Southern Political Leaders & Media Need To Watch These Programmes Before The Next General Election And Ponder The Future

Ed Moloney with a post from his blog The Broken Elbow which discusses the fraud examined in a two part documentary by BBC Spotlight.

        
Congratulations to the BBC in Belfast, and especially Spotlight producer Lena Ferguson and her team, for making these two excellent documentaries detailing expenses corruption and fraud committed by individual members of, and political parties represented in the Northern Assembly – in particular Sinn Fein and the DUP, the two principal parties that make up the power-sharing government at Stormont.


Lena Ferguson with former BBC colleague Alex Thomson pictured outside Stormont Castle
Lena Ferguson with former BBC colleague Alex Thomson pictured outside Stormont Castle
 
Here are the links to the two Spotlight programmes and readers should know they have 28 days or less in which to view them. Viewers outside Ireland and the UK can watch the BBC iPlayer via Hola.org, a VPN which by-passes blocks on foreign viewers imposed by the BBC.

Part 1
Part 2

All the parties involved in the peace process deal, bar Alliance, get a touch in the Spotlight shows but while the SDLP and the Official or Ulster Unionists do not emerge unscathed they are in the ha’penny place compared to the DUP and Sinn Fein while the DUP is in the minor leagues compared to Sinn Fein.

The inference from the Spotlight expose is that in Sinn Fein’s case the corruption is organised, extensive and centralised, with money that was supposed to go towards meeting MLA’s office expenses instead pouring into the party’s central bank account in West Belfast.

What happened to that money – which must be a sum of seven figures if, as seems likely, all or most of Sinn Fein’s MLA’s expenses since 2006 got paid into a central account – is not known as Sinn Fein’s bank is under no obligation to reveal such details to the media.

Follow the Money - did Sinn Fein MLA's office expenses get diverted into the party's central coffers?
Follow the Money – did Sinn Fein MLA’s office expenses get diverted into the party’s central coffers?
 
But this writer would not be surprised to learn that a substantial slice made its way south of the Border to help finance Sinn Fein’s bid to enter government in Dublin, which now seems a very likely outcome of the next general election there.

Sinn Fein’s enormous wealth on that side of the Border and the impact it is likely to have on the result of the next general election is the 500 pound gorilla in the room which few people are yet prepared to talk about.

The possibility that Sinn Fein’s entree into Government Buildings in Dublin might be greased by corruption in the Belfast Assembly is one thing that should cause concern to the political parties in Dublin. But it is not the only worrying aspect.

While none of the South’s political parties are exactly snow white when it comes to corruption allegations there is a difference. Corruption in parties like Fianna Fail tends to be centred on individuals such as Charles Haughey, while the evidence from the Spotlight probes suggests that in the case of Sinn Fein it is both wholesale and centralised and that implicitly it is being directed as part of a political strategy rather than for personal enrichment.

These are the tell-tale fingerpints of a party under the control of a centralised authority which is able to exert its will over individual MLA’s because they accept the sovereignty of that authority (why else would MLA’s fail to protest when their office expenses are taken from them?).

For some reason it evokes memories of that famous IRA Staff document discovered by the Irish police when Chief of Staff Seamus Twomey was arrested in 1977: “Sinn Fein should come under Army (i.e. IRA) organizers at all levels”. That document heralded the Adams-led takeover of the IRA and Sinn Fein which ultimately led to where we are now.

So here is one issue that should now be of paramount concern to political leaders in Dublin: if what has been exposed by Spotlight is how Sinn Fein behaves in a Mickey Mouse parliament and government like that in the Stormont Assembly what on earth will they get up to if they enter a government in Dublin which exercises real power?

The other issue is this: is Sinn Fein still controlled by the IRA? Has the Twomey directive ever been rescinded and if so when? If not, shouldn’t we be told?
 

3 comments:

  1. Good piece.

    The spotlight documentaries were in my opinion first class. Not only did they highlight how the political elite operate as some sort of power hungry greedy self serving "cartel" based up in Stormount, it also highlighted that the British establishment are happy enough to facilitate this type of Goverence as long as the state sponsored peace process is on track.

    S/F and the DUP are "two cheeks of the same tribal sectarian ass". They are simply deceiving the electorate with sham fights playing on peoples fears, perceptions and anxieties of "them ums".

    Put simply the DUP are more or less are fundamental right wing bigots, no point beating around the bush about it.

    S/F are a little more media savy, but they are also fundamental right wing bigots.

    Their literature claims Poltical Leadership and Goverence, what sort of example are they giving to the future generations.

    Leadership is a totalitarianism based formula based on the "Cult of Personality traits". One level below nationalist fascist.S/F is a classic establishment party.

    I said quite a while ago that S/F and the DUP are running their political party like a private limited self serving profit orientated organisation under the cloak of being political representation or MLA's.

    Stormount is a political pantamine with MLA's acting as simply functionaries or careerists. This is really evident in the rise of new middle class educated Sinn Fein representation. They are simply following suit from the advise they have been given from the British high level civil servants and how the the DUP has operated from its very beginning.

    Do I believe the PIRA is controlling S/F, absolutely not, they have left the stage and could never ever return to what was previous.

    When S/F MLA salaries and expenses are placed in S/F main bank account, that indicates to why none of these political functionaries have spoken out against their Chief Executive Officer Gerry Adams.

    That could be one of the main reason why the new functionaries are pretty silent about their leaders liability. Adams knows this, for what we think of him he is no fool. Narcisstic's rarely are and they understand fully the need for self preservation.

    Today his grip is tight to the extent of being Orwellian, but he hasnt enough eyes in the back of his head or the stamina to fend of the pack of power hungry wolves, his old guard will be too old soon, to protect the master, then thats where the real fun begins. He knows this too. I absolutely no doubt about that, sure he was a young wolf once.

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  2. I never watched the programme as I very seldom watch the propaganda box at all. But to commend anything the good old BBC transmit,,well more pity you. This front for the Brit establishment never put out anything without an alterior motive,just like RTE in the south. The trick is to appeal to the masses with something they can relate to. "Those thieves in stormont", of that there is no doubt. But this tactic is to divert attention away from something the establishment don't want us plebs concentrating on because then maybe we would have the audacity to try and do something about it. Who among us never tried to get a few extra bob? Do you all run to declare everything to the man. Catch a grip. Human beings are primarily concerned with self preservation and when it comes down to it anything goes. The Apache Indians never thought there was anything wrong wit stealing from their enemy because they looked on the deed as another way of aiding their survival. However that was before our Christian forefathers " Civilised" them.
    As for the observations on the Leader,as the lady in Blazing saddles said "its twue,its twue,its twue".

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  3. direct rule preferable to fraudulent SF trash on the backs of dead hunger-strikers and 3000 others.

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