Though Cowards Flinch

This week’s New Statesman interview with Martin McGuinness lets the Northern Irish Deputy First Minister off extremely lightly, allowing him to appear as the romantic Republican, standing astride a bitter past with the promise of a future.

A lot of the interview concentrates on personal questions, such as whether McGuinness killed anyone as an IRA man or whether he lets death threats bother him, but the political part is remarkably weak.

McGuinness gets away with vague answers talking about how he wants to “move forward”, to “work with [Peter Robinson] in a positive, constructive way”, to “end the vicious cycle” and so on, not actually saying much.

Politics in Northern Ireland is much more mundane than a relentless focus on “the Troubles” makes it. Politicians are charged with delivering the same services as elsewhere, within the same constraints. Unbelievably, Martin McGuinness isn’t asked anything about the substantive part of what he does either as Deputy First Minister or as part of the Stormont Executive.

A passing reference to how his faith doesn’t challenge the view that everyone should be treated equally is about it.

The closest the interview comes to a challenging question was to ask whether or not a Tory government might damage McGuinness’ ’cause’. This is an important issue, because the institutions of the Good Friday Agreement, and the functions of the devolved government, operate at the sufferance of Westminster.

To this question the DFM responded:

Well, I’ve met with Owen Paterson [the Conservative shadow Northern Ireland secretary] and David Cameron, and they made it clear that they are prepared to stand faithfully by the agreements that have been made. Being involved constructively in the north of Ireland is a steep learning curve. I hope whatever government is elected will come at this as positively as Labour did in recent times.

Which is nice but rather sidesteps a key issue, which goes beyond the institutions themselves. There is nationalist speculation that the Conservatives are attempting to negotiate some deal between UCUNF (formerly the Ulster Unionists, now allied directly to the Tory Party) and the DUP, as a way to outmanoeuvre the nationalists.

This raises questions over how easily nationalists can deal with a Tory government if they have to watch their back, fearing that each initiative might be aimed at weakening the nationalists rather than furthering peace.

Interestingly, McGuinness’ view on what the Tories are prepared to do flatly contradicts the pronouncements of Owen Paterson, Tory NI spokesman. Called on by Peter Robinson to ratify any potential agreement on devolution of policing and justice, Paterson said;

“We are facing a major economic crisis should we win the next election. We cannot give any guarantees on any spending programmes.”

That’s not even the issue I myself consider important. With George Osborne giving the lie to David Cameron’s softly-softly approach on cuts in spending, in the aftermath of an election, Northern Irish politicians have got to be wondering how this is going to end up affecting them.

Even without immediate spending cuts in the block grant, the Executive needs to find ‘savings’ of some £400 million, in view of pressures like the anti-water charges campaign, which has turned the imposition of the double taxation on water usage into something akin to political suicide.

Predictions by Margaret Ritchie of crisis in the housing department, of shortfalls rising to £100m per year, directly impact upon the stability of Northern Ireland. Whether it’s re-housing people forced out by sectarian, anti-immigrant or even anti-police attacks, or providing for an area with perpetually high unemployment, housing is going to be squeezed and the results may be violent.

There’s talk of increasing the regional rates, which disproportionately affect lower and middle value properties: everything above £400,000 is capped. One hopes this will have eased, following the end of Belfast’s London-like house prices boom, but that in turn reduces the amount that can be harvested.

Capital projects will be put on hold, shelving plans for hospitals, schools and roads (and probably increasing the excess capacity in related industries), to the tune of £170 million. And then there’s the issue of a Tory government whose first priority is to stabilise a credit rating which isn’t under threat.

Perhaps McGuinness should have been asked, with his party touted (however unlikely) to occupy the First Minister spot after the next Assembly elections, how Sinn Fein intends to reconcile this with its rhetoric about how working people are being asked to pay for ‘the greed of the government, bankers and the developers’.