Later evidence contradicted this, saying the files disappeared in 2004. Mogg died in 2005.

Other files went missing in 2004. Security files on two of Wright’s killers, an internal report on the murder, whose very existence is controversial, material on the weapon used in the killing along with visitors lists and information on building work carried out on the relevant H Block were destroyed in 2004 as part of a “freedom of information exercise.”

In total, 42,000 files in total were destroyed at this time. Even the destruction of these records appears not to have been properly documented.

In April, the Guardian reported that both MI5 and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) were demanding the return of secret documents previously handed over to the Stevens inquiry, originally established under John Stevens, recently retired head of the Metropolitan police, in 1989 into collusion allegations.

The Stevens Inquiry has amassed a huge amount of evidence—almost 20 tonnes of documentation—including more than 9,000 statements, 1 million pages of documents, and more than 16,000 seized exhibits. Despite 97 prosecutions, so far the only published report has been a slim document conceding that collusion did indeed take place.

Sources within the inquiry told the Guardian, “The first time this stuff will really be out in the public domain will be at the Billy Wright inquiry. This is why the cry from people for their documents to be handed back is getting stronger.”

The same edition of the newspaper reported that some of the material handed back to MI5 and the MoD had been immediately shredded. Stevens Inquiry officials have been forced to make copies of the most important secret documents.

When the full Wright inquiry finally opened in May 2007, lawyers for both the Wright family and the inquiry itself complained of delays in providing documents.

Only two weeks ago, the Police Service of Northern Ireland was still providing documents that had initially been requested in 2005. According to inquiry QC Derek Batchelor, other documents about Wright himself had been handed over that were “devoid of information.” The Wright inquiry, headed by Lord Ranald Maclean, previously on the Lockerbie team of trial judges, is expected to last many months.

The Airlines and the Terror Scare

Alex Doherty — Tue, 22 Aug 2006 14:32:12 +0000

A bitter row has broken out between the government of British Prime Minister Tony Blair and companies operating airports and airlines in the UK, following the officially driven hysteria over the alleged plot to blow up aircraft en route from Britain to the US.

Facing multimillion-pound losses caused by thousands of cancelled flights, tens of thousands of inconvenienced passengers, and increased levels of highly intrusive security measures, a number of airlines have openly attacked the governments anti-terror measures and are investigating compensation claims.

Tensions have risen as it has become increasingly clear the measures imposed were motivated more by the political exigencies of the British and American administrations than by any real and immediate terror threat.

No evidence has been presented to back up claims that a major terrorist threat was only narrowly averted on August 10. It is questionable as to whether any terror plot existed in the first place, given that none of those held without charge had even purchased air tickets and no bombs had been assembled.

Yet, in the early hours of August 10, British airport operators were told by the government to impose an unprecedented security regime, supposedly aimed at thwarting the alleged suicide-bombing plot.

Without prior warning, passengers were informed that only travel documents, sun glasses and urgent medications would be allowed on board as cabin luggage. All other luggage had to be checked in, and all liquids, except baby milk, were banned, as were magazines and books, and every passenger was subject to be searched.

Despite claims that the police had been investigating the alleged plotters for up to one year, none of the airports or airlines had even been informed that a potential threat existed. The instruction to impose new security measures was so unexpected that airports and airlines did not have the staff available to effectively implement the new measures.

Airports were brought to a virtual standstill as check-in, luggage handling, and security staff and systems were overwhelmed. The UKs airports handle more than 217 million people annually, 67 million of whom go through Heathrow Airportthe worlds busiest international airport.

Even when hundreds of staff were called in to deal with the emergency, tens of thousands of travellers were forced to queue for many hours simply to pass security, only to be told repeatedly that their flights were delayed or cancelled altogether.

On August 10 itself, British Airways (BA) cancelled all short-haul flights, and Easyjet cancelled all flights from Londons three airports, citing airport congestion. Ryanair cancelled around 50 flights.

The security measures immediately backed up traffic around the world. Lufthansa cancelled or diverted 28 Heathrow-bound flights. Air France, Iberia and Alitalia made similar cancellations, while all UK-bound flights from the Netherlands were cancelled. Many other airlines were forced to take similar measures.

The British Airport Authority (BAA), the privatised operator of two thirds of British airports, imposed a 20 percent flight reduction on all carriers to reduce congestion. By August 16, nearly a week after the new measures had been introduced, BA had cancelled more than 1,100 flights, and other major UK operators were only just returning to a schedule free of forced cancellations, while a reduced volume of passengers faced much-increased delays and inconvenience.

Even though the government and police claim they have arrested the main players involved in the alleged plot, the security measures have remained in force and there are suggestions they could be made permanent. Eight days after the initial arrests, the Department of Transport said there would be no rapid reductions in security, whilst one source briefed the media that the way we travel will never be the same again.

Estimates of the losses faced by the airlines vary. BA is reported to have lost £30 million on August 10, thereafter £5 million per day. Some reports suggest that in total, airlines will have lost up to £250 million.

The cut-price airlines have been especially hard hit. Easyjets estimated £10 million losses will reduce its profit figures by between 5 and 10 percent, while Ryanair faces a 5 percent cut in profits.

A spokesman for Heathrow Airport told the Sunday Herald, The longer it goes on the harder it becomes for people. Unless the passengers are treated more reasonably we will not have an industry left.

Initially, the airlines turned on the BAA, recently purchased by the Spanish group Ferrovia. BA, Virgin Atlantic, Easyjet and BMI British Midland all supported calls for £250 million compensation from the airport operator. The BAAs Heathrow CEO, Tony Douglas, and his BA counterpart, Willie Walsh, had a public confrontation at Heathrow over the airport authorities threat to ban all flights from airlines that did not follow cancellation orders.

Walsh had previously complained, BAA had no plan ready to keep Heathrow functioning properly. He added, The queues for security have wound all round the terminals like a bad dream at Disneyland…

But in recent days, the airlines, led by Ryanairs Michael OLeary, have begun targeting the Blair government.

Ryanair is one of the worlds most profitable airlines, having risen to become Europes largest short-haul airline on the basis of fast turnaround times, cheap web bookings, standardised aircraft, low pay for cabin crews, and flights to out-of-town air strips.

OLeary is just the kind of successful entrepreneur that the government has been keen to court in recent years. In 2005, Ryanair was criticised for negotiating salary increases only with non-union staff in what a spokesman for the European Transport Workers Federation said was tantamount to blackmail against unionised workers.

At a press conference last week, OLeary posed beside an actor dressed as Winston Churchill, under the slogan Keep Britain flying. He demanded that security be reduced to the usual levels set down by the International Air Transport Association (IATA) within seven days, or the airline would take legal action against the government. He complained, We are now body searching five- and six-year olds flying to Spain for a vacation with their parents. Were not adding to security, were adding to public hysteria.

Describing the security measures as insane and ineffective, he ridiculed the idea that Britain was at risk from lethal toiletries, and queried why, if the terror threat was so grave, similar measures were not being imposed on the London subway and bus network, which has previously been targeted for attack.

In a later statement, he queried whether there had, in fact, been a plot to bomb aircraft. We may not have seen any attempt to blow aircraft out of the sky, he said. Where is the evidence?

Ryanair, along with Easyjet and BA, are considering legal action under the terms of the British 2000 Transport Act. Traditionally, airlines and airports have borne any costs associated with increased security, but the 2000 Transport Act, Section 93, leaves open the possibility of operators being compensated for increased security measures. The airlines are hoping that the threat of a lawsuit will either force the government to abandon its clampdown or compensate the airlines for the costs of imposing it.

The airlines complaints have caused a breach in the medias otherwise unquestioning acceptance of the alleged terror plot and accompanying security measures.

Reflecting widespread and growing public scepticism as to the governments claims, airport workers have been quoted on the idiocy and oppressive character of the new rules.

One pilot, for example, explained that he had been barred from taking his spectacle case onto a flight deck, but noted that there was a fire axe already on board. While my glasses were deemed potentially deadly dangerous items, I once again took my seat at the controls of 185,000 kilos of aeroplane, people and fuel and managed to restrain myself from taking the crash axe to all and sundry prior to rolling, inverted and diving, into the Channel, he said.

Other pilots told how they had been barred from taking their contact lens fluid onto flight decks, despite the potential impact this could have on their vision.

In a move designed to placate the airlines and silence further criticism, Alistair Darling, trade and industry secretary, said security restrictions would be made more manageable in the coming days.

Prestwick Antiwar Protests

Alex Doherty — Fri, 11 Aug 2006 14:00:31 +0000

Prestwick airport, near Glasgow, Scotland, has become a focus for antiwar protests following reports that it is being used for refuelling by US military transport flights carrying bunker buster bombs en route to Israel.

Just days after Israel began its offensive in Lebanon, the US approved a request from the government of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert for accelerated deliveries of the bombs. The munitions, which can penetrate more than seven feet of reinforced concrete, have been used to devastating effect against the civilian population of Lebanon, including in the Qana massacre.

On August 6, seven protestors were arrested within the perimeter of Prestwick airportfour on the runway and three inside a United States Air Force transport plane. Activists with the pacifist group Trident Ploughshares said they boarded the aircraft as part of an investigation into the extent of British government assistance with the transport of arms to Israel.

A press release for the group said, We acted as War Crime Detectives. Britain is breaching international law by allowing Prestwick to be used by the US to fly bombs to Israel… It is vital that international law is upheld and equally vital that ordinary citizens take the initiative in exposing state crime.

On this occasion, the flight was a personnel transport plane. One man was arrested in the aircrafts cockpit. The group noted that up to eight US Air Force aircraft appeared to be at Prestwick at the time.

Four more people were arrested on Monday as they tried to board a Polar Air Boeing 747, having already searched a US Air National Guard Hercules and examined onboard documentation.

A total of 17 people have been charged with a number of offences, including breaching the Aviation Security Act. Two of the protesters were remanded in custody. The remainder are to appear in court later.

Details of the US military flights first emerged on July 26, when it was reported that two chartered A310 Airbus cargo planes had passed through Prestwick, carrying 5,000 pound laser guided GBU28 bunker buster bombs intended for use in the ongoing US-Israeli destruction of Lebanon.

Prestwicks military use was already sensitive following exposure of British collaboration with US rendition flightswhereby alleged terrorists are turned over to foreign governments that are notorious for torturing prisoners. Between June, 2004 and September, 2005, as many as 75 rendition flights used Prestwick, out of at least 210 over the UK as a whole. Glasgow and Edinburgh airports were also used.

News of the bunker busters flights generated immediate protests. On July 30, 200 people gathered within Prestwick airport terminal, including members of Glasgows Lebanese community, to protest both the military traffic and the war.

Air traffic controllers at Prestwick have also raised concerns. One told the BBC, We work with military aircraft all the time and people here are professional… They would never leave traffic that needs to be dealt with, but there are people who feel uncomfortable working with certain aircraft.

The transport flights also briefly became a focal point for complaints from sections of the opposition parties and the civil service.

Ever since the Yo, Blair! conversation between President George Bush and the British prime minister was picked up on a microphone, there have been complaints that the UK has not received the special favours Blair had promised as a result of his unstinting support for the US-led invasion of Iraq.

In an attempt to reassert some semblance of an independent foreign policy, some political commentators had called on the government to insist that the US abide by formal procedures and request permission to refuel in the UK.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said that if reports that the US had not made such a request were true, it would be particularly provocative behaviour that can only reinforce the belief of many that Britain is taken for granted in the so-called special relationship.

Alex Salmond of the Scottish National Party said that the government must decide whether to be an aircraft carrier for the US.

In an attempt to counter such criticisms, Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett made a show of protest and promised that we will be making a formal protest if it appears that that is what has happened.

Even this was too much for Blair, who flatly denied that there was any problem with the military flights. The issue at Prestwick, he said, was that the government should just apply the rules in the appropriate way, which is what we are doing. The matter was soon resolved after it was reported that Bush had told Blair he was sorry for any problem over the flights.

The US bunker buster flights were re-routed to Prestwick because the Irish government had ruled out the use of Shannon airport for the stopovers, due to a series of antiwar protests at the airport since the invasion of Iraq. Faced with the protests in Scotland, the Blair government has now announced that such sensitive flights will be moved to British military bases where security is stronger and there is no public terminal.

Sectarian Divides Deepen

Tue, 10 May 2005 16:10:23 +0000

Britains May 5 general election included polls for 18 Westminster seats in British-ruled Northern Ireland. The results exposed deepening sectarian polarisation between nationalist and unionist voters. They also confirmed the virtual collapse of the traditional party of the Northern Irish bourgeoisie, the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), and triggered the resignation of the UUPs leader, David Trimble.

The election was prefaced by a media and government campaign waged against Sinn Fein, focussing on the IRAs alleged role in both the Northern Bank robbery in Belfast late last year and the murder of the Catholic nationalist Robert McCartney by Sinn Fein members earlier this year. With negotiations between Sinn Fein and the DUP to revive the Northern Ireland Assembly at Stormont stalled, the Irish, British and United States governments launched a concerted effort to force Sinn Fein to accept that the IRA must be disbanded, not merely disarmed.

Pressure on Sinn Fein reached a high point with US President George Bushs decision to meet with members of the McCartney family in the White House on St. Patricks Day. The US special envoy to Northern Ireland, Mitchell Reiss, announced that it was time for the IRA to go out of business.

On April 6, Adams pledged himself to such an eventuality in an open appeal to the leadership of the IRA to permanently abandon the strategy of armed struggle and to fully embrace and accept parliamentary means.

For over 30 years, the IRA showed that the British government could not rule Ireland on its own terms, Adams declared. You asserted the legitimacy of the right of the people of this island to freedom and independence.

Many of your comrades made the ultimate sacrifice. Your determination, selflessness and courage have brought that freedom struggle forward towards its attainment.

That struggle can now be taken forward by other means. I say this with the authority of my office as president of Sinn Fein.

In the past, Adams continued, he had defended the right of the IRA to engage in armed struggle.

I did so because there was no alternative for those who would not bend the knee or turn a blind eye to oppression or for those who wanted a national republic.

Now there is an alternative. I have clearly set out my view of what that alternative is. The way forward is by building political support for republican and democratic objectives across Ireland and by winning support for these goals internationally.

In the aftermath of Adams statement, media interest in the McCartney family largely evaporated. Both the murder and the Belfast bank raid were seen only as leverage to force Sinn Fein to comply with the demands placed on it. Adams and his ally Martin McGuinness are still viewed as favoured instruments for ensuring Republican acceptance of the devolved executive at Stormont based on power-sharing with the pro-British Unionist parties.

The campaign against Sinn Fein in fact served to strengthen its political authority amongst Catholics. May 5 confirmed the ongoing decline in support for the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) and its eclipse as the main nationalist party by Sinn Fein. The SDLP had expected to benefit from Sinn Feins difficulties, with members of the McCartney family suggesting that they might stand as SDLP candidates to take advantage of disgust at the IRAs brutal role in Catholic communities. Instead the campaign strengthened the belief that Sinn Fein is the force capable of acting as a defender of Catholics against the Unionist forces and of negotiating political concessions in Westminster and Stormont, when it reconvenes.

A parallel development has taken place within Unionism. The media campaign over the robbery and murder served to further undermine the Ulster Unionist Party, and strengthen the hardline Democratic Unionist Party of Ian Paisley. The DUP still adopts a position of opposing power-sharing with Sinn Fein, which it denounces as a front for the IRA and hence a criminal organisation. In reality, this posture of opposing the terms of the Good Friday Agreement of 1998 is used as a device through which to extract further political concessions from London. Paisley is involved in ongoing negotiations aimed at re-establishing the Stormont Assembly.

The election campaign was dominated by jousting between the Republican and Unionist parties aimed at consolidating their sectarian grip over their respective communities.

The DUP fought the election by accusing the UUP and its leader David Trimble of having betrayed Ulster by signing the Good Friday Agreement and bringing the terrorists and criminals of Sinn Fein and the IRA into the state apparatus. The UUPs response was entirely defensive, arguing that it had first forced Sinn Fein onto a constitutional path and then forced it out of power sharing. Both parties draped themselves in the Union Jack and trumpeted their efforts on behalf of Ulsters farming, tourist and quarrying industries.

Amongst nationalists, Sinn Fein and the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) proposed essentially identical perspectives to push forward the political and economic integration of Northern Ireland with the Irish republic. By drawing together health, energy, infrastructure decision making and planning on both sides of the border, both parties hope to gradually erase Irelands partition while defending capitalist rule. Both demand the full implementation of the Good Friday Agreement. Both support the adoption of the euro, which is the currency in the South.

But the SDLP is seen by many Catholic workers as a politically compromised force due to its long record of working loyally within Northern Irelands political structures. And Sinn Fein continues to benefit from its association with a militant struggle against British rule, Unionist violence and anti-Catholic discrimination.

The main winner in the election was the DUP, which increased its tally from 5 to 9 seats. All DUP gains were taken from the UUP, which also lost a seat to the SDLP because of a split in the unionist vote.

Emblematic of the UUPs decline was the fate of party leader and former First Minister of the Northern Ireland Assembly, David Trimble. Trimble lost his previously safe Upper Bann seat to David Simpson of the DUP by a margin of over 5,000.

Simpson is typical of the DUP hierarchy, a businessman, member of the Orange Order and the Northern Ireland Assembly and a gospel singer. Amongst his political achievements to date has been the negotiation of local tax relief for Orange halls.

Another leading UUP figure to lose his seat was former British Airways executive David Burnside. Such is the extent of the UUPs decay that Burnside welcomed his own partys defeat as proof that a more hardline stance was needed. I am pleased with the message that has been sent out in Ulster, he declared. Burnside was replaced by another gospel-singing Orange Order member, the Reverend William McCrea, a minister in DUP-leader Ian Paisleys Free Presbyterian Church.

Trimble promptly resigned as UUP leader. In the 10 years since he was elected to the UUP leadership as a unionist hardliner, the party has lost nine of the Westminster seats it held in 1995. The UUP, the party of Ulsters founder Edward Carson and the dominant unionist party since the partition of Ireland in 1921/2, now retains only one seat.

Over the same period, the Protestant bourgeoisie has been forced to acknowledge that its British patrons are no longer willing to subsidise their unchallenged rule over the Northern Irish state and that it must seek a modus vivendi with Sinn Fein. Underlying the UUPs loss of political influence is the drastic undermining of the norths economy.

The Good Friday Agreement was an attempt to end the substantial costs associated with maintaining a British military presence in the north, to bring the political stability necessary to encourage international investment and thereby both emulate the successes of the Irish Republic in the south and encourage cross-border economic cooperation.

For all the DUPs success and its rejection of power-sharing with Sinn Fein, it faces exactly the same problems as the UUP and the same demands from London and Washington that it must do what is necessary to make the north economically and politically viable. Paisley and his cohorts will thus have to make their way to Dublin and seek new relations with Sinn Fein, while seeking the best terms for the Protestant business interests they represent by whipping up religious tensions backed up with anti-IRA rhetoric.

In nationalist-dominated seats, Sinn Fein advanced at the expense of the SDLP, winning the Newry and Armagh seat with an 11 percent swing. SDLP leader Mark Durkan was able to hold off a challenge from Sinn Feins Mitchel McGlaughlin in the Foyle seat in Derry, likely as a result of tactical voting by unionists. In the end, Sinn Fein won five seats against the SDLPs three.

In the coming months, new negotiations between Sinn Fein, the DUP, and the other signatories to the Good Friday Agreement will be sought. British Prime Minister Tony Blair has appointed Peter Hain as Northern Ireland Secretary to oversee the process.