Stakeholder

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
‘Anything you can do we can do better’ – forget Isner and Mahut’s 6-4, 3-6, 6-7, 7-6 and 70-68 marathon at Wimbledon.  That was only 11 hours and five minutes of play spread over three days.  This week the Assembly managed to sit for 19 hours and three minutes in just two [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
What a stroke of bad fortune that was.  You wait all those years to finally decide that the reform of Local Govt. won’t be happening any time soon, and just as you’re about to explain to the electorate why £9m has drifted off into the ether, along comes the Saville report into [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
Business in the House was never going to make for prime time viewing, but in recent months what little did pass for entertainment seems to have dried up.  The atmosphere is as flat as Rio Ferdinand’s ‘welcome’ home party from the World Cup and as enticing as free membership of the Dublin [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
Life is full of unintended consequences.  When Coalition forces invaded Iraq they didn’t expect to unleash a sectarian civil war which would claim more casualties than the original invasion. 
When the Tory right drove John Major’s Government into oblivion with the comforting thought that five years out of power would help them regroup, [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
“The years spent in isolation have not equipped him with the tools necessary to judge right from wrong. He’s had no context. He’s been completely without guidance. It seems clear that his awareness of what we call reality is radically underdeveloped.”
So thought a psychologist of the leading character in Tim Burton’s 1990 [...]

THE WEEK THAT WAS….
2,721 votes cast out of a total of 673,871 doesn’t seem much.  That’s because it’s not.  In fact, it’s a paltry 0.4%, but in business and in politics, it’s victory in the margins which can make all the difference.
1,534 votes in East Belfast were all that stood in the way of an [...]

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 [...]