Is It Just Me?

Mistral001

A.L.D.A wrote: »

But surely lack of proper checks is part of that problem and helps reduce standards. We could have a power sharing government with SF and the DUP and the rest in opposition. It would (should) soon make them all more directly accountable for the decisions made.

Forming an opposition seems like a good idea, but nobody knows if it would work. DUP and SF verus all the rest? But Alliance are in there as well. Who will they throw their hat in with when campaigning to throw the old lot out.

Perhaps there is a danger of wanting the Stormont Assembly to do too much. They do not run a country. It is basically a big council, or in terms of the Uk a fairly small council as most councils in England say have more people in them than there are in NI.

At the minute things are a bit unreal. There is the notion that all devolvement is a good thing and that we should have more of it but there is no money to pay for it as far as I can see. The obvious next step is tax-raising powers which means that we only can spend what we collect from the people here I would think. If there is a risk of that happening, I think we should start getting used to soup kitchen food now.

A.L.D.A

Mistral001 wrote: »

Forming an opposition seems like a good idea, but nobody knows if it would work. DUP and SF verus all the rest? But Alliance are in there as well. Who will they throw their hat in with when campaigning to throw the old lot out.

The opposition pack does not have to be united, so there is no problems for Alliance. The incentive to tear strips of the government parties is intensified if there is competition among the opposition parties.

Mistral001 wrote: »

Perhaps there is a danger of wanting the Stormont Assembly to do too much. They do not run a country. It is basically a big council, or in terms of the Uk a fairly small council as most councils in England say have more people in them than there are in NI.

I agree. We have a bloated political system, especially when you add in Europe. Two of the tiers are of little benefit. A Europe on the Swiss model appeals to me. Let us maximise the power given to local councils and minimise the rest. It could also be argued that not giving them much power enables them to play below par.

Mistral001 wrote: »

At the minute things are a bit unreal. There is the notion that all devolvement is a good thing and that we should have more of it but there is no money to pay for it as far as I can see. The obvious next step is tax-raising powers which means that we only can spend what we collect from the people here I would think. If there is a risk of that happening, I think we should start getting used to soup kitchen food now.

I basically agree. I would however like minimum government services for a while, and investment in sectors that will help create long term wealth. Local energy production should be a high on the agenda. Tourism, forestry, IT, filming anything we can possible make money at and grow local businesses around. Would require clever people to come up with a focussed strategy and that would probably also need to involve tax structures. We waste money on trivia, grants to this, that and the other, to keep local voters happy, but miss that economic self reliance creates a strong political position.

There are many capable people here, how do we get the political class to raise their game?