End system of compulsory coalition

We have alleged corruption, gross inefficiency, denial of responsibility, inability to make hard societal decisions, the silent majority are being held in hock to vociferous activist groups, and yet we can’t get 21st century solutions to 21st century problems.

Surely the starting point must be the removal of compulsory coalition.

In our case we have yet again proved that oil and water cannot mix.

In Belfast City Council for some 17 years we demonstrated the Belfast city could move forward if voluntary coalitions were put in place.

Sometimes after fraught interactions, but more often when we had people of good will who realised that progress was needed

No one gave up his/her firmly held views but the good of the whole community came first.

Let us campaign for Normal Democratic Government as we in the western world, in our sports clubs and social societies accept it.

Simple majority on most decisions, but 60 to 80% majority for major decisions.

Let us abandon petitions of concern, which have been brought into disrepute.

The common view is that the Assembly is failing, the two main parties have reverted to type.

We had hoped that the new MLA intake, new ministerial teams would be different, would have moved on from decades of sterility. But we have been let down again.

As a taxpayer, I have been let down by the profligacy of the Assembly and its public sector.

Typified by Sammy Wilson MP’s radio comment on Cash for ash, costs the taxpayer only £20 million a year for 20 years.

Ok for some!

If you keep repeating the same action and expect a different result, you are at best eccentric!

Therefore no election process should be started until considerable progress has been made on Normalising our “government”

Tom Ekin, Belfast