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AS NORTHERN Ireland responds to the first murder of a policeman for 12 years, at the hands of Continuity IRA, just two days after the murder of two young soldiers in Antrim, the province's leaders travel to America.
The tour by First Minister Peter Robinson and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness is aimed at attracting US investment. It must be used to spread the message abroad that Northern Ireland is determined not to go back to the bad old days.
American money supported the brutal bombing campaign of the IRA in previous decades. That misty-eyed sympathy with Republicanism vanished only when the events of 9/11 showed the IRA's backers the reality of terrorism on their own soil.
Now that precious peace has been established in the province, it is important that Sinn Fein's Mr McGuinness unequivocally condemns in the US the murders of the past three days. And President Barack Obama, who will meet the two Northern Irish politicians at the St Patrick's Day party at the White House, would do well to back those words.
The Army's Special Reconnaissance Regiment has already been drafted in. Other security measures will be necessary to keep Northern Ireland's citizens safe. President Obama could help characterise such responses in a way that makes plain this is no return by Britain to the confrontations of the Troubles but a necessary part of maintaining hard-won peace.
In the province itself, the Democratic Unionists and Sinn Fein have already pledged to continue to work together. Sinn Fein president Gerry Adams called the murder of the soldiers “wrong” and promised to support the police investigation but he criticised the use of special surveillance experts from the SRR because of their history in the province. That is not good enough. It is time for Northern Ireland to continue moving towards a peaceful future, rather than invoking the past in a way that will shackle the work that remains to be done.
Too many buses
DAME JUDITH Mayhew Jonas, chair of the New West End Company, wants some buses taken off Oxford Street. She is right that what she calls the “wall of red metal” makes the street difficult to cross and chokes it with fumes.
Tourists may cram the shops for now, but the street needs all the help it can get to compete with Westfield and out-of-town malls.
The problem is that Oxford Street carries a large number of the east-west bus routes through central London. Some nearby streets are narrow.
But huge numbers of often half-full buses progressing in slow-moving convoy serve neither the shopper nor the through-traveller. Ken Livingstone's proposal to replace them with a tram from Marble Arch to Tottenham Court Road was a non-starter.
Relatively few bus users need to travel the length of Oxford Street: new routes which stopped at each end rather than sending buses all the way along would make sense. Meanwhile Transport for London could remove some of the buses on routes that are already well served. Fewer buses would make for a more liveable Oxford Street — and help this core part of London's retail business to survive the recession.
Spruce up spaces
THE Mayor, Boris Johnson, has announced plans to make London's open spaces more pleasing. The scheme would make available an annual sum of around £200,000 by way of grants and design advice to local councils for areas they propose for improvement. The projects could range from the refurbishment of the dispiriting area around Tottenham Court Road station to a makeover for shops on the Uxbridge Road, overshadowed by Westfield, or the effort to make Chinatown more Chinese.
This is not a large sum to spread among several projects but it is welcome. London has many inspiring open spaces, but some down-at-heel ones, too. With sufficient imagination and persistence, this scheme could help spruce them up.
Reader views (1)
To the Prime Minister and People of Great Briton,
We would like to express our sincere apologies for the crass and classless behavior displayed toward the Prime Minister and by extension the people of Great Briton by the present occupants of the White House. Those of us that have witnessed this travesty of Diplomacy are outraged and embarrassed and wish you to know that there are many of us that value and honor you as steadfast friends that have always come to our aid in our hours of need.
Once again, please accept our deepest apologies.
Best of regards,
Michael and Sue
- Michael And Sue, Kansas,USA, 10/03/2009 12:17
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