A casual but heartfelt remark from Barney my husband last week set me thinking. He said he would be prepared to give his vote to any party that promised to get the assembly up and running within a week of the election.
From a traditional unionist this was challenging stuff, but as we talked about it there is no doubt whatsoever that he is absolutely right. Not only that, I suspect there are a lot of voters out there who in that part of their body not brainwashed with party political rant feel exactly the same.
His point is that we the voters, the ones who should have the power are allowing ourselves to be lulled into acceptance of another review without any protest whatsoever.
So that those we elect to govern, instead of channelling the first flush of their newly elected energies and enthusiasm into positive policies and legislation designed to shape the economic and social policies of the future, are going to reflect, review, revisit ad nauseum. They will quickly become resigned to passively raking in a lot of our money to achieve nothing but more frustration.
What we tend to forget when we again indulge ourselves in sterile debates about constitutional issues is that the UK is well down the road of regional government. There will be no return to the days when those political decisions underpinning the quality of our lives will be taken in Westminster. They are increasingly taken in Edinburgh and Cardiff and soon England too will have powerful local assemblies. As these countries cherish their ability to make local law for local conditions, direct rule becomes more of an anachronism.
We as usual will continue to trail further and further behind.
This should worry us as the politicians elected to our local assembly so far have had little experience of acting on behalf of all the citizens of Northern Ireland. Many of the debates and proposals at the last assembly were more akin to a local council with too few brave assembly members prepared to take decisions based on the greater good of all of the people.
It is evident that in any cycle of democracy it is easier to put aside local issues and make decisions based on a Northern Ireland-wide strategy at the beginning rather than the end of a parliamentary term – when local voters' immediate and sometimes selfish demands loom larger.
After November 26 our newly elected politicians instead of embracing the big issues of governance will lose precious and valuable time reviewing pseudo issues that we are told affect our lives. Be honest. How did General de Chastelain's failure to list the detail of the IRA's last decommissioning change you or your lifestyle over the past few weeks? Was it a material issue as you sat in a traffic jam while trying to get to work? Was it crowding your mind so much that you were unable to comfort your child after the 11-plus exam? As you got your redundancy notice from Desmonds did you curse the much-maligned General for the part he played in your being on the dole at Christmas? When you braved the three to four hour wait in casualty as you sat on your dirty plastic chair and longed for a cup of tea, or even a plastic cup of water did you fantasise that greater detail of the numbers of guns destroyed would change all this?
David Ervine was right when he said that the only way to decommission was to get busy doing real things and let the guns rust from disuse.
If the assembly with its present rule-book simply cannot operate then we may need change. Let it be a fast time limited review – over, done and dusted before Christmas with the freshly minted politicians entering the room in a determined can-do attitude of mind. If they have to burn the midnight oil so be it.
Putting in some long hours of work should be a delightful possibility after the months of inaction that they volunteered themselves into.
Recently in the course of various work commitments I have been in contact with a wide range of community groups. Most of these groups have people from different religions and different politics working together. They are working in partnership to improve the health, education and social conditions in their very poor areas. In spite of facing many almost insurmountable difficulties they get on with the job with great commitment and good will.
Yet many of these bodies are on a financial knife-edge. Even if they produce evidence of success, they will most likely find themselves without funding within the next year or so.
That is what I consider a vital issue. The party that agrees and quickly finds solutions to that problem will get my vote.
