Devolution of Policing & Justice to Northern Ireland

The devolution of policing and justice has always been a contentious issue between political parties in Northern Ireland, back in 1999 when power over matters such as Education, Health and Agriculture were devolved to the N.I Assembly, policing and justice was shelved until a later day. Well that day has arrived and last week Prime Minister Gordon Brown unveiled a proposed budget to Northern Ireland’s first and deputy first minister’s, Gordon Brown said his Billion-pound offer to complete devolution in Northern Ireland would secure peace and prosperity in the region but the two main political parties are feeling far from peaceful and prosperous.

Deputy first minister Martin McGuiness said the devolution of policing and justice was achievable by Christmas, his counterpart in the OFMDFM Peter Robinson said “I think any fool can produce a wants list but the proposals that are presented by the Prime Minister have to be viewed by all of us.” The First minister also said his party would only agree to transferring law and order responsibilities from Westminster if changes were made to the current process of managing contentious events in the summer marching season.

Sinn Fein says that the DUP are placing obstacles in the way of a deal being done after outstanding financial issues were resolved, but the DUP have always maintained that transferring of policing and justice powers to Stormont will only happen on their terms and will only happen when the unionist community have confidence

• In the structural arrangements for the transfer of such sensitive functions
• In the person who will hold responsibility as Justice Minister and
• That there is adequate funding available to carry out the functions which are devolved.

The community that the DUP speaks of include the hard-line Traditional Unionist Voice party (TUV), in their 2009 election manifesto TUV make it clear that they believe Sinn Fein is not fit for government, they say – TUV continues to be unalterably opposed to the devolution of policing and justice to an Assembly and Executive in which IRA/Sinn Fein, which gleefully murdered policemen and judges, holds sway.

Sinn Fein believe that the powers should have been devolved long ago, they think devolution would make the Justice system more accountable and they no longer want the powers being exercised by a British minister in Westminster. Responding to Peter Robinson’s remarks in parliament on Tuesday when he said the parades commission should be abolished “to increase confidence in devolved policing and justice powers”, Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams thinks citing the parades issue as a pre-condition is unacceptable, he said “This is not sincere, genuine or a serious effort to resolve the issue of Orange parades.”
 

So what happens now? And what do other politicians and representatives think of the current situation?

• Sinn Fein are happy to accept the deal on offer from Gordon Brown

• Conservative party leader David Cameron said he will respect the prime minister’s agreement with Northern Ireland leaders

• Northern Ireland’s new Chief Constable Matt Baggott has been briefed on the financial package by government officials and has discussed the offer with Policing Board chairman Barry Gilligan, he said “We welcome the clarification we have received and are encouraged by the progress.”

• PUP leader Dawn Purvis, welcomed Gordon Brown’s offer and called on party leaders to complete devolution

• Alliance party leader David Ford, who is widely expected to be appointed justice minister, not surprisingly said he believed Gordon Brown’s financial plan represented a reasonable offer

• UUP leader Sir Reg Empey, said his party were reserving judgment on its position regarding the financial deal

• SDLP policing spokesman Alex Attwood said a financial deal may have been reached but “political certainty” was less secure, he believes the DUP will continue to place obstacle’s in the way of devolution

• TUV leader Jim Allister, said he opposed giving republicans any role in overseeing policing and justice

• The DUP is in favour of the devolution of policing and justice powers but take a more cautious line than Sinn Fein


So as usual our political party leaders can’t agree on the best way forward and it looks like they will continue to debate over devolution, don’t be surprised if the DUP try and align other issues with the devolution of policing and justice e.g. north- south bodies and a potential review of the Good Friday Agreement.

BBC scandals

It seems that over the past few years the BBC is never far away from scandal or controversy, recently we have all witnessed the media uproar over Strictly come dancing’s Anton Du Beke’s racist remarks to his celeb dancing partner Laila Rouass, Anton apologised and was slapped on the wrist, then Bruce Forsythe made some ill-advised comments regarding the scandal, he too was wrist slapped and he too apologised, no one was suspended, no one was sacked and the scandal was all over. But not all of BBC scandals have finished so quickly, not all of them have been about race, and not everyone has kept their job. In the past few years the BBC have been involved in all sorts of scandals with all sorts of repercussions, there has been scandals and controversy over everything from weapons of mass destruction to the naming of the BluePeter cat
Who can forget the “Sachsgate” scandal, there was a real mixture of opinions on what punishments should be dished out, and some people thought that suspending Russell Brand and Jonathon Ross was not enough. The BBC received over 44,000 complaints about the prank calls that Jonathon Ross and Russell Brand made on Brand’s BBC radio 2 show, (the BBC only received 2 complaints in the week after the show was broadcast, and the following week the Mail on Sunday ran the story which resulted in a lot of media coverage, and the complaints rose to over 44,000). Ross and Brand apologised to Andrew Sachs and his granddaughter, and the BBC director general Mark Thompson issued a personal and unreserved apology to Mr Sachs, but the scandal did not end there, eventually Russell Brand resigned along with Radio 2 controller Leslie Douglas and head of compliance Dave Barber. OFCOM fined the BBC £150,000 and they described the broadcast of the messages left on Mr Sachs voicemail as “gratuitously, offensive, humiliating and demeaning.” Even the Prime Minister Gordon brown got involved when he described Brand and Ross’s behaviour as “inappropriate and unacceptable.”

The former Prime Minister Tony Blair was involved in the “Dr David Kelly” scandal which started in September 2002 when the British Government produced a dossier about alleged Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the dossier included a claim that the weapons could be deployed within 45 minutes. Then in May 2003, BBC radio 4 Today programme’s defence correspondent Andrew Gilligan broadcasts report of claims that Downing street had “sexed up” the dossier, against the wishes of intelligence services. Dr David Kelly a Ministry of Defence scientist was named as the suspected source on 10th of July 2003, while the government continued to deny the story. One week after Dr Kelly was named as the source, the scientist was found dead, this led to a 328 page report conducted by Lord Hutton, into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly.

The Hutton report concluded the following:
· Dr David Kelly took his own life and no third party was involved
· No one involved could have contemplated that Kelly would take his own life as a result of the pressures he felt.
· Can not be certain of factors that drove Dr Kelly to suicide.
· Dr Kelly probably killed himself, because of extreme loss of self-esteem and would probably have seen himself as being publicly disgraced.
· Andrew Gilligan’s report that Downing Street “probably knew” the 45 minute claim in its Iraq dossier was wrong was a grave allegation and attacked the integrity of the government and the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC).
· Whether or not that source was subsequently shown to be unreliable, the central allegation made by Andrew Gilligan in his BBC report was unfounded.
· Editorial system at the BBC was defective in allowing Gilligan’s report to go to air without seeing a script.
· BBC management failed to make an examination of Mr Gilligan’s notes of the interview with Dr Kelly.
· There was a defect in the BBC’s management system relating to the way complaints were investigated.
· The Prime Minister’s desire to have as compelling a dossier as possible may have subconsciously influenced the (JIC) to make the language of the dossier stronger than they would otherwise have done.
· There was no underhand government strategy to name Dr Kelly.
· The MoD failed to tell Dr Kelly his name would be made public.
· MoD did take some steps to help Dr Kelly once his name was made public.
· The MoD was at fault in the way it dealt with Dr Kelly once his name was made public.

The Hutton report was released on 28th January 2004, and it was critical of Andrew Gilligan and of the BBC’s management processes and standards of journalism, consequently the chairman of the BBC, Gavyn Davies, the director general Greg Dyke and Andrew Gilligan resigned. Andrew Gilligan admitted that some of his story was wrong and he apologised for that, but he also said “I love the BBC and I am resigning because I want to protect it. I accept my part in the crisis which has befallen the organisation, but a greater part has been played by the unbalanced judgments of Lord Hutton.” Greg Dyke told BBC staff "I don't want to go. But if in the end you screw up you have to go." And Gavyn Davies said in his resignation statement that no-one at the BBC in the past year had deliberately misled the public, and that no one had acted out of malign motivation. Tony Blair and the government came through the crisis relatively unscathed as the Hutton report had found no wrong doing on behalf of the government, Tony Blair said the report showed "the allegation that I or anybody else lied to the House or deliberately misled the country by falsifying intelligence of weapons of mass destruction is itself the real lie".

I could write many more pages about the many more BBC scandals and controversies that we have witnessed over the last decade or so, but of course I wont, what I will do is finish this blog with an altogether more trivial scandal. As I mentioned near the start of this blog, the much loved children’s TV programme Blue Peter, found themselves caught up in a scandal back in 2007, the controversy was over an online poll to name the new Blue peter cat. 40,000 people voted that the kitten should be named Cookie, but Blue Peter producers decided Socks was a “more suitable name”. Richard Marson, the Blue Peter editor during the “Socksgate” scandal was moved from his post and subsequently quit the BBC. Blue Peter presenter Zoe Salmon said on air that although voters voted for the kitten to be named Cookie, the kitten was called Socks, she also said “That was wrong, and so today we would like to say that we are sorry”.

What do you think about these scandals? Did the BBC deal correctly with the scandals? How can they prevent such controversy or scandal in the future? Do the public or the BBC overreact to the scandals?