Stakeholder

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
The saying goes that you ‘can’t see the wood for the trees’.  This week’s Forestry Bill set a new adage – ‘you can’t see the Bill for the Amendments’.  
Granted it’s been several decades since Northern Ireland legislated for its paltry tree cover (we’re one of the least forested regions of Europe), [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
Such has been the fallout from the Credit Crunch that even a well established name such as Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer is finding it tough going.  This week it emerged that the iconic film studio has accumulated eye watering debts totaling $4bn and that the latest Bond film has been put on the ice.  Sam [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
“He shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.”  Matthew 25:32
The pall of volcanic ash causing merry havoc with European airspace wasn’t the only biblical portent of doom playing on people’s minds this week.  The good folk at DARD were also getting in on the [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
“Big wheels keep on turning, Carry me home to see my kin, Singing songs about the Southland, I miss Alabamy once again… Sweet home Alabama…”
It must be a tiring business being a political opponent of the Education Minister, vainly waiting for the ‘wheels’ to come off her political project.  Why can’t she [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
“The warden threw a party in the county jail. The prison band was there and they began to wail. The band was jumpin’ and the joint began to swing. You should’ve heard those knocked out jailbirds sing.  Let’s rock, everybody, let’s rock…..”
Despite having more than its fair share of real jaibirds, it’s [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
Given the comparisons between Northern Ireland and South Africa (take your pick as to which tribe here best represents the Afrikaners or ANC) it was surprising no-one thought to shoe-horn in a Belfast trip for President Jacob Zuma as part of his UK state visit.
Leaving aside the commonality of trying to trying [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
Talking Heads clearly wasn’t a band with any local roots.  They may well have shared our trajectory on the ‘Road to Nowhere’, but anyone from Northern Ireland could have told them the opening line was just wrong, wrong, wrong: “Well we know where we’re goin’, but we don’t know where we’ve been”
The [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
The UUP used to have a reputation as the party of ‘Big House’ Unionism, nowadays its getting more and more like Celebrity Big Brother House Unionism. 
The tie up with Cameron’s Tories hasn’t been without its problems, but it has helped the party reach beyond its aging membership to some bright young(er) things [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
According to Michael Winner, there’s a saying in the movie industry that: “There’s no such thing as a rubbish movie until it’s released.”  Given that Empire Magazine described one of his films, ‘Parting Shots’, as being so rubbish that “if you tried to bury it in landfill the other rubbish would climb [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
“The sand of the desert is sodden red – Red with the wreck of a square that broke.  The gatling’s jammed and the colonel dead, And the regiment blind with dust and smoke.  But the voice of a schoolboy rallies the ranks – “Play up! Play up! And play the game!”
Given [...]