Firstly, let me say from the outset that I have no love for a Tory, let alone a Tory Secretary of State. What I find odd, is that the current Secretary of State is being vilified for the failure of our public representatives elected by you, the electorate. At least on one issue both the DUP and Sein Fein agree, is that no matter the problem, it is always the fault of the Brits. The multi-party mandatory coalition (a political oxymoron) was designed to underpin the hard-won peace and to ensure that no community need ever fear the political failings of “majoritarianism.” However, a mandatory coalition has no better chance of succeeding than having a mandatory spouse. Former senior civil servant Andrew McCormick on the View also joined the chorus of kicking Mr Harris, by describing his behaviour as unreasonable, illegitimate, unacceptable and a complete failure of responsibility. Mr McCormick also said Mr Harris was playing a political game, I agree, it is called “getting the half-wits to do their job.” He went on to up the temperature by suggesting the province was on the brink of anarchy which he selectively defined as a society not having a government. The real definition is “a state of disorder due to the absence of authority or other controlling systems.” We might not have trouble on the streets(yet) but clearly, we are in a state of disorder. The simple solution, as you would expect from a civil servant was, a “PROPER “funding settlement. He may also have been one of those senior civil servants who never questioned or raised their voice when the Lyons’s doled out £150 million of largesse on the Covid voucher scheme, overlooking the miserly £ 9.50 an hour paid to key social care workers. It seems, that in the civil service, there are no such things as hard choices. To be clear, I empathise and support those who have taken industrial action, unlike Esmond Bernie who described the strikes as immoral and when McCormick was asked to respond to Bernie’s view, he said it was an understandable point. I wonder what commandment they were referring to. You do not need to be a rocket scientist to have worked out, both at Stormont and local level that we are “over-governed and under-served.” In addition, we have a civil service that is input rather than output-focused, productivity that languishes behind the rest of the UK, a public health system that is failing us all, particularly the most vulnerable. Our apartheid education system costs us an extra £226 million to manage, a civil service that employs 1:70 of the population whereas in Scotland, it is 1:120. We are the only region in the UK that gives everyone free prescriptions, no water charges, we have too many acute hospitals and to top it all, the executive “bottomed drawered” Bengoa. The NIFC sustainability report on health highlighted that we spend 43% more on drugs per capita than in England. Not to go on, but in a public spending review by region published in Jan 2024, we spend £1900 per person on sickness and disability which is double that in England. I understand that needs vary throughout the UK, but we cannot continue to blame the Brits for everything, even for the failings, shortcomings, and ineptitude of our governing class. The problem with the much-lauded “New Decade New Approach” is that the same patients are running the asylum. At a local level, Belfast City Council is proposing to spend £100 million on a vanity project called Belfast Stories but allow the so-called Tribeca development to become an eyesore in the heart of Belfast. Finally, Praise the Lord, Michelle has just had a political eureka moment, realising that the two-tribe mandatory coalition system of government has failed and the BBC Northern Ireland, which is in dire need of new insurgent voices, has now recruited new political sages in the form of retired senior civil servants who have lived in their very own administrative bubbles, for decades.
Suneil Sharma
19th January 2024
The Gob 
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