The DUP's foray into politics across the water is not going terribly
well. They have an office in Liverpool which, I predict, will not tax
the energies of too many of their tea and soda bread activists. It
led to a couple of soundbite reactions from Liverpool politicians,
but nothing like the heat generated by the DUP proposal to put
forward candidates for the Scottish Parliament.
Newspapers came out against the idea, as did Labour and Conservative
politicians, but the real spoke in the DUP wheel came from none other
than the Grand Orange Lodge of Scotland. ``Northern Ireland politics
do not have a place in Scottish politics,'' said the Grand Lodge
secretary, Jack Ramsay, which makes you wonder what Jack is doing in
the Orange Order.
The story about the ``outrage'' caused by a republican calendar which,
as we said last week, first surfaced in the News of the World, has
now reached the other side of the world - but has become a bit mixed
up during its travels.
The story, which appeared in a Sydney newspaper, is remarkably
similar to the one in the News of the World but it is a bit shorter,
so that it tells us: ``The picture for September is of two men firing
handguns over the grave of Billy `King Rat' Wright''. The News of the
World mentioned that too but in a piece about an LVF calendar.
During the last council elections in the Six Counties Sinn Fein in
Newry brought out a leaflet which detailed the hundreds of thousands
of pounds of ratepayers' money spent by councillors on trips abroad.
It made fascinating reading. I would say Newry and Mourne councillors
- particularly from the SDLP and the Ulster Unionists - are among the
most-travelled people you would meet. Well, some of them are, because
the electorate turfed out some of the worst offenders. But it doesn't
seem to have shamed them, judging by the decision to send three
councillors on a trip to the United Arab Emirates for a conference on
flowers, complete with camel rides into the desert.
The original proposal to send three councillors was buried in a
committee report a few days before Christmas. On 4 January Sinn Fein
councillors proposed cancelling the trip but didn't receive the
support of a single other councillor. But they contacted the media
and all hell broke loose. And so, lo and behold, at Monday night's
meeting this week, a majority of councillors voted to cancel the
trip. For their part, Sinn Fein hopes that behaviour like this
continues because a few more holidaymakers will be sunbathing in
Bettystown or Butlins after the next election.
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)