We all remember the good old days leading up to the Brexit Referendum of 2016, when we all took sides and everyone slugged it out on the airwaves, on TV, in the pages of the media and, of course, on Twitter. Before Mr. Musk ensured that most people upped and left Twitter, that was.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s felt as though the good old days are back this week, in the wake of Keir Starmer\u2019s EU \u2018reset\u2019 deal. But, this time around, we can all argue from a very different perspective. We\u2019ve been living and doing business through a post-Brexit era. So we don\u2019t have to imagine what\u2019s going to happen, as was the case back in 2016.<\/p>\n
And so, the deal with the EU has gone down pretty well with business here in Northern Ireland, and business across the UK, for that matter. It\u2019s certainly not all-singing and all-dancing, but it looks as though it will make things easier for businesses here. It\u2019s certainly not going to make them any worse. And that can only be a good thing.<\/p>\n
But, while business in general has been giving the deal a fairly warm-ish thumbs up, our politicians, God bless them, have dived into their traditional trenches. The Shinners, SDLP and Alliance have smiled and muttered welcoming platitudes. But the Unionists have ranged from mildly disappointed (like big Gavin Robinson) to absolutely furious (like North Antrim\u2019s Mr. Angry).<\/p>\n
As ever, they don\u2019t give a toss what businesses are thinking or saying. They just don\u2019t like the UK cosying up to Johnny Foreigner.<\/p>\n
You\u2019d think the DUP would learn. They were royally stitched up by successive Tory leaders. Did they really expect a whole lot better from Keir Starmer, a leftie in expensive suits?<\/p>\n
But our politicians are not the only ones split down the middle. Across the water, Nigel Farage\u2019s lot are ripping and so is Kemi Bad Enough, the lady who currently leads what\u2019s left of the Tories. Meanwhile, the Daily Express and Daily Mail are wailing about surrender deals and the like. They love nothing better than inferring that the plucky Brits are somehow giving in to the Germans.<\/p>\n
Back on these shores, there\u2019ll be a bit of huffing and puffing but no houses will be blown down. Sammy Wilson and his colleagues can cry on the Westminster benches until the snotters are tripping them. But the PM has a big enough majority to keep calm and carry on.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, for Northern Ireland businesses, it\u2019ll not be earth-shattering but it certainly won\u2019t do any harm. Any good news is always welcome.<\/p>\n
Bruiser Mike Comes Out Fighting<\/strong><\/p>\n Health Minister Mike Nesbitt has played a blinder this week. Fed up with being constantly harangued and criticised by Northern Ireland\u2019s whining band of doctors, he reached the end of his ministerial tether.<\/p>\n What happened? He stood up at Stormont and told the medics that he simply didn\u2019t have any more money to give them. The pot was empty, the well had run dry, they could turn his pockets inside out and nothing would fall out.<\/p>\n But he went a bit further than that. Not content with giving them no money, he also told them to smarten up their act and stop the nonsense whereby patients can only try to get a doctor\u2019s appointment between 8.30 and 9.00 in the morning, as well as other restrictive practices dating back to the Covid days.<\/p>\n The Health Minister is absolutely right. Our doctors have got away long enough with clinging on to Covid measures to make life easier for themselves. In future, it should be about patients. They\u2019ve also got away with crying and moaning through the media on a daily basis.<\/p>\n There are some doctors we could mention (but won\u2019t) who certainly seem to spend more time droning on to Stephen Nolan and others than they do seeing patients.<\/p>\n It\u2019s abundantly clear that Mike Nesbitt has listened to the doctors\u2019 whingeing and whining for too long. He snapped and said it like it is. And were they upset? You could almost hear the bottom lips flapping in the wind.<\/p>\n Get on with what you\u2019re paid to do, lads.<\/p>\n The Three Horsemen Of The Economy<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s been a busy week for our governmental top two, and business has been front and centre. So it\u2019s credit where credit is due time again.<\/p>\n Michelle O\u2019Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly didn\u2019t attend the official opening of one big four accountancy firm office. Nope, they attended two. Monday saw them at The Ewart in the centre of Belfast for Deloitt\u2019e big opening and jobs announcement.<\/p>\n By Tuesday at breakfast time (for some of us), the pair were up on Derry (or Londonderry, in Emma\u2019s case) to do the honours for EY at Ebrington Plaza.<\/p>\n If that wasn\u2019t enough business for one week, they rocked up at Westminster for the Trade NI grouping\u2019s annual reception held on the terrace of the Palace of Westminster. It\u2019s a lobbying event organised by those three horsemen of the economy, Manufacturing NI\u2019s Stephen Kelly, Colin Neill of Hospitality Ulster and Mr. Retail, Glyn Roberts.<\/p>\n Michelle still found time to attend the Covid Inquiry in London (\u2026..is that still going on?) and even put pressure on the PM over one of her other priorities, Gaza.<\/p>\n Let\u2019s hope today and Friday are a bit easier on the poor souls.<\/p>\n Oooh, Minister<\/strong><\/p>\n Speaking of politicians, Communities Minister Gordon Lyons managed to get himself into a spot of bother last week when he went to address the Impact Players Career Reboot womens event in Belfast.<\/p>\n Apparently, Gordon was enjoying himself so much as he gazed over the audience from the stage that he observed that someone had \u201cput all the good-looking ones at the front\u201d. The only problem for Gordon was that he didn\u2019t just observe it to himself (as we\u2019re still allowed to do without being cancelled). He said it out loud. Ooops.<\/p>\n Cue a few gulps, gasps and (apparently) some groans from the assembled ladies. Once it all reached the wider media, the Minister issued an apology. And his party leader has backed him, underlining his apology and the urging everyone to draw a line under the whole thing.<\/p>\n Or so we\u2019re told by the media. We also had to rely on them to learn about what happened in the first place. We haven\u2019t met anyone who was there, good-looking or otherwise.<\/p>\n Paying A Heavy Price<\/strong><\/p>\n There\u2019s been plenty of talk on the UK front recently about punishments fitting the crime. What with the right-wingers up in arms over the continued imprisonment of Lucy Connolly, who posted a deeply unpleasant rant on social media in the wake of last summer\u2019s horrific Southport murders.<\/p>\n There are those who think Lucy should be locked up forever for what she said. There are others who reckon that the authorities might be better served chasing after other criminals. We\u2019ll keep our own opinion to ourselves.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s another thought, though. We\u2019d echo the views of Malachy O\u2019Doherty in the Belfast Telegraph this week, writing about the case of the local schoolboy caught taking \u2018upskirt\u2019 videos of his teachers.<\/p>\n First up, it\u2019s a terrible thing to do and deeply distressing for those who were the victims of his camera work. But Malachy\u2019s point was this. Did the perpetrator deserve to be dragged through court and identified as part of his punishment?<\/p>\n Lots of us did things when we were 18 that we most certainly wouldn\u2019t do a few years later. At that age, we all have immature minds on adult shoulders.<\/p>\n When we were at school, the few women teachers around would often have been the subject of ribald banter, let\u2019s just say, amongst the older boys. But we\u2019d never heard of upskirting, and mobile communications devices only existed on Star Trek.<\/p>\n Big Brother\u2026\u2026It\u2019s 1984 Again<\/strong><\/p>\n We\u2019ve idly wondered before now whether anyone up in the corridors of power at Stormont keeps an eye on what we\u2019re writing. We\u2019ve heard that they do, but they never write, they never call\u2026\u2026<\/p>\n But apparently there is a slightly ominous sounding Media Monitoring Unit within government here.<\/p>\n Speaking in the Assembly earler this week, TUV MLA Timothy Gaston \u2013 a regular thorn in the flesh for the big parties \u2013 raised his concerns having had some issues getting some information on meetings involving the First Minister.<\/p>\n Mr. Gaston said the documents he did receive revealed unexpected activity by a department he said few knew existed.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat was disclosed was, frankly, astonishing. Who in the House was aware that the Executive Office operates something called the \u2018media monitoring unit\u2019?<\/p>\n He continued: \u201cWe do not yet know how many staff it employs or what it costs the taxpayer, but, thanks to my FOI request, we know this: between 7 November and 6 December, the Executive Office had civil servants typing up five full transcripts of interviews featuring me or my staff on The Nolan Show, totalling a whopping 63 pages.\u201d<\/p>\n Think of it this way, Timothy. Imagine how many pages it would be if they included every time your boss, Jim Allister, was on Nolan. They\u2019d need to chop down a forest or two.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"We all remember the good old days leading up to the Brexit Referendum of 2016, when we all…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":133505,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5226],"tags":[802,748,2000,299,5187,1699,4884,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-134344","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-brexit","8":"tag-brexit","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-eu","11":"tag-europe","12":"tag-european","13":"tag-european-union","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114576489415407995","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134344","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=134344"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/134344\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/133505"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=134344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=134344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=134344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}