The Iron Chancellor
My guest on this weekend's Inside Politics is our very own Iron Chancellor, Peter Robinson. He expands on what he is trying to achieve through this week's budget and responds to concerns raised by the Health Minister Michael McGimpsey. I also ask the DUP Deputy Leader about the murder of Paul Quinn and his spat with the Social Development Minister Margaret Ritchie over her decision to axe UDA linked cash.
Inside Politics is broadcast at 12.45 pm on Saturday on BBC Radio Ulster - and according to the latest RAJAR figures the show attracts around 50,000 listeners.
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You need a spell-checker Mark !
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When you have not acquired enough money from the 'real' Iron Chancellor, it is a must to turn inward to seek funding and this requires the appearance of being tough. However this toughness should have been reserved for Mr Brown and less for Mr Robinson's own people. There is a public perception that toughness is not reserved for the gravy train at Stormont.
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Peter Robinson talks about wastage in the civil service and sick absence why doesn’t he tackle these issues. Firstly get rid of senior civil servants. These guys get paid large amounts of money for doing flap all, day in and day out. Secondly their behaviour is similar to that of a fish. Their concentration levels last only 10 seconds. Regarding sick absence I wonder why people are off sick. Is it the fact that the training provided is not relevant to the job, there are job cuts, there is low pay and staff morale is at an all time low? It is easier to say I am depressed and get a year off than face under achieving managers who are slumped over their desk dreaming about their next smoke break. Come on Peter wakey wakey. Don’t tell me the senior civil servants have given you their bug. Next you will be off for a week at Halloween, 3 weeks at Christmas and 3 months over the summer.
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OFF TOPIC BUT TOPICAL...
MIND YOUR LANGUAGE
I see in the press there has been some criticism of BBC presenters and correspondents (of or for?) making grammatical errors, relying on colloquial phrases and misusing words, e.g. interchanging ‘may’ and ‘might’.
Well Mark. Be careful, be very careful. The ‘Malaprop Gestapo’ up at Stormont (colloquially ‘Stormount’) will be listening to every word from ‘Lazy Journalists’ asking ‘Stupid Questions’ and mispronouncing their words.
Might you in the next few weeks be phrasing the following?
“The UDA may be about to decommission, or they might not be”. Or you might be, on the other hand, may be, phrasing it as “The UDA might be about to decommission or they may not be”. What you may not be permitted to say is “How’s about it boyos, youzens should be seen to be doing the same as the IRA ‘done’ ”.
There is (sorry are) rumours circulating that under any new Irish Language Act, all journalists on radio and television will be required to give their reports both in English and Irish Gaelic and that it might (may) be all right to mix in a few phrases of Ulster Scots (or is it Scotch-Irish?)
That old smoothie, Terry Wogan, was praised for his error-free use of grammar and syntax but they failed to mention his pronunciation. The last time I heard him on radio, he pronounced the word ‘three’ as ‘tree’, although I suspect this was due to his tight moleskins! I suppose ‘nobody’ is or is it ‘no one’ is perfect!
I will be expecting your next blog entry to be up to its usual high standard of scintillating syntax, grammatically perfect and malapropism free!
It will be all right for the English BBC news readers to continue to add letters to ‘saw’, ‘India’ and ‘China’ – listen closely for ‘sawr’, ‘Indior’ and ‘Chinor’.
Incidentally, the Gestapostellen were also known as V-men, parodied in ‘Allo ‘Allo! (Herr Flick) wearing a leather coat and the ubiquitous Fedora – so you had better watch your Ps and Qs!
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