Funeral-like air to the crisis talks
SECRETARY of State Shaun Woodward had the look of a funeral director at Hillsborough Castle yesterday.
Grim-faced, and dressed in a long black overcoat, white shirt and black tie, he stood beside a similarly sombre Irish Foreign Minister as the pair addressed the massed media yesterday evening outside Mr Woodward's official residence in the Co Down village.
Wrapped warm against the biting cold, Mr Woodward warned the waiting Press pack that there would be "no running commentary" on the talks.
But whether Mr Woodward would be announcing a DUP-Sinn Fein deal or explaining the Assembly's collapse remained unclear throughout the day.
Multi-millionaire Mr Woodward was not the only politician dressed in black. DUP leader Peter Robinson, who spoke to journalists earlier in the day, matched his black overcoat with a black scarf, though his hopeful words, holding out the prospect of an agreement, were less sombre than his attire.
The media cluster which follows these crises congregated early yesterday morning — some assembling as early as 7am — outside the ornate gates of Hillsborough Castle.
But, aside from the coming and going of the myriad of political delegations, there was little else to report throughout the day.
The news vacuum left ambiguous the answer to whether progress was unfolding or stalemate continuing behind the historic walls.
Although many of the politicians, who at intervals trooped out to speak to the media, emphasised their unhappiness at aspects of the talks, there have been times in the past when a threat to the Stormont edifice led to the melting of firm positions.
However, the ability of Gordon Brown and Brian Cowen to cajole the obstinate Ulster politicians seems less than that of their predecessors, the more affable Tony Blair and Bertie Ahern.
Stormont Finance Minister Sammy Wilson arrived in the early afternoon, driving himself to the talks, having negotiated long into the previous evening.
Stopped at the gates to Mr Woodward's residence, the security guard loudly informed Mr Wilson, in an apparent reference to his control of the Assembly's purse-strings, that he would not be getting in until he gave him more money.
The jovial DUP man spent several minutes in conversation with the guard before driving through to the echoes of laughter.
DUP Acting First Minister Arlene Foster spent the morning at Hillsborough before being driven back to Stormont to attend Assembly business, later returning to re-join the talks.
An Ulster Unionist delegation led by Sir Reg Empey arrived in the morning but, unhappy at not being involved in the DUP-Sinn Fein negotiations, left for Belfast, only to come back in the early afternoon. Their return followed a call from NIO Security Minister Paul Goggins to assure the party that it would be involved in the talks.
Sinn Fein’s Conor Murphy, who yesterday morning warned that there were “hours, not days” to save Stormont, led out several colleagues to address the media at lunchtime.
But his answers confirmed nothing and denied little, other than that the talks were continuing, a fact already in the public domain.
Curious at the media’s interest in sleepy Hillsborough, one 60-year-old man was tempted across the road from his dinner at The Plough Inn to see if anything was happening at the castle.
The retired Greek and Latin teacher, who declined to give his name, said that he hoped the politicians would look beyond the impact of any deal on the looming General Election and instead consider where it will leave the Province in 20 years’ time.
“Local government ought to be energising the community with interest in politics,” he said despairingly.
The probability is that today the media cluster will be back for more of the same.
Despite the crucial nature of policing and justice as a political issue, there is little about the current protracted crisis which is likely to enthuse an electorate whose trust in politicians has been battered by a series of scandals.
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Weather for Belfast
Saturday 11 February 2012
Today
Light rain
Temperature: 4 C to 8 C
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