Sinn Fein urges PM and Taoiseach to join crisis talks
THE Democratic Unionists have ridiculed a Sinn Fein call for the Prime Minister and Taoiseach to intervene in Stormont’s crisis talks, insisting the Republicans “don’t need anyone to hold their hands”.
DUP negotiator Edwin Poots was responding to the party’s demand that Theresa May and Leo Varadkar engage as a “matter of urgency” to inject the “step change” needed to secure an agreement. No 10 said
Mrs May had been in touch with the parties during the process but Northern Ireland Secretary James Brokenshire was the UK Government’s representative in the talks.
After further negotiations at Stormont Castle yesterday – the day after Thursday’s deadline for agreement came and went – Mr Poots said: “I think Sinn Fein can do the business very quickly, they know what’s required of them. They don’t need anybody to hold their hands.
“They just need to sit upstairs, make the decisions that need to be made and come and tell us of those decisions so we can get on with the business.”
Sinn Fein negotiator John O’Dowd earlier urged the two governments to press the main unionist party to give ground. Mr O’Dowd claimed the DUP had become “emboldened” by its parliamentary deal with the Conservative Party at Westminster and had entrenched its stance at Stormont as a result.
Mr O’Dowd said the main sticking points were related to his party’s demands for an Irish Language Act, a Northern Ireland specific Bill of Rights and legalisation of same sex-marriage in the region.
THE Holyrood bar was jumping after the parliamentary term ended on Thursday, as SNP MSP Mairi Evans held the first leg of an epic hen night. Her fiance is a French chap called Mr Gougeon. Because it’s pronounced goujon, her colleagues have decreed that when she returns from honeymoon as Mairi Gougeon, she is to be known to all as “Chicken Nugget”.
AFTER joining the strenuous afternoon session, Nicola Sturgeon gave Ms Evans an early present by picking up the colossal bar tab. However, the
FM’s generosity had its limits. At one point, she heard Brexit Minister Mike Russell was outside posing for selfies, which is, of course, her trademark.
“Huh, second choice,” she sniffed, according to our mole.
BUT the strangest part of the bacchanal was a glitzy appearance by Fulton MacGregor, the famously publicity shy Nat MSP for Coatbridge. Normally as elusive as the yeti, Fulton was spotted grinning in the middle of the hen party sporting a tiara. Mercifully, he was not the strippergram. “If he took off his suit, there’d be no personality left,” observed one wag.
RECENTLY dubbed “Nicola Sturgeon, puppy surgeon” after the government revived tail-docking, the FM was on topical form at Wednesday’s SNP group dinner. She apologised for not having long to prepare her speech, but said all MSPs were still obliged to laugh at it. “Otherwise I’ll dock your wages,” she smiled. “By which I mean shorten them by a third.”
TALKING of stumpy creatures, the SNP’s Colin Beattie has been asking fellow MSPs if they’d like to come to his reception about a new digital service for helping kids with maths. The invite didn’t amuse the Scottish Greens, as Mr Beattie had, to their horror, also voted for tail-docking and the scheme featured a cartoon canine called Sumdog.
“If poor Sumdog comes round here they’ll probably chop his tail down to the square root,” one sighed.
MISCHIEVOUS Nat
Kenny Gibson has been trying to popularise a new term of abuse at Holyrood by referring to Tory-DUP MSPs, including “Tory-DUP member of the Scottish Parliament, Jamie Greene”. The Presiding Officer ticked him off: “Be careful about how you refer to other members in the chamber.” He should hear what he calls Tories in private!
MORE news on election organiser Shonagh Munro who, after exhorting people in Edinburgh to go Labour, duly voted LibDem in her native East Dunbartonshire. Unspun hears Red Shonagh has now literally cut this off her CV, which she is circulating at Holyrood in the hope of work experience with the media. Alas, the last time she met the press pack, she spilled several pints of lager over most of them. Awkward.
ALSO eyeing up Holyrood is Tasmina Ahmed-Sheikh, we hear. Since losing her Commons seat, the former Tory candidate turned uber-Nat is considering becoming an MSP, our SNP mole reports. “God, I hope not,” groans a Tory veteran who remembers her from her blue period in the 1990s.
HOPE also springs eternal for ex-Glasgow North East MP Anne Mclaughlin. Despite Labour crushing her 9,222-vote majority, her SNP branch has already launched an online appeal for a Commons return.
“Anne has been inundated with hundreds of messages from distraught constituents and community activists who can’t believe she has not been re-elected,” it says. Mind you, not as many as couldn’t believe she was elected in the first place.