The Shinners and a Robbo-led DUP will be the big winners this year, my crystal
ball tells me.
Despite the credit crunch, coupled with Slasher Sammy’s cost-cutting Stormont
budget, Northern voters will opt for a return of the Sinn Fein/DUP coalition in
May’s Assembly showdown.
Expect a real kick in the balls for the unofficial opposition of the SDLP and
Ulster Unionists. Both parties will only have MLAs in the low teens, sparking
leadership coups.
Exit wee Maggie Ritchie and Tommy Elliott, and enter Alasdair McDonnell and
Basil McCrea at the second attempts.
May will also see the demise of the irritating Traditional Unionist Voice.
Apart from a few councillors dotted here and there, wee Jimmy Allister’s party
will join Bob McCartney’s UKUP and Bill Craig’s Vanguard in the dustbin of
Unionist history.
And expect to see Northern republicans take over Sinn Fein in the South.
Gerry Adams may be abandoning West Belfast, but he will surely grab a Dail seat
for Louth in March’s general election.
Out will go Biffo Cowen and his Green Party buddies, and into Leinster House
will step Fine Gael and Labour – with a lot of help from the Shinners and
Independents.
The real power broker will be Pearse Doherty from Donegal, who has already
proved his political worth with a coalition of Sinn Fein and Independent TDs.
By June, Sinn Fein will be celebrating its best all-Ireland election tally
since its famous 1918 Westminster poll when it won the majority of Irish Commons
seats when the island was under British rule.
Talking of Brit rule, and London will want a bigger say in the running of the
South given the millions of pounds it is contributing to the Dublin bail-out.
There will be a massive increase in the cross-border bodies’ workload as the
Emerald Isle effectively becomes a British colony again.
This will cause dissident republicans to step up their terror war with
Oglaigh na hEireann taking the lead – until the SAS pull off a Loughgall-style
ambush which will leave the entire community stunned.
As more jobs are lost, people will become the island’s biggest export. But as
many migrant workers decide to ‘sit out’ the Irish recession, this situation
will play into the hands of racists, fascists and neo-Nazis.
Hate crime will soar, but with all the focus on the economic crisis, the
normally high-tempered loyalist Marching Season will pass off relatively
peacefully and largely unnoticed.
Expect election fever to reach an epidemic as the Liberal Democrats in
Britain implode in a bitter civil war and sink Dandy Dave’s coalition. Think
British General Election around April.
When the Assembly resumes after the summer recess and with polls and marches
out of the way, in will come the dreaded water rates.
The multi-billion euro bail-out for the Republic will place a horrendous
strain on Ireland and Britain’s membership of the European Union. The
Euro-sceptic lobby in both nations will be on the increase.
The churches will finally get their acts together as widespread
discrimination against Christians under the banners of human rights and the
secular society take their tolls. Expect to see a backlash from evangelicals and
fundamentalists.
As more child sex abuse probes against priests are unveiled, chapels will
empty as thousands of Irish Catholics abandon the pews for the new Pentecostal
fellowships springing up across the island.
There will be a shortage of priests as innocent men either quit the
priesthood or refuse to join Holy Orders for fear of being wrongly branded as
perverts.
