Right, moving on to the TUV. 2010 represented the first General election to be fought by Traditional Unionist Voice. How did they do?
A total of 26,300 votes over the 10 seats fought split:

North Antrim
Jim Allister – 7,114 (16.8%)
East Belfast
David Vance – 1,856 (5.4%)
North Down
Mary Kilpatrick – 1,634 (4.9%)
Strangford
Terry Williams – 1,814 (5.6%)
East Antrim
Samuel Morrison – 1,826 (6.0%)
East Derry / Londonderry
William Ross – 2,572 (7.4%)
Lagan Valley
Keith Harbinson – 3,154 (8.6%)
Mid Ulster
Walter Millar – 2,995 (7.3%)
South Down
Ivor McConnell – 1,506 (3.5%)
South Antrim
Melwyn Lucas – 1,829 (5.4%)

So three real categories:
1) Allister on 17%
2) Ross, Harbinson and Millar – 7-9%
3) The rest – 3.5-6.0%

The real disappointing outcome for the TUV is that a similar performance next year will not come close to a quota outside wherever Allister stands as the Category B base is just too small. Parodoxically a similar performance would seem to eliminate the prospect of a Nationalist First Minister as DUP would need to lose half a dozen or so seats before SF have a prospect of overtaking them. Two losses to the Alliance a possibility, boundary changes might mean another net 1 loss and 1 going to Allister should see Robinson returned...UCUNF next....
P.S. Entirely intuitively I suspect TUV candidates in West Tyrone and FST might do better than average in the Assembly elections.

The Centre for Social Justice, Iain Duncan Smith's smart new social policy think tank, have an impressive report (Breakthrough NI CSJ) out today... They are pouring it into something of a policy vacuum since the push you, pull me OFMdFM have still to decide on a common anti poverty policy.  CSJ may be seeking to fill a major policy gap:

The News Letter have bullet pointed some of its main findings:

Key findings the CSJ claimed highlighted the extent of social breakdown in Northern Ireland included:

The highest level of economic inactivity in the UK;

• Unemployment which has more than doubled in the last two years;
• More than half of those claiming
• income support have done so for more than five years;
• One in five households was a single parent family;
• Three in four single parent families lived in poverty - 63,000 children;
• Widespread mental illness, with nearly 50,000 men and women in Northern Ireland out of work because of mental and behavioural disorders;
• More than one in ten 35 to 64-year-olds on anti-depressants;
• 30,000 people using cannabis every month;
• Rate of cannabis use up 50 per cent from 2002 to 2006;
• Drug-related deaths up 100-fold in the last
• 40 years;
• Among 18 to 29-year-olds, 72 per cent of men and 57 per cent of women binge-drink at least once a week
• Divorce rate more than five times the level of 40 years ago.

And from the Independent's PA report, is this extract:

"The political system in Northern Ireland, primarily concerned with the necessity of delivering political stability, must begin to provide answers to the severe social problems outlined here, with the aim of reversing intergenerational social breakdown," it stated.

"Although the hallmarks of conflict remain important factors in social breakdown in Northern Ireland, many people face issues entirely in common with social problems across the UK as a whole."

Interestingly, ‘social justice' is a concept first popularised by the Catholic Church. It will be interesting to see what purchase a bright shiny report littered with genuine social data has in a space notably short of non civil service generated ideas...

I have no comment to make, other than to note the very narrowness of the Terms of Reference and quote the glorious Yes Minister, wh0se insights pepper this whole story from start to finish:

"We dare not allow politicians to establish the principle that senior civil servants can be removed for incompetence. We could lose dozens of our chaps. Hundreds maybe. Even thousands."

TERMS OF REFERENCE

1. Following allegations of irregularities around the awarding of procurement contracts in Northern Ireland Water (a government owned company), the Department for Regional Development (DRD) commissioned an Independent Review Team to carry out a review of the circumstances surrounding these alleged irregularities. The role of the Independent Review Team was discussed, inter alia, at the Northern Ireland Public Accounts Committee hearing on the Governance of NI Water held on 1 July 2010 attended by DRD officials including Paul Priestly, DRD Permanent Secretary and Accounting Officer.
2. Subsequently, a member of the Independent Review Team wrote to the Public Accounts Committee criticising how the hearing was conducted. As a result of his role in this correspondence Mr Priestly was suspended from duty on 17 August 2010 under paragraph 7.1 of section 6.03 of the NICS HR Handbook to allow an investigation to be carried out in line with paragraph 4.1 of section 6.03 of the NICS HR Handbook.
3. As Head of the Northern Ireland Civil Service I have asked you to undertake this investigation.  It should be carried out expeditiously bearing in mind the need for a full and proper investigation and consideration of all the facts of the case. The output of this investigation will be a report to be submitted to me which will establish the facts regarding the conduct of Mr Priestly and any other civil servant in relation to the letter of 5 July 2010.
4. The report will include your comment on whether you believe there may have been any misconduct, including breaches of relevant standards of conduct, terms and conditions of appointment, and in Mr Priestly's case, his personal responsibilities as Accounting Officer and Head of Department.

Okay, another bullish performance from Minister Murphy here on the UTV report, though it is rare to see such a normally competent performer stuck for words in front of a camera.

What's complicated things for him was the robust nature of the questioning from Conall McDevitt, on the amount of work the Minister did to come to his conclusion that the Independent Review Team was indeed independent.

He reasonably asserts that he cannot be across all the correspondence coming in and going out of the department. But he is also inviting the committee to believe that his former Permanent Secretary either deliberately mislead him (we know he misled the PAC before before admitting that he had Dixon's letter), or kept him in ignorance to an extraordinary extent.

Is the Minister also asking us to believe that he not see the communication sent to Paul Priestly from the Board questioning the independence of Peter Dixon shortly after the IRT was convened?

At the very least, his own political antennae should have gone up when a CEO of another (but very different) privately owned utility with the potential for a very significant conflictof interest should NI Water ever be privatised was appointed to the IRT.

As we noted some weeks back when Priestly was suspended, it looks like the Minister was sold a pup by his Permanent Secretary to the extent that both he and his party are no longer in a position to work out what's real and what's not about the true story of NI Water.

Pure denials of knowledge he should by now have made it his business to find out will not suffice.

What's perplexing is the extent to which the Minister is continuing with a narrative that is any case substantially falsified by the fact that Dixon was a willing participant in his own Permanent Secretary's attempt to undermine the investigation of the PAC.

And how can he be certain that this all is nothing more – to use his own description from his UTV interview - a side show? Or does he feel so locked in by vested interests that he has no freedom to move independently on any of this?

That quotation is from a rather more bullish statement from the NI Consumer Council CEO Antoinette McKeown than we have been accustomed to hearing as of late. The whole statement is posted below (courtesy of Nevin who chased them up on this), but several other things stand out.

They pick out the Stakeholder Unit for special attention.  This was the lynchpin for the relationship between the Department and NI Water, but given the immense degree to which people at Board level inside NI Water have been put under pressure,  this key department (which held 82 meetings a year with NI Water, as opposed to the 10 the Board had) seems thus far to have escaped the rather ferocious and forensic (but after six months, still unproductive) disciplinary proceedings arising.

Time to look again at Mr Priestly's list of wants from the IRT... It effectively asks for the blame to be switched decisively away from the Department and towards NI Water. After months of resolute fence sitting (or more accurately, silence) the NICC now seems unconvinced that all blame attaches solely to NI Water as the Department would have us believe.

I was particularly struck by her reference to things being done inside NI Water as a result of a power struggle rather than in the public interest. There is already some documentary evidence in the public domain to support this view.

Laurence McKenzie suggests within weeks of taking up his employment as CEO by suggesting ‘the Board would not be missed' (how was he in a position to objectively know?), and suggesting Mellor could be replaced by one of his ex chairmen from NIE. He was later to appoint an Operations Director from his old manor, even taking the precaution of having dinner with her just eight days before the interview.

Let's not forget that sacking the Board was Mr McKenzie's very own ‘radical suggestion'....

But of much greater and more immediate concern to the Minister (who by all accounts put in a decent performance today at the Committee for Regional Development), will be her rather pointed question:

"Why was information purposefully withheld from the Consumer Council in direct breach of the Partnership Agreement that exists between the Department, NI Water and the Consumer Council?"

The question for the Minister and/or the CEO of NI Water obviously being: what information? And for what reasons was it withheld? Did his department and/or the senior management of NI Water in fact mislead the NICC?

We await his/their answers with considerable interest.

The Consumer Council Chief Executive and Chair met today (1 September) with Minister Conor Murphy to put their questions, concerns and demands to him following recent revelations about the handling of an independent review of Northern Ireland Water's (NI Water) contracts issuing practices.

Among the Consumer Council's questions were:
*       How can the Minister convince consumers that actions taken were in the public interest, rather than as result of a power struggle within NI Water?
*       Why did DRD's shareholder unit - which has responsibility for making sure NI Water spends public money appropriately - not spot issues with NI Water's awarding of contracts?
*       Has the confused, hybrid status (NDPB/GoCo) of NI Water contributed to the procurement failures?
*       What are the Minister's intentions now regarding the status, governance, accountability and regulation of NI Water and how will he guarantee there is adequate, independent challenge on behalf of consumers?
*       What criteria does the Minister intend to use in the appointment of Board members to ensure they are focussed on building consumer confidence?
*       Why was information purposefully withheld from the Consumer Council in direct breach of the Partnership Agreement that exists between the Department, NI Water and the Consumer Council?
*       What actions will the Department take to restore consumer trust and confidence?

Consumer Council Chief Executive, Antoinette McKeown said: "The Consumer Council has retained a very clear focus on the misspent millions by NI Water and its lack of accountability when spending public money. We have always supported the action of bringing to light a situation where contracts were being issued without going out to competitive tender. However, recent revelations left us questioning whether we had been misled. We need to assure ourselves that actions were taken and will be taken in the public interest.

"The Consumer Council has been fulfilling our role in representing water consumers in Northern Ireland since 2002. We raised issues in 2007, through the Independent Water Review Panel (IWRP), which are relevant to this investigation, namely the level of scrutiny in place for transactions made by NI Water under £1million and that we were concerned too that there was no indication of the process DRD would follow in making a decision to approve or reject procurement proposals by NI Water. These concerns were clearly legitimate and now need to be addressed as a matter of urgency.

"Other actions we have asked the Minister now to take include:
*       Make public the NI Water action plan which has been agreed to address recent procurement and accountability breaches;
*       Proceed to a full, open public appointment process for non executive directors and include a clear requirement for each director to protect consumers' interests and ensure public confidence;
*       Immediately clarify the role and functions of NI Water and DRD so that the breaches in governance that we have witnessed unfolding, never happen again. As part of this we want to see an urgent review of the role and functions of DRD's Shareholder Unit;
*       Fundamental review of the Partnership Agreement between the Consumer Council, the Department, NI Water, the Utility Regulator and others, so that the Consumer Council's statutory role is fully realised at all times;
*       Ensure that the Consumer Council is fully involved - as appropriate with our remit - when considering the options for the future of NI Water; and
*       Ensure that consumers' interests are protected and consumers have fully independent representation regardless of the final structure or status of NI Water."

Consumer Council Chair, Rick Hill added: "There has been a serious breach of trust. However, the Consumer Council remains focused on working in consumers' interests. We will continue to provide a robust challenge function to all those involved in delivering water services for people in Northern Ireland."

BBC NI Radio Ulster's Evening Extra has reported that the Northern Ireland Department for Social Development have confirmed that the ‘Magic Jug' public art sculpture, destined for Fountain Street, Belfast, has been cancelled.

Nothing to do with the campaign, apparently.  The £100,000 cost has been cited as the main factor in the decision.  They have, reportedly, already spent £20,000 on the commissioning process.

Adds  In the comments zone Moochin points to this 27 Aug letter from the Department, responding to a 22 May letter from the campaigners against the sculpture.

Trawling through the figures as you do it's worth having a look at the combined votes of the 4 Belfast constituencies:
DUP 36,654 27%
SF 36,245 26%
SDLP 24,196 18%
All 20,358 15%
UCUNF 17,052 12%
TUV 1,856 1%
Green 1,036 1%
Ind 403 0%
Total 137,800

Unionist 40.3%, Nationalist 43.9%, Other 15.8%

A number of things are worth mentioning:
1) The Alliance advance was by no means confined to East Belfast: From 6% to 15% in Belfast South, 1% to 5% in Belfast North – Didn't stand in West Belfast in 2005 so that's 0 to 2%. It's difficult to isolate with complete certainty but it looks like the advance in Belfast South came from the "Unionist" vote (Unionist vote fell 10% from 2005-10 whilst Nationalist vote fell 1%).
2) Turnout fell from 60.2% to 56.6% (not as big a fall as someother areas, although from a lower base to begin with.
3) The Alliance performance and the Robinson fallout skews it's historical significance but I reckon that's the first General Election in World history in which more Belfast voters voted for Nationalist parties than for Unionist parties. Can anyone confirm?

This is a guest cross-post by Tim Davies – originally posted on the Political Innovation site here:

The communication revolution that we've undergone in recent years has two big impacts:

• It changes what's possible. It makes creating networks between people across organisations easier; it opens new ways for communication between citizens and state; it gives everyone who wants it a platform for global communication; and it makes it possible to discover local online dialogue.
• It changes citizen expectations of government. When I can follow news from my neighbour's blog on my phone, why can't I get updates on local services on the mobile-web? When I can e-mail someone across the world and be collaborating on a document in minutes, why is it so hard to have a conversation with the council down the road? And when brands and mainstream media are doing interactivity and engagement - why are government departments struggling with it so much?

Right now, government is missing out on significant cost saving and service-enhancing benefits from new forms of communication and collaboration. But the answers are not simply about introducing new technology - they are to be found in intentional culture change: in creating the will and the opportunity for interactive government.

There are three things we need to focus on:

• Culture change. Although there are pockets of interactivity breaking out across the public sector, it's often counter-cultural and 'underground'. Most staff feel constrained to work with tools given to them by IT departments, and to focus on official lines more than open conversations. Creating a culture of interactivity needs leadership from the top, and values that everyone can sign up to.
• Removing the barriers. There are literally hundreds of small daily frustrations and barriers that can get in the way of interactive government. It might be the inability of upload a photo to an online forum (interactive government has human faces...), or consent and moderation policies that cover everyone's backs but don't allow real voices to be heard. Instead of ignoring these barriers, we need to overcome them - to rethink them within an interactive culture that can make dialogue and change a top priority.
• Solving tough problems. Public service is tough: it has to deal with political, democratic and social pressures that would make most social media start-ups struggle. We need to think hard about how interactive technology and interactive ways of working play out in the tough cases that the public sector deals in every day.

The Interactive Charter is a project to explore how exactly we go about making government into interactive government. It's got three parts:

• Creating a pledge - The 'Interactive Charter' will be a clear statement that any organization (or senior manager within an organization) can sign up to say something along the lines of "I want my organization to get interactivity; and I'll commit to overcoming the barriers to interactive ways of working". With a promise and commitment from the top removing the barriers should get a lot easierOf course to just hand down a pledge wouldn't be very interactive, so we're drafting it on Mixed Ink.
• Naming the problems...and overcoming them - We've already made a start over on the Interactive Charter wiki, but we would love you to join in suggesting practical challenges, and practical solutions, to interactive and digital working in government.
• Putting it into practice - We want to pilot the approach: getting top-level support, and removing the barriers to interactivity from the ground up. Could your organization be part of that?

So, if you've got a vision for more interactive government, you can share it by redrafting the current pledge. And if you've faced or solved problems around interactive government, help shape the body of knowledge around each of the barriers and their solutions on the wiki. Of course, you could also just drop in comments over on the Political Innovation blog...

We'd be very interested to hear any ideas that you have for an essay of your own - we'll need an email and we'll want to discuss it with you before it goes on the site. All contributions will be archived on www.politicalinnovation.org - along with details of what we're looking for from essayists and a bunch of FAQs and a guide to how we hope the whole thing will play out.

I hope you'll get involved in this as a commenter, participant or maybe even as an essayist. Make sure you don't miss anything by joining our Google Group, subscribing to the blog RSS feed, getting each post emailed to you and, of course, following us on Twitter andFacebook.

Former Permanent Secretary of the Welsh Assembly Government, Sir Jon Shortridge, is to lead the investigation into suspended NI Permanent Secretary, Paul Priestly, and his role in the NI Water saga.

An iol report notes the terms of reference for the investigation

Mr Robinson outlined Mr Shortridge's terms of reference: "The report will include your comment on whether you believe there may have been any misconduct, including breaches of relevant standards of conduct, terms and conditions of appointment, and in Mr Priestly's case, his personal responsibilities as Accounting Officer and Head of Department," he said.

The investigation will not begin until October due to Mr Shortridge's other commitments.

On Sunday i spent the day  covering  the charity cycle ‘Lap the Lough' (86 miles clockwise around Lough Neagh). I didn't make a note of where i took this  unfortunately. Anyways another of my bug bears is the flags issue. I think there should be more respect shown and that the flying of these fluttering rags of allegiance should be limited to ensure that this sort of disrespect isn't the norm which unfortunately  it seems to be.

Discuss.......

From Mick's linked chapter on Northern Ireland in Tony Blair's memoirs [pdf file]

Such tactical manoeuvres were the warp and woof of the Northern Ireland peace process. Again at the last minute, after the negotiation over the St Andrews declaration of October 2006, up popped the issue of what oath would be sworn by those taking office in the reconstructed Assembly and Executive. All manner of permutations were gone through to find a mutually acceptable formula. Naturally the DUP wanted a very clear commitment to the police in the oath itself. Sinn Fein didn't like the wording and wouldn't commit until it was clear the Executive was in being, so there was a synchronising issue as well as a language problem.

In the end they agreed a timing and, roughly, a wording, but over the following weeks it started to fall apart.  Gerry Adams had agreed to call an Ard Fheis (a council meeting of Sinn Fein) to endorse it, but only if Ian Paisley had clearly stated in advance that such an endorsement would allow the institutions to be revived.  For once, roles were reversed, with Gerry Adams demanding clarity and Ian Paisley producing waffle. I then had the idea that I would reinterpret the waffle and so deliver Gerry his reassurance.

I had a Christmas holiday in Miami. The sun shone, but that was about it as far as holidaying went. Because of the time difference I had to start my calls at 5 a.m. Frequently the Paisleys would be out visiting friends so calls were missed. I took horrendous chances in what I was telling each the other had agreed to - stretching the truth, I fear, on occasions past breaking point - but I could see the whole thing collapsing because of the wording of an oath of office. Somehow, with creativity pouring out of every orifice, we got through it. [added emphasis]

Which, with their credibility at risk, might help to explain the kerfuffle caused by Sinn Féin back around May 2008...

Adds  But then, as the BBC notes

In the book he also wrote of strong relationships with Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness.

"They were an extraordinary couple," he said.

"Over time I came to like both greatly, probably more than I should have, if truth be told... they were supreme masters of the distinction between tactics and strategy.

"They knew the destination and they were determined to bring their followers with them, or at least the vast bulk of them." [added emphasis]

Tony Blair's book has a site where you can download the text from the net... The section on Northern Ireland is here (thanks to Kate for the heads up)... He outlines ten principles he used in developing his policy in Northern Ireland (hint: the process was the policy)...

Fair play to Iain, he managed to get over 2,200 people voting in his poll for the top Northern Irish blogs this year... We (just, I imagine) retained our top spot, with Splintered coming straight in at number 2, no doubt his pet subject du jour will have garnered him a lot of fans...

I've given him a bit of mention in my review of the Irish blogosphere for 2010, which for now you'll have to buy the book to read it... Also worth mentioning is Ulster's Doomed which due to the sad loss of it's passionate author is no longer active... and Lee's Ultonia blog, which for my money is currently on fire...

Still, even allowing for a GB and centre right bias in the online readership of Iain's blog and Total Politics, it confirms that with the exception of Splintered, and O'Conall Street most of the top and most active NI blogs are currently coming from the Unionist sector...

And there's a good spread from the urbane conversational style of Lord Belmont to the prolific and often controversial Tangled Web... So, Nationalist bloggers, it must be time to get your collective fingers out...

Another wondrous view of our own modest star from the Solar Dynamics Observatory [SDO]. 

Here's what the SDO channel says

Spicules pop up from the Sun constantly. These dynamics jets are smaller features of the Sun that are commonly ignored. However, with the detailed close-up that SDO can provide, we can see these much more clearly than ever before. Over a few hours observation of the northern pole area of the Sun in extreme ultraviolet light (Aug. 3, 2010), we can see a continual frenzy of these features. At any one time there are around 60,000 to 70,000 active spicules on the Sun; an individual spicule typically reaches 3,000-10,000 km altitude above the photosphere. A couple of them rise up ten to 20 higher than most of the others. Spicules are an integral part of the dynamic nature of the Sun.

One of the legacies of having no local democracy with any power is that our politicians have little skill at handling or managing trade-offs...

Probably the most obvious example of that is the proposed legislation on parades... Which effectively takes an extreme measure which has been adopted for managing Orange parades through nationalist areas, and scaling it up...

The truth is government local and Stormont will have a great deal more mundane issues to deal with once the smog of war has cleared...

What's interesting about Edwin Poots dramatic decision today to approve the Rose Energy Incinerator on the banks of Lough Neagh is that it contrasts with his previous decisions, for instance with the interconnector over the border to put the project out to public inquiry, and likewise, the new shopping centre in Lisburn...

In the case of the north shore generator, the decision was defered to the council, who after £120,000 public consultation which gave them an overwhelming approval... The council then voted no, because the few wards in the city who were affected by it didn't want it...

The contrast with the Rose Generator could hardly be more stark...

The incinerator certainly addresses some pressing issues. Not least the pollution of the local water table by nitrates, such that that area is now in serious breach of the EU Nitrates Directive. An incinerator of the sort proposed will likely deal with that problem.

However there is likely to be a push back from the Glenavy based pressure group, CALNI... who argue that it will push dioxins into the air that will affect a relatively densely populated rural and semi rural area... as well as being  local eyesore...

So where's the mediation? The public debate? The meeting of the residents even some of the way? Whether it is true or not, it gives the distinct impression that if there is no substantial local political interest that ministers are willing to go against local opinion...

If you are local and affected by this, let us know how you think? If you are an expert in the field and know of some of the complications around this story, let us know?

On Friday, Diana Rusk had an interesting take on the NI Water issue.

She highlights a memo from last April in which the Finance Minister, Sammy Wilson, responds to a request for an explanation for why Price-Waterhouse Coopers awarded Northern Ireland Water exemplar status on its procurement practice, when the same organisation has just sacked its Board for the same issue.

The questions sharpen somewhat when you take into account that PwC have a number of those £28 million worth of contracts thought by the Department's Independent Review Team to have been ‘irregularly awarded'.

Now no one should infer that there was anything illegal, or even necessarily improper, here. That question appears to have been raised early on by the Auditor General and then quietly dropped in later correspondence. Even Messers Priestly and McKenzie could not claim at the PAC that anything had been done which actually breached the law.

But it raises (once again) the problem of closed loop reviews, in which there are obvious conflicts of interest. Like the Auditor General briefing the department before the PAC meeting, given the Audit Office is supposed to be independent, it doesn't read well after the fact.

Besides, how can we take the PwC report passing everything at NI Water, at face value when another ‘independent' player (the IRT) claims there is a serious problem? If one is right, surely the other is wrong?

When bloggers meet, I often find that old allegiances (be they left right, or Unionist/Republican) often dissolve into a different political spilt. Those of us who imagine that we 'get' the read-write web against the political colleagues that we have who, we believe, fail to foresee the possibilities or the threats.

I've occasionally witnessed left-right-and-centrist bloggers in (non) violent agreement with each other - not about political direction, but about what is possible in harnessing the power of the web. About how a more effective participative political culture can bring about a range of subtle changes - to reverse the broken politico/media relationship out of some of the cul-de-sacs that it appears to have stuck in.

Today, a few of us have come together to launch a project called 'Political Innovation'. It's for anyone who has ever asked themselves 'why is politics still done like this?'

We've put a call out through our personal networks for initial contributions and we've already had promises of more than ten essays suggesting serious political innovations that are based upon an understanding of what interactive social media and the web can achieve.

All of our proposers have been asked to ensure that their proposed innovation is one that could realistically garner support from all sides of the political spectrum.

The project is being managed in conjunction with political blogs of all hues. So from the right our largest media partner, The Telegraph will carry each essay which will be also be carried here, on Left Foot Forward, Lib-Dem Voice and SNP Tactical Voter.

Tweetminster will be helping us publicise each essay more widely and we'll be doing some podcasting with The House of Comments. Other bloggers are welcome to get involved.

The essays will touch on a range of questions, including

• a proposed recasting of the whole FOI-based understanding of open government into something more 'interactive',
• a pop at the political problems that underlie dysfunctional government procurement,
• a version of ID cards that may suit both supporters and opponents of 'the database state',
• a proposal that could create a serious 'reputational cost' to politicians, journalists and campaigners who misuse facts and spin
• a measure to help bloggers get more influence over public policy in their roles as conversation-convenors

.... and a range of other ideas (let's not spoil the surprises, eh?)

The (short) essays will start appearing on all of these sites shortly. We plan to follow it up with open gatherings in Edinburgh, Cardiff, Belfast, Dublin and London in due course - as long as we can find some local partners there who will help us with the get-togethers.

In Northern Ireland, we're going to want to blend this project in with our Awards – we've always framed them as a positive political project (more on that later this week though).

We'd be very interested to hear any ideas that you have for an essay of your own - we'll need an email and we'll want to discuss it with you before it goes on the site. All contributions will be archived on www.politicalinnovation.org - along with details of what we're looking for from essayists and a bunch of FAQs and a guide to how we hope the whole thing will play out.

I hope you'll get involved in this as a commenter, participant or maybe even as an essayist. Make sure you don't miss anything by joining our Google Group, subscribing to the blog RSS feed, getting each post emailed to you and, of course, following us on Twitter and Facebook.

Belfast City Airport will be hoping for better luck in September. Having run a couple of Community Information Days last week that were advertised to 21,000 local homes but only ended up attracting 42 people into the airport terminal to learn more about the airport's activities and plans for the runway extension, Ryanair broke bad news this morning.

Ryanair don't do subtle gestures, and in the case of the city airport they're pulling their aircraft off the local tarmac from 1 November, ceasing the routes to Bristol, East Midlands, Liverpool, London Stansted and Prestwick from 31 October.

At this morning's press conference in the Europa Hotel, Ryanair boss Michael O'Leary said:

It is very disappointing that the promised runway extension at Belfast City Airport has still not materialised more than three years after we opened the base at Belfast City.

It makes no sense for Ryanair to continue to invest in Belfast City, operating restricted routes with less than full payloads between Belfast and other UK airports (which suffer a double APD penalty) unless there is clear and immediate prospect of Ryanair being enabled to safely operate longer European routes from Belfast City Airport and for this we need the runway extension.

The journey towards a public inquiry looking at the proposed runway extension has been a long drawn out process, that was delayed again in August.

It's unlikely that O'Leary's intervention will speed up the process. More likely it'll encourage easyJet to continue their bargaining between Belfast International and Belfast City airports and perhaps shift more flights down from Aldergrove to the harbour.

The airport's Business Development Director, Katy Best said she was disappointed at Ryanair's decision. However:

Ryanair's announcement will not divert us in pursuing the continued development of the airport. Our goal still remains to attract new airlines and new destinations to and from Belfast City Airport resulting in a much needed economic boost for the region.

The extension would add 590 metres to the Holywood end of the runway would allow the existing aircraft to fly fully laden with passengers and fuel, offering destinations further afield in mainland Europe. The physical layout of the current airport site means that the longer runway wouldn't attract larger aircraft. The City Airport's current planning constraint means it can operate no more than 48,000 flights each year. Last year they managed 39,328 flights carrying 2.60 million passengers; in 2008 they peaked at 42,998 flights for 2.56 million people.

While community and campaign groups like Belfast City Airport Watch Ltd have voiced concerns and actively fought against the extension, their demands seem to stop short of requesting a radical cutback in the airport's operations - eg, halving the current flight limit. Perhaps the local jobs at stake make that an ask too far?

Sinn Féin's local East Belfast representative Niall Ó Donnghaile commented:

While I'm sure many residents will not be mourning the apparent loss of Ryanair, I think this move by Michael O'Leary is an extremely retrograde step and will only punish Ryanair workers as well as the local economy and air travel commuters.

Dawn Purvis MLA reacted to Ryanair's announcement:

While it is regrettable, it is not surprising, Mr O'Leary has long made his views known regarding the democratic right of the people of East Belfast to lodge their objections and lobby their elected representatives against a runway extension which would add to the already nuisance levels of noise and other forms of pollution. Mr O'Leary probably needs reminded that we live in a democratic country not a fascist state where profit is more important than the health and well being of its citizens.

My major concern in all of this is that Mr O'Leary's 'hissy fit' does not cost jobs, I hope he has the decency to ensure that these employees can be redeployed elsewhere within Ryan Air operations.

As a former journalist, I do relish getting hold of a government report that makes eminently sensible recommendations but which politicians for some obscure reason do not want the public to see. So I was delighted when earlier this month a copy of the North-South Feasibility Study compiled by the Irish Department of Health and Children and the Northern Ireland Department of Health, Social Services and Public Safety came across my desk.

This was the report, completed 18 months ago, that was meant to 'develop a strategic framework for taking forward on a North-South basis future collaborative work in health and social care, and in planning and delivering health and social care services, as may be appropriate.' As its authors, a group of officials from the two Departments, the Health Service Executive and the Cooperation and Working Together (CAWT) cross-border health authorities network, say in its executive summary: 'Through working together to address major health issues, significant additional benefits to the population of each jurisdiction can be achieved, which could not be achieved by each system working in isolation'.

They then go on to outline 37 recommendations. There is nothing here that is even the remotest bit radical or undermining of existing institutions in the two jurisdictions. The report suggests that 10 of the recommendations should be taken forward as a priority because they 'offer the opportunity for a more immediate impact on patient and client care.'

These are that the two Departments and the relevant agencies should promote joint programmes and approaches to tackle obesity, positive mental health and suicide prevention (with the present All-Island Action Plan on Suicide Prevention being broadened to include mental health promotion).

A collaborative cross-border model of care for patients with paediatric and congenital cardiac conditions should be developed.  Radiotherapy capacity in Altnagelvin Hospital in Derry should be planned and developed to improve access to radiotherapy for patients in the whole north-west.

The two Departments and their agencies should 'explore the potential to develop, on a joint basis, a service for those organ transplants which are less common and which may require the critical mass of a combined population to be sustainable.'

The two Departments and their agencies should 'evaluate the effectiveness of the current alert systems for children at risk' and should 'continue to take forward measures to improve child protection.' They should work to 'progress and formalise cross-border foster care arrangements to deliver services which better meet the needs of children in border areas.'

There should also be formal exchange of information on existing standards, types of homes, staff training and therapeutic support to children in need of protection to assist the North South Ministerial Council's North-South Child Protection Sub-Group on Information Sharing.

'Is that it?' you might ask. Is there the slightest hint of a controversial line anywhere in these priority recommendations?  Gentle reader, you may be forgiven for thinking that this is the stuff of eminently practical, common sense, cross-border cooperation at its most mutually beneficial: working together to help children with obesity problems; bringing cancer patients from Donegal to nearby Derry for radiotherapy rather than to faraway Dublin; moving towards a more sustainable all-island organ transplant system; and exchanging information about child protection. The North South Ministerial Council certainly believes so, having reported progress towards a new radiotherapy centre at Altnagelvin, all-island paediatric surgery services, a new North-South child protection website and other issues listed in the report at recent meetings.

However the Northern Minister of Health, Michael McGimpsey clearly differs. This formerly most sensible of unionist politicians has repeatedly refused requests that he should publish this report. In his most recent statement on the issue to the Northern Ireland Assembly, on 17 May 2010, he said he did not see any opportunities in the report for 'cooperation that delivers practical results and benefits for the population of Northern Ireland.'

The Minister said the report 'does not explain costs or benefits; it asks for further research, consideration, investigation and so on.' He told a Sinn Fein MLA, John O'Dowd, that he would have an opportunity to read the report 'in due course. My problem is that I do not see anything in the report to implement. It is long on discussion and on the need for further discussion, but I am looking for practical steps.' He said his budget was 'smaller than is required to run the Health Service in Northern Ireland, and I do not have money left over for extras unless I am certain they will deliver benefits.'

John O'Dowd thought the reasons for non-publication of the report were 'political rather than financial.' Is this another example of an Ulster Unionist politician trying to 'out-unionist' the DUP on an uncontroversial North-South cooperation issue?

Andy Pollak

P.S. Further to my May 'Note' wondering whether the Republic of Ireland now had a better welfare state than Northern Ireland, I heard Father Peter McVerry, the Dublin priest who champions the cause of homeless young people, arguing on RTE radio recently that a promised increase of 200 social workers would hardly touch the huge backlog of young people, poor people and others seeking help with their multiple problems in the Republic. He said that if the South wanted to be on a par with provision in the North, 2,000 new social workers would have to be appointed. The Health Service Executive spokesman on the programme did not disagree. So if you are young, poor or otherwise particularly vulnerable, you're probably still better off in the remnant of the British welfare state that is Northern Ireland.

We often hear from supporters of the  loyalist Marching Orders that those opposed to parades don't ‘own the road.'

A 58-year old woman was assaulted during a Black Institution parade in Ballymena at the weekend. Her ‘crime' was to cross the road during a gap in the parade, which allegedly prompted marchers to assault her. During the assault, the 5ft 1 lady was punched in the face and neck and had her fingers dislocated.

No doubt those responsible will be swiftly brought to justice as there could hardly have been a shortage of witnesses- not least from the Loyal brethren on parade....

Here's a fun video to consider, via Spaceweather.com.  It shows the map of the solar system updating from 1980 to present as more asteroids are discovered.  

As Spaceweather notes

Warning: Feelings of claustrophobia have been reported among some viewers. It's crowded out there!

New discoveries appear in white.  Final colour indicates how close the asteroid comes to the inner solar syatem – Earth crossers in red, Earth approachers (perihelion less than 1.3AU) in yellow, and all others in green.  Orbital elements from database created by Ted Bowell and associates.  And there's an up-to-date Near Earth Objects map at the Armagh Observatory website.  Credit: Scott Manley.

Remember, Jupiter is usually our friend and lord...

Thirty years ago, I had the great good luck to witness the signing of the Gdansk Agreement that tolled the first death knells for Communism in Europe. Here it is authoritatively recalled by the doyen of commentators on the subject, Neal Ascherson.

 Standing in front of the gates of the Lenin shipyard in  the port of Gdansk  a few weeks previously, I was rash enough to make that very prediction on camera. The editors back home cut it out - understandably at the time perhaps, but they apologised years later.

Although I had the benefit of the wisdom of the BBC Warsaw correspondent Tim Sebastian, he was mainly tied to the capital to file endlessly for Radio, mainly the BBC World and Polish services. On the strength of Tim and BBC traditions, we had been cheered by the dockworkers as we tried to sneak unobtrusively past the police ranks into the shipyard.  And there we were based for a memorable six weeks  to deliver some exclusive reporting.

As a fireman TV reporter flown in from London I had little enough to go on beyond a vague grasp of C19 and early C20 European history and field craft from the Troubles. One element I hadn't expected. The shipyard in Gdansk itself looked familiar. Here were cranes, gantries and smaller local versions of Goliath. For the sheds, there was the same design and construction in red brick. Then I remembered. Belfast and Gdansk (the former Danzig) shared the same tradition of leading edge German engineering of the Victorian era.

But little comfort came from these homely associations.  The atmosphere was tense and scary. I had recorded that piece to camera in front of a memorial to dozens shot dead after a similar lock in 1970. At the spot, the echoes of the Jim Larkin era and 1916 combined seemed compelling.

I still  ask myself what made me make that rash prediction of Communism's eventual fall. I think it was that weeks after the workers locked themselves in, the surrounding ranks of police had still made no move. It began to dawn on us that this was a regime in disarray. Persistent hesitation can be fatal for any regime, more so an authoritarian one. The initiative was passing to the workers.

Although censored in Poland we were allowed to continue reporting (though with many technical difficulties put in our path), as part of the Helsinki agreements which were part of East-West détente.

The regime thought it could handle dissent, but it was wrong. With vivid memories of invasion in 1956, fear of Soviet intervention was endemic. But in 1970 the Gomulka regime had fallen after suppressing the 1970 demos and, as it turned out, times were changing even further. I disagree with the late Tony Judt's verdict quoted here.

Even in the government media and therefore the party, Polish nationalism was asserting itself. Two party leaders came and went before military rule and Solidarity's temporary suppression, followed by its eventual victory a decade later.

Polish communism had always had to reach an accommodation with Polish nationalism, championed by default by the Catholic Church - now led by a charismatic young Polish Pope of whom it was rumoured (wrongly as we now know) he was prepared to throw himself in the path of the first Soviet tank to cross the frontier.

After the great shock of the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia, Brezhnev and the Soviet politburo had lost the element of surprise and did not wish to risk a bloodbath. They still had cards to play but discreetly, or so they thought. But very few – nobody really - outside had an inkling that the Soviet regime itself was as rotten as Poland's.

The Solidarity lock-in had fatally undermined the image of Communist implacability and invincibility and compromised the "leading role" of the party everywhere.

"Bliss it was to be alive?" Not quite, but it certainly kept the adrenaline rushing.  And undoubtedly, history had unfolded before our eyes.